Angels, Heaven, and Earth by Ken Arromdee Chapter 1 Friendly Angel, Come To Me And it was evening, and it was morning, Akuma's first day at Tokyo-3. Akuma leisurely put on his new school uniform. At least NERV provided him with those. He was just finished buttoning his vest when he heard a knock on the door. "Hello?" answered Akuma. "It's me, Shinji. You wanted to know where the school was, so we could walk there together. Open up." "Oh. Right, I did", said Akuma. "You mean we have to be there this early?" "It starts at 8. It's 7:40. We'll be late." "It what?" replied Akuma. He wouldn't be late, he could just telep-- no, wait, he couldn't. Not with Shinji around waiting to go with him. Why did he ever agree to this? "Shinji, how far away is it?" "It's twenty minutes away." Figures, thought Akuma. "Hold on! Just another minute...." Akuma rushed around the room fast enough to blow loose papers around, combing his hair in fifteen seconds, collecting his notebooks and searching for his keys. "Okay!" he said. opening the door. Shinji's eyes alit on a yet-unmade bed. Akuma caught his glance and said "Never mind that. We have to go, right?" He quickly closed the door on the sloppiness and let Shinji lead the way out. But there was still something else he had to do. Halfway down the street, Akuma pointed to a spot on the horizon. "Shinji, look over there!" he exclaimed. "Isn't that the Eva?" Shinji turned, just as Akuma had expected. "No, that's a water tank", he replied. Not that Akuma didn't know that. But the question served its purpose. In the few seconds it took for Shinji to turn away, Akuma split in two, one of himself quickly floating away through a wall. Shinji rapidly turned back towards Akuma, then shook his head and shrugged, as if something just eluded him. "I thought I saw..." "What?" asked Akuma. "I thought I saw someone floating behind you. From the corner of my eye. You looked a little distracted... maybe you saw it too." "No", said Akuma. "I didn't see anything... what did it look like?" "Not sure. I saw Rei like that once. One moment she was there, and the next, she was gone. Anyway, we'd better get moving." * * * * * Akuma was more than a little distracted. He had double thoughts, so he could control both bodies separately, but he wasn't really two separate people, and he had to constantly assimilate two sets of experiences both going on at the same time. Parallel processing on the same CPU, his grandmother compared it to. Gathering his strength, he--the he in the wall--concentrated. The world shimmered around him and he was at the train station. That should be far enough. Akuma picked up a phone, deposited his 100 yen, and dialed. "Hello? Jurai Sasami speaking." "Hi, Aunt Sasami? It's me, Akuma. I'm just calling like Mom asked so I can tell her and Dad that I'm here and I'm safe and everything worked out fine and despite what they said I really am getting a chance to pilot a giant robot. Are they there?" Akuma heard the sound of someone grabbing the phone. "Hey, watch it", said Sasami faintly on the other end. "Akuma-chan? It's so good to hear from you. Are you having fun?" asked Ryouko. "Yeah, we're glad you called", said Tenchi. Akuma imagined his mother and father on the other end, his mother pushing her face close to his father's regardless of any feeble protestations. "Yeah. I got really lucky and I'm going to be a pilot. There must be twenty kids my age here and they picked me. I hardly met any of them yet though." "Make any new friends yet?" asked Tenchi. "One. His name's Shinji. He's had a really bad family life and I sort of feel sorry for him. He feels sorry for himself a lot too." "How's your dorms?" asked Tenchi. "They're terrible. I think there's some kind of mistake, though. Shinji says his is much better. Oh, and the cafeteria food is decent, you don't have to worry if I'm going to be eating well." "Seen any girls you like?" asked Ryouko. "Mom, I've only been here for around nine hours, not counting sleep. I haven't met anyone except Shinji and a few people from Marduk and some of them sounded really creepy. I-- oooof." Akuma felt a sensation in his intestines. "Akuma-chan, are you using the restroom while you're split in two?" Yes, he was. Well, his other half was. "Ah, eh. Mom, I'm in a hurry." "Akuma-chan, I hope you're being careful about all your powers", said Tenchi. "The existence of Jurai is probably a bigger secret than those robots you're getting to use, and it would be best if we kept it that way." "All right, Dad. It's not like anyone can see me doing this. Look, I'll call you later, okay? Classes are going to start and I don't want to stay in two places for another hour." "Okay, Akuma-chan", said Ryouko. "Bye, and we love you", she said, Tenchi joining in only a few moments after she started. Akuma hung up the phone, ran to where nobody could see him, and teleported back to the school, where he was in a restroom stall, waiting. He merged his two bodies together (his waste luckily merging in the toilet) and ran out. * * * * * Akuma stood at the front of the class and introduced himself. "I'm Masaki Akuma, age 14", he said, writing the kanji on the blackboard. "Nice to know you." The class all introduced themselves in response, one row at a time. Akuma paid particular attention to the other Children. Shinji, of course, he had already met. Asuka, sitting to the right of his own desk, was a red-haired foreigner who turned up her nose at him as she gave him her name. She didn't seem as depressed as Shinji, but Akuma wasn't sure if that was good or bad. Sitting way to the back of the classroom, and near a window, was the other Child, Ayanami Rei. Her hair was unnaturally pale, and her eyes were red. He had never seen eyes like those before. Not only that, but the longer Akuma looked at her, the more something about her felt very wrong. She never looked anywhere else except at the teacher and at her work, not even out the window. She didn't doodle, scratch itches, yawn, or do any of the little things anyone else would do. No wonder Shinji thought she was so strange. Akuma waited through all the introductions. Suzuhara Touji. Douki Hikari. All the others. As he sat down, he resolved to find out about that strange girl that seemed so mysterious. * * * * * Akuma ate his lunch quickly. He walked over to Rei, vaguely suspecting that talking to her would be completely useless, but intending to meet her anyway and see on his own how much she was like the rumors. "Hello, Ayanami-san", he said. "Hello." "So where are you from?" Rei just stared at her books emotionlessly, not answering. Akuma stammered a little and asked a very important question. "Do you have a boyfriend, Rei?" There, he said it. Rei looked up and quietly said "No", then looked down again. Akuma thought a while, not knowing how to continue his thought, and finally asked "What's it like piloting the Eva?" "It's what Commander Ikari orders to me to do", replied Rei nonchalantly. Not exactly an answer to the question. "Hah. Give it up", said Touji. "You're talking to Ayanami Rei there. She's worse than Shinji used to be. Nobody knows anything about her, and she won't tell anyone. It's like she's from a completely different planet." No, thought Akuma. That, he could deal with. "Is she...", said Akuma, and hesitated, finally swirling a finger in the air near his head. "Is she sick?" "Not as far as anyone knows", replied Touji. "And she's been like that as long as I've been here." He looked at his lunch but, glimpsing Hikari near himself watching his every move, forced himself to take several more bites. "My father brought her here", explained Shinji. "I don't understand it. She hardly shows any feelings herself but she's the only one who can get him to show any towards anyone else." "Isn't that right, Rei?" said Touji, poking her with a chopstick from the lunch Hikari gave him. Rei grabbed the chopstick from Touji, before he could react, and let it drop from her fingers onto her desk. "Talk to Commander Ikari", she replied. * * * * * After classes finished for the day, Touji took Akuma aside. "So you're the Fourth Child?" "Right." "You know, Kensuke wanted to be chosen as the Fourth Child." "Oh. Anyway, I have to go now. Since I'm the Fourth Child, I need to do synchronization tests." Akuma began to walk away. "I should have been there hours earlier without ever coming to school, but they delayed it." "Not so fast. Tell me." Touji grabbed Akuma's shoulder. "You suddenly come in from nowhere and you get a job that a lot of us would envy. Who are your parents? What kind of promises did you make in order to get picked? If you can tell them to make you a pilot, can you tell them to bring my sister here?" "I just got lucky. My parents have nothing to do with this place. I didn't tell anyone anything." He took Touji's arm by the wrist, and moved it off of his shoulder. "Hey, are you trying to start a fight? Why don't you just answer me instead of..." Touji grabbed Akuma again, whereupon Akuma picked up Touji's arm by the wrist and squeezed it, hard. Touji's face turned pale. "Let me go!" said Touji. "You let me go." "Fine", said Touji, releasing Akuma's shoulder and letting him go on his way. "You know, now I know why you're called Akuma." He fled as soon as Akuma dropped his wrist. * * * * * "Wow! said Akuma as the moving walkway entered the Geofront. It was huge. Sure, Washuu had bigger lab spaces, but they were all empty. There were people all over this one, doing things. "Is this where the Evas are, Shinji-kun?" "It's farther in. The place is pretty big, but you get used to it." A well-dressed woman with long hair waited by the end of the walkway. She waved to the two children, and Shinji waved back, seeming to recognize her. "Hello, Misato", said Shinji. Akuma looked at the woman, took in her figure and stared at her chest, which was just a bit below eye level for him. That's Misato? She certainly didn't look drunk, and Akuma understood why everyone in the class was so crazy over her. "Hello", he said. "I'm..." "You must be the Fourth Child. Masaki Akuma. I'm Katsuragi Misato. I'm Commander of Operations here, so you're working for me now." She smiled at him... wow what a smile... and Akuma nodded back. "_You're_ the woman Shinji's living with? Shinji, I never expected...." "Shinji and I are like family", said Misato, hugging Shinji suddenly. Akuma turned a little bit red watching, a reaction which seemed to satisfy Misato, whereupon she let go of Shinji. "Anyway, if you come with me, I'll take you to the Evangelion units. The synchronization test will start very soon." * * * * * Akuma gaped at the huge robot that stood tethered in the bay. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a bundle. It was a blonde woman scientist. Not as attractive as Misato. "Here's your plugsuit", she said. Now go ahead and put it on. "Put this on?" asked Akuma. Ritsuko nodded. He was going to pilot a giant robot! Akuma put the suit on eagerly, afraid that at any moment someone would come by and tell him that there had been a terrible mistake and that the job was to go to Touji or Kensuke. Just a few more minutes. Then it would start; then he would be inside Evangelion Unit 03. When he left the dressing room, Asuka and Rei had arrived. "Good luck with your sync ratio", said Asuka sweetly. "You might be able to get thirty percent." "Misato-san, is thirty percent good or bad?" asked Akuma. "Bad. Anyway, you can get into the entry plug now, and you'll be placed in the cockpit. And we expect at least fifty percent or more." Rei just watched him. Akuma climbed into the entry plug and waited. "You're in", said Misato's voice. He looked around himself and spotted the speakers, as well as a screen and a few controls and levers. "Can you see everything clearly?" asked Misato. "Yeah, how do I control this?" "There's some wires on the appliances, and a direct mental link through the LCL. You'll get feedback, so with a little practice you'll quickly learn how to use the controls and how to react instinctively." "LCL?" "It's a kind of oxygen-bearing liquid. Just relax and breathe normally. Sorry we couldn't explain more, we didn't want you to spend hours thinking about it and panicking. Don't worry, you're not going to drown. And it may smell a bit at first, but Maya got the idea of adding chemicals to numb the pilot's sense of smell, so it should go away." Akuma sat in the plug and waited as the liquid filled around him. Misato didn't know. He'd done this in real water. He couldn't be hurt by the pressures at the bottom of his family's lake, and he didn't need oxygen, so breathing liquid was no problem for him. As the liquid rose past his mouth, he took a big gulp and inhaled the LCL. That was the last step. He was a pilot now! * * * * * Maya read off a set of numbers to Misato, Ritsuko, and the rest of the staff. "Synchronization fifty percent... sixty... seventy... stabilizing at seventy-two for now. Brainwave activity near-normal... unusually high epsilon waves but within acceptable parameters. Respiration... zero?" Misato spoke into the transmitter. "Akuma, are you holding your breath? You have to breathe in the LCL normally. "I am!" yelled Akuma. "What's wrong?" "There's a flaw in the oxygen supply system. The gauge is stuck at zero. It thinks you're not using any oxygen at all, and we can't be sure you're getting enough oxygen if we can't measure it. You've got to get out of there." As realization came to Akuma, his hopes plummeted. Oh no. He screwed up. It was the last step to becoming a pilot and not only was there no way he could pass it, things could get a lot worse. The existence of people from outer space was something that had to be kept secret from everyone else. If Misato and the others figured it out, anything could happen, and most of it bad. Akuma thought furiously. "Is there some way I could stay in here and only stop the test when I smell the air going bad?" "There's no way. Carbon dioxide is odorless, and your sense of smell is numbed in there anyway." "Can I... can I practice for as long as it takes to use the air that's already in here?" "Akuma, that's a crazy idea. We've got to get you out. This isn't a game. You'll suffocate in there if you don't get any oxygen! Can't you realize that?" "Fine, fine", said Akuma, disappointed. "How do I get out?" "We're going to eject you. Hold on tight." Outside the Eva, Ritsuko ordered the eject sequence. The operators sent out the sequence to the Eva, and... nothing happened. Misato watched the readings. "Something's wrong. Akuma, the eject's not working. We're going to--" Maya, a junior operator, yelled out some bad news. "We're reading a huge energy surge inside Unit 03! Source two meters below the pilot, spreading rapidly. Something completely foreign... blue pattern... it's an Angel!" "It must have entered the unit when it was brought from America", said Ritsuko. "And all this time it was waiting for the Eva to be activated so it could take control." "The whole base is in danger!" exclaimed Misato. "If only we had done the test outside the Geofront as was originally planned." She spoke into her microphone. "Akuma, can you hear me? We've got to get you out! We believe the Eva's been taken over...." "Misato, I don't know what to---" said Akuma. Static suddenly enveloped Akuma's voice and then the line went dead. * * * * * Gendo, from his command post, was listening to the whole exchange. The thirteenth Angel. What a surprise. SEELE had delayed the test on Unit 03 to see if they could release the seventeenth Angel inside the complex. But now there was a wild card. There were two Angels in that Unit. Would they fight, or join forces? Would they ignore each other? Should NERV-- could NERV-- take out two Angels in one blow? The Third Impact that those old men in Seele wanted was not the one that he wanted, or that Yui had intended. It was too early; he hadn't been able to get access to Adam yet. So the best option was the last. The Thirteenth had to be destroyed, and if they got the Seventeenth too in the process, well, it couldn't be helped. "Evangelion Unit 03 is now to be considered the Thirteenth Angel", commanded Gendo. "Destroy it at all costs." A moment of sentimentality entered his thoughts. Yui herself could keep the plan in line. "Send in Unit 02." * * * * * "No! He's my friend!" shouted Shinji. "If I go into Unit 02 and kill him I'll be killing another human being! I can't do it." Stubborn boy, thought Gendo. Of course he didn't know. Very well. "Since Unit 01 isn't ready, send in Unit 00. Rei, you're to destroy Unit 03. Unit 02 is to be readied for Shinji for backup immediately afterwards." "Keep the bindings in place! Restrain the Eva!" yelled Misato. "If we can buy enough time to figure out a way to get Akuma out of there...." Ritsuko looked at her, a bit of sadness in her normally scientific demeanor. "That's not likely. Rei is our only chance." The operators worked feverishly, skipping the normal check procedures so Rei could make an emergency entry. Rei entered the plug of her Eva as Unit 03 struggled against its bonds. Just as the liquid filled her capsule, Unit 03 broke loose and began to grapple with the still-inert Unit 00. * * * * * Akuma felt the entire fight. It was like the Eva was his own body, but he had no control over it. "No!" he yelled. "I've got to stop it somehow! Eva, stop! Please!" The machine didn't listen. Wait a minute, there was _something_ he could do aside from just sitting there and feeling his hands wringing a proportional neck. He animated a chunk of rock into a giant robot. Couldn't he animate a real giant robot? It was worth a try. Akuma concentrated. He felt the metal around him... metal he could move and reshape. Metal that... what? That didn't make any sense. All he felt was a skin. But he knew there was an Eva around him, he could feel it directly through the neural link. There was only one explanation. This wasn't a giant robot. Eva-03 was alive. * * * * * Unit 00 sprung to life and the two behemoths grappled with each other savagely right in the docking area in Central Dogma. It was like a battle of ancient times, when giants walked the earth. When they hit each other, the sounds echoed throughout the facility. When one fell down, walls, machines, and soon, no doubt, people were left behind as if a hurricane had passed. And caught in the eye of that hurricane, thought Misato, were two young children, forced to fight battles in a war that nobody understood, not even the adults, let alone them. "New reading", said Maya. "Pattern blue detected in right leg of Unit 00. It's spreading through contact!" * * * * * Akuma looked around himself desperately for some way to escape the catastrophe without betraying his family. He pounded against the wall of the plug, denting it under his inhumanly tough hands. And then he realized. Why pound it? He could blast his way through. The Eva was getting smashed, beaten up, and broken anyway. A blast could as easily be an exploding transformer or just the aftereffects of a punch. Nobody outside would notice the difference. Energy flowed through Akuma's hands, and he released it in a direction that hopefully pointed towards the surface. The wall burst open, exposing the interior of the Eva. It softly pulsed with life, but it didn't seem to be flesh. It was completely different from anything he'd ever seen. Another few blasts tore a bundle of cords and made him enough room that he could get to the surface... had to be careful in case he made it through and someone saw... and Akuma reached metal. He pulled back the metal plates and emerged into the air... facing straight down. Now there was one last dilemma. How could he get down without revealing anything? * * * * * The LCL poured in around Shinji. "Backup", his father had said. What did "Backup" mean he was supposed to do? "Shinji, you're in", said Gendo over the speakers. "Now, cut off Rei's leg. Do it now!" "She'll feel it. I won't." "Do it", said Rei, as her image flickered into existence on the screen in front of Shinji. "You must." Suddenly Unit 03 went quiet. Shinji spotted something on its neck. Akuma! He was alive! The Eva must have rejected the entry plug for some reason, because it was now piloted by an Angel instead of a human being. And that broke the connection in its spine. He picked the boy off of the Eva even as it began to move again, a rippling happening in its neck, which smoothed out, chunks of metal breaking off and revealing some completely different substance underneath. It must be trying to reconnect around the plug, he thought. Shinji put Akuma down on the ground and then cried as he drove his knife through what he knew Rei still had to feel as her own leg. She yelled out in pain, but came to her senses after a few seconds. I know I could never recover that fast, thought Shinji. Rei activated her AT Field and drew her knife, cutting into Eva 03 while it was still trying to bypass the missing area in its spine. The knife went in and the field expanded through the Eva's body, destroying enough of the Angel to make it lose coherence. * * * * * How could he get down, Akuma wondered? He didn't need to wonder for long, though, as a third Eva, one painted with the numerals 02, reached for him. It plucked him off of Unit 03's neck and gently put him down on the ground. Akuma watched as the Eva tore into Unit 00's leg, and then how Unit 00 created a field of force and stabbed the rogue Eva. Awesome, thought Akuma. So that's what it meant for the Evas to be alive. It's like the Light Hawk Wings. * * * * * The renegade Eva exploded, expending its energy harmlessly against Unit 00's AT field. "Eva Unit 03 destroyed", said Maya. "Thirteenth Angel destroyed. Get a medical team for the pilots." Wheeeeew, thought Misato. That was close, much too close. A lot of machinery was destroyed, but the pilots were alive. Hopefully... who knows what injuries they might have suffered, especially the new boy in the destroyed Eva? But there was something strange about that kid. He seemed a little too eager to be in the Eva. Like he couldn't really get hurt, like it was all just a game. He didn't seem frightened so much as... desperate. * * * * * "I'm all right. I'm telling you I'm all right", said Akuma. "You don't need to take me to the hospital." "Leave the boy alone", commanded Gendou over the speakers. The paramedics paused, puzzled a bit, and decided to follow the instructions and back off. "Thank you, Mr. Ikari", said Akuma. "How long is it going to take for the next Eva?" "There will be no next Eva for a long time, if ever. I'm placing you on standby until you are needed." So much for giant robots, thought Akuma. Even if he could do something about that oxygen measurement, he was never going to be a pilot now. The Eva was dead. His parents had told him not to expect to become a pilot, that it was too unlikely; he'd have to tell them they were right. So now he would be just an ordinary school pupil, which is what he came here to be anyway. "That's how my father is", said Shinji. "He only cares about his work here. I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry I had to hurt Rei, I'm sorry about everything." "Shinji", said Akuma, "you don't have to be sorry. Not everything that happens is your fault just because you're there. And thank you for saving me from the Eva. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't done that." Shinji nodded politely to Akuma. Maybe Akuma was right. He blamed himself too much. He shrugged the thought off, as in a corner of his mind he realized that feeling guilty was the only way he had not to feel helpless. "And one other thing...", said Akuma. It was a little corny, but maybe he could make Shinji feel a little better. It was how he felt, anyway. "What?" "I'm not an Eva pilot any more", said Akuma, patting Shinji on the back. "You are. I want you to carry on for me, as my friend, okay? Good luck, Shinji." END CHAPTER 1. Angels, Heaven, and Earth by Ken Arromdee Chapter 2 Suspicion "So, Akuma, I hear your job was a bust", said Touji. "It went crazy and blew up. I guess you're not a pilot any more, right?" He glanced at his lunch, wrapped with a nice pink ribbon, then quickly tore the ribbon off and crumpled it up inside a piece of paper. "I'm still on standby, but basically, yeah", replied Akuma. "Well, I guess you're one of us now." Touji laughed. "You're just like poor Kensuke. Wanting so bad to be a pilot, and then all of a sudden..." He snapped his fingers. "Nothing! Don't worry, lots of guys want to be pilots, but most of us can't be. You're too normal to be a pilot anyway. And me, I wasn't chosen, but I really don't care." "Are you sure about that? I mean that you don't care, not about the normal part." "'Course I'm sure, Akuma. Tell me, what was it like?" "They put you in a plugsuit, and then they put you in a tube where you have to breathe liquid, and then you control the Eva. I didn't get much chance to control it. It was taken over by an Angel. We all want to pilot Evas, but that Angel wanted to do it so badly that if it was human it probably would have been willing to wash dishes for a month for the chance." "Go on", said Kensuke, pulling his chair up to Akuma's desk. "Well, um, there's not much after that. It felt really bad and then I got rescued by Shinji." "Don't feel bad", said Kensuke. "Me and Touji also got rescued by Shinji once!" "Hey, don't tell him that", said Touji, nibbling bits of food. It really didn't taste that terrible, he thought. Hikari tried, anyway. "Maybe I can ask Shinji about what happened...", said Akuma. "No, that's okay", said Kensuke. "Do you know how dull Shinji is?" "I'm not dull", said a voice from three desks over. Kensuke leaned over to whisper. "He's dull. He's never even gotten to first base with Rei. He doesn't even look at her. I saw you looking at her yesterday... maybe you can get a date with her. Shinji's never gonna." Touji laughed. "Kensuke, don't tease Akuma. None of us could ever get a date with Rei. She's creepy anyway." "Maybe a new boy will bring something out in her", said Kensuke. "C'mon, Akuma, ask her out." "I... I don't know, I just met her and..." said Akuma. "Maybe I'll talk to her, get to know her better first, and I'll ask her some other day." "That's the spirit!" said Kensuke, patting Akuma on the back. * * * * * Ikari Gendo sat at his desk. He was alone, except for Rei. She always reminded him of Yui a bit, but just a bit, like a photograph, faded from being in the sun for years. He thought about the events of the previous day, that child, and the Angel hidden in the Eva. Were Seele's suspicions right? When the boy arrived and went to them, they had done another scan, and it gave the same results as the last time. Potential for an AT Field of incredible power. Yet he had shown no unusual actions. Unless... that other Angel, the one in the Eva. What if he didn't _want_ to be seen as unusual yet. He would probably synchronize with the Eva strangely, so he brought the other Angel in to kill it, to avoid blowing his cover. It fit perfectly. Only, why would a being 2500 years old, from the time of the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls, bother pretending to be a 14 year old in the first place? Maybe he was partly human, in some way, like Rei. Rei continued sitting in front of him, patiently staring at the wall. * * * * * Back "home", thought Akuma. Back in a bare room with nothing to recommend it. That just _couldn't_ be right. No carpet, no curtains, everything spartan. He could put up a poster or something, but that wouldn't really help much. And the room looked even worse after he cleaned it of his own dirty clothes and food wrappers. Maybe if he asked Gendo to give him a different room, that'd work, but it was too late in the day for that. At any rate, he had to get out of the room. It'd drive him crazy to stay there. Akuma concentrated and disappeared, rematerializing by another set of apartments. He knocked on the door. Asuka opened the door and said "We don't need any." She looked behind herself, where Shinji was approaching, waited for Shinji to get close to the door, and then closed it on Akuma. Shinji opened it again. "Akuma?" "Yep, it's me, Shinji. I wanted to go over some of the homework with you and Asuka. Besides, I can't stay at my apartment. You saw what it looked like." Shinji nodded. "Come on in." * * * * * "Shinji, are you okay?" asked Akuma as he sat on the floor, laying out papers and books haphazardly in front of himself. "You seem a little down." "He's always like that!" said Asuka, sitting across from Akuma with her own stack, soon unstacked. "I thought you two already met." "I was just trying to cheer him up. He did save me from the Eva yesterday and I thought I'd try being friendly. You know, maybe you should try that too someday, Asuka." "If I had saved you instead of Shinji you might have still been a pilot today." "You sound like my aunt Aeka." "Is that a compliment, Mr. Demon?" "Not really." "At least you have a family. I've never heard of anyone around here having a real family. So could you tell me about them?" Akuma tried to figure out what best to say, since he really didn't want to say too much. Half the people in his family were too old for him to just casually mention them without being very careful. He couldn't mention Jurai, or trees, or where Mayuka was from, or exactly how people like Aeka and Sasami were related to him. Shinji caught wind of Akuma's hesitation; he wondered just what kind of horrific family secrets Akuma had. Akuma could have been an abandoned child, alone until he was adopted by the Masakis. There might be people in his family who were sick, or insane, or autistic, worse even than Rei. Mustering the courage to speak out, for once, Shinji stopped Asuka. "He came here to do homework, Asuka." "So?" answered Asuka. "Who says we can't talk before doing homework?" "No, no, Shinji's right", said Akuma. "I think we'd better get going on the homework. By the way, did you start it already, Asuka?" "Oh, I... not yet, but it shouldn't be hard." Asuka laid out her books and notes on the floor mat. She turned towards the relatively silent Shinji and asked him with a sneer "Did you misplace them, Shinji?" "Asuka", said Akuma, "stop that. Shinji's our friend and you have no reason to treat him this way." Glancing at Shinji he added "Shinji, please slap her, okay?" "But I can't..." answered Shinji. Akuma sighed. "I didn't mean that. Everybody takes things so seriously around here." * * * * * "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii", said a voice from the entrance. Akuma recognized it was Misato even before she opened the door. "Who's taking things seriously around here?" she asked, while walking to the fridge. Misato pulled out a beer, sat down in a chair, and let out a sigh of relief after her long, hard, day. "Oh, you have a friend over?" she wondered. "I'm Akuma", said Akuma, looking up from his papers. "I was the Fourth Child... once. We met then. I'm just here for a homework session." "Oh, I know who you are", replied Misato. Can I get you three something? Some ramen maybe?" Akuma began to announce his agreement. It wasn't wonderful food, but he was starting to get hungry. Not that he could ever get _really_ hungry. "I..." "We're not hungry", replied Asuka, speaking for everyone whether they wanted her to or not. Unfortunately for Akuma, that included him. So much for food, thought Akuma. Of course, he could always ask her again, but the others were already assuming that dinner wouldn't be served at the moment. They knew what to expect from everyone else, just like everyone at home; they really were like family. "Say, you seem to know each other pretty well", asked Akuma. "Shinji... anyone... you know Rei too, right? Could you tell me a little about her?" "Wonder Girl? Hmmph", answered Asuka. "Yeah, I know her. She's hardly human. She never has any ideas of her own. I'll bet if Commander Ikari ordered her to kill herself, she would." "Do you know what kind of movies she likes?" "What kind of a question is that, Mr. Demon?" retorted Asuka. "You're not going to ask her on a date, are you?" Akuma blinked, eyeing Asuka. As Asuka eyed him back, she came to a realization. "Wait a minute", she said, "you _are_ going to ask her on a date. Well, she's not going to say yes, and if she does you're not going to have any fun, so I wouldn't bother if I were you." "Hey, everyone in the class who's not a pilot is curious about her. And I just want to get to know her better... Shinji, is Rei really like that?" "Shinji, you say, Shinji. You know I'm here too?" complained Asuka. Akuma ignored the noise and waited for Shinji's answer. "Well...", said Shinji, "she's never interested in anything. I've never even heard of her watching TV, let alone a movie. She doesn't have any hobbies and she doesn't do anything for fun." "That sounds boring. There has to be something." "Maybe you're right", replied Shinji. "Maybe there is. But it must be hard to find." * * * * * In an office, Gendou sat, hands clasped and head shadowed, thinking. What to do to find out the truth about that boy. Well, there was one thing he could try right now. "Rei?" "Yes?" "Find out all you can about that boy Akuma. Give me any information you get, and don't tell anyone else. If you have to ask him questions, do, but don't make him suspicious." "I'll do that", answered Rei. "And here are the things for you to find out...." * * * * * The first to finish was Akuma. Asuka snatched his last sheet out of his hands and held it up in front of herself, unable to believe it. "You finished first!" "Yeah, I finished first. Is it bothering you? You aren't even a half page behind. What's so important about finishing first?" "I don't see how you could do that. Was your grandmother a super-genius or something?" "Not something", responded Akuma. "Look, I'm sorry... you're pilots and I'm not and I know you've got other things to do so it's hard to concentrate on your work. I'm not trying to compete with you. I'm not really part of your group at all." "I don't understand", said Shinji. "I keep feeling like I'm, well, half pilot and half not. Like I graduated from school, but it turned out it was all a big mistake and now I'm back in the class with everyone else." "You're starting to sound like Shinji without the Eva", said Asuka. "You're still a pilot if they ever bring in another Eva", said Misato. "Besides, it's not all fun and games. It's dangerous. You could have gotten killed yourself when that Angel cut off the oxygen supply and took over your Eva." Akuma shook his head. "But... but... Hey, Asuka, you enjoy being a pilot, don't you? You keep talking a lot about it and you seem pretty proud that you do it. It's fun, isn't it?" "It's only pilots like myself who can save Tokyo-2!" exclaimed Asuka. "Of course it's dangerous, but I can handle the danger!" Misato shook her head. "Akuma, we're basically caught in the middle of a war. Don't ever forget that. You got out lucky. Now tell that to all your classmates that are crazy about giant robots, okay?" She sounded a lot like Mom, thought Akuma. Even drank a lot too. "I, well... okay." Misato grinned. "Now that that's settled, what do you think of Tokyo-3?" "Um, I came here to do homework, but I think most of the people are nice, except Commander Ikari... sorry, Shinji..." "You don't have to be sorry. I just wish he was different", said Shinji. "... and all those guys at the Marduk Institute." "I didn't go anywhere like that before coming here", said Shinji. "They just sent me a notice and I came." "Mabe they changed their procedures?" wondered Misato. "So what happened next?" "Well, I came here to this room with a secretary and a guy hiding behind the wall", replied Akuma. "They asked me for a blood sample, gave me some papers and pictures, and sent me over here. It was a pretty long ride." Misato looked at Shinji. Guessing what she wanted, Shinji said "No, Misato, they never asked me for that, and I didn't go on any side trips." "Akuma, did you give them a sample?" asked Misato, as she got up and walked to the microwave. "No, I, um, don't like needles", replied Akuma. And because of that, thought Misato, he refused to give a sample to a bunch of people who he was obviously supposed to obey. And they let it slide. If only it was that easy for everyone else. 'Misato, go skip your date and supervise the tests.' 'No.' 'Misato, here's a stack of paperwork.' 'I'm sorry, I'd rather relax and have a few beers.' She chuckled wryly at the thought. "Well, that's good", she said, passing out cups of ramen to the starving students. * * * * * There was no mirror in this apartment, but Akuma didn't need one. He split in two and tried to psych himself up practicing in front of his second self. "Rei, I'd like to know if you're busy Saturday evening." "Rei, if you like movies maybe we could go see something then." It was useless. Oh, he could say it, and mime a smile back at himself, but he didn't feel any less nervous. And nobody ever saw Rei smile anyway. Akuma gathered his books, combined his bodies, went to the cafeteria to grab some breakfast, and walked to school. He didn't dare save time by sleeping and eating late and teleporting in instead of walking; if anyone saw him eating so close to the start of class that he shouldn't have time to get there, then found out he got there anyway, there would be hell to pay. * * * * * School went on just like the last day, except that the novelty of having the only ex-Eva pilot in the world was starting to wear off of the class, so Akuma wasn't the target of quite as many questions. Things were starting to settle into a routine, which was rather boring in places, but which also gave everyone a shared experience to talk and complain about. "By the way, do you know about the test tomorrow, Akuma?" asked Touji. "The what?" "The test tomorrow. History. The one that last week's study handout covers?" "I wasn't here last week", answered Akuma. "Guess you have no choice but to get what you need and study, then", said Touji. He grinned. "I'm sure it'll be as easy to get a date with Rei next week as it is today." "Yeah, as in not at all either way", added Kensuke. "I haven't asked her anything yet!" said Akuma. "She could always say yes, you know. Anyway I have to try to catch Commander Ikari. I think that they made a mistake with my rooms and I need to find him so he can give me some better ones." * * * * * School ended at 3, so there was still some time left over before all the adults went home. Or there would be if Akuma could ever _find_ Gendou. Spotting a man in a NERV uniform, Akuma yelled "Hey, mister!" "Hm?" replied the man. "Are you looking for something?" "Yeah, I'm trying to find Ikari Gendou's office. It's supposed to be in the left side." "Can't help you", answered the man. "I don't think he's anywhere around here... you could try the directory over there on that wall." He pointed past Akuma's shoulder. Akuma walked over to the directory as the man walked away. It was... oh wait, Gendo was on level L, not left. That meant a whole lot of walking, since he couldn't very well pass through walls or teleport with all these people around. They did _not_ make it easy to find things in Tokyo-3. Forty-five minutes later, Akuma found Gendou's office and raised his fist to knock at the door. He paused, wishing he could ask his mother for help, since she was much better at dealing with bureaucracy than he was, but Akuma pushed the thought out of his mind. He was away from his family in spirit, even if home was a minute away by teleport, and he had to do things on his own now. Akuma rapped at the door. "Come in", answered a voice that was either emotionless, or very, very, tired. Gendou gaped as his visitor opened the door. That boy... what could he be here for? If he was the seventeenth Angel, and had something against Gendou, all his plans could be ruined. Or he could be after Rei... Gendou looked to Rei, sitting silently next to his desk. Gendou reminded himself that that was _not_ certain, that that _could_ be just an ordinary child who has a freak ability to set off SEELE machinery. Having an Angel destroy his Eva could be coincidence. There was no need to worry; he was seeing too many phantoms. Gendou watched as the once Fourth Child mimed his own facial expression, hoping the boy wasn't toying with him. Then the boy took his gaze off of Gendou himself and looked at Rei instead. He _was_ after her! But for what? Akuma gaped at Gendou. He was at the right place all right... but what was Rei doing here? He smiled at Rei for a second, and turned to the Commander. "Hello, Rei", he said. "I mean hello Commander Ikari but Rei too." "Hello", replied Gendou. Rei only nodded curtly. "I'd like to ask... Commander Ikari, there's a problem with my room. I must have the worst room in Tokyo-3. Could you change it? I mean to something with some more windows and paint and curtains and carpet?" "Is that it?" asked Gendou. Akuma nodded in agreement to Gendou's shadowed face. Was that man deliberately trying to look intimidating? "Is that it?" "It... it is", answered Akuma. "I mean, no, it's not! Rei, would you go on a date with me? This Saturday? Uhh, two in the afternoon? I don't know what you like to do but I'm sure we can think of something." Gendou thought it over, looking at Akuma a bit suspiciously. Rei gave Akuma a similar look, until Gendou came to a decision. He turned his face out of the shadows, to Rei, and told her "Rei. Do it. And Akuma, I'll insure you have a new room by the middle of next week." Rei nodded to Gendou and answered "I'll go", not even looking at Akuma. * * * * * The computer files whizzed by under Misato's touch. She was no professional with these systems like Ritsuko was, but still, she wasn't doing half bad. Here it was, Masaki Akuma. Medical records on file, none; why was she not surprised? Parents, Masaki Tenchi and Ryouko. Whoever invented those names must have had a _weird_ sense of humor, she thought. "Heaven and Earth", "Demon Caller"... that was like the NERV logo. She could just imagine some bored graphic designer who learned a little bit about what NERV really did, sneaking that fig leaf onto the logo. As well as no medical record, the kid had no school record--of course. And he was sent here directly by "Marduk Institute Committee I". The Marduk Institute, Misato had learned, was just a cover for the higher-ups at NERV. But none of the other kids had the "Committee I" note in their file. It all pointed to one undeniable fact: someone planted the kid here. Time for a big drink, and then a nasty hangover, and then for some real investigation. Of course, she could just go demand an explanation from Gendou. But that would only waste everyone's time: hers, his, and the time of all the people that would get assigned to watch her closely for the next few weeks. * * * * * "Akuma, you're serious? Rei said she'd go on a date with you?" asked Shinji. "Honest, she really did", replied his friend. He was glad, at least, that Shinji seemed to be talking a little more, getting out of his depression. Except right when Akuma had met Shinji, he'd been like that for at least a week. "But it was strange. There she was in Gendou's office and he told her to do it. Like he was her father or something... No, not even that. Like it was some kind of official duty and that's all she knew how to do." "Oh." "Is there any girl you like, Shinji?" "Uhh..." "Maybe that German girl Asuka? You and her are husband and wife, arguing so much." "I wouldn't know. I haven't lived in a house with a husband and wife since Mom died ten years ago." "Oh. I'm sorry, Shinji. It's not really true, anyway. Mom and Dad don't act like that. Though Mom and Aunt Aeka are like that... sometimes they argue but they're really pretty good friends." "So you think someone can seem not to like you but they really do, Akuma?" "Sometimes people don't act the way they feel. But sometimes they do. If someone doesn't seem to like you it can be either one." "I never learned to tell the difference, Akuma. I'm not sure there really is one. If someone acts like they don't care, does it really matter if they feel something else and they're hiding it from everyone?" "I don't know, but Asuka can't be that bad. My sister was like that when she was Asuka's age. She got over it." "Asuka?" replied Shinji, puzzled. "Oh, Asuka. Right." * * * * * Still without a mirror, Akuma combed his short black hair while split, and remerged carefully so as not to disturb it. He had his best clothes on and he figured out where he and she could go. But in his haste he had missed something very important. Would they meet at her place or his place? And it was already five minutes before two. As Akuma paced by the door, there was a knock on it. He hoped that it was Rei; if Rei didn't come soon, he'd have to try to teleport to her place and hope nobody saw him. Akuma opened the door and let his guest, who was indeed Rei, into the room. "Uhh, sorry for the way my room looks, Rei. It's the room they gave me, I admit it's not much of a place to stay." "You have a place to sleep and a place to sit. You can turn on the light." said Rei. "But it's hardly a room. Aw, forget it. I was thinking of going to the mall and roller-skating." He remembered that Rei didn't have a lot of interests. "Have you ever done that before?" "No", replied Rei. "What is your purpose?" "Excuse me?" "Your purpose for coming to NERV." "Huh? Rei... let's go, okay? We can have some fun." "Fun... Shinji once asked me about that", said Rei. "Did I... did I say something wrong?" Rei shook her head. Akuma took Rei's hand gently and led her outside, then dropped it as he locked the door. She followed along; at least she liked him enough to do that. * * * * * Akuma gripped a bar on the side and pushed himself out onto the rink. Rei followed behind him, and he glanced back at her every so often. For someone who never did it before, he thought, she's pretty good. He rounded a corner and felt his feet slide apart. Oops... bad angle. Akuma flailed around in the air and fell to the ground, unable to fly, fall through, teleport, or escape his predicament in any other way that he could have done in private. With a *whomp*, Akuma landed flat on his behind. Rei just watched him silently, smoothly moving along with no fumbles. When she reached him a few seconds later, she bent down and pulled him up onto his feet. Akuma laughed a little. "I'm usually a little better than that." Rei just watched him, though. "Oh, you're not going to say anything", he continued. "That's good, I, well, I feel a little nervous with a girl telling me what I did wrong...." "I have to say something. Did you bring the Angel into Unit 04?" This disturbed Akuma, somehow, more than if Rei had just laughed at seeing his butt hit the rink. Akuma had been expecting nothing, or maybe an "it's okay" remark, or maybe even a nasty slap. This, though, was out of left field. "Rei, I don't get it. Why are you asking me these things?" "I can't say." "You know, you are pretty good at skating, though. A natural." Akuma watched for a smile, but it didn't work. "Are you having fun?" he asked, as he started skating again and Rei followed. Rei thought it over for a half lap, guessing what the teenager meant. "Yes", she replied. * * * * * Akuma could only get so tired from normal activity, just like he could only get so hungry. Still, he eventually got tired enough and hungry enough. Rei stood on her skates, less affected than he was. How could he tell when she was tired of skating when she never said anything meaningful? "Rei... would you like to stay here or should we go get something to eat?" he asked. "I don't care. I usually eat at this time", replied the albino. "By the way, do you understand what you are?" "I guess if you eat now, let's eat then. I don't understand the rest of that." A sudden thought came to him. "Rei, do you like me? Are you trying to drive me off?" "Drive you off?" She seemed honestly puzzled by the concept. "By never talking and by asking these funny things." "That's not it", answered Rei calmly. "Then I don't understand. Did someone tell you to ask me questions?" "I can't say." Akuma shook his head. "Just forget it, okay? Is there anything special you eat?" "I don't eat meat." So she has a quirk, anyway, thought Akuma. It makes her seem a little more human. "I'll eat almost anything. Well, except natto. How about a teriyaki soy burger and some fries? It's only fast food but I'm paying, and it has to be better than cafeteria food." Rei nodded. But she didn't say anything. "Rei, I really wish you'd... open up a little more. Why don't we go somewhere and talk?" Akuma hoped that Rei wouldn't think he was trying to take advantage of her, but he started to suspect that Rei never thought anything that wasn't directly given to her. "The sun should be setting now and there's nothing but a lot of grass west of the mall. We could sit there and watch it, or something." Rei nodded. Again. Akuma got the feeling that things weren't going particularly well. * * * * * Akuma found a rock outcropping and cleared away a spot for Rei, then for himself. He handed her her food and drink. "This looks like a good spot", said Akuma. "Maybe we can see the green flash", said Akuma. "You're supposed to be able to see this bit of green _just_ as the sun goes down." Rei nodded, while looking at the burger she was unwrapping. "Uh-huh", she said. "You've heard of it?" Rei nodded again. "Uh-huh." "Never mind... Rei, you've been pretty silent since you stopped asking me your questions. There has to be something you can talk about. Where are you from? We don't know a whole lot about each other, you know." "I have always been here", she answered. "Did you ever know your parents?" "I don't have any parents. Commander Ikari takes care of me." Rei paused and asked a question. "What about yours, Akuma?" "You're not asking this because whoever it was told you to, are you?" Rei shook her head. Akuma thought. He could talk about them safely if the conversation didn't switch to great grandparents and royalty. Besides, if he didn't say anything, he'd look like an idiot in front of this girl. "Well, my Dad teaches kendo in a few rooms we built near the family shrine. Mom is a prospector." "Prospector?" "Yeah. She goes out into spac-- into the mountains, I mean, and looks around for minerals. She finds a lot of really valuable stuff that nobody else ever can." I'm too nervous, thought Akuma. Have to calm down. "I have a sister, Mayuka. She's a college freshman, she's studying political science like Sasami did... oh, Sasami's related, I guess you could say she's my aunt." "I don't have a family", said Rei. "Rei, can I ask you something? I mean I hope you don't take this wrong." "What?" "Just talk. Talk about something. Anything." "Okay", replied Rei. "The start of the Heian period..." Akuma raised a hand. "No, I don't mean like that. Something personal, something which is what you really feel. About anything." "I don't understand." Akuma sighed. "Look at the sunset over there. Do you think it's pretty? Everyone likes sunsets." "I suppose it's pretty, then. I understand you're trying to be nice to me. Why do you do that?" "Because I'm supposed to be on a date with you. And because I'm used to being around happy people, not sad people like you and Shinji, not nasty people like Asuka. It just seems wrong for you to be like this. You know, yesterday Touji told me that I was too normal to have stayed an Evangelion pilot. I think I know what he meant." Akuma gulped. He watched Rei for sudden outbursts, guessing, too late, that he shouldn't have said that. "Rei, I'm sorry, I don't mean that you're not normal...." "I'm not normal, Akuma." "You're not?" "No. I know that. But I don't know how I know." Akuma was about to reply, but glanced back to the sun. Didn't want to miss it. "Hold on, Rei, look at the sun right now." Rei watched as the sun sank below the horizon, the uppermost tip turning bright green for just a moment before it vanished. "If I kiss you now, will you tell Gendou?" "Yes", replied Rei. * * * * * Yosho and Washuu wandered the streets of Paris. Neither of them showed their true ages, of course, but Yosho had long since given up looking old, and Washuu had long since given up looking young. As they passed a restaurant, Washuu walked up to the menu and read it silently to herself, occasionally glancing at a wristwatch that was her way of carrying around a dictionary. "You know, Washuu, I never thought my French would be better than yours." "You forget, Yosho dear, that I was last on Earth around 2500 years ago", she said. "French", added Washuu, "wasn't." * * * * * "It's funny, Rei", said Akuma as he turned off a late-night sitcom rerun, "I never met anyone who's never watched television before. Never thought I'd ask this about TV, but did you enjoy yourself? Or what about the whole day?" "It was different, and you didn't answer his questions." Rei didn't explain who she was referring to. "Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow. I'm sorry you didn't have a lot of fun. If there's some way I can make it up to you...." "If there is, I will tell you", said Rei as she left. "Goodbye, Akuma." "Yeah. Goodbye, Rei." If she had been any other girl, she would have been brushing him off by talking that way. But he thought it wasn't, for Rei, or at least hoped it wasn't. Well, he did get to meet Rei and be with her and talk to her for a little while. She didn't hate him. If only Rei could become a little more human, thought Akuma as he teleported out of his clothes and onto his bed. Next: Tidal Wave Angels, Heaven, and Earth by Ken Arromdee Chapter 3 It had been 21 years since Sasami came to Earth, a stowaway on her sister's spaceship. By the standards of the older Juraians, that wasn't long at all, but by the standards of anyone who lived through it, it was a lifetime. On the Earth, Sasami had grown from a skinny freckled kid to a beautiful woman. She always knew how she would grow up, tall, long aqua hair descending past her shoulders, and with a figure that made her sister and Ryouko jealous years before she even developed it. Luckily for their egos, she grew out of her childhood crush on Tenchi and had gone on to have a normal Earth life... which as a princess of a planet thousands of light years away, was something quite unexpected. Sasami knocked hard on the door underneath the stairs. There was no response. She guessed, then, what the next step should be--she leaned on it. That would, of course, be the perfect time for the door to suddenly fly open and let her fall through. The door indeed behaved as expected. Sasami stumbled in, quickly balanced herself, and walked into the lab. A tall and busty redheaded woman in a lab coat looked up from her equipment and greeted her. She had shed her false age years ago, together with Yosho. "Hello, Sasami. You still want me to call you that, right?" "I don't know", replied the blue-haired woman. "Do you still want me to call you Washuu-chan? To you I may be your sister from long, long, ago, and you can call me that if you wish, but to everyone else I'm Sasami. I've always been known that way." Washuu considered that and nodded in acknowledgement. "No, that's okay, Sasami. I should have known better than to ask. Anyway", she explained, "as for what I'm doing, I'm studying the Angels." It was a very straightforward answer; Washuu never played jokes on or tried to confuse Sasami. Much, anyway. "I figured as much", replied Sasami. "You've been working on this for the past week. When Akuma went to Tokyo-3, you started researching to find out what he was up against. And you haven't stopped since." "The answer's coming. We just need to give it a little time." Washuu pointed to a plastic bag covered by a shimmering charteruse field and added "By the way, want some French bread? It's still warm, I put it in stasis as soon as we left the restaurant." "No thanks, I already ate. And did you know I'm going to be doing my own investigation? Let's see who finds out more first." "Oh? You never struck me as a scientist, Sasami." Sasami shook her head. "Remember what I do. I'm investigating things for the government. It turned out that our branch has been investigating NERV, so all I needed to do to get on the job myself was be transferred. Yosho helped pull a few strings... he has a _lot_ of old family friends to call in favors on. And I'm on the case. "Besides", she added, smiling, "I'm pretty curious too. It must run in the family, sister." * * * * * As a child, Sasami had cooked constantly. Not only did she cook, but she also cleaned, did all sorts of housework, and generally made everyone happy by playing the part of a dutiful little child. Everyone except herself, that is. She did enjoy cooking, but she eventually came to understand what was wrong with that scenario. There were other people in the house; other people in the family. It was their home too, and they had to bear some of the responsibility of maintaining it. She got together with Aeka, who had herself been doing far much more housework than she was used to as a spoiled princess, and they confronted everyone else with their laziness. They would do their share, but they would no longer be maids. From then on, Sasami never cooked more than once a week. Today the chef was Ryouko, slaving over pots, pans, and woks while Sasami sat in the living room flipping channels and watching television. The phone began to beep angrily, drowning out the minimally exciting story about the Tokyo-2 replanting program. Sasami muted the television's sound on the remote control, and picked up the phone. "Hello, Masaki residence", she answered into it. "Jurai Sasami speaking." "Hello", said the voice on the phone. "My name is Misa... Sasami? Is that you? I don't believe it. It's been so long! Remember me, Misato, from college?" "Misato?" replied Sasami, wondering just what was going on. "I haven't heard from you since, well, since then. Of course it's me. How did you ever manage to find me here?" Misato sounded almost apologetic. "Well, I... it's a long story. I was trying to find the parents of a boy named Masaki Akuma. Masaki Tenchi and Ryouko." "Oh, Ryouko's in the kitchen burning rice, should I get her?" "It's okay", answered Misato. "There were a few problems with Akuma's records, and I got this crazy idea that his parents were using fake names." "Nope, they're the real thing." "So anyway, I called this house up just in case I wasn't getting paranoid. Are you two related?" "A little distantly, but yes we are. Are you okay, Misato? I missed you for all those years. What's going on with you?" "I'm just overworked. It's the way things work in Tokyo-3. Overworked, underpaid, and underrested. I'm also getting too paranoid, as you've seen. And I have a hangover." Sasami briefly snickered. That was Misato, all right. "Tokyo-3? I didn't know you worked for NERV." "I didn't know you've heard of NERV, so we're even. What have you been up to these days? Find the right guy yet?" "I'm still single. Somehow I just don't feel like rushing through life. And I'm working for the government. I wouldn't say it's really top secret, but you know how they are about telling people exactly what you do." "You don't sound like you've changed one bit, Sasami. You were always the mysterious one in our class, and you still are. You know, we really ought to get together and talk about old times." "That doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. And with as big a coincidence as this something has to come out of it." "I'd love to have the company. If you want to come, just go to Tokyo-3 and ask for a green-level visitor pass. It should get you into the housing areas. Nobody's ever visited me in a long time who's not a co-worker or an old boyfriend. Oh, or a fourteen-year-old." "I'll see you around then, Misato. I have to go, Ryouko's about ready. It's not really that bad, she cooks like you used to." "Ooh, my sympathies", said Misato. "Anyway, will you be in...." Sasami thought. "Tomorrow evening?" "I should. If you want to be sure, here's my phone number." Misato rattled off a string of digits, which Sasami wrote down on a pad near the phone. "I'd ask you for yours, but I seem to have already found it." * * * * * Seated at the table were Sasami, Washuu, Tenchi, and Yosho. Ryouko brought the food out and served it to everyone, then sat down. Sasami lifted a spoonful of curry rice to her mouth. The food was fine, just a bit ordinary. Ryouko could cook perfectly well, thought Sasami. Despite what the odder stories in her shoujo manga collection depicted, cooking wasn't difficult; all it really took was following directions. Ryouko's problem was that she never liked to spend a lot of effort doing things, so she usually kept all her cooking simple. "So how is it?", asked Ryouko. Sasami stayed silent. The question, she knew, wasn't meant for her. "It's wonderful", answered Tenchi. "So I see I make you feel good..." replied Ryouko. "How about I keep doing that after we're finished eating?" Ignoring the flirting husband and wife, the other three people at the table started to talk among themselves. "I got the strangest phone call just now", said Sasami. "Wrong number, Sasami?" asked Yosho. "Yes and no. It's an old friend from college. Her name's Misato. It was pure coincidence; she didn't even know I live here. She works for NERV, and they had some kind of problem with Akuma's records, so she had to call here to be sure that everything was right. I haven't talked to her in six years, and that's a long time." Yosho shook his head. "It's not so long, Sasami. You can still talk to her as yourself. In another twenty years, you'll need a disguise. In another fifty, she might be gone." "I'm... still young", said Sasami, pausing a bit with the thought that in one way, that was not entirely true. But it was close enough. "That hasn't happened to me yet, and it's something that I have to try not to think about too much. Not if I want to live here on Earth, and I do love Earth." "I love Earth too, Sasami. And I'm not going back. It'll be hard when it happens, but you'll be able to make it through. Just remember one thing. We'll always be here, no matter what happens to anyone else." * * * * * Sasami rapped on Misato's door three times, then two. After several loud noises sounded out from inside the apartment, the door opened and Misato stood there, slightly bleary-eyed and holding a can of Ebisu beer. Sometimes, thought Sasami, it was hard to remember that this woman's class standing had been even higher than her own. Behind Misato was a penguin. Misato glanced back at it and it waddled away into another room. "Hi, Sasami!" she exclaimed. "Come on in. Oh, and don't mind Pen-Pen. Sit down, make yourself at home, fill me in on how you've been doing." Sasami let Misato lead her through the apartment to the living room, where she motioned to an old couch. They both sat down. "Man, has it been a long time", said Misato. "Anyway, after we graduated I went to work doing research for the government. It didn't work out, but then I got the job here and worked my way up. So here I am, Major Katsuragi. I never expected you to be living at home, you struck me as more independent than that." She opened the can of beer in a fast practiced motion and tossed the pull-tab in the trash from across the room. "Oh, want some?" Sasami shook her head at the offer as she explained. "To tell the truth", she answered, "it's an old family homestead. We've owned it for seven hundred years and there's always been a lot of people from our family living there." "That's impressive!" said Misato. "I guess you wouldn't want to leave it, then. I don't have any family, you know. It's like almost everybody else here. So tell me what it's like living at home." Sasami knew that that would come up, eventually. She had had to rehearse to herself just what she could say and what she couldn't. "Well, we've got a lot of people living there. There's my brother Yosho, there's Tenchi and Ryouko, their kids Mayuka and Akuma, there's Washuu... she's my brother's girlfriend but she's been there a lot longer than that... Tenchi's dad, my sister Aeka and me. And anyone we know who drops in. It's a _big_ homestead and it holds a lot of memories for a lot of us. We all help take care of the place together, and we keep it safe against our other relatives from Jurai." Sasami laughed a little as she said that, but of course didn't explain just what Jurai was. "I guess my family's like that. We try to be pretty close. Besides, most of us have jobs which let us live in the same place. Noboyuki designs buildings, Tenchi teaches in the Masaki dojo...." "I have myself", replied Misato. "And the pilots. They're really just kids. Pen-Pen to mess up the refrigerator, and that's about it. It's still a lot to handle. There was this time that Asuka tried to do her homework faster than Akuma, just last week. She hates so much to lose, she absolutely has to be best at everything." Misato thought a moment at what she said and realized something. "Say, you said you're related to Akuma?" "Oh, yes. A little distantly related, but he's part of our family. He was really excited at coming here to pilot an Eva. Too bad it didn't work out." "You ought to talk to him about that", said Misato, sipping her Ebisu. "Sometimes it seems like he has no sense of danger. Not that it matters any more without Unit 03." Sasami nodded. "His mother's like that too. She also has your taste in alcohol and cooking. You ought to meet her someday, maybe next week when she has a little free time. I think you'd get along great together. I..." "What is it, Sasami?" asked Misato. "It's nothing...." No, it wasn't nothing at all. It was that she still had to be mysterious. As far as Misato was concerned, Ryouko came from nowhere. Aeka was just engaged to a friend of the family. Sasami's stepmother didn't exist. The bonding ceremony uniting Sasami with her tree wasn't just (as only a few people knew) unnecessary, it didn't happen. Sasami never spent half a galactic year back in the Palace. All the way back in college, Sasami had considered telling Misato. She never did find the right moment, though. By now she knew that Misato was a lot less scatterbrained than she sometimes acted in her private moments, and would never reveal the secret by accident. She did her job well. But it had been six years, and Misato had become a Major in a semi-secret government organization. If there was someone she would have to reveal it to, well, she would certainly do her job for them quite well too.... "Sasami?" asked Misato. Sasami smiled at her as best she could. "Just thinking about something. Maybe I'll explain it later." * * * * * It was the start of another day at the Internal Investigation Department. Sasami entered, carrying a cup of coffee with her, and greeted Kaji. "Good morning", she said as she stopped at the roughly-shaven man's cubicle. "Guess what happened to me this weekend?" "I give up, what?" asked Kaji as he looked up to talk. "I met Misato last night. It started out as a coincidence, but we got together and talked and drank for a while. Especially her." "No kidding? I haven't seen her in, oh...." "Five days, Kaji." "Hm?" "We did talk for a while and she did mention you, you know. And there's more." "Go for it." "I'm off the Disney case. The bosses put me on the same case as you. NERV. We're going to be partners." Sasami grinned. "I know you and Misato still like each other. I'm not going to be doing as much field work as you, but if we're both there for some reason and we run across her, I won't get in your way." "I just hope that she and I don't end up on opposite sides." Kaji returned the grin to Sasami. "Anyway, if she's too busy to be with me, my bedroom is empty and you're always welcome to...." Kaji stopped, since somehow Sasami had managed to get her hand into position above his head, holding a cup of coffee in a very dangerous way. "Heh", he said. "Can't blame a guy for trying." * * * * * Sasami was not only a spy for Japan, in a way she was a spy for the planet Jurai. In truth, all she did was send back regular reports to the Ministry of Information--that is, to her stepmother. It was public information, but in the absence of an embassy Jurai had to get the information this way, and the situation was still a vast improvement over the situation during the previous seven hundred years--that is, it was an improvement over getting nothing at all. The job was also an official excuse for her presence on Earth; the king's advisors could either write that down in their records, or they could write down "runaway princess. Lost control." Needless to say, the first option made everyone look better. And finally, her stepmother didn't want her to be too accustomed to palace intrigue. Spying for the IID was a lot like palace intrigue, anyway. Sasami needed a job like this; it kept her in practice. She emptied out her NERV folder onto her desk, and added the pile of documents she had received from Kaji. Then she began to read through the stacks. The Second Impact, the documents explained, was not caused by a meteor as the public had been told. It was caused when the Katsuragi Expedition at the South Pole had found Adam, the first Angel, and somehow in the process set off the biggest disaster in the history of the world. Well, well, that was interesting. NERV designed and created the Evangelion units, as a line of defense against the Angels. That itself was little known, but what was even less known was that they were really defending Adam. If the Evangelions ever failed, another disaster, a Third Impact, could take place. It was odd, thought Sasami, that they didn't just blast Adam into space where a Third Impact would be no threat. It would take a huge rocket, but NERV already had tremendous power and influence and could command the resources of a medium-sized nation. Which was, after all, the problem that Sasami and Kaji had to investigate. Supposedly an arm of the United Nations, NERV had been allowed so much freedom that it had in fact become a shadow government, which could commandeer its own resources and military support and which answered to nobody. Just how did it manage to become like this? And what exactly had it been doing behind closed doors? Surely protection against the Angels couldn't be the only reason. * * * * * Washuu tapped Sasami on the shoulder. "Come on over to the lab, sister. I've got something to show you." Sasami got up and followed Washuu into her lab, considerably less afraid than anyone else in the house would have been at the prospect. She seemed to have fallen into the niche of 'person for Washuu to explain things to'. "What is it?" she asked, closing the door, which melded into the wall invisibly. "Oh, it's the Angels. I found out where they're from." "That's great. It may put me out of a job, but it's great", replied Sasami, sitting down at a table across from Washuu. "What planet?" "Earth." "What? I thought for sure it was an invasion. Jurai isn't going to help against internal Earth struggles." "It may as well be an invasion, but it's certainly internal to Earth. They're artifacts of Neo-Atlantis. Look here", said Washuu, motioning to the middle of her table. At her gesture, a screen rose from the surface. "These are photographs of some of the previous Angels", she said, pointing to a montage on the left side. "And these", she said, pointing to a similar collection on the right, "are best matches from all the Neo-Atlantis data I have on file." The pictures looked, as far as Sasami could tell, identical. "I visited Neo-Atlantis six thousand years ago. They were very advanced for people on such a primitive planet. "And", continued Washuu, "I got a great deal of data when I visited. I know about their artificial life forms and their attempts to chart the future for the human race. It's my belief that the Angels are remnants of Neo-Atlantean projects to design a new kind of humans, only these prototypes didn't keep the human form. "Oh, and I also found one other reference. There was an Adam found at the South Pole back a few years ago in the 19th century." Sasami suppressed a smirk at Washuu's idea of 'a few years'. "It was believed destroyed, but somehow it must have survived. The expedition that triggered the Second Impact could have been working from these old records." "That's a lot of good information", said Sasami. "No, it's not. It's completely useless, unless you want to start telling Kaji a few things that you don't want to be telling him, if you get my drift. But it's fun to find." "You know I've never searched for information just to have inf..." Sasami thought. And chuckled. "I guess you're right. I was curious. I did want to know what was behind it all." "You're getting better. A few millennia and we'll make a scientist out of you yet." * * * * * Of course, Washuu had exaggerated. The information she gave wasn't _completely_ useless. In fact, some of it could come in pretty handy, with a little bit of work. "Hi!" said Sasami to Kaji, who was sitting in his cubicle drinking morning coffee. Kaji smiled at the woman--after all, she was female, so she deserved a smile--before greeting her. "Good morning, Sasami, find anything new yet?" "As a matter of _fact_", replied Sasami, drawing out a pause before finishing, "I did. Take a look at this." Sasami handed Kaji a glossy printout from some old piece of microfilm. It still smelled of toner. Kaji took the paper and read it, not expecting more than another joke article to pin near his desk. "Hmm", he said, reading off some of the words. "Captain Nemo... 1898... Adam at the South Pole... _what_? Sasami, just where did you find this?" "It was in a National Geographic supplement. One that they forgot to index. I guess you could say I got lucky." "I'll say. I think I know what the next step is." Sasami nodded. "We have to check it out. Confirm that this is the same Adam the Katsuragi Expedition found." "It's not going to be easy sneaking into the core of the Geofront... and it may be dangerous. Too bad Agent Mulder didn't stop by the right spot in Antarctica in that movie. Would have saved us a lot of trouble." * * * * * Deep within the Geofront, Kaji and Sasami were doing spy business. "I feel silly", said Sasami, listening to the bathroom floor. "Relax", replied Kaji. "It's somewhere around here." Sasami pointed to a corner tile. "It sounds more hollow there. I think that's it." She handed Kaji a laser drill. Kaji pried away a floor tile and used the laser to cut a small hole in the floor, maybe a centimeter wide. It wasn't exactly silent, but it was a lot less noisy than a normal drill. Once he was done, he removed his belt, which held a fiber-optic cable and a miniaturized recorder. He lowered the cable into the hole and recorded for two minutes as he moved the cable around. * * * * * Back in the safety of the IID building, Kaji popped the recording into a viewer and punched in a frame skip command. "Well, let's see what was in there." Kaji flipped through the individual images on the recording and stopped on the clearest image. It was limited by the low resolution of the cable, but it was clear enough. The picture showed a giant figure, crucified in the middle of an equally large room full of liquid. On its face was a mask covered with painted eyes. It was immediately obvious to both Kaji and Sasami that it didn't fit the description in the article. "Well, that was a bust", said Kaji. What do you think we should do? "More work, I suppose", answered Sasami. * * * * * Kaji, officially employed by NERV as well as the government, had a much easier time than her getting into restricted areas, so he did most of the field work. Meanwhile, Sasami stayed behind and helped analyze the data. Of course, like many other desk job workers, she occasionally took some of her work home. But unlike them, she didn't do it for lack of time. "Find anything, Washuu?" asked Sasami. "Nope", answered the redhead, leaning over her computer banks. "I'm going to run that video you got through a search, though... you should feel really lucky I'm helping you, sister. The Earthlings' machines aren't advanced enough to search images like this." There was a knock on the door. "Wait a moment", said Washuu, "we have a guest." Washuu pressed a few buttons and the door changed position. It now faced straight down, at about eye level. Another button press later, the door opened up, unceremoniously dumping Ryouko onto the floor. She frowned at Washuu as she rose into mid-air, to which Washuu replied "Hey, it got you in here fast, didn't it?" "Hello Ryouko", said Sasami, "Washuu's searching right now." Washuu's display suddenly lit up, divided into three horizontally adjacent segments. Images flashed through each segment for several seconds; then, the first image stopped and displayed the image of a crab. The second, and then the third, segments showed a similar sequence. Finally, a bell rang. "Jackpot!", exclaimed Washuu. "Here we go." She manipulated the controls a bit more, and the slot machine display disappeared to be replaced by a more normal set of pictures. One was the image from Kaji's video. The second was another image, looking very similar. It showed a huge figure, in a tank this time, of a similar pale color and wearing the same seven-eyed mask. "This one's called Lilith", explained Washuu. "This is what Akuma was assigned to protect?" asked Ryouko. "Seems that way", answered Washuu. "It's definitely from Neo-Atlantis, so that question's answered. I can think of a lot of things that it could be used for, and too many of them would have an impact on the whole human race. And I do mean 'impact'." "Akuma's not going to get hurt, is he?" "Oh, the boy will be fine. It's everyone else who'll have problems. You see, if the Angels are from Neo-Atlantis, and they fuse with Lilith, the result will be a disaster. The Neo-Atlanteans believed they could control it, and I wouldn't be surprised if the humans do, too." Finishing Washuu's sentence, Sasami added "And of course they can't. I think I understand...." "No", replied Washuu. "Maybe the humans can. But then, it will be even worse...." * * * * * "Lilith?" asked Kaji. "That's what it's called", said Sasami. "We just have to do an ordinary search on it, in that data you got from NERV. I need to confirm this." "I don't understand how you keep finding out this kind of stuff in the first place. It's amazing." "Hey, if I explain it, how am I going to stay mysterious?" * * * * * A man spoke, faceless and voiced by a machine, behind a black slab labelled with the number "08". "The Internal Investigation Division is getting too close. They have found out about Lilith." "The IID's job is to be our backup", replied the tinny voice behind number 04. "As a way to leak information if we must embarrass NERV in the future. If they are starting to do enough real research to find out about us, their attentions must be redirected and their information sources found and eliminated." * * * * * Meanwhile, as SEELE creaked into motion against the IID, Kaji and Sasami (with a little help from a certain redheaded scientist behind the scenes) were discovering more and more. "Now here's something interesting, Kaji", noted Sasami. And for once, she thought, she had managed to find out an interesting piece of information by herself instead of needing Washuu's help. "All these people... Gendou, Fuyutsuki... I think I'm onto something. They worked for an agency named GEHIRN, before NERV. And so did Gendou's late wife. So we know that whatever NERV is up to, they've been up to it since the Second Impact." * * * * * Back in the dark room full of faceless voices, a report was made, from the one labelled "07". "The information source has been found. The new agent Sasami was transferred in abruptly, for unknown reasons. Her background is less than unmarred; her records don't exist before 1994, except for a birth record, and we suspect it may be fake." "An immigrant?" asked 03. "Perhaps. She lives in the same house where the suspected seventeenth Angel can be found. In the year of the supposed birth of Masaki Akuma, a Masaki Katsuhito vanished without a trace." "I agree" said another invisible voice. "They could be survivors of Neo-Atlantis. Keeping the last Angel in their care forever under different names. But there is not enough information to confirm that possibility." "Then", said 03 again, "confirmation needs to be done." * * * * * The campus of the University of Kyoto was fairly deserted in the evening. Aside from a core of students, only the janitors, a few late-working professors and grad students, and the inevitable recreation center crowds were left. And one eighteen-year-old who really liked her great grand-aunt's cooking. Masaki Mayuka pulled open the door of the Tsurumaki Biology Center. It was easy, she thought. She picked this place because there was rarely anyone around, but if someone did wander by, all she had to do was pretend that she belonged there. People wouldn't give her a second thought. Mayuka passed by the janitor and found a room far enough away to give her a minute of privacy. There were two special items that Mayuka always carried around. One was the Tenchi sword, and the other was a round jewel, completely different from those the sword used to have, but very useful on its own. Mayuka unzipped a hidden pocket in her yellow dress and took the jewel out. She placed it down on the tiled floor, concentrated, and a whitish aura spun out of it and swept her and it along. Blink. The Dark Dimension. Mayuka gazed at the jewel again, pouring more mental energy into it. Once again the aura enveloped her. Blink. A few hundred yards away from her stood the Masaki house. Mayuka walked the rest of the distance. Too bad she couldn't teleport for real, she thought, as she slid the door aside and removed her shoes. "Hi!" she said. "Hi!" shouted Sasami from the kitchen. Akuma appeared out of nowhere, right in front of Mayuka, startling her for a moment. "Hey, watch it!" she yelled at him. "What if you teleported right where I was?" "Look, Mayuka", he said. "I'm immaterial. It wouldn't have hurt you." "It's still pretty rude." Mayuka glanced around, seeing who had arrived and who hadn't. "Now..." she said, "we have to wait for everyone else. I bet Mom and Dad will be first." * * * * * It wasn't a long wait. They popped in, quite literally. Ryouko waved, kicked off her shoes, and asked "So how are you kids? Tenchi and I hardly ever get a chance to see you any more." Ryouko hugged Mayuka and Akuma in turn, and then stepped aside while Tenchi did the same. "You know I come back a lot, Mom", replied Mayuka. "And Akuma hasn't even been away a month. I'm doing well." "Yeah, me too", said Akuma. "Did you pick your major yet, Mayuka?" asked Tenchi. "Come on. I have almost a year to decide, Dad! Oh, all right. I might pick history. Or political science like Aunt Sasami did." Ryouko asked Akuma "Did you find a girlfriend yet?" "Well, there is a girl I like. We went roller skating but I'm not sure what she thinks of me." "And what about you, dear?" she asked Mayuka. "I don't think I'm going to find a girlfriend." "Don't be smart with me." A door materialized and opened into the dining room. Out of it walked Washuu, Yosho, Aeka, and Noboyuki, all looking the same age as everyone else except the two teens. Aeka reached over to pull a piece of lint off of Noboyuki's shirt. "It's ready!" shouted Sasami's voice from the kitchen. She walked in, apron over her business slacks and blouse, carrying a huge bowl of rice, which she placed in front of everyone. "Here, let me help" said Tenchi, walking towards the kitchen. Sasami stood in his way and motioned him back to his seat. "All right", he said. * * * * * There are several different ways to spy. There are the hidden cameras and microphones, and the computer searches. There is talking to the neighbors. And if everything else fails, there's sending someone in person. Besides, how else do you place the hidden cameras and microphones? A middle-aged man in a tan business suit knocked on the glass in the door. He was carrying a large box of green detergent. "Hello... may I interest you in...." "We're _eating_", replied Aeka and Mayuka almost at once. Mayuka got up and pulled the blinds down on the salesman. * * * * * Good, he thought. It could have been worse. They could have let him in, and then he would have had to spend an hour washing clothes in front of everyone. He withdrew a handful of pea-sized spheres from his pocket and tossed two up onto the roof, then pressed the others under window frames and other shadowed places. It was strange, having to sneak bugs near a house. It wasn't a factory, it wasn't a boardroom or an embassy; it was a house. A plain old ordinary house. There must be something _very_ special about this particular house that merited spending all this effort on it. * * * * * "Spy work? Against NERV? Really?" asked Akuma. "Of course", said Sasami, chewing a mouthful of rice. "Doesn't it all seem a little, well, strange to you? The group has a big enough budget to make those Evangelion units and enough influence to just take the power supply of all of Tokyo when it needs it. And nobody questions anything. At first I was just curious, but now, I think there's a real danger. A big danger, and I'm just _this_ far from finding out exactly what it is." "Well", replied Akuma, "they're just fighting the invaders. You know, like Gundam." "Myaaaaau! Myaaaaau!" cried Ryo-ohki, interrupting the conversation. "Myaaaaau!" the cabbit cried again as she deposited several small round objects on the table over the napkins. They didn't appear important, but Ryo-ohki looked quite sincere in wanting somebody to get them. "So what did you bring me?" asked Ryouko, picking up and petting Ryo-ohki. "Well, whatever it is, I'm sure you thought we could use it." Washuu already had an instrument out, this one looking very much like a salt shaker. "Do you know what they are?" asked Ryouko. "Instruments", replied Washuu. "Oh, wait, you mean _these_." Washuu indicated the spheres. "Someone's been bugging us", she said. "Excellent workmanship. With one of these, you could hear a full conversation from five yards away through a solid wall." "How dare they?" said Aeka. "Eavesdropping on a house full of royalty." "Hah, princess", replied Ryouko. "Royalty makes an excellent target." Sasami watched the bugs as Washuu folded up the napkin and took them away to her lab. She considered them, the first signs that this was starting to get really serious. "I don't think they're after you, Aeka. They might not even be after Akuma. It's just a hunch, but I think yhey're after me. I spy on NERV... they spy back. It almost makes me feel like I'm on Jurai." * * * * * "All gone", announced Washuu. "Well, all out of range. Earthlings never really got the hang of transmitting through dimensional barriers. I also got two that Ryo-ohki didn't find." "So what can we do?" asked Mayuka. "Well", explained Sasami, "destroy the bugs. The only problem is that it lets them know that we're onto them. Either that or we leave them here and watch what we say, which would cramp everyone's life, a lot. "If this was Jurai", she continued, "and the bugs came from Sabaku, we'd have a few days to prepare before they could try again. It takes a long time for even a small committee to decide on anything. I don't think that NERV would be much faster. Even if they have a contingency plan, they still have to figure out just what our new situation is, and that takes time." Aeka nodded. "So we wait until they do something else, and in the meantime we try to think up a plan ourselves." Left unspoken but well-understood was one important fact: _they_ were a family, not a committee. They might argue, they might act on their own, but ultimately they could depend on each other's cooperation. NERV could never do that. * * * * * "No signal for three days", said the voice hidden behind the number "05". "The bugs must be gone. They have discovered one plan. But no plan stands alone", said another voice. Light suddenly shone on a pillar amidst the circle of voices, and pictures began to project onto all four of its sides. "We've imaged the troublesome woman." The projection showed a fuzzy image, of a blue-haired woman walking down the street away from a whitish squat building that must have been the IID HQ. The woman walked a block, the camera following her invisibly at a steady distance. Then suddenly the image flickered in a burst of static. Subtitles flashed onto the screen, reading "RF INTERFERENCE HIGH". The image flickered into snow again, and the subtitles appeared again. "RF INTERFERENCE HIGH". Static obscured the image on the screen again, until it abruptly cleared up. Instead of Sasami, what appeared was a large cartoon crab waving its claws at the camera in a friendly greeting. * * * * * "You'd better do some real research, sister", said Washuu. "I'm running out of gadgets." She pointed to a cartoon crab on her monitor. "And sooner or later they're going to getting nasty. They're not going to watch videos forever. "Oh, I have", replied Sasami. "I found out something else: the whole thing is run by a group called SEELE. But that's as far as we're going to get. It's a cabal. They don't need to leave lots of traces around when they plan in secret--the only way we're going to find out anything more is to break in. But I have one more idea. If it works, I'll come out of there knowing exactly what they're doing." She leaned to Washuu's ear and began to whisper something. Washuu shook Sasami's hand and returned to her control panel. "Seems perfectly logical. It might even work. Will you be done before making dinner next week?" * * * * * Sasami prepared carefully. In her pocketbook was a letter to Kaji, another one to Misato, a personal diary, and a few other special items. Hopefully they would be as convincing as they were fake. And, she thought, I'm sorry, Misato. I don't think I'm going to be introducing you to Akuma's mother next week. She took the noonday train to the nearest stop to Tokyo-3 and walked into the complex. "Hello", said a guard in blue. "I'm sorry, but I'll need to see your identification." "I don't have one. I need to get a pass. I'm here to visit my nephew. He goes to school here." "That's the wrong way for passes. Security is very tight here", said the guard apologetically. "We had a problem with terrorist threats." That was the standard line he fed anyone who wondered just why there were so many guards around. "Come this way, Miss." The guard led her to a small booth where another guard yawned as he watched rows upon rows of video monitors. "We have a visitor. She needs a level 1", said the first guard. "Okay, sign here", replied the sitting guard, shoving a pencilboard to Sasami. She signed her name and the guard handed her a green-colored badge. "Take that onto the shuttle", he said. "And don't try to get off at the wrong spot." The guard primped. "We do take our security seriously around here." * * * * * Sasami exited the shuttle at the school area. Tokyo-3 itself loomed on the horizon, about two miles away. The safest way to get there was simple: walk. Hardly anybody ever walked two miles when there was a shuttle available, guaranteeing that the path would be nearly deserted except for a few random personnel. She replaced her green badge with the one from her pocketbook, which was a faked-up copy of Kaji's with her own picture glued in. It would keep passersby from noticing anything odd, and it would even pass a computer scan, as long as nobody noticed that the encoded data didn't match the name and picture. Her skeleton key--produced by the Internal Investigation Department--worked wonders on many of the doors deep in the complex. The badge, fed into the readers on the more special doors, took care of the rest. Sasami searched through several empty offices, but finally hit paydirt. Someone had left a computer terminal running. Sasami looked up what information she could and continued onwards, committing it to memory as much as possible. No doubt, by now she must have set off at least one alarm, silently alerting the guards. She had to avoid spend too much time in one place, staying ahead of them for as long as possible. She searched deeper and deeper within the complex, her route leading her by a door festooned with warnings of danger in the "LCL production center". She knew what really lay beyond, because of what Kaji found with his fiber-optic camera: Lilith. Shunning the door in favor of continuing her search for information, Sasami came to another room, deep beneath the complex. The card opened the unmarked door. Revealed was a room filled with a low intensity humming and a huge tank. And within the tank floated dozens of albino female bodies. As Sasami glanced at them, one opened its eyes and tried to focus very near her. Sasami let out a small gasp at the sight, then looked away. Replacement bodies, thought Sasami. No doubt for the girl that Akuma had described, because the description fit her exactly. That must be why he thought she was so strange; she must be an experiment of some kind. And the bodies... it must not be possible to kill the girl just by killing the body that was out there walking, because that wasn't all of her. They would just awaken another one. On the other side of the room was a closet and some papers. Sasami searched through the papers, knowing that that was her best chance. Over an hour of reading afterwards, Sasami knew that she had hit the jackpot. The papers explained what the bodies were for, and just what NERV, and probably SEELE, was intending to do to the world. Washuu's worst-case scenario was true. Sasami imagined everyone and every living thing dissolving into orange sludge like the pool in Lilith's room, all in the name of human betterment, and she shuddered a bit. Not even Tokimi would have had the audacity to do something like that. The door slid open again. "Looks like you've been giving us a merry chase", said a man with greying hair who wore a black suit. A pistol was already in his hand, cocked. "Would you mind explaining to me what this is all about?" asked Sasami. "If there's anything you wanted to know that wasn't in your choice of reading material", the man said, "here's your answer. No, I'm not going to explain." He fired the pistol at Sasami, tearing a hole into her uniform and exposing the bulletproof vest underneath as Sasami kicked away his weapon and tried to run past him. Another old man walked up to the doorway and emptied six shots into Sasami's head, shattering her skull and splattering the room with blood and gore. She fell down and twitched, then lay still. Oh, something I forgot. Thanks to Fido for prereading part 3. Angels, Heaven, and Earth by Ken Arromdee Chapter 4 Shinji concentrated on the street ahead of him, trying to forget everything else as he walked to school. There were too many bad things in his life that he couldn't control, and it had been that way for a very long time. His father only cared about his work and his dead wife, never noticing he had a living son except when Shinji was needed to help save the city, and sometimes not even then. Of the other pilots, one hated him, one was halfway to catatonic, and the last one lost his machine and almost his life until Shinji, of all people, had to save him. At least Akuma was grateful to him for that. Shinji couldn't even remember the last time anyone had been grateful to him. "Hey, Shinji", said Akuma, as he joined Shinji on the last two blocks to school. "What's up?" "Oh, nothing", replied Shinji. "Just thinking." "Fighting Angels?" "No. I mean here. Existing. How do I fit in here?" Shinji had to talk to someone. The past few weeks had been good, meaning that there was no further trauma in his life, but not that the constant pain in his heart ever ended. "Akuma, suppose I were to die in the Eva tomorrow. Would anyone really care? Dad wouldn't notice except when an Angel's attacking right at the moment. Asuka wouldn't miss me if I disappeared, and Rei wouldn't know how to miss anybody. The class and even Misato were here before me, and they'll be here after me." Akuma blinked. "You know, if you keep talking like that you're going to convince yourself that you feel terrible no matter how good things really are." Akuma tried, thought Shinji. At least he tried, which was more than could be said for almost anyone else. But there was no way he could understand, not really. He had parents, he had friends, he had a home, and piloting Eva was only a sideline that he'd probably already forgotten about. Shinji shook his head in rejection of Akuma's words. "I'm sorry", he said. "I should be grateful that you're being kind to me." "Shinji", said Akuma as the two entered school, "if you keep this up you're going to turn into Rei." * * * * * A half hour before the end of the school day, a shrill note pierced the air. Over the classroom loudspeakers the principal announced the cause. "Angel attack. I repeat, Angel attack. Students Ikari, Ayanami, and Sohryu are to report to NERV immediately for defense. Everyone else, evacuate to shelters immediately!" Asuka got up and walked by the desk of Shinji, who was still jotting down English test answers in his blue book. "Idiot Shinji. We have to go." "I know", replied Shinji. "Just a minute." "We have to go now", repeated Asuka. Shinji looked over Asuka's shoulder and watched as Rei stood and walked out of the classroom. Asuka looked Rei's way and scowled, and then Shinji felt a sharp pain in his wrist as Asuka gripped it hard and pulled him away from his seatm running out of the room with him in tow. "See you later", said Kensuke, waving to the departing pilots as he and the rest of the class got up to leave behind them. "Good luck, everyone." "Get the Angel for us", yelled Akuma to Asuka and Shinji. Touji stared at the couple for one long moment. "Come back alive", he finally said. "Touji?" asked Akuma. "I mean it", replied the teen. "You know what I think about the Evas. It looks like a lot of fun. It might be a lot of fun. But I'd never want to do it. People get hurt. My sister's in the hospital because of an Angel. The same thing could happen to Shinji and the others." "I'm sure they'll be okay", replied Akuma. "They came back before, right? Isn't there some way we could watch them, make sure everything is all right?" "Me and Kensuke tried that. Shinji had to rescue us! I'm not gonna do that again. We should just go to the shelters." * * * * * Rei, Asuka, and Shinji filed into the holding area for the Evangelion units. The vastness of the place never ceased to amaze Shinji. It could even distract him from his troubles at times. Shinji picked up his plugsuit and pulled himself into it. He knew the routine, because he had gone through it so many times before. He was ordered to put on the suit, so he would put on the suit. He was ordered to climb in that machine, and he would enter the entry plug using his own hands and feet. And then, the mechanical monster's hands and feet would become his own, and he would fight, until the enemy died. And in a week or two when the next Angel came, he would go through it all over again. What were the Angels, anyway, wondered Shinji as the LCL filled his lungs. Aliens from space? An experiment gone wild? The vengeance of God, who hated his children like some heavenly Gendou? "87 percent", said Misato over the radio. "Sync ratio satisfactory. Everyone, the Angel's too close for comfort. Its form is like the earlier Angels, but its power levels are much higher. It broke through eighteen plates and it could be completely inside the Geofront very soon. You have to stop this one. There'll be no second chance!" "We'll defeat it anyway!" exclaimed Asuka as the Evas were transported to the outside. * * * * * "Let's see if this works", said Akuma to Touji and Kensuke. He slid his card into a door slot, and the entranceway to the deeper levels of NERV opened before him. "I knew it. Their computers still think I'm a pilot. My card works!" Someone tapped Akuma on the shoulder. He turned, to discover that everyone had entered right in front of Ritsuko, who looked at them nonchalantly. "Oh no", he said. Touji and Kensuke, seeing her, backed him up on that. "Oh no!" they exclaimed. "Sounds like you kids are trying to get somewhere you don't think you're allowed to go", said Ritsuko. "It's okay", replied Akuma. "We just want to go watch Shinji fight. Don't you have some kind of monitors in here?" "Yeah", said Touji. "So we can see what's happening without there being any danger." "Hmm", said Ritsuko. "Follow me." She led them down several corridors, a few paths around open spaces, and a very long escalator, finally coming to what Akuma recognized as the control center. "We have some guests, Misato", she said. "They want to see the display." Misato scowled at them. "In there", she said, pointing to a room separated from the control center by a plexiglass wall. It did have a television monitor in it, and it was showing the Angel attack. "See? It worked", said Akuma as he and the other boys sat down to watch the battle. "We're not going to learn any secrets by being here that Shinji or the others couldn't learn and tell us about anyway. So they have no reason not to let us in." "Then maybe we should have asked ahead of time instead of sneaking in?" wondered Kensuke. * * * * * The Angel hovered in the air, slowly but inexorably moving towards the center. Three Evangelion units landed in front of it, to stop it, or be destroyed trying. "First", said Misato, "Asuka. Shoot from long-range with a sniper attack." "Roger", replied Asuka, pulling out her Eva's weapon with bravado and firing it at the angel. "I've got it!" Meanwhile, Akuma, Touji, and Kensuke watched the shot on the screen. The Angel, looking deceptively small because of distance, was hit dead center, but shrugged off the blast just like it was constantly doing to ordinary cannons. Asuka pulled out her Eva's other gun and let loose with both barrels on the slowly approaching Angel. "You're dead meat!" she yelled. The shots hit, but showed no more effect than the first ones. The Angel kept coming. "It's not working!" yelled Misato. "The AT Field hasn't been neutralized! Okay, all three of you. Put your units between the Angel and the center of the Geofront. You're going to have to draw its attention and fight it close-up." The teens watching the monitor yelled at the screen, but of course nobody noticed them. "It'll be necessary to breach a hole in the Angel's AT Field. Asuka and Rei, you do that. We need both of you because of the strength of this Angel. Then you, Shinji, will attack it." On the screen, the Angel loomed larger and larger, floating directly towards the three Evangelion units. At first, it seemed not to notice them, as if the Evas were just one more group of missile launchers. But at several Angel-heights away, it landed and swiveled towards the Evas. The Angel suddenly lashed out at the Evas, its AT field extending to swat them out of its way. "Asuka! Rei! Now!" shouted Misato. The two girls in their Evas fought, trying to pull apart the AT Field of the Angel. Massive armored hands the size of trucks struggled with the Angel, but the field barely even rippled. The Angel flexed its arms, and threw the two attackers off, then sped up, heading for the center again. "What do I do?" asked Shinji. "It's still coming!" "Dammit!" yelled Misato. "Go back. We're going to have to try something else. All three of you will have to try to breach the field. Once that happens, then Shinji, you're to stop, grab the knife, and stab in fast before it closes again. Does everybody understand?" "Yes", replied Shinji. "Back off, now!" yelled Misato. Obeying Misato's order, Shinji and the others backed their Evas away from the Angel. No sooner had they backed off, though, when the Angel's arms shot out two thin ribbons. They were only a yard thick, but the Angel controlled them easily. The Angel cracked the ribbons at the Evangelion units, ignoring everything else in their path; they sliced through a pole, the edge of a skyscraper, and finally, through the torso of Asuka's Eva. "Cut the neural connections on Unit 02, now!" screamed Misato as Asuka's Eva fell, useless. It bled a puddle of what would have been gore had it not been too purple and had it not been the size of several swimming pools. "Pilot signs?" yelled Misato. "Attack missed the Entry Plug", replied Ritsuko. "The Eva's out of commission but Asuka's alive." The Angel swung around and picked a new target for its ribbons without even hesitating: Rei's Eva. Rei crossed her Eva's arms and warded them off on their first attack. But then, the Angel aimed a blast of energy at Rei, following up with another coil of ribbon. While she dodged the blast, the other attack hit her. The Angel squeezed hard, crushing the Eva, then reeled in its arms and tore it in two. The Eva broke, splattering purple gore for blocks. Rei screamed, until the audio shorted out. Please, let Rei have made it too, wished Misato. "Life signs of Ayanami Rei?" "Not reading anything", replied Ritsuko. "It could just be the detection system that's destroyed, though." But the screen showed otherwise. The entry plug on Unit 00 had been breached. Lying in the wreckage was the twisted body of Ayanami Rei, who had suffered a ten story fall as well ashaving several tons of equipment fall on the right side of her body, unprotected. Touji and Kensuke watched in horror. "Shinji's not going to make it either", said Touji. "And then it's going to destroy this whole place. Shelters, my sister, NERV, us...." * * * * * Akuma watched besides them. He thought it over and realized that there was only one chance. As horrific as the situation appeared to his friends, its true nature was something they were mercifully ignorant of. If that Angel got all the way to the core, not just NERV, but the whole world, would be instantly destroyed as everyone dissolved into pools of LCL. He would have to hope that the secrecy which kept the Evas and Angels out of the public eye would serve as well for what he was about to do. And of course, if he didn't survive, he'd never see any difference anyway. "Guys", said Akuma. "Wish me luck. Watch the screen. And if I make it through this, please wait for the explanation, okay?" "You can't go out there!" yelled Touji. "They don't have any spare Evas." Akuma shook his head. He stepped up... up onto nothingness, so he was floating in the air, and disappeared. "That's... he can't do that. No way!" exclaimed Touji. Kensuke pointed to the screen. "There's something there. We've got to watch. There's nothing else we can do." * * * * * Akuma blinked momentarily as he reappeared in the bright sunlight, right above the battle. He hovered in front of the Angel, immaterial for safety, and summoned the Light Hawk Wings. Four spokes of energy appeared on his back, and merged together into a powerful energy shield. Energy flowed from his hands and became a long crackling blade, perfectly weightless. Then the blade lengthened and lengthened. Touji could see it on the viewscreen, that energy blade from one tiny figure expanding so much that it broke the boundaries of scale and became a credible threat to the invading Angel. * * * * * "Second blue pattern detected", said Maya. "Second AT Field detected." "Another Angel?" asked Misato. "There's nothing else it could be", replied Maya. "We can get a closeup...." Misato expectantly watched the closeup. Somewhere inside her she knew what it would be; Sasami hadn't been completely convincing. When she saw Akuma floating in the air in the middle of the battle, and then when she glanced at the room with the children to see that he was, of course, gone, she realized that her guess had been right. Sasami was mixed up in something big. Maybe it was another government agency, one even more secret than NERV. Or an extragovernmental agency. But whatever it was, they had the Fifteenth Angel, and they sent him here. To come in, to learn about NERV... ultimately, to act. And whatever NERV could do, might no longer have any effect.... * * * * * Gendou unfolded and folded his hands. So those old men at SEELE got something right for a change, he thought. But they hadn't intended anything like this. What was that Angel doing? And how would Gendou's own plans for Instrumentality be disrupted? * * * * * Akuma fought hard, holding the huge Light Hawk sword against the Angel's field. He didn't have to slice with it; he just had to move it with his mind, just as he had created it. All that power came from within him, not from the motion of his hands. The Light Hawk sword temporarily broke up as it hit the field, and Akuma instinctively teleported behind the Angel to avoid an oncoming blow. The Angel turned and shot its ribbon arms in Akuma's direction with precise aim. The protrubances hit Akuma's Light Hawk Shield and bounced off. He could feel the feedback, but he was safe. He would have to be safe. There were pretty much two possibilities. Either the attacks would bounce off, and he'd be unhurt, or else they'd penetrate. That AT Field, if it was as much like the Light Hawk Wings as it seemed to be, could hurt him while was immaterial, and he'd be very rapidly dead if he didn't react fast enough. Akuma created the blade again, forcing it with his mind and a turn of his hands to help him visualize. It was smoothly melded into his shield, as if he was a giant swordfish. Akuma accelerated in the air towards the Angel, trying to ram the 'blade' deep into the Angel's AT field. * * * * * "He's what?" asked Shinji, in disbelief. "An Angel. Akuma's an Angel", replied Misato. "He suddenly appeared in the middle of the battle, generating an AT Field." "He can't be! I spoke to him, he wanted to be my friend. He can't be one of those things I have to kill! He can't be! Can't, can't...." "Shinji! Pull yourself together. He's fighting the Fourteenth Angel and that might do us some good for now. You need to get through the AT Field and destroy the core. With a distraction like this, it may be possible." "But..." "Asuka and Rei are down. You're our only hope! Do it!" * * * * * Shinji drew his knife and attacked the Eva, trying to get through its AT Field on its back. The field flared and didn't let Shinji through. But elsewhere, Akuma's Light Hawk sword, concentrated in a different location, slowly ate through the Fourteenth Angel's AT field as the Angel expended its resources on Shinji. It formed a tiny hole... tiny on the scale of an Angel, but huge for a boy. Akuma flew through before it could close up and released all his power at the Angel, behind its AT Field. He could have destroyed several football fields with that blast, and it tore through the Angel like Ryo-oh-ki through a hill of carrots. What was left of the Angel fell to the ground, unmoving and silent. Shinji's Eva, the only remaining Eva, turned to face Akuma. It took two steps, then one more, then stopped. The expression on the Eva's face, to the extent that that metal-covered face could mirror that of the pilot within, was one of shock and confusion. * * * * * Akuma had saved the world. But what he wanted to do the most now was to go far, far, away. Because now would come the hard part. His great-grandfather had kept everything secret for over seven hundred years, but in just a few minutes, Akuma had undone it all. How could he make up for something like this? And how could he explain it to his classmates? Akuma disappeared and reappeared back in the monitor room. Touji jumped, startled. "H-- hello", stammered Touji. There was no mistaking the expression on his and Kensuke's faces. They were frightened to death. "Touji, Kensuke, I..." he said, and bit his tongue when they nearly jumped at the sound of his voice. "Oh God, no wonder you were so strong. You were really one of them", said Touji. The bravado so often in his voice was replaced by timidity. "An Angel... a monster... please don't hurt us." "Will you stop that, please? I'm not going to hurt you. And I'm not an Angel." Misato opened the door cautiously. "Akuma?" she asked carefully. "Misato? Did you tell them that I'm an Angel?" Misato nodded uncertainly. "Well, I'm not. I really don't know what I'm allowed to say even after all of this has happened. But I didn't come here to kill everyone. I came here to go to school! Please, tell them...." Misato looked at Akuma and shook her head, then at the other children. "Touji... Kensuke... he hasn't hurt anyone so far. You can't lose hope." * * * * * It was overwhelming. Shinji didn't think his world could be overturned again, after all he'd been through, but it was. That boy was an Angel. 'I hope we can be friends....' All lies. He'd only been using Shinji, as one step towards... what? As the entry plug opened and let Shinji out, he looked around. Touji and Kensuke? What were they doing here? And Akuma... how did he get to be in here too? "Misato?" "Right here." "What's going on? What happened? And where's Asuka and Rei?" "Your friends came to watch", she said, motioning towards Touji and Kensuke. "Asuka should be all right, she just had a mild concussion when her Eva fell. The LCL cushioned her from most of the impact. Rei... we don't know." "I see. And Akuma?" "Shinji!" said Akuma. "You're back...." Shinji looked at Akuma, saying nothing. What could he say? The boy was strange, alien, despite any surface appearances. "Shinji? Not you too. I helped you! You should know, you were out there." "Why...?" "Shinji, what would you have me do, sit back in here and let the world be destroyed?" When Akuma said that, Shinji caught Misato giving him a curious glance. Shinji began to speak. "Tokyo-3 is hardly the wor--", he said. "Akuma's right", said Misato. "Nobody ever told you, Shinji, but what you are fighting for, Shinji... really is that important." Of course. Misato had hidden the truth. Maybe she thought he couldn't handle it. But, Shinji realized, she was still right about that one part. Akuma did help him. Shinji barely understood anyone helping him, let alone an Angel doing so, but he had no choice but to be grateful. "Thank you, Akuma", he said, "for the rescue." "Umm... you're welcome", replied Akuma. "Shinji, you can stop being scared. It's as bad as being depressed. If there's anyone here who has to be scared, it's me. I blew a secret big-time, and now I have to go home and tell my parents and my family what I just did." "Your family?" asked Shinji. "You really do have a family?" Of course he couldn't; an Angel couldn't possibly. "That wasn't just..." "I'm not an Angel, Shinji. It doesn't matter what all those machines out there think. I know exactly who I am and why I have these powers, and it has nothing to do with NERV or Angels or anything like that." "Then what?" asked Misato. "And what's your connection with Sasami?" Akuma shook his head. "Misato, I already blew it. Don't ask me to make it worse by giving you information. Please? Now I have to go." Shinji eyed him, and finally asked "Will I... will we... ever see you again?" "No! I mean no you're wrong! I'm not leaving. I hope not. I don't know what Mom and Dad are going to tell me to do but I'm going to be back tomorrow for school if I can. We still have that English test to finish...." * * * * * Akuma teleported to near the Tokyo-2 West Metropolitan Underground Shopping Center and walked in. There was a place here which had some good ice cream, for a mall. At least it was something to do before he had to go home. Halfway past the Kinokuniya, he stopped. He was just kidding himself, he knew. All that waiting was doing was making him more and more nervous for when he finally did have to tell his parents. They would be very disappointed in him. Seven hundred years. His great-grandfather had been keeping the secret going longer than most Earth countries existed, and in just a few minutes Akuma wrecked all that completely. Akuma walked back towards the exit, then realized he was still trying to stall. No, he still did have time to get the ice cream. Green tea, he liked green tea. After walking most of the way towards the store again, Akuma shook his head, gritted his teeth, and entered a fire exit. After he was out of view of the mall shoppers, he teleported directly onto the couch in the Masaki living room. He was home. * * * * * Akuma waited and waited. A scraping sound startled him. Maybe Mom and Dad had come home already? He looked over to the source of the sound and it was only Ryo-ohki eating. The doorbell rang. "Hi!" he yelled at whoever it was. Akuma's father unlocked and opened the door, then stuck his head through--unlike his mother, who would often have done the reverse--and waved. "Hi Akuma", he said. "I didn't expect to see you here." Ryouko disappeared and instantly appeared in front of him. "C'mon, give me a hug." Akuma obeyed, but a little reluctantly. Ryouko teleported back to Tenchi. "All right, what happened?" she asked. "What do you mean 'what happened', Mom?" "You're no good at faking it, Akuma. What happened?" "I didn't have any choice! Mom, Dad, you want to know what happened. This is what happened. I had to save the world and to save the world I had to use the Light Hawk Wings. With everyone watching. Please don't get mad at me and don't make us all have to go away forever because of it. They can keep secrets at NERV, they really can." "I think all three of us had better talk", said Tenchi. "I want you to tell us everything, all the way from the start." * * * * * "So that's it", said Tenchi after Akuma finished his explanation. "You know, you should really be pretty proud. You saved the world. You wanted to do that at NERV, right?" "I saved the world in a bad way." "Akuma", said Ryouko, "do you remember when you told me how your friend Shinji is always depressed?" "Yeah." "Try to set a good example for him, okay?" Akuma looked at his mother expectantly, waiting for her to continue. When she didn't, he asked her "That's it?" "What's it, dear?" "You're not going to get mad at me or ground me?" "Akuma, I made plenty of mistakes in my time. You know I burned down a school once by accident? And what you did wasn't even a mistake. What else could you have done?" She p