An Insider's Look

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Gryphon117
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Re: An Insider's Look

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Postby Gryphon117 » Tue Jul 20, 2021 3:21 am

Shortish update today. I had a bigger update to this same scene almost finished when I read it a few times to myself and decided to change gears with a better idea. This update will finish the current chapter and we will be taking a short (hopefully :um: ) trip down memory lane in the next one.

Hope you like it!

Chapter 17-5  SPOILER: Show
“Remind me, why am I here with you in NERV’s cafeteria instead of looking for Asuka?”

Misato Katsuragi posed the question to the woman sitting beside her in the otherwise empty room. She dared not peek at her watch for fear of finding out just how few hours of sleep she was going to get that night, but it was late enough that the employees at the bar had long since finished with their shifts for the day. That had not stopped Makinami from forcing the locked doors open with some device in her hand and claiming a seat at the bar for herself, however. Misato’s legs had bid her to follow suit, not really certain as to why.

That had been… some time ago. And no real words had been shared between them since.

“…Because there is no need to look for her,” the Fifth Child grumbled back to change that, her voice almost throaty. “Sohryu is spending the night at her friend’s place, and her security detachment has the place surrounded on all sides. Nothing gets in without us knowing.”

“That’s great to know, but it doesn’t answer the first half of my question,” Misato continued, throwing a pointed look at the can of beer Mari was nursing between her hands. “Should you be drinking alcohol, while we’re at it?”

Mari glared back, shifting her body almost protectively around the aluminium cylinder.

“Get off my case, I’m older than you. Besides, my body filters this stuff out about as quickly as it goes in, so I’ll say that’s grounds enough to keep me out of the way of any drinking laws.” The Fifth Child stressed her point by taking a long swig of the drink and slamming the can on the bar, in a way that felt very familiar to Misato. She then looked at the empty thing with accusing eyes. “…Hell, I could drink a large bottle of absinthe and only get a light buzz out of it. You have no idea how frustrating that can be sometimes.”

For the first time in that day, Misato found herself staring at the Fifth Child with some sympathy. After all, a good drink, or many good drinks, rather, had always been convenient outlets for her frustrations in the past. Drinking was a simple universal coping mechanism if not at all constructive, and being denied such a useful tool made Misato feel bad for Mari for just the briefest of moments.

“Almost as frustrating as your little stunts during the takeover. You gave our guys a run for their money,” Mari continued, smirking back at Misato. “So many preparations without sharing even a little bit of info… makes you wonder what team you were playing for, right?”

“Non-interference, remember? I was under no obligation to tell you anything.”

“That’s true, I guess,” the Fifth Child shrugged, reaching for another beer. “Oh well. It made things more fun, in a way.”

Misato felt her sympathy for the Fifth Child leave as quickly as it had arrived, wondering one more time just what she was doing sitting in NERV’s cafeteria with her. Extricating herself from Makinami’s grasp was more than doable, after all, and even if Asuka needed some space right now to get her thoughts in order (in no small part, because of the Fifth Child herself), that didn’t mean that Misato couldn’t march to Horaki’s house and lie in wait for the chance to speak to the Second Child as soon as possible.

‘So why don’t you just leave, already?’ Misato asked herself for the hundredth time, and ended up at the same answer. ‘Maybe because you haven’t addressed the elephant in the room, and because you think it could help you learn something useful about this wild card.’

Misato had been wondering how to broach the topic of the Fifth Child’s discussion with Asuka for some time, now, and initially meant to do her questioning as soon as possible. She had put that on hold when she saw Makinami start drinking alcohol, however, hoping that inebriation would leave her with a looser tongue before long. But it was clear now that her impromptu plan wasn’t to be.

‘Might as well get it over with, then,’ the Major decided. ‘The worst thing that can happen is that she refuses to speak and you get a free pass to do whatever you want.’

“So…” Misato finally began, turning around towards the other woman. “Want to talk about that stuff you were going to tell Asuka?”

“With you?” Mari almost scoffed. “Why would I?”

“You’re the one who dragged me here, you tell me,” Misato shot back, deadpan. She then put her hands on the counter with a sigh, and made to stand up. “But if that’s the case, I’ll just head back to my-”

“No, wait!” A hand on her elbow stopped Misato from rising. She looked back at Mari with a raised eyebrow, the Fifth Child hesitating before she put her hand back around the beer can with a drawn out sigh. “I… Maybe you’re right. Maybe it will help me get some sleep today, if nothing else.”

Misato stared at the other woman, long and hard. She was plenty familiar with the Fifth Child’s outgoing and social Pilot mask and her less agreeable agent persona, but this exhausted and somewhat vulnerable side was a new addition. It was a big change of pace, more relatable and human than any of the previous two roles, and unusual enough to hold Misato’s attention for the time being.

She took her seat back at the bar and saw Mari’s shoulders relax just a tiny bit. The Fifth Child then stood from her seat and walked to the bar’s refrigerator, raiding a few more beer cans and showing one to Misato.

“Want some? It’s going to take a while.”

“No, thanks. A soda will do.” Mari paused for a second at the refusal, sending a quizzical look at Misato before she shrugged and handed the Major a lemon soda. She then sat back at her seat with three more beer cans in hand. “And I hope you’re a decent storyteller. I’m going to sleep the moment I get bored.”

“I’ll try my best, then,” Mari grumbled back, popping a can and taking another, long swig. The beer can slammed against the counter a second time, but the Fifth Child’s eyes weren’t drawn to the beverage like they had been before. Instead, they stared at the many liquors at the back of the bar, looking past them and at something that only Mari herself could see.

“I don’t remember a lot of the details, but I was in the middle of a school trip in High School when Second Impact happened,” she began, still looking at the distance. “Or maybe it was a training camp for my club, or some competition or something along those lines, I don’t know. What I do know was that I wasn’t alone when I closed my eyes for a quick nap.

“And just like that, I went from being in a plane bound for Kyushu one instant, to standing next to a crashed aircraft in the ruins of Tosashimizu the next. I don’t remember what happened in between those two moments, but I know that I was the only survivor of the crash.” Mari paused long enough for a dry chuckle. “And an extremely lucky one at that, as it turns out! Just one or two kilometres south and we would have crashed right into the sea.

“Not that I cared at the time. I just stood there for the longest time, staring at the wreck. One by one, the fires around the plane slowly died out, so I stood there for hours, maybe even days. My entire world had ended in less than a minute and my brain struggled to come to terms with it.”

Misato frowned at Mari’s words, her right hand moving to hold the white cross around her neck. She could more than relate with the idea of coping with a life-altering experience.

“At some point, I heard a girl’s voice behind me, asking if I was alright,” Mari continued, unaware of Misato. “Some more people were with her, too, but they didn’t matter. I ignored them all, kept looking at the crash. Then I heard the voices argue behind me for a bit, before the girl stepped closer to me.

“She put a hand on my shoulder, and gently convinced me to turn around from the remains of the plane, from the remains of my life. And at the end of the world and surrounded by death and destruction, she just… smiled at me. Comforting… encouraging… trusting. Just… happy that I was alive, that I still existed. Some random girl from halfway across the country that she had never even met before.

“I remember thinking how little sense that made, at the time. And that was enough for my brain to stop focusing on the accident, on Second Impact, and for it to start working again. I answered some simple questions, maybe even introduced myself. Don’t really remember.

“I only remember that smile and the girl that it belonged to. The one thing that kept me going for the next four months.

“Her name was Saya Makinami.”
Author of a few decent Eva stories, which can be found here.

Currently working on a new project: An Insider's Look

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Re: An Insider's Look

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Postby Gryphon117 » Tue Aug 03, 2021 4:32 am

And so starts the flashback chapter. I don't want to spend too much time on this (Shinji is still waiting), but I have to explain some of Mari's backstory at some point.

I tried to do a different narrative style for this part. Let me know what you guys think about it. ^_^

Chapter 18  SPOILER: Show
September 20th, 2000

She was the student council president for the local high school, a girl of seventeen who wouldn't have stuck out among other girls her age. She was plain, neither tall nor short, with black hair done in twin pigtails and a pair of stylish glasses as the only really noticeable thing about her. Like, if you looked up the definition of student council president, Saya's picture would have been there.

Hell, she was still wearing her school uniform when we first met.

"I feel like I've seen that somewhere before."

Yeah, well, I'll get to that eventually.

The first few days after the Impact were rough, but not as awful as the media likes to spin it. It probably was a lot worse in the big cities, sure, but in the more rural areas of Japan like Tosashimizu public order was fairly stable. I guess with natural disasters being as common as they are around here and all the training and indoctrination that goes with that, our sense of community against Second Impact won over anarchy, at least for a while. The JSDF's quick response with helping survivors and setting up refugee camps also helped a lot, too. The troops had a small JASDF helibase nearby to set up camp and logistics lines from, so that's probably why it only took them a day or two to set the whole thing up.

In any case, our camp had around two thousand people after the first week, down from the twelve thousand that lived in the town before Impact. Not all of them were casualties, a lot of the surviving population of the town simply moved further inland because they were afraid of a second wave, either by foot or random vehicles or by using JSDF convoys doing the routes to the bigger bases in Matsuyama and the Kagawa area. Saya was one of the people who decided to stay, and I remained with her like some lost puppy, helping her out at camp with the duties she had quickly taken for herself.

I guess student council presidents everywhere are all workaholics like that.

"That should be it for today's rounds," Saya said at the end of one of the day's patrols. We were close to a cliff overlook towards the sea. "How are you holding up, Machi-chan?"

That was me, by the way. 'Machi' is how I was known around our group in camp. A nickname that Saya gave me and a bit of a habit that she had for everyone she met.

"A play on city girl, I suppose? What's your name, anyway? The real one, I mean."

I don't know. I've been remembering a lot of things about Saya and my previous life these past few weeks, but that's one of the things that still hasn't come back. Can't say I really care, either. But anyway…

I told her I was fine, no more wounds anywhere, maybe a bit more bluntly than I meant to. But if she was offended by it, Saya didn't show it. She just smiled and took it in stride like she always did.

"I can see that, silly. I was talking about you, you. You've been quiet ever since we found you and some of the older folks are getting a bit worried. I am, too."

I still wasn't over the whole 'losing my entire life' thing, and clearly, everyone had noticed. They probably were afraid that I would do something stupid and start a chain of tragedies. To their credit, I had toyed with the idea a few times already, so it's not like they were wrong.

"Don't worry, I don't mean to push you. Take your time, but just remember that you aren't alone. We all understand," Saya continued, sitting on a bench and inviting me over. "I'm still having trouble adapting to not being so busy every day, so feel free to chat with me about anything. I'll be glad for the distraction."

I took a seat next to her and watched as Saya stared at the horizon. The sea was calm, relaxing, a very different sight from what it must have been when it had flooded into Tosashimizu a week prior. I know that I had trouble looking at the water and I had not even been there to experience it, but Saya didn't seem bothered at all.

And honestly? That bothered me.

That was when I asked her straight out: hadn't she lost anyone during Second Impact? Family, friends? Saya had mentioned in passing before that the Tosashimizu high school was very small, but the fact that she must have personally known every single student and teacher who didn't survive the tragedy made matters even worse.

How could she stay so cheerful around so much death? Wasn't she afraid that the dead and their surviving relatives would resent her for it?

Saya looked at me with some surprise at first, and a small frown second. I thought for a moment that I had finally gone and offended her, but she quickly proved me wrong.

"You think they are angry? With you? With me?" Saya turned the tables with another question. "Tell me. Why would they be? Did you bring the wave crashing against the city? Did I do it?"

I had no answer to that. It was a logical argument, completely airtight, but to me it still felt wrong. I tried to think of ways to counter it but failed miserably.

Meanwhile, Saya stared back at the sea, and for just an instant, she looked sorrowful, like yet another one of the faces in the refugee camp.

"…Of course I remember the dead, and of course I'm sad that they're not here. But I want to believe that they wouldn't want me to stop where they left me. They would want me to carry on the baton and press forward." Saya turned to me again, with an encouraging smile. "I think the same is true for you: no one blames you, Machi-chan. The ones that got left behind only want you to keep going for them. For the friends we couldn't save. For the friends we might yet help."



I made a valiant effort to hold it in, but that was when I broke down, all tears and snot, a real mess. Saya put her arms around my shoulders and held me tightly for as long as it took me to get it all out of my system. A long time, probably.

It's obvious in hindsight, but I still needed to hear that. To hear that no one could fault me for being alive, that it was alright for me to have survived where everyone else had not. That I had a right to move on with my life.

"There, there. Let it all out, let it all wash away." Saya whispered comforting words in my ear. "From now on, you're a new you, Machi-chan, and you are going to live your new life to the fullest. You can't make tomorrow better without improving today first, after all."



"…She sounds like a nice girl."

…She sure was. Saya was bright, driven, the kind of person who always sees the glass half-full. Like, we had just lived through the end of the world and, despite everything she had lost, she still marched forward, always saying the same: 'can't make tomorrow better without improving today first'. 'For the friends we couldn't save and for the friends we might yet help.' Those were her mantras against depression and hopelessness and she repeated them every chance she had.

They were dumb, like some stupid line from a self-improvement book. But when Saya said any of it, it felt genuine, like something anyone could rally around and push from. That was why she had little problem winning people to her side, it didn't matter if it was a scary man trying to survive no matter what or a grieving woman who had just lost both husband and child. Saya would eventually get to them both.

She wasn't some miracle worker, of course, I saw her fail plenty of times, but Saya never let those failures hold her back. She was stubborn like a mule, but in the good sense, and she was inspiring because of it. I'm not exaggerating when I say that Saya was one of the people that kept us all together. She had an iron will for a seventeen year old girl. A born leader.

Everything that I wasn't. I was just a random girl from Tokyo who was in way over her head, average to a fault, the kind that fades into the background while the real characters of the story do the talking and the heroics.

But even a nobody like me got something out of Saya's day to day cheering; I did and I learned. I hurt myself and I learned. I failed and I learned. Doing better and better each and every time, the sense of satisfaction I got out of it feeling almost like a drug, pushing me for more, faster, better.

For the friends we couldn't save. For the friends we might yet help.

"Looks like she really got you with the motivation speech."

…Yeah. Like I said, Saya had a way with people. Always knew exactly what to say to light a fire under almost anyone. Granted, she had it easy with me. I had been dancing in the palm of her hand since day one.

But anyway, that was roughly the time when I changed the way I viewed things: I'd earned myself a spot in the Tosashimizu community by then and began thinking of my stay in the town and Second Impact as another step in my life, a growing experience, rather than just this massive tragedy.

I was lucky, too. I had a comfortable life, all things considered, as much as anyone could get after the end of the world, anyway. I was alive, I was safe, and I didn't need to worry about my next meal. I would just keep helping out around camp, follow the military's directions for a while and before I knew it, I would be back at home, in Tokyo, with my family. I'd have grown as a person and everything would go back to being how it used to be, the start of the second chapter in my normal, average life.

But of course, that thought didn't age well.
Author of a few decent Eva stories, which can be found here.

Currently working on a new project: An Insider's Look

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Re: An Insider's Look

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Postby Gryphon117 » Tue Aug 10, 2021 9:29 am

Here's another quick update. I want to try and finish the whole flashback chapter before I restart work in September, so let's see if the writing chops are on point for that deadline.

For now, though, enjoy! ^_^

Chapter 18-2  SPOILER: Show
September 27th, 2000

That was the day I heard that Tokyo had been nuked.

"Yeah… One of the things I'm glad I didn't have to see. Your people wouldn't happen to know anything about who was responsible, would they? I've been told that the culprits were labelled as 'terrorists' when the dust settled down, but I've never bought that explanation. Terrorists don't have access to warheads large enough to level half of Tokyo."

Nothing completely certain, but the terrorists were bull, yeah. Over the years we've brought down the possibilities to a handful of candidates but we don't have enough proof to point fingers at anyone. What we do know is that the attack was very likely not sanctioned by the government of any of our suspect countries. A splinter faction with a grudge making the worst of the post Second Impact instability is our current hypothesis.

"And it's not like we Japanese have a shortage of those."

No. No, we don't.

In any case, a part of me hoped that my family had moved out of the city, but the rational part of my mind knew better. Tokyo was one of the few big cities in Japan that managed to keep public order in check after Second Impact, so it made no sense at all for my family to leave the city, to leave a safe haven.

With the nuke exploding right on City Hall the chances of them being alive were close to zero. If the blast itself had not killed them, the riots and panic surely had. In the short time I had been with the Tosashimizu group I had already seen my fair share of the cruel side of humanity, and we were in a fairly depopulated part of the country. What was left of Tokyo was likely a warzone.

In a few minutes, the main reason behind my newfound motivation had vanished. My classmates were gone, my family was gone, any chance of a new 'normal' in the future of that second chapter I had wanted to start had just been blown into tiny little atoms.

And you know the best part of it all? Tokyo was nuked on my sixteenth birthday. Talk about a nice present.

Obviously, I threw whatever thoughts I might have had about my birthday to the very back of my mind. You know, it wasn't exactly the best time for it. But Saya had other ideas.

"So! Are you ready for your big moment?" she asked me out of nowhere.

It took me a second to process her question, and I remember looking around at all the downcast expressions around our part of the camp and being this close to snapping at Saya, asking her if she was fucking serious. I knew that she had been looking forward to throwing me a birthday party, but we had just been nuked! And it had been Tokyo, no less! Everyone had someone they knew living or working there! I had just almost certainly lost my family there!

I managed to keep my temper in check, though, and instead I settled for asking if that was really the time for birthday parties considering the circumstances. But Saya didn't even let me finish.

"Of course it is! Now is the best time for it! Celebrations are the things that keep spirits flying!"

Anyone else would have been shouted down without mercy, but the only comeback Saya received was angry mumblings and some of the people around us shifting to look at her. She then put her hands on her hips and grinned at me.

"So now that we've all remembered that, why don't you give us a big smile? You don't turn sixteen every day!"

Now I was the one being put in the spot and everyone turned to look at me. Some were curious, some were pissed, but I was quick to notice that most of the faces that turned to stare my way actually looked anxious.

They had gotten used to Saya's speeches, to her relentless positivity and the way she pushed everyone around her, and they wanted… no, needed Saya's words to keep striking true. To prove that everything she had done and said until then had not been a fluke, and that we could keep relying on her support in the future.

In hindsight, we had become so dependent on this seventeen year old girl that it was scary.

But I didn't consider that at the time. I just saw the begging looks on half those people and caved under the pressure. So I did my part and smiled. And I did my best, but it probably wasn't a great smile. Not that Saya cared, she just took that admission as a green light and raced away to throw me the best birthday party ever, and the part of the camp that had been waiting on pins and needles for my reaction rushed off behind her to help with this and that. In little more than an hour Saya and her group had cleared a small part of the camp and set everything up.

It wasn't some huge party, of course. Just a few crappy tables with drinks and food and some random music playing in a CD player that had survived the end of the world, I didn't even know the singers. But Saya was right, the festive atmosphere did make us feel better, help us forget about the world for a pair of hours, and we needed that. Even the hardliners who had been against the party from the beginning cracked a small smile here and there in the end. It was a subtle reminder of Saya's usual messages: don't forget about those you have lost, but don't let their memory stop you, either.

For the friends we couldn't save. For the friends we can yet help.

Sometime in the middle of the party, Saya suddenly disappeared for a bit and then came back waving a small package in her hand.

"I've got a present for you, Machi-chan!" she yelled loud enough for half the camp to hear, then pressed the package into my hands when everyone turned to look our way. It was a rough envelope, just a piece of brown paper with some tape and a small red bow on top, but it was enough to leave me shocked in place for a bit. The birthday party had been one thing, but getting a present was unexpected on a different level. "What are you waiting for? Open it!"

I followed Saya's excited orders and carefully opened the package: inside was a small digital camera and a charger, out of the box, fully powered and ready to use. At the time, I wondered both about where she could have possibly found the camera and why she had gifted me a camera to begin with. I then realised that I had mentioned losing my own camera in passing and that I had been looking forward to taking pictures of famous landmarks in Kyushu. Saya must have remembered that and believed that I was especially attached to the thing, or something. I still appreciated the present, of course.

"Come on, come on! We have to use it for the first time!" Saya exclaimed, then began rounding all the people around and handed the camera to a volunteer. Half a minute later and we were all grinning like idiots at the cameraman, some more genuinely than others, until three or four flashes came out of the camera.

After that, everyone disbanded and began to tidy the place up, but Saya stopped me when I went to help. Said that 'I should make the most of this special day and leave the work to them'.

I knew that I wouldn't change her mind, so I went to the small overlook where I had spoken to Saya the week before and sat down on the bench, instead. I figured that she would eventually make her way here since the overlook had become our little hang-out spot of sorts, and made time by taking some pictures of the calm sea and the slowly setting sun, and of the trees swaying in the gentle breeze. A few minutes of that, and I sat back down again to look at my unfocused and very much amateur work.

I stopped when I reached the group picture of the party. As I looked into the camera's little screen, at first I saw twenty or so dirty half-strangers huddled together for a picture, but then I realised that I could name each and every one of them, tell what they liked, if they had lost or wanted to find someone important, and so on.

There was Ta-kun, the butcher's son, who followed on the family tradition and was strong as an ox. Kasumi-san, a nurse from the town clinic that was helping out the medical volunteers. Kurono-san, a retired firefighter who had lost his children and had taken both me and Saya under his wing, so to speak…

That was when the spell finally broke and it hit me again: my family was dead. I could shield myself in Saya's words as much as I wanted, believe that they wouldn't fault me for honouring their memory in my own way, but that didn't change the simple fact that I was now alone in the world.

I broke down crying again when I realised that. I had a real talent for crying back then.

That was when Saya showed up and hugged me from behind.

"Hey, Machi," she told me, pointing at the screen of the camera. "We can be your family, for as long as you want."

I must have made a weird face at that time, because Saya turned to look my way and started laughing like mad.

"What? I know we'll never compare to the original, but you don't think I can be your cool big sis?"

…That was it, I had a sister. I had a surrogate father of sorts, I had friends and people that depended on me. I still had a place in the world. It wasn't anywhere near to where I had started, but that didn't matter. I decided right then that I would fight tooth and nail for Saya and the others, come what may.

I also hugged Saya back, and told her that cool sisters didn't wear dorky glasses. And then-

"That's cute and all, but we're getting side-tracked. Remember what I said about your storytelling and going to bed?"

…Okay, fine. Here I am, pouring my heart out about some of the most important moments of my life and you rush me. Someone needs to learn to respect her elders.

"I don't have all night and I'd like to fool my brain into thinking I slept a little. Get a move on."

…Sigh.

…In any case, if we ignore the nuclear attack and the millions of dead, my sixteenth birthday actually turned out kind of okay. But by dusk, Japan had gone on full alert and JSDF forces all over the country were being pulled back to Tokyo and other main cities to prevent the possibility of another nuke going off. The retreat was anything but organised, with soldiers and auxiliary personnel spending a single morning rushing to grab whatever supplies would fit on their transports and then driving or flying back to Tokyo.

Tosashimizu had another exodus with the retreat of the JSDF, only this time it was mostly on foot. By the end of the day only five hundred folks remained at the camp, and we were left with absolutely no supervision, just the very overworked medical volunteers and a bunch of leftover supplies, both civilian and military, that the soldiers had left behind.

"I can see where this is going…"

Yeah, despite the happy atmosphere that had existed a few hours ago, things in my 'new family' went south quick.
Author of a few decent Eva stories, which can be found here.

Currently working on a new project: An Insider's Look

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Postby Gryphon117 » Mon Sep 13, 2021 10:33 am

Sorry for the long wait, writer's block hit me hard on this one. I spent quite some time experimenting with how I wanted to tell the next months of the flashback, but everything I tried ended up becoming too bloated for the purposes of this chapter. Eventually, I took the scorched earth approach and completely gutted everything that wasn't absolutely essential to the plot, and then tried my best to tie it all together with the narration. I think it came out quite well all things considered, and that I manage to hit the emotional notes I wanted to hit without veering too far into the cheap drama pit. You guys are the final judges of that, though, so please let me know if I failed horribly or not. There still time to change things around if necessary.

One more scene and we move on to Asuka and Shinji. I promise. :nyao:

Chapter 18-3  SPOILER: Show
September 31st, 2000

Things got… rough after that.

I won't bore you with the details, but there was fear in the air. Everyone at camp had heard the radio reports of anarchy reigning in some parts of Japan, even while the JSDF had been trying to keep the peace. The cases had been confined to the fringe areas of Kyushu and Hokkaido for the most part, far away from us, but what was going to happen now that the JSDF wasn't around to keep the peace? Now that everywhere not close to a major metropolis was a 'fringe area'?

For almost a week, everyone kept arguing and fighting over one thing or another: whether we should stay or go, who should get priority on the leftover supplies, what the plan was going to be if we ran out of food or medicine and the situation had not stabilised yet… and so on.

For the most part sensible heads prevailed, but the situation got worse when some of the less successful people in the camp armed themselves to get their point across. Up until then, grabbing one of the left behind weapons had been an unspoken taboo, but the moment those morons broke it not even ten minutes passed before every single gun in the camp had been claimed.

And that was exactly when someone in the camp realised that the abandoned JASDF helibase probably had a lot more supplies just waiting there for anyone to claim them. A mad scramble for the rights to all that treasure ensued and the tensions reached their peak, the camp organically dividing itself into three groups, little by little. One of the factions claimed that we should use our power to scour the immediate areas for anything of use, and take it by force if necessary, justifying themselves with the good old 'anyone else would the same in our situation'. Another, more moderate group, advocated minimal outside contact and the use of the weaponry to close off our borders to any outsiders, so that we could prevent threats and extend our supplies for as long as possible. The third group, with Kurono-san at the head, pushed for keeping to the status-quo as much as possible, trying to establish cordial relationships with other outposts in a similar situation to ours and cooperate to ensure the well-being of all. Knowing that there was no way the guns would peacefully go back to the boxes anymore, Kurono-san also claimed that they should only be used as a last resort against clearly hostile invaders.

Or rather, both him and Saya did. Everyone knew that while Kurono-san was the face of our group, Saya had a lot of influence in both the decision-making and almost constant camp arguments. Hell, a lot of the folks in our partition were there because of Saya and Kurono-san was fully aware of that, welcomed it, even. The old man keenly listened to Saya's input when she offered it, then improved any perceived weaknesses in her reasoning with his many years of life experience.

They made for a good combination that got around half of the camp on our side of the argument, not that democratic majorities mattered for much when pistols and other automatic handguns were such a common sight. For all the gun-waving and anger on display no tragic accidents happened, though, which I recall finding odd at the time, although in hindsight I guess I understand: it was a small town, everyone knew each other. Some girl could be friends with a boy whose father was married to the local baker, who was friends with the sister of the neighbourhood policewoman, whose parents used to live next to the old couple from Nagasaki, and so on.

The peace was kept because of those bonds, but everyone knew that a single bullet would break the entire chain. We were lucky that no one was brave or crazy enough to actually fire that bullet.

Eventually, and after an entire week of arguments, an agreement was reached on what to do with the helibase: representatives from every group would set up camp at the JASDF base and oversee a schedule for the scavenging teams, which would be limited to three people and carry a single handgun for self-defence in case of emergency. Those same representatives would ensure the rationing of the scavenged supplies, so that no one group walked away with a larger share than the others.

Things didn't go as well with the bigger schism, though, and the two smaller factions took a share of supplies and left the camp to found their own settlements around the helibase.

In any case, when I heard about the scavenging agreement and that Saya would be in one of the teams I decided that that was my chance. I had done nothing but leech off of Saya's kindness and decided to change that, so I ignored Saya's protests and grabbed a pistol from our box at camp. I volunteered to be the defender in her group.

I would at least keep her safe.

Our side of the camp was very wary of weapons in general, so no one really fought me for the privilege. I spent some time familiarising myself with the gun after that, under Saya's disapproving eyes. It was a small 9mm, a P220. About as easy to use as handheld weaponry gets.

The first time I fired it I almost dropped it, the noise and the recoil taking me by surprise. I was an idiot girl used to seeing the action heroes in movies fire two pistols at the same time in impossible angles, you know? Like in The Matrix?

"Never watched that movie."

Fix that, you're missing out. One of the best things Keanu Reeves did before he died in Second Impact.

In any case, I religiously practised for weeks. I grabbed a bunch of cans, set them up on a table and shot them with so many holes that they couldn't stand upright. I figured out how the pistol's safety worked, how to reload it and how to use the iron sights. I learned proper firing posture and how to take care of the components from some of the friendlier people at the other camps, and also how to treat the gun with respect to avoid any accidents. I got myself a holster and made sure to carry the pistol around everywhere I went.

I ended up getting into it quite a bit, and my sudden fascination with the pistol made me kind of unpopular at our camp. My training spooked most of the people in it and openly carrying the gun around didn't help matters, but I refused to let it out of my sight for even one second. Saya kept me company a lot of the times I trained, too, but it was clear that she approved of the whole thing as little as she had the first day, even if she never voiced her concerns.

I tried to ignore all of it, to remind myself of why I had picked up the gun in the first place, but doing so became harder and harder as time went on.

Three months passed, Christmas and New Year's came and went, and 2001 was looking like a better time to be alive than the end of the millennium had been. The weeks had been peaceful in our little corner of Japan, with some small arguments over a piece of scrap or another and some travelling groups as the biggest issues, and the news spoke of how the major governments of the world were coming together to chart a path forward after Second Impact and put a stop to what almost became World War 3. The atmosphere at camp was positive, in short.

But as February approached, someone must have felt that time was running out.

"What do you mean?"

...

...Did you know that the post-Second Impact months were a golden age for espionage? With most of the countries in the world too busy keeping a hold over their population to worry about state security anywhere but the capital areas, plenty of state secrets were ripe for the taking for the agencies with the initiative to do so. More industrial, military and political espionage ops were carried out in those four months than in the prior ten years combined. Everyone wanted a juicy piece about their neighbours, for personal use, political leverage or as preparation for any hostilities.

That day we got caught in one such raid.

"An intel raid? In southern Shikoku? That makes no sense, there's nothing there."

That's what we thought, too, but as it turns out, the tiny Tosashimizu base of the JASDF wasn't nearly as tiny as we believed. It had a whole underground sector behind some of the doors that were security locked.

"...That's the first I've heard about any of that."

I'm not surprised. The place obviously wasn't in use at the time and it's likely that it's been long since demolished. But up until the summer before Second Impact it had housed two underground sub-pens for testing on the next generation of submarines, prototypes of sonar, hydrophones, torpedoes and the like. This I learned after I joined up with my benefactors.

"Are we getting close to that point, while we're at it?"




…It was just like any other day. Kurono-san, Saya and me, heading up to the helibase on a Tuesday morning, sifting through packaged clothes, medicines and rations until midday then stopping for a quick lunch before we spent the afternoon loading carts and moving our haul back to camp. Business as usual, the same thing we had done tens of times before by then.

Things were so peaceful that some of the other groups had even stopped bringing their guns to the helibase. I didn't, but I also hadn't practised firing my pistol in a month by then. At one point Saya had begun getting pressured into making me stop my training and I decided to comply when I heard about it, because… I didn't want to cause trouble for her. There had been no trouble whatsoever since the scavenging agreement anyway, so it felt kind of pointless, too. Even Saya looked happier that I wasn't using the gun on the regular, so I felt like that was the biggest sign that I had made the right choice.

Obviously, I had been very wrong.

It was getting close to dusk that day when Kurono-san hung back a few steps on one of the hallways, looking back at the storage room that we had been searching all morning with a careful look to him. I asked him what the problem was, but he quickly hushed me silent, looking like he had seen something in the room. His mouth opened, and the old man didn't even have time to say anything before his body exploded in a shower of blood. Two shots to the torso, one to the head, and Kurono-san fell to the ground like a puppet that just had its strings cut.

I froze. I'd seen many actors 'die' in movies but the harsh, visceral reality was much worse than anything I could have imagined. One second Kurono-san was there, and the next he wasn't, all the years of his life, every single experience snuffed out in an instant. I had enough presence of mind not to scream in terror, but that was everything I could manage.

"Come on! This way!"

Saya was the one who had to grab my arm and pull me out of there. We ran deeper into the base and away from the shots, and I could hear the others running and screaming as they were shot down without mercy. Our group had not been alone in the base that day and I guess some of the others tried to fight back, but it didn't matter. It was a massacre.

Half the planet was gone, what did a few more corpses matter?

Saya and I ended up in the upper floor of one of the larger storage areas, huddled together in a corner between some boxes. We were terrified, but tried our hardest to stay quiet. We could hear people walking around us and past us, talking to each other in a foreign language as the metal floor creaked under their weight. The gunshots had stopped long ago and the smell of gunpowder was heavy in the air, but the soldiers still patrolled for what felt like an eternity.

Eventually, one of them stopped, a single person. I don't know if something tipped the soldier off or if it was plain bad luck, but he stepped into the back of the room and walked closer and closer to our position. No matter how small we made ourselves, it would only be a matter of seconds before we were spotted.

That was when I decided, I had to protect Saya, no matter what. That was all I thought about as I grabbed the pistol with shaky hands and rose to my knees. Saya tried to stop me when she noticed, but it was too late, I popped out of our hiding place with a scream and levelled the gun at the soldier, then pulled on the trigger with all my strength.

And nothing happened. I had forgotten to take off the safety, and the gun refused to budge when I squeezed the trigger, no matter how hard. I just closed my eyes and kept on trying anyway, because I was too much of a damn moron to realise what was wrong.



…If only I had shown a backbone back then, maybe things would have been different. If I hadn't fallen to peer pressure and kept on practising with the pistol, maybe Saya would still be alive.

But I didn't. And I bet the soldier was laughing at me behind his mask, because he didn't even bother wasting a bullet on the stupid girl that got in his way. He just took out his knife and gutted me like a fish in one single motion, shoulder to hip, then kicked me off the platform to bleed out below. As I fell hard on my back against the ground I heard a struggle above and a scream, and Saya landed next to me a second later, pushed off the walkway like another piece of garbage.

I had failed, and her wound was… much worse than mine. Saya had been stabbed, right in… right in the heart. One of her main arteries had probably been severed, judging by how fast her shirt was going red.

But Saya still turned to me. She… reached over to grab my hand. She didn't hate me for failing her… for getting her killed. She saw that I was in pain, that I was terrified and… and she worried more about me than herself, like… like Saya always did.

I stared back and I… I saw the colour slowly drain from her face, her… breathing become faster and faster and her eyes slowly lose focus. Her hand became freezing cold, but… but until the light in her eyes vanished, Saya held tight.

And she just…

She just… smiled at me. Smiled at… at her friend.



>-O]|[O-<​



A bottle of whisky breaking against the bar brought Misato crashing back to reality.

"Woah! What are you-!?"

"She just smiled at me! Until the very end, she was thinking of me! Of others!" Mari slammed her fists on the counter and the wooden surface caved in like an eggshell. "She did all that and I just… everything Saya said, everything Saya was! I just… I just forgot all about it! How could I… forget her words?"

Misato watched as Mari slowly brought her hands to her head. The girl was shaking, her eyes wide, her breathing laboured and her teeth pressed together into an angry snarl. For a few moments, it looked as if she was trying her hardest to let something out, but nothing ever did.

"…Dammit, I can't even cry."
Author of a few decent Eva stories, which can be found here.

Currently working on a new project: An Insider's Look

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Postby Gryphon117 » Sun Sep 26, 2021 1:04 pm

Here it is, the end of the chapter and full explanation of Mari's backstory. It turned out very monologue-y on Mari's part since I wanted to keep the spirit of the other flashback scenes, and I felt that was a necessary sacrifice in order to get everything I needed to out of the way in a timely manner. I hope that it won't be too much, but even if it is, know that this should be the last of the scenes that require this sort of approach. There is still time to do changes, at any rate, or to explain things that you believe might have been left unexplained.

In any case, enjoy. Next time... I'm honestly not certain who I'm going to tackle. :um:

Chapter 18-4  SPOILER: Show
"…Dammit, I can't even cry."



It took minutes for Mari to calm down, during which Misato didn't say anything, looking down at her own drink, instead. She waited until the agent took her seat again and began to nurse another drink, joining her in the ritual in silence. Misato knew that whatever words she tried to offer would sound fake, and that Mari likely didn't even want her pity to begin with.

"…You asked me before why I chose this name. Why I chose the physical appearance of this made-up identity to be similar to that of Saya Makinami." Mari eventually continued, taking a sip of rum. "The gist of it is simple, really: I wanted no reminders of my old life. I had died, the useless girl that had been too weak and too much of a coward to protect the people she cared for. I was all too happy to come back to life and see her physically gone, to see that my body was as close to a blank slate as a human can get." Another sip, another second of silence. Misato felt a sense of foreboding. "…So much so that I went to my benefactors and requested to have part of my memories erased, too, to make absolutely certain that she was purged from the world."

"...You goddamn idiot." Misato closed her eyes with a deep sigh, disappointed to see her suspicions confirmed. "Did you honestly think that's what she would have wanted?"

"Absolutely. I was absolutely certain. But now... Now I wonder if I wasn't too hasty."

"You wonder?! You erased yourself from existence, for God's sake! That's-!" Misato threw her arms up in frustration, completely stumped. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to say here!"

"Don't force yourself, I get the hint," Mari offered back with a wry smile. "You're probably right, anyway, especially since I ended up forgetting most of the details about Saya, too, whether by accident or by design. My benefactors were all too happy to accommodate my request and that should have honestly been a big red flag already.

"In any case, for many years the only detail I remembered about the past was the name 'Saya', and the only thing I found a bit strange was the weird affinity I felt with the identity of 'Mari Makinami', one among many which I had designed to fit a thousand different mission parameters. Slowly but surely, as the years passed, I ended up gravitating towards this 'Mari Makinami' as my go-to identity for every mission that allowed her. I didn't really understand why back then, only that it felt more natural, more… right to slip into this persona than into any other. To play the role of this optimistic, empathetic and driven teenager. Whatever scraps of 'me' that remained back then must have believed that channelling Saya like that, taking the kind of actions that she would have taken was a good way of honouring her memory. Doing the same thing in more recent weeks, after taking some layers out of Saya's mystery, made me feel closer to her, too. Like she's next to me, pushing me forward.

"Incredibly dumb, yet irresistibly compelling."

The bottle of rum was emptied and replaced by more cans of beer, Mari making true on the claims about her filtering systems by not looking even the slightest bit inebriated, despite not having slowed her pace by a single second all night. The Misato Katsuragi of two months ago would have felt fiercely jealous at the sight, but the Misato Katsuragi of that night was forcing jealousy deeper and deeper down the line as the minutes went by.

"I hated her, you know? Asuka, I mean." Mari crushed an empty beer can and tossed it into the mess that used to be the bar without a care. "At the start I thought it was just because she got on my nerves, but now, after remembering so much, I know better. Her abrasive personality had nothing to do with it, it's just that she was brittle, putting on a strong face but just a light breeze away from falling apart inside. Just like I was in my old life. Having that memory staring me back in the face made me wish I could punch her lights out, even if I couldn't tell why.

"But then she got better, or maybe it was Ikari who helped her get better. As the days passed and I improved my understanding of her, the cracks in Asuka's glass began to close, something that had been deemed exceedingly unlikely considering her psych-profile. She showed that there was a leader beneath all the insecurities, a caring personality behind all the defensive narcissism, and a bright mind that could take on any challenge.

"And I felt drawn to that. Or I felt drawn to the echoes of my old friend, I guess. It got so bad that I could swear I was talking to Saya instead of Asuka, sometimes." A third beer can was crushed and made to join its peers at the pile with a scoff. "Which is stupid. I know she's not Saya; Saya is dead. But at times it still felt like life was giving me a second chance to do things right.

"…I felt so awful taking advantage of all of that, and I got real close to asking Arthur to take me out of the op. I was way too personally invested, but the plan had progressed to the point where my extraction was no longer feasible, so I decided to try and keep as much of a level head as I could, instead. And you can see how well that turned out."

With a dry smirk, Mari crushed the last of the beer cans and stood from her seat. She walked over to the other side of the bar and pushed away the glass and plastic mess on the floor with her feet, her face twisting in disgust at all the wasted liquor on the ground. Mari then raised her eyes and inspected the remains of the bottle stands for a few moments, probably trying to find some kind of drink that she had not forced down her throat yet.

The familiar sight made Misato sick to her stomach. "How did you survive?" she asked, trying to get her mind to focus on something else. "The intel raid, I mean."

Mari stopped her searching and turned to Misato with a frown, then let out a dry chuckle as she palmed her forehead.

"Oh, right. We glossed over that bit, didn't we? Where were we, hmm…?" The agent thought back, foregoing the bar and sitting back in her seat without a drink for the first time in hours. "…Right. Me lying in a pool of my own blood with no family, no friends and nothing at all left in the entire world. Waiting in agony while the bleed out slowly killed me and using that time to hate on absolutely everything. Hate Second Impact, hate the bastards that nuked Tokyo, hate the soldiers that murdered Saya and what scraps of a new family that I had scrounged up for myself. I had hate to share aaall around.

"But at some point, I heard more gunshots. And some time later, a soldier, different from the others, came into the storage room and spotted me lying next to Saya, still alive. He looked me over, probably judging if I was salvageable or not, and then took off his helmet. An Arabic man looked into my eyes and I stared back, hating him as much as I was hating everything else." Mari crossed her fingers together and leant forward against the bar, trying to bore a hole into the wood with her eyes. "'Do you want to live?' was everything he asked, in barely understandable English. And me, being the massive idiot that I was, wasted no time in nodding my head."

"He was…?"

"Yeah. By sheer coincidence, a squad of my benefactors' troops had been loitering in the area for a few weeks, looking for an opening to go into the underground themselves. They moved into the base when they heard gunfire and quickly secured the entire area. Well, I say quickly, but it was still too late for everyone inside. For Saya.

"The man took out a syringe gun and injected something into my neck, and when I woke up again in a hospital bed, six months had already passed. The doctor who looked after me said that even with all their advanced techniques it was a miracle that I was still alive, and that my brain had been a minute away from terminal damage at the time of my rescue."

Mari shifted her position to lean on her elbows and raised her left hand, putting it between Misato and herself. The servos and other components whirred softly as Mari flexed her fingers and twisted her wrist, staring at the metallic appendage and offering Misato a closer look.

"I looked down at my body and saw a mesh of fibres and metal where my chest used to be. Looked at my arms and legs and saw them replaced by simple-looking yet deceptively advanced prosthetics. I was surprised and scared at first, obviously, but that feeling was quickly replaced by delight at seeing my old self gone, like I told you before.

"The doctor went into long detail about the specifics of the operations done to me and the quality of the central components involved, going into the possible upgrade paths for the basic prosthetics before he launched into a long-winded explanation about my benefactors' aims and motives. Kinda like Akagi when she gets going, you know?" Mari rolled her eyes with a chuckle and Misato couldn't help a small smile. Ritsuko did enjoy giving a lecture from time to time. "The man put special emphasis on the words 'duty' and 'responsibility' throughout the entire thing, never outright stating it but making the subtext clear: they owned me, but I honestly didn't care. I had tuned him out for the most part and the only things that stuck were 'Looking out for the best interests of Humanity' and 'Making the world a better place'. The second part in particular sounded like something Saya would want me to do, so I formally signed up with them on the spot just because of that, in short. I didn't care about the details, so long as I could pay the world back for what it had done to Saya, I was willing to do anything."

Mari put her arm back down and went silent for a full minute, her eyes becoming lost in the distance as she appeared to recall the past again. She then turned to look at the bottle stands with a longing stare once more, likely debating whether another beverage was in order, but in the end tore her eyes away with a deep sigh.

"…And I did. I've done many awful things over the years, hurt and harassed lots of people that deserved such treatment, but also many who didn't. It was always the correct course of action, pragmatically speaking, always in line with the tenets of my benefactors, but in the end that doesn't excuse what I or anyone else did. Hell, I can't even claim that I did it for the greater good or anything lofty like that, because half the time I was just being selfish, looking for an outlet for my own guilt and nothing more." Mari put her face in her hands, dry and hollow chuckles escaping through her fingers. "…And all along I claimed to do all of it for the sake of this person I could hardly remember, someone that would have been disgusted by my actions. Saya would hate me if she could see me now."

Before she could notice, Misato's hand had covered the distance that separated them and hovered above Mari's shoulder. It was at that point that Misato stopped herself, remembering the threats of bodily harm that this woman in a girl's body had warned her about a few weeks back. For a few moments, the Major fought with herself about her course of action.

'…Screw it.'

Misato's hand came down and softly enveloped Mari's shoulder. The girl stiffened at the contact, like a cat receiving an unexpected pat, but Misato was glad to see her relax shortly after.

"Maybe I'm being presumptuous, but it sounds like you're not satisfied with your life path anymore," Misato's voice was noncommittal, objective. "Have you thought of quitting?"

"Pfft. And do what? I have no talents outside of subterfuge and warfare." Mari turned towards Misato with a raised eyebrow. "Besides, my benefactors spent god knows how much money on making me. Do you really think that they're going to let me go with a pat on the back because I asked nicely? I can't even claim that they forced me into anything, because they did give me a choice. I could have just died, after all; Hell, I should have just died. Damn self-preservation instincts." Mari grumbled with a shake of her head, then tried to glare the bar away again. "…No, there is no out for me anymore. But that's fair. It's no more than what I deserve."

Just desserts or not, Makinami did have a fair point. Leaving her shady benefactors behind would be no simple task, if at all possible and, in the end, it wasn't her place to say, Misato decided. Whatever Makinami wanted to do in the future was something that she had to figure out herself. There was another topic that Misato wanted some clarification on, however.

"So… after hearing all of that, there's still one thing that's nagging at me."

"Yeah? What is it?"

Misato turned her chair towards Mari, pointing at herself with her thumb. "What's your problem with me?"

"Other than you being incompetent, utterly blind and almost directly responsible for the death of one of our most promising rookie agents in recent years, not much." Mari stressed her reply by putting up three fingers in succession. She then narrowed her eyes at Misato. "Also, your dad blew up the world. We already established I'm kind of bitter about that."

"And you think that's fair?" Misato shot back, unable to hide her surprise. "Kaji, I could understand. But I had absolutely nothing to do with Second Impact or anything that happened after. Hell, I was almost catatonic for most of it!"

"I know," Mari admitted, catching the Major off-guard. "But when I saw your name in the operation's debriefing and checked your connection to Second Impact, then noticed your connection to Ryoji… it made you an easy target to hate. You still are. And hate doesn't need to be reasonable. It just needs to be." The agent threw Misato a sideways glance, a small smile on her face. "But in your defence, you've climbed a few steps up the ladder lately."

"I don't know if I should feel honoured by that." Misato muttered, annoyed both at the half-hearted praise and at the fact that Makinami appeared to have been on a first name basis with Kaji.

"Suit yourself, it's no skin off my back," Mari shrugged nonchalantly. "It doesn't change anything, anyway."

A comfortable silence settled between the two women, Misato using the time to reflect on Mari's words and mentally kick herself for reading too much into them: whatever the true identity of the agent's benefactors, they were obviously an international organisation, so foregoing Japanese customs and embracing a more worldly approach to personal interactions made a lot of sense.

Misato felt a bit silly at the pang of jealousy that had come over her, even if it was largely irrelevant in the first place considering that the object of their conversation was already dead.

"…He was just… so. Damn. Nice." Mari eventually elaborated, and Misato's ears perked at the continuation of the topic, paying more attention than they had all night.

"I still remember the second or third time I spoke with Ryoji, shortly after his recruitment. I was out of my disguise, without the usual fake skin and hair, and I looked like… like a Robocop reject, as Asuka put it," Mari described with a mirthless chuckle. "He was shocked for a second when I introduced myself as the girl he had met in Germany, but it was only that, a second. After that, Ryoji was all smiles and charm, treating me exactly as he had during our first meeting, all smooth and bullshit. He didn't give a shit about how I looked, didn't give a shit about my circumstances. In time, he even offered to have some of his sources in Japan look into my forgotten past. Unlike everyone else at HQ, who were visibly put off whenever I was out of my disguises, he… saw beyond that, and accepted me for who I was.

"…Or that's the impression I got, anyway. He could have been faking it for all I know."

"…No, I think he was being honest," Misato replied, Mari's eyes quickly shifting in her direction. "For all of his faults, the Kaji I knew wouldn't do something like that. He was never one to burn his bridges with any woman."

"That's what I chose to believe, too," Mari agreed with a nostalgic smile. "The brass never treated me badly, but it was an impersonal relationship, you know? I was an agent and they were my handlers; a tool to be used in the pursuit of their objectives, nothing more than that. But then in came Ryoji with his charmer attitude and his jokes and…" The agent trailed off, eyes lost in a faraway place. "…It was nice. It felt good, feeling human.

"In time, I made a point of sticking around Germany whenever I wasn't occupied and we met occasionally when our schedules allowed. I really enjoyed those moments and I think he did, too, even if he probably saw me as just a fellow survivor of Second Impact, rather than anything else. Reality aside, I still looked far too young for him, after all.

"That didn't stop me from turning him into a second Saya without realising it, though."

"You… loved him?" Misato ventured after a steadying breath.

"I liked him, that's for sure. But any more than that? I don't even know if my body has the right parts for that sort of response anymore." Mari scoffed, narrowing her eyes at her fingers. After a second, her look softened. "But… I do miss him. A lot."

For the second time that night, Misato's hand moved without her approval, but the Major reined in her impulses on the second occasion. Rather than holding on to Mari's shoulder, Misato instead turned her stool back towards the bar and allowed her hand to rest on the wooden surface, a finger's distance away from Mari's.

"Yeah… I miss him, too."

No more words were shared between the two women that night, each lost to their own thoughts or recollections of times past. They both understood that an unspoken truce had been signed during their time together and that was enough.

Without a formal goodbye, they would both eventually go back to their own quarters but, in the end, Misato sat at the bar for far longer than she ever expected to.
Author of a few decent Eva stories, which can be found here.

Currently working on a new project: An Insider's Look

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Postby Gryphon117 » Fri Dec 31, 2021 1:29 pm

Hello everyone, happy new year! It's not much of an update, but here's a short little interlude before the end of 2021 (at least for me). Once again, sorry I haven't been able to update the story at all lately, but I simply don't currently have the time for it. I'm working full time this year and the preparations involved with that are taking a lot out of me and my scraps of writing time. To make matters worse, I now have to study for a tough exam that will be coming up next June, so that's going to make it so that I have even less time to write (gotta love life sometimes). It doesn't help that the next scene with Shinji is one that I have to plan out to the smallest detail and that, once again, I can't just sit down and do so.

So yeah. I'm still alive, I don't know when the next (proper) update will be, but it will happen at some point. In the meantime, enjoy your days and I'll see you guys when I see you. ^_^

Interlude 3  SPOILER: Show
"…And that is the extent of our report on the attack of the Sixteenth Angel."

With a flick of his fingers over the holographic screen, Kozo Fuyutsuki waved away the helping materials he had utilised for his explanation and put both hands behind his back, awaiting the feedback of the Committee. He stood next to the chair usually occupied by the Commander of NERV, which now remained empty.

"It is good to see that NERV was able to handle this crisis, extend our congratulations to your team," the French representative of the Committee praised, before nodding his head to the empty seat. "However, I would also like to voice the concern that no doubt has been in the minds of all present since the start of this conference: why are you the one currently reporting to us, Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki? Where is Ikari?"

"I apologise on his behalf," Fuyutsuki replied with a bow. "Commander Ikari is currently exceedingly busy handling the aftermath of the attack and directed me to report on his behalf. Had this meeting been scheduled in a day's time, he would have likely been able to do it himself."

"Nonsense," the American scoffed from the other end of the table. "Commander Ikari should already be aware that his priorities always lie with us."

"He knows that by heart, believe me. However, the last attack left the Headquarters drained and morale at an all-time low. Commander Ikari simply believed that personally touring the complex and ensuring the full commitment of the crew towards their duties was the best way to serve his purpose at this time."

"...Of course," China interjected. "We will accept this farce on this occasion, but it will not be a repeated occurrence."

"Certainly. If that will be all?"

"That will be all, indeed," Keel Lorenz spoke with finality, waving Fuyutsuki away with his hand. "Dismissed."

With a nod and one last formal bow, Fuyutsuki ended his connection to the conference and his avatar vanished from sight. A few seconds passed to ensure the man's departure before one by one, the remaining members of SEELE formally joined the meeting, foregoing their secretive black monoliths in favour of showing their faces to each other. It had been an unspoken agreement to do so since the death of the Sixteenth, the need for absolute secrecy and anonymity appearing less and less important in light of the quickly approaching culmination of their plans.

It was the fate of these men to spend eternity ruling together. It would not do to go into it without even knowing each other's faces.

"Ikari grows bolder with each passing day. Or do you think he was wary of showing his face before us after what he did?" SEELE-04 seethed. "In any case, how long are we to allow his insubordination?"

"It's already been far too long, in my opinion," SEELE-07 concurred. "Even if I'm loathe to admit it, though, managing to achieve the indefinite delay of two of our S2 engines was a masterful stroke on his part. Perhaps we underestimated Ikari's talents for subterfuge."

"Masterful or not, it changes nothing," SEELE-05 replied, with an expression that revealed his own thoughts on the matter. "The ceremony can still be initiated with only seven of our units."

"The situation leaves us with no room for further complications, however," 07 continued. "Therefore, I propose that we should move to hasten our initial timetable as much as possible."

"Is that a wise thing to do?" SEELE-11 questioned from the side.

"Would you rather give Ikari another opportunity to ruin everything we have achieved?"

"Of course not! But we cannot afford all our work to be undone by rash decision-making, either. Our schedules were made as they were for a reason."

A hum from one of the ends of the table brought the short discussion to a stop, all present turning to find SEELE-06, the Russian representative, deep in thought. He appeared to have been deep in his own contemplation since the very beginning of the meeting, completely oblivious to what was being discussed.

"Is there something on your mind?" the member right next to him prodded, bringing SEELE-06 back to reality.

"Mm? Oh, sorry if I was rude, it wasn't my intention." The man shook his head when he noticed all the attention on him. "I was just thinking about the... incident with the S2 engines and the link that our esteemed colleague quickly established with Ikari."

"Do you believe my assessment to be wrong?" SEELE-07 posed. 06, on the other hand, took a few seconds to reorganise his thoughts.

"…I'll admit, Ikari was the first culprit that came to my mind, as well, but this doesn´t feel like his usual MO. Ikari has never been one to openly strike at us, much less so in such an obvious manner."

"I agree, the finer details of this sabotage operation are completely unlike Ikari." SEELE-03 affirmed, then rebutted. "But couldn't it be that he just feels threatened by our position of power? That he's desperately lashing out with no regards for subtlety anymore because he fears his own plans are about to be undone?"

"The amount of heavy-duty weaponry our informants reported as being covertly smuggled into NERV further points to his guilt, I would say," SEELE-12 coincided. "What purpose could those arms serve other than as resistance to our inevitable coming? I bet those 'morale-boosting tours' he side-lined us for are mere recruitment drives for his own scenario, as well."

"...I don't know, that certainly could be the case. And I don't mean to completely dismiss your initial claims, since I have no proof I could use to point fingers at any other guilty party, but..." SEELE-06 trailed off, his eyes narrowing at an invisible point before him. "...Something stinks here, and I don't like it."

"All the more reason to move our plans forward at a brisk pace, I say." SEELE-07 concluded, requesting a show of hands from the other members. "Who else is with me?"

Slowly, hand after hand rose within the confines of the conference room, until the number of members in favour of the proposal won out with a comfortable eight to four ratio.

"Very well, then," Keel accepted, both his hands clasped together on top of his desk. "Send word to Tabris. He leaves for Tokyo-3 at the earliest opportunity."



>-O]|[O-<​



Piano music filled a lonely room, away from prying eyes and ears, the composer lost to the world as he devised a warm melody. His phone buzzed with the signs of an incoming message, but the pianist didn't allow the unwelcome interruption to break his focus, shifting his eyes for a mere second in acknowledgement but never stopping the movement of his deft fingers. It wasn't until minutes later, when the final notes of his song had fully vanished from the room, that the young man finally stood up and inspected the text.

It was a short message, a simple directive, rather. One that, while anticipated, still managed to bring a wry smirk to his face.

"They didn't even bother with a front this time. No fake ID, no convenient story, just 'go to Tokyo-3 and fulfil your purpose'." The young man pocketed the phone and moved to a comfortable seat that afforded him a view of the night sky outside his room. "Well, it's not like I get a choice, so who am I to argue?"

This would be one of his final nights in this world, he mused as he watched the relaxing twinkling of the stars, even if the thought didn't bother him, contrary to what could have been expected. Death had been a constant companion for as long as he could remember, so the summons to Tokyo-3 didn't fill young Kaworu Nagisa with dread, but rather joy at the opportunity that the yoke of his purpose always brought with it.

Kaworu quickly found his favourite star, the one that shone brightest and the second faithful companion of his existence, forever there to both greet him and bid him farewell. This time it would be no different, the young man accepted with a contented smile.

"I look forward to meeting you again, Ikari-kun."
Author of a few decent Eva stories, which can be found here.

Currently working on a new project: An Insider's Look

Gryphon117
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Re: An Insider's Look

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Postby Gryphon117 » Sun Sep 25, 2022 1:46 pm

When I last said that I was going to be busy, I didn't mean to leave this story sitting for close to a year. Sorry about that, but life has been busy. On brighter news, though, it is my intention to slowly begin to change all that again. I've settled in at a new job for the schoolyear and I should have more time in my hands to write, so I want to try and bring this story to its conclusion (or at the very least, mostly there) in the coming months.

This short update will be followed by a more meaty one in a couple of days. I've also got a pair of Shinji scenes finished in the backlog that I've decided to relocate to later down the story, but they shouldn't be too far away. In any case, I want to try and get back into a regular update schedule, so hopefully I will be dropping by more often for a while.

For now, hello again and enjoy. ^_^

Chapter 19-1  SPOILER: Show
Her friend had showed up at her doorstep unannounced, asking to spend the night. It had caught Hikari flat-footed, but she had hurried to try and make Asuka as comfortable as possible, nonetheless, keeping her questions about why she was there to herself. As far as Hikari was aware, Asuka was essentially confined to the Geofront until further notice, but one look at the redhead's eyes told her everything she needed to know.

As a result of their unexpected guest, dinner had been an awkward affair in the Horaki household, not even the rare presence of their father managing to distract them from the pit of negativity that came from Asuka's side of the table. The redhead spoke in monosyllables for the most part, physically with them but otherwise very, very far away. Her family had eventually begun to mostly ignore her, and Hikari honestly couldn't blame them. It was impossible to carry out a conversation when the other party just wasn't… there.

Since then, Asuka had been glued to Hikari's game system, and the brunette had been unable to figure out what to do or say for the better part of half an hour. It was clear that something awful was eating away at her friend, though.

"You're moving away, aren't you?" Asuka suddenly spoke up, turning to look behind her. "I saw the boxes."

Hikari nodded her head with a small wince, and Asuka mentally kicked herself at the gesture. That had come out far more accusatory than she had intended. "…Yeah. An evacuation order came out shortly after the last battle. The residents are being moved to a few camps in the Ibaraki area, but our family is going to move in with some relatives in Nagano, instead."

"So the entire eastern section is being kicked out of the city?" Asuka grunted. "I should have pushed the Angel a few clicks further out, I guess."

"Not just the eastern section. The order was for the entire city."

Asuka put down her controller and frowned at Hikari's correction. 'A full evacuation? Why? It's not like this is the first time the city has taken this much damage.'

"…Let's go to sleep."

"Ah… Y-Yeah!"

Hikari hurried to prepare the bed when Asuka suddenly switched the console off without warning, readying everything up by the time she stepped to her bedside. Lying on the side of the bed closer to the wall, Hikari invited Asuka to the other side of the bed, the redhead accepting without a single word. A flick of the light switch, and all was dark.

To no surprise, sleep was the very last thing on Hikari's mind at the time. For the longest time, the brunette just stared at the ceiling of her room, a hundred worries crossing her mind one after another. Asuka lay with her back to her, making it impossible to tell what she was doing, but Hikari suspected that sleep was even further away for her friend than it was for her.

"I finally beat an Angel by myself."

Asuka's sudden declaration confirmed her suspicions. By her cold tone, however, Hikari very much suspected that a 'Congratulations' was the very last thing Asuka wanted to hear at the moment, so she remained silent instead.

"Ever since I set foot in this damn city, that's what I wanted to happen. I wanted to fight one of those monsters one on one and defeat it, with no room for argument. I wanted everyone in the world to see what I could do, I wanted them to know that they need me.

"And I finally did it, I finally won. No one will doubt my abilities again, so I should feel happy about that. But I just… can't."

Hikari turned towards Asuka and nudged her on the shoulder, asking her to turn around. The redhead complied, but kept her head down and hiding her eyes, likely debating if she should continue.

"I told Misato I'm not going to pilot Unit-02 again."

"Why?"

"…You won't believe me."

"Try me."

Asuka peeked through her bangs to find Hikari's eyes unflinchingly looking at her, a first for the usually gentle-mannered brunette, she realised. And so, with a sigh, Asuka decided to humour her. She was unlikely to fall asleep tonight, anyway.

The first time Asuka had explained her situation to Misato, she had tried to make it as brief as possible and abstained from going into too much detail. At Hikari's urging, she didn't do the same this second time, and quickly found that it felt surprisingly cathartic to tell the extended story, to let someone she trusted know about everything that she had experienced these past few weeks: the good, the bad and the silly.

Through most of it, Hikari kept a serious face, asking questions at certain points to reassure Asuka that she was paying attention. The façade only broke for a second when Asuka spoke of her first 'meeting' with Shinji, Hikari remarking that the bizarre experience sounded similar to a manga she had once read, the comparison actually managing to get a chuckle out of her friend.

But before long, Asuka arrived at the retelling of the last battle and everything that came out of it: first with Rei's infection, then with the Fifth's betrayal, and finally with Shinji's silence. The brief cheer became grief and tight sobs, despite Asuka's attempts to hold them in, and Hikari slowly threw her arms around her. In a display that would have been unthinkable mere weeks ago, the Second Child didn't even attempt to escape the hold, reciprocating it as if it were a lifeline.

"…Hey, 'Kari?" Asuka eventually spoke, when the worst of her sobbing died down. "Sorry for making you listen to all this stuff. I bet you're still worried about Suzuhara, and here I am giving you even more crap to handle. Some friend I am."

"Stop that. This is what friends are for," Hikari reassured her, hugging a little bit tighter for emphasis. "Honestly, I'm a little mad that you didn't tell me about this earlier."

"What good would it have done? It's not like you could have done anything to help."

"Is that so?" Hikari protested, punctuating her words with a tighter squeeze. "What about what I'm doing right now? Is it not helping?"

"…I guess," Asuka conceded, looking away. "A little bit."

"Hey, Asuka. Look at me." Hikari continued, looking into her friend's blue eyes that had become red and swollen during end of her tale. "None of what happened is your fault. Shinji-kun will be alright. You will be alright."

A small, shaky smile adorned Asuka's face at the encouragement, before she buried her face on Hikari's shoulder once again.

"…Thanks, 'Kari."

'…If only I could believe that.'


>-O]|[O-<​


Hikari awoke the next morning to find that Asuka had left at some point during the night, where to she didn't know. A part of her wanted to leave her family to the packing and go find her friend for a final talk, but the reality was that even if she knew where to look, everything that needed to be said had probably been said already. It was unbearably frustrating, but the only thing Hikari could do now was hope that Asuka would be able to push through and that she would meet her friend again in the future.

Her sister Kodama's voice broke Hikari out of her musings, demanding she put the box she was carrying inside the van, and at that moment Hikari heard the sound of approaching footsteps. She followed Kodama's gaze to find a familiar woman in a black dress and red jacket, and the box Hikari was carrying swiftly met the ground.

"Good morning, Horaki-san. I hope you-"

The slap echoed across the small courtyard of the Horaki household, to Kodama's utter shock. The elder sister of the family quickly moved to admonish her sibling when Misato raised a hand in the girl's direction, stopping her.

"Don't worry, I deserved that," Misato raised a hand to her cheek with a wince. It was probably going to swell. "I suppose she told you everything?"

"Yes," Hikari tightly replied, checking the surroundings. "The other one's not with you?"

"No. And I don't know where Makinami is, so I'm afraid that slap will have to wait." Misato warily replied, as if she were twenty years younger. "…How was she?"

"She was a wreck. I spent half the night consoling her, and even then I don't think it did much good."

"I'm sorry you had to do that."

"You think that's the part I'm angry about?!" Hikari angrily stepped forward, grabbing on to the older woman's jacket. "Where were you for the past month?! How could you allow what happened to Asuka, to Shinji and to Ayanami?! Aren't you supposed to be their guardian?!"

"I understand you being angry at me, Horaki-san, but the reality of our situation isn't so cut and dry, especially right now." Misato evenly replied, putting her hands on top of Hikari's. "It may sound like an excuse to you, hell, it sounds like an excuse to me a lot of the time, but I did everything I could. I only learned about Asuka's situation yesterday evening, myself, and I simply can't act on what I don't know."

"She's fourteen, for crying out loud! And maybe she would have spoken to you about it if you weren't sending her and the others to die every other week! It's a miracle that Toji's accident was the only tragedy for so long!"

"Forgive me, Horaki-san, but I'm on two hours of sleep myself and I don't want to argue with someone who doesn't know even half of what's going on," the Major firmly stated, gently prying Hikari's hands away from her jacket. Even if she didn't have a pounding headache at the time, there was no use in continuing this conversation when the girl was clearly unwilling to listen. Not that Misato could blame her. "Just know that if you think this is any easier for me than it is for you, you're dead wrong. I didn't come here to speak about Asuka, anyway."

"Why are you here, then?" Hikari demanded, her mouth a thin line.

"I managed to badger some information on the Suzuhara situation out of my… current superiors, I guess. I thought you'd want to know," Hikari's ears quickly perked up at the name, and Misato took that as her cue to continue. "He's safe at the JSADF airbase at Matsushima, but I have no idea what he's actually doing there. I've heard of some prototype testing being done in the place some years back, but that's everything I know. Sorry I can't be more help."

"Thank you, Katsuragi-san. Don't worry about it," Hikari replied, her frown softening just a little bit. "Knowing Toji is safe is good enough for now."

"…Also, there is a favour I wanted to ask of you." Misato continued, and the return of the girl's full-blown glare reminded the Major of the many times she had angered her teachers back in her college days. "As you know, the entire city is being evacuated, which means that with all services being unavailable topside I'm going to spend most of my time cooped up in the Geofront and away from my apartment, so-"

"You want me to take Pen-Pen with us." Hikari cut in, making Misato wince and look away sheepishly. "Katsuragi-san? I'll gladly take care of Pen-Pen, but there's something I want to ask you for in return."

"Sure, go ahead."

"When this is all over, I want to see Asuka again." Hikari demanded. "And I'm not talking about the pilot of Unit-02. I want to see my friend again. Can you promise me that?"

Misato resolutely nodded her head. "I can promise you that I will be dead before I allow anything else to happen to Asuka."

"…Good enough." Hikari bowed respectfully to the older woman and walked back to her now fully gathered family, without another look. "We will pick up Pen-Pen on our way out of the city. Goodbye, Katsuragi-san. Stay safe."
Author of a few decent Eva stories, which can be found here.

Currently working on a new project: An Insider's Look

Gryphon117
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Re: An Insider's Look

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Postby Gryphon117 » Tue Sep 27, 2022 7:08 am

Here's the update I promised the last time. I'll also make certain that the next one doesn't require a multi-month waiting period.

Enjoy! ^_^

Chapter 19-2  SPOILER: Show
Just as soon as he made it to Tokyo-3, Kaworu's feet carried him to the spot where he had first met him all that time ago, only to find it more or less intact. There was no massive gouge on the earth caused by the self-destruction of an Evangelion unit, as was usually the case, but the young man didn't let that fact deter him. The signs of battle often changed places between cycles, but the person he was looking for was almost certain to follow those changes, as well, so with that in mind Kaworu continued further east until he came upon a massive hole in the ground.

With a smile and a newfound spring to his step, Kaworu circled the massive hole while keeping an eye out for the person he wanted to meet, eagerly looking forward to their reunion. Before long, the young man noticed a lone figure sitting in the distance and quickened his steps, but he also found his expectations dashed not too long after.

After all, Shinji Ikari wasn't the one he found sitting at the crater's edge.

"Who the hell are you?" a familiar redheaded Lilim demanded when he approached, wary but calm. Her security detachment had done nothing to stop this guy, so it was unlikely that he was a threat.

Kaworu Nagisa, for his part, barely managed to keep a grimace from showing on his face.

His interactions with the Second Child, while never a guaranteed event, were more often than not brief and markedly unpleasant. Even during the few past instances when the Second Child had not been depressed and aggressive for one reason or another and his stay at Tokyo-3 had been extended, Kaworu had found their respective personalities to be absolutely incompatible: the female Lilim's loud and brash declarations grated on his nerves, and his calm and often sarcastic rebuttals only served to incense her further, creating a disastrous feedback loop between the both of them.

Simply put, the both of them didn't mix, but that was fine by Kaworu. Frankly speaking, he had never held much of an interest in the Second Child even at the best of times, beyond the fact that she was usually close to Shinji Ikari, in one way or another.

"So you're my replacement, then?" the female Lilim used his silence to quickly reach her own conclusions. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it was this quick. Akagi did mention that she was ready to replace me back then and the glasses-bitch turned out to be a fraud. It makes sense that the legitimate backup Pilot would be ready to sortie at a moment's notice."

It would appear that the Second Child had lost her Pilot status in this cycle, as well, but Kaworu was glad to at least see her walking around the city rather than lying comatose in bed. That likely spoke of a more positive upturn of her circumstances, which he approved of. Kaworu didn't particularly like this Lilim, but he didn't wish harm upon her, either.

Her hastily reached conclusions, however, while on point for most cycles, were completely wrong on this occasion.

"Excuse me, but I'm afraid you're mis-"

"Drop the act, moron. I don't care," the Lilim rudely cut him off, waving him away with her hand. "You don't need to spare any feelings, so have fun with my EVA and kill the rest of the Angels or whatever. Just leave me the hell alone."

Kaworu was struck silent by the female Lilim's words. The Second Child was usually tied to her Evangelion unit to the point of obsession, so the fact that she was being so dismissive of it on this occasion was a definite change of pace.

"I insist. I just arrived on this city, but I'm not an Evangelion pilot."

"…Right. You realise that you arrived at the exact same time the entirety of the city is scheduled for evacuation, mister not-Pilot guy? Do I have to spell out what makes it obvious for you?"

"Obvious or not, it doesn't change the fact that you're mistaken. I have business at NERV, true, but it doesn't involve piloting any Evangelions." Kaworu continued, taking a seat on the crater's edge for himself. "In fact, my stay here will be far too brief for any of that."

"…I see," the Second Child replied, realising but not acknowledging her mistake, as per usual. "Well, don't let me stop you then. I'm sure you're very busy."

"You're not keeping me, I assure you. This is simply a spot I like to visit."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "…You like to stare at craters?"

"Not exactly. But even if that were the case, I don't believe I'm the only one in that group as of this moment."

The Lilim held her gaze for a few moments, obviously debating whether the verbal jab was worthy of a retort. Eventually, she turned back to the crater with a scoff. "…Whatever."

Kaworu raised an eyebrow at yet another one of his assumptions quickly being challenged. Despite her overall hostile demeanour, the Second Child was being remarkably subdued during their conversation, a rarity in most cycles Kaworu could recall. Pairing that with her apparent disregard for her position as a Pilot made this situation even more peculiar, easily something that the young man couldn't have experienced more than a handful of times, if even that.

There was also that mention of a 'glasses-bitch' that was unfamiliar to him. The First Child had worn glasses on rare occasions, but Kaworu doubted that she was the one the Second Child was referring to. The terms 'doll', 'freak' or 'Wondergirl' were the ones usually reserved for Lilith's avatar.

The extent of this deviation made Kaworu more curious than he would usually have been, and so he carefully studied the female Lilim a few steps away from him. Once again, the results shocked him, and he noticed something markedly different about her very being, a slight and almost imperceptible shift he had never witnessed before. And yet those tiny traces he perceived felt strikingly familiar, somehow.

"Take a picture, it will last longer."

The Second Child's angry muttering shook him out of his trance, but didn't deter him. This situation demanded further investigation, the young man quickly decided.

"I'm sorry for staring. I was just thinking that you looked troubled."

"And let me guess, you're more than willing to hear all about my troubles and tell me everything I need to hear, right?" she growled back. "I've heard better pick-up lines, not-Pilot guy, and I'm not interested."

"Neither am I. I'm just making conversation and trying to help at the same time. Think about it, does it matter if a stranger that you're never going to meet again knows about your worries? If it eases your mind even the smallest bit, I'd say that you only stand to gain."

The Lilim continued to glare at him for a few moments, likely a second or two away from verbally berating him and storming away in anger. Kaworu had resigned himself to that outcome when the Second Child's features suddenly softened, and she turned back to the crater with a shrug.

"…I guess. Eh, what the hell. What's one more time?"

Kaworu was certain that his shock at the success of that approach must have shown, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

His conversation with the Second Child proved very insightful and confirmed that this cycle deviated far more than he could have ever expected: for one, Shinji Ikari was the one comatose in the NERV cranial ward and a military takeover of NERV had somehow occurred without SEELE's knowledge. Kaworu was certain that the latter was a development that his benefactors would have been dying to know about, but since status reports were not among his obligations in this cycle he was more than happy to leave them in the dark.

Shinji's situation weighed in his mind a lot more, on the other hand. The Second Child had been vague in her retelling, never going into further detail than a 'teammate' being hospitalised in the aftermath of the Fifteenth. The fact that the First Child continued to appear in her story and that the whole situation seemed to majorly bother her made the identity of said teammate obvious, however. Some sort of feud had also recently developed between the Second Child and Shinji Ikari's backup (the mysterious glasses-bitch, if Kaworu had to guess), but the female Lilim didn't go into detail there, either. It must have been major for her to be so furious about it, though.

Then again, Kaworu had known the Second Child to be irrational at times. Or fairly often, rather.

In any case, Kaworu allowed himself some satisfaction at helping to abate the turmoil within the Second Child a bit, even though an explanation for the small changes he continued to sense in her still eluded him. He was unlikely to get a straight answer out of her during an extended chat, however, assuming that the Lilim was even aware of the change, so Kaworu decided that he had learned everything that he needed to: if Shinji Ikari was to be found at NERV, his business here was done. He muttered a half-hearted farewell to the Second Child and walked away from the crater, with NERV HQ as his new destination.

He had barely made it to ten steps when her voice stopped him once more.

"Hey, not-Pilot guy! You said you're heading to NERV, right?"

Kaworu turned back towards the Second Child. Her arms were on her hips and anger burned in her eyes, but that anger was not directed at him.

"That's right, yes."

"Well, if you happen to meet a girl about my age wearing red glasses while you're in there, will you give her a nice smack in the face for me? I'd do it myself, but I'm not in a hurry to go back down there."

Kaworu blinked at the strange demand for aggression, spoken as casually as a chat about the weather.

"…And why would I do that? This person has done nothing to me."

"Come on! I just spent the last ten minutes playing along with all your questions! Don't you owe me a favour or two?"

'And the repayment of a self-allotted favour warrants wanton violence for you, Second Child? The more things change, the more they stay the same, I suppose.'

"…Alright, fine. I will do as you ask, if the chance arises." Kaworu agreed, deciding it was the quickest way to his final objective. He had no desire for a delaying confrontation of his own with the Second Child.

"Great! That's a promise, not-Pilot guy! Have a nice day and all that." The female Lilim began to wave him away before she stopped and quickly turned towards him again. "Oh, right! Remember to go for the cheek, okay?"

Kaworu raised an eyebrow at the peculiar advice but promptly pushed it out of his mind as the Second Child proceeded to ignore him and sit next to the crater again. NERV was massive, so the chances of bumping into that specific person she had described during his brief stay were astronomically low, anyway. Knowing that didn't stop a sigh from escaping him, however.

'…What a troublesome Lilim.'



>-O]|[O-<​



Cranial ward room 303 had not seen visitors in quite some time, Kaworu quickly deduced. The lights had been dimmed when he had first entered, a thin layer of dust rested atop most of the furniture in the room and the flowers he had just replaced had also seen better days. The life-support machinery beeped at a constant rhythm and a figure rested in the bed, but if not for those two factors this room could have easily been mistaken for one of the many empty hospital rooms within NERV HQ. Lingering remnants of at least six other Lilim could be sensed in the room, but most of them felt at least a week old, maybe older.

The thought that his dear friend could have been left all but forgotten in this corner of the world filled Kaworu with something approaching anger, but he fought the feeling down. Instead, he focused his attention on the slumbering young man, quickly finding to his surprise that there was little to focus on. The body on the bed was almost an empty husk but still very much alive, with few traces of the soul he had come to know and care for remaining in it. It was something that Kaworu was grateful for, but also something that shouldn't have been possible: a Lilim body couldn't survive with its partnered soul missing, after all.

It was then that the familiar traces he had found in the unlikeliest of sources promptly came to his mind.

"…So that's what it was." Kaworu spoke and barely refrained from smacking his forehead, much of what had bothered him about this cycle quickly clicking together. "Arael must have truly been a trying time for you to find yourself in this strange situation, my friend."

Despite the novelty of the situation, Kaworu couldn't say that he was truly surprised. After all, the three Angels that usually preceded his arrival proved a great test to Shinji and the others, more often than not. Sacrifices were made and hardships endured in almost every cycle, the aftermath of many Angel attacks proving bizarre in many occasions, but this iteration's development proved truly unique, so far. Kaworu couldn't claim that he had ever witnessed Shinji and the Second Child, or anyone else, apparently cohabitating in a single body. Such a strange development made him wish he could see how the following events would play out.

A pity that he was fated never to witness any of those possibilities.

"…I wish there was something I could do for you, other than make my duty as unobtrusive as possible and hope for your swift recovery. It does fill me with sadness that I won't be able to speak with you on this occasion, though." Kaworu admitted, a deep sadness clouding his eyes for a short second. "But perhaps that's for the best. It would have been a painfully brief affair, anyway, so it might be better for the current you not to know me at all. What do you say?"

The constant beeping of the machinery in the room was all the answer his question received.

"I will take that as a sign of your agreement, my friend." Kaworu smiled, affectionately resting his hand on the sleeping young man's forehead. The silver haired being remained motionless for a long moment, savouring the sensation, before he pulled back with a resolute nod. "…I wish the very best for you, Shinji-kun. Farewell."

Kaworu turned and made for the door, but found it opened on its own before he could reach out for it. On the other side of the threshold stood a female Lilim in a standard NERV uniform, just as surprised as he was, although he suspected the source of their shock to be completely different: she was likely surprised to see someone else in this room, while Kaworu was amazed at the fact that he didn't know this Lilim.

Kaworu could identify every single Lilim with the potential to be in NERV HQ within this timeframe, a long list of candidates that had not changed at all in far too many cycles to keep track of.

Until now.

The Lilim's blue eyes quickly shifted to the main occupant of the room, a hint of panic in them. Those same blue eyes were framed by a pair of striking red glasses, and allowed him to quickly put two and two together.

Kaworu Nagisa prided himself in being both a good listener and a 'man' of his word. And so, despite his reservations, he made certain to go for the cheek.
Author of a few decent Eva stories, which can be found here.

Currently working on a new project: An Insider's Look

Gryphon117
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Re: An Insider's Look

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Postby Gryphon117 » Tue Oct 25, 2022 9:19 am

Here's the next update, everyone. It took me a while and some rewrites to get it finished and, while I'm not 100% in love with it, I believe it's serviceable enough to keep the ball rolling. Kaworu will get one more update to shine after this and then we're likely going back to tieing things up on Shinji's end.

After that, it's probably endgame time. ^_^

Chapter 19-3  SPOILER: Show
She wasn't sure what she had done to piss that guy off, but the fact that the punch he had thrown had succeeded at knocking her off her feet was enough to put Mari on full alert. She jumped back to her feet and turned the nearest corner, putting distance between them to plan her future course of attack. Mari quickly noticed that he didn't try to follow, and promptly decided to fall back and strengthen herself with additional weapons; the offensive means on her person were limited in various ways and there was no way that skinny-looking guy was a regular human.

Who was he, then? A SEELE agent, augmented like she was? None of the intel they had on the organisation implied they were big on cybernetics, outside of maybe Kihl Lorentz himself, but that didn't necessarily prevent the existence of an agent or two. If the guy was SEELE and they had caught wind of their presence in NERV, that wouldn't be good at all. On the other hand, maybe a different party had stalked them the same way they had stalked SEELE, and were just now revealing themselves. That would be a potential improvement to a loose SEELE agent, but not by much.

Or perhaps he was a human-shaped Angel that had infiltrated HQ. The bastards had a history of creative infiltration and contact tactics, so Mari really wouldn't put it past them, and from the glimpse she had managed to catch his eyes had looked remarkably similar to Ayanami's. That third option would probably be the worst case scenario, all things considered.

"Arthur, this is Morgan! We have a situation, come in! Arthur! Come in!" Mari yelled at the hundreds of security cameras all over HQ while she ordered doctors and nurses back into their rooms, but received no answer at all from the new Commander. "Dammit! The comms are down? When did that happen?!"

She tried several different frequencies with her own personal comm-link but found no success at raising either Arthur or any of her other comrades. Sprinting down the hallways, Mari ducked into an armoury room and grabbed a combat vest and a submachinegun, stuffing some extra magazines and a grenade into the pockets before grabbing a high-calibre handgun for good measure and running out again with a specific destination in mind.

If the guy was an infiltrator, Mari could trust the rest of the operatives at HQ to eventually find and neutralise him once they figured out the communications issues, if they hadn't already. With that in mind, Mari focused on the more dangerous option that was looking more and more likely by the second, knowing that if the silver-haired man was really an Angel, there were only two places he could be heading.

Her instincts proved correct, and she found the infiltrator in the EVA gantries, staring up at the Evangelions. Mari quickly trained the submachinegun's sights on him, noticing with relief that the robots appeared unharmed. "FREEZE!"

The silver-haired man's eyes turned to her for a moment, and Mari heard the door shut closed behind her. At almost the same time, the door on the far side of the gantry opened to reveal a squad of fully armed operatives, no doubt sent to scout the area on the same grounds she had.

"Morgan! We're here to-!"

The young man flicked his gaze towards the other door and it shut closed again, the furious banging that followed indicating that it had also been securely locked, somehow. Figuring that her own door had also been locked, Mari clicked her tongue in annoyance at finding herself alone with a very likely Angel. She ran some distance calculations in her head while the silver-haired man turned to fully regard her with a smile, concluding that while she could fire from here, her submachinegun would much prefer to be closer.

"Who are you?" she demanded, keeping her sights trained on the figure and slowly stepping forward. He didn't appear to mind either action. "Are you an Angel?"

"I am Tabris, though you will likely identify me as the Seventeenth Angel, indeed," the young man politely confirmed her fears. "It is my duty to reach the deepest pit of your fortress and commune with the one you hold prisoner there, so that we may wipe you usurpers off this planet and make way for its legitimate caretakers."

The few cycles in which Kaworu had decided to go to Adam's actual location had not ended well for most Lilim involved. As a result, he had since resigned himself to the inevitability of certain parts of his role, like the need to go down to Terminal Dogma, and this short and well-practised speech had proven good enough at spurring all parties into motion since the cycle Tabris had started using it. On this occasion, however, the young Lilim behind the weapon stared back with a mixed look of surprise and confusion on her face.

"Is something the matter?"

"Talking Angel aside, I was just thinking that you sounded awfully bored for someone that just threatened us with genocide on a planetary scale."

Kaworu wondered if his surprise showed on his face. It was true that the novelty of playing the supervillain had worn off after the first thousand or so cycles, and that he strongly suspected his recent speeches had not been nearly as powerful or intimidating as they had once been, but this was the first time someone had actually confirmed it for him. Most Lilim tended to regard the threat to their existence as far more important than the way it was conveyed, after all.

"Anyway," Mari continued, slowly inching closer. "Since we are talking for the moment, I suppose there is no way I could convince you to peacefully back down, mister Tabris?"

She even asked for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, despite being armed to the teeth. It was an obvious ploy for time, of course, but Kaworu could still detect some sincerity behind the Lilim's words. Similar situations had only happened with Shinji before, and only during cycles in which they spent more time together. This girl was a very curious Lilim, indeed.

For a second, Kaworu wondered how she would react if he actually agreed to her request. He suspected that her face would be worthy of a picture, but even in a best case scenario the olive-branch would ultimately prove pointless. After all, even if Kaworu resolved to delay it as much as possible, it would only be a matter of time before his urges pushed him towards his fate.

"That is indeed impossible, I'm afraid." He rejected the offer with a heavy heart.

"I thought as much, just my luck. Diplomacy is always worth a shot, though."

The Lilim wasted no time in opening fire with her weapon, the bullets harmlessly bouncing off Kaworu's AT-Field. He kept the hexagonal barrier focused to his front and tried to make it as efficient as possible, for even if it were true that the light of his soul could rival that of his most devastating brothers', the same couldn't be said for the strain that would put on his artificial Lilim body. A full strength AT-Field covering the entire area would barely last a few seconds before Kaworu's body literally fell to pieces.

'Not that handguns will prove enough of a threat to require that. I'll just let her unload for a bit and move on with…' Kaworu stopped his laid-back musings, noticing that the Lilim had taken a large item out of a pocket and pulled a pin with her teeth, never letting go of the trigger. '…Is that a grenade?'

Kaworu tried to jump back and extend the short distance between them the moment he recognised the weapon, but it was too late, the grenade landing square at his feet and forcing him to strengthen his barrier for a second. Smoke, noise and shrapnel enveloped him, but Kaworu's worries weren't focused on what would prove yet another ineffective attack.

'What's she thinking?! There is no way she wasn't caught in the blast!'

Kaworu quickly focused his senses on any nearby signs of life, and breathed a sigh of relief when he detected the female Lilim amidst the clearing smoke, still alive. In his relief, however, he failed to notice that those same signs were still active and rushing towards him until the Lilim emerged from the smoke, firing an oversized pistol at his head and looking like a beast out of hell.

He managed to put up a barrier at the last second, deflecting the bullets to the side and preparing to block the left hook the Lilim was throwing with his right arm. Kaworu noticed large pieces of shrapnel stuck to the girl's forearms and torso but, much to his surprise, the Lilim seemed easily able to ignore what should have been agonising pain. The reason why became clear when a black blade popped out of the girl's left arm and ripped the skin away, revealing a metallic sheen beneath.

Kaworu barely had time to put up a barrier for the harmless punch that had suddenly turned into a deadly stab to his neck. A roundhouse kick followed, another blade popping out of the Lilim's calves and aimed at his torso. Kaworu tried to step back but that only served to force him into deflecting two more bullets before the Lilim was back in his face again, punching and kicking and prodding him from every angle imaginable in her search for an opening.

She was relentless, and Kaworu was endlessly thankful to the narrow catwalk for limiting this Lilim's movements. Had it not been for that disadvantage, and given enough time, Kaworu strongly suspected that the strange girl might have been eventually able to overpower this limited Lilim vessel of his. She was already making good time towards that, as it were.

But it was not Kaworu's time to die. Not yet.

"ENOUGH!" he shouted, extending his AT-Field to its strongest and knocking the Lilim back to the other end of the catwalk, next to the door she had used to enter. She easily landed on her feet and wasted no time in reloading her weapons, keeping a wary eye on him as he tried to get his breathing back under control. He had extended his full strength for barely a fraction of a second, but that was still enough to take a toll on his body.

'What was that?!' Kaworu's mind was in overdrive as he looked at the Lilim's arms and legs in quick succession, failing to make sense of what his eyes were telling him. 'Not only have I never seen her, she's some sort of… mechanical hybrid? Shinji-kun's situation was strange enough, but this? What is going on in this cycle?!'

"Hey, why aren't you fighting back?" the Lilim demanded, narrowing her eyes at him and breaking him out of his thoughts.

"Would you… go out of your way to kill a fly when swatting it away will do?" Kaworu mumbled, still too frazzled to get his mind out of supervillain mode. The half-girl's dissecting gaze turned flat in turn, her eyes saying 'I was absolutely kicking your ass until a moment ago, you know?' without requiring any words.

"That's kinda harsh. Couldn't you make me a bee, at least? I've got my stingers and everything." The Lilim kept on with the conversation, extending an arm-blade to illustrate her point. She then pointed at her right cheek with an amused look. "Also, all that talk about swatting doesn't hold when you've already punched me, you know?"

"My apologies." Kaworu bowed his head a bit, looking genuinely ashamed. "I was… coerced into doing that, you could say. It wasn't personal."

"Coerced, huh?" the Lilim echoed, gripping her handgun tighter. "The one who 'coerced' you better be alright."

"Don't worry, the Second Child is in perfect health. So is Ikari-kun, before you ask."

Mari locked her eyes on the silver-haired man before her, scrutinising him for details and finding his trademark soft smile surprisingly honest. She let out a momentary sigh of relief at its admission, but quickly realigned her submachinegun and pierced the Angel with her gaze again.

"…Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are they okay? Why haven't you hurt me? I know you can," Mari demanded. "You are an Angel, and you clearly know we are the pilots of the only things that can stop you. Why not neutralise us when given the chance?"

Kaworu seemed to wonder something to himself as he held the girl's stare, but ultimately shook his head with yet another pretty-boy smile. Mari was quickly beginning to find that smile extremely infuriating.

"That is for me to know, I'm afraid. For now, however, I believe it's time that you stop being a fly. Surely you have realised that as well, haven't you?" Kaworu turned away from her, staring at the gigantic frame of Unit-02. "Allow me to give you a hint, for safe measure."

Kaworu focused his attention on the crimson titan and commanded it to bend to his will as he had done countless times in the past. To his surprise, however, he felt a presence pushing back against his will, fragmented but familiar. As a result, nothing happened, Evangelion Unit-02 failing to activate under his orders. A rare occurrence, but one not completely unknown to him.

"…Hmm? It seems your soul is awake enough to refuse me entrance," Kaworu murmured to himself, turning to the still damaged Unit-00 instead. "The backup it is, then."

There were no setbacks on his second try, the weakened soul within Unit-00's feeble attempts to fight back being squashed by the strength of his will. The blue-titan's single eye flared to life and its muscles activated, and Kaworu's ears caught a shocked gasp that came from the other end of the catwalk.

"Lilim-made puppets from the Father's flesh are vulnerable to my control if sufficiently weakened." Kaworu stated without being prompted, hopping onto the railing and jumping off the catwalk. The young man floated to Unit-00's shoulder and looked at the back wall of the gantry, the blue titan obeying the silent command by breaking free of its restraints and stomping to the designated area. Kaworu then turned back to the awestruck Lilim one more time while Unit-00 made short work of the reinforced wall. "But enough talk, I must go now. You should make haste, yourself."

The wall collapsed, and Evangelion and Angel both quickly escaped through under Mari's shell-shocked gaze, her mind struggling to assess what she had just witnessed. It wasn't until a massive purple hand grabbed hold of the catwalk that Mari broke off her trance, turning to find Unit-01 already active and intensely looking at her.

"…Right, sorry. I'm still here." Mari shook her head and abandoned her combat vest and weapons on the catwalk, quickly jumping on Unit-01's extended hand and clambering up to the Entry Plug. She settled in place and ran through the manual start-up sequence, a comm-link reaching her as soon as she established synchronisation.

"Agent Morgan. I require a status update."

"It's an Angel, Arthur. It just hijacked Unit-00 and ripped open a hole out of the gantry. It's heading to the Terminal Dogma shaft and I'm on pursuit," Mari briefed, ripping out the EVA's restraints and hurrying through the open hole. "Where's Sohryu?"

"I'm afraid that the Second Child has doggedly refused all demands for her to take part in this operation," Arthur stated, creating a link to HQ's defensive sensors past whatever jamming the Angel had managed to set up. To her annoyance, Mari quickly found that it had already entered the main shaft. "We have unfortunately been forced to detain and escort her back to HQ, but judging by the situation you described she will almost certainly prove unable provide support in time."

'That's assuming she would even climb into Unit-02 to begin with,' Mari mentally grumbled, passing a hand over her eyes. '…Goddammit, Asuka.'
Author of a few decent Eva stories, which can be found here.

Currently working on a new project: An Insider's Look


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