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Dear Diary,
I remember when my mother and my father used to talk about how
close they were, as two hearts that beat in unity; especially puzzling
were Mother’s comments that she and Father always needed each other
in their lives before they ever loved each other, that they were
intimate far before they were even friends, much less lovers.
Being the one of the few children in Tokyo 4, I had always
thought was the way of parents, of the way of humans, with the
possible exception of my father’s half-sister, Aunt Rei.
And when my parents eventually left, for a reason that I was
never told, I felt that it was all their fault, that though they
needed each other, they never needed me--after all, I was but an only
child; if they wanted a family, wouldn’t I have a brother or sister?
Now, sitting here, in the grassy slopes overlooking the
shoreline of New Yokosuka, I think about how much they went through.
I turned 16 a week ago, and I’ve lived with my Aunt Rei since
I was 10. The only family
I’ve ever known besides my parents is Aunt Rei, who jokes about
being a clone of my grandmother, who I was named after.
I never really knew my parents, though I spent ten years with
them until they left. Only Aunt Rei knows why they left one rainy day so long ago,
but she’s never told me. There
is so much that no one will tell me about: my parents, my
grandparents--especially Ikari Gendo and why he is so vilified now--or
why the remnants of my parents’ EVA unit is so comforting to me
though it looks like a monster.
I thought I never would know.
Then, on my birthday, I received a book from Aunt Rei.
Smiling (and her smiles always seem so forced, though I know
they’re full of love), she said that this book would explain
everything to me. She
told me that Mother wanted me to have it when Aunt Rei thought I was
old enough. Aunt Rei then
hugged me (another action of hers that always seems mechanical), and
told me that she was proud of how I’ve grown and that she loves me,
and that Mother and Father would be proud of me.
The book is my mother’s own diary and a cursory flip through
it reveals that she wrote in it up until the day she and Father left
me. I’m nervous about
reading it, but it’s something I must do, something that will tell
me who I am, if only that.
I’ll write later and tell you my feelings.
Mata ne,
Ikari Yui Langley
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Years,
a lifetime, and a reality ago...
Under
the water, in the ocean sector known as the Kanagawa Trench, the
battle between EVA Unit 02 and the oceanic angel continued, unabated.
Above them, a combined American, Australian, Japanese, and
Russian fleet under UN command poised above what was once the
Ishikawacho district of Yokohama, wondering what was the fate of the
Evangelion unit. The
fleet had already lost five American Boorda-class destroyers
and the recently re-commissioned New Jersey; eight
Japanese Shirane-class destroyers and the four Shirogami
attack subs; the main Australian ship, a Freemantle-class
cruiser; and from the Russian contingent, a pair of Seymonov
heavy cruisers, and about six Krivak-class frigates.
In the CIC of the carrier USS Ronald
Reagan, ADM Benjamin Shearen, the Commander of the US
Seventh Fleet and the admiral in charge of this fiasco, turned to the
other principals in this situation, but there were three that were of
the utmost importance: LtGen Sandborn “Sandman” Gregory, the USAF
general in charge of air support; RADM Bridget Austin, COMCARGRU-5 and
commander of the combined surface forces; and CPT Katsuragi Misato,
the OPS Officer of NERV’s Branch-1.
“Damn it to hell, Captain Katsuragi,” Austin snarled at
her. “My forces are
getting annihilated out there, and all you’re saying is ‘Trust the
EVA?’ I would rather
trust the guns on the Iowa
and the Kuzenov--at least those I can see working!”
Gregory took that as a signal.
A commanding look on his face, he turned to the COMMS officer
and shouted, “Get me CINCUNC at New Yokota.
I want the USAF 313th Fighter Group armed and ready
to cover JASDF’s 45th Bomber Squadron and VFA-286.
I want all of them armed with Mk 62 ASROCs and I want them to
scrub everything below us.”
Austin, already itchy, followed his lead.
“Patch to all surface forces: I want them armed with either
NATO-equivalent AVRAAMs or Mk 62 Block 2 ASROCs.
Japanese and US ships are to commence full AEGIS integration;
have the Kunezov
and the Anatoly-class
destroyers see if they can find a way to link up with our systems.
The Aussies will have to settle for a verbal command.
Fire on General Gregory’s command.”
Misato blanched. “General, Admiral, what are you--"
Gregory glared back at her.
“You’re out of line, Captain.
Your little escapades with your toy have cost us about 30% of
our forces, and if you think that we’re going to allow us all to be
blown to Kingdom Come just because of your overgrown Tin Man down
there, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“But what about my pilots?” Misato shrieked back.
“Those are kids out there, sir!”
“What the hell are you dong sending kids out there to die,
Captain?” Gregory shot back. “Furthermore,
what about our men--in case
you hadn’t noticed, there about 5000 sailors who aren’t coming
back from this operation! And
if it makes you feel better, the 62B2s have the latest smart guidance
available. They’ll
leave your precious EVA out of the attack grid.”
He however did not mention that those ASROCs made only a small
part of the arsenal about to be hefted at the Angel.
Frustrated, Misato turned to Shearen.
“Admiral, can’t you--?”
Shearen turned at looked at Misato, then at the other two flag
officers before him. He
turned away from them to stare at a display screen, and murmured,
“The only thing between us and that angel right now is a pair of
kids and a robot. It’s
insane, but I saw kids dying when I was one back in the Gulf War, and
I’m not one for it now.” Not
taking his eyes off the screen, he added, “Sandman, Bridget, get
your plans in gear. Captain Katsuragi, your pilots have until all units are in
position to stop that thing. That
gives you about 30 minutes."
Misato held back a sigh of relief as she droned, “Yes,
sir.”
Meanwhile, fathoms below, a red Evangelion unit and the aquatic
angel continued their danse macabre, a ballet of conflict which only
one would walk away from. At
the next pass, however, fate made a dark roll, and the Evangelion was
rendered incapacitated, left as so much carrion for the oncoming
shark.
In the cockpit, everything was a riot of klaxons and flashing
lights as the Second Child desperately tried to get her Unit active
once more. "Hey,
what's going on!? Why
doesn't it move!?" yelled Asuka as she yanked on the controls,
trying to send momentum signals by any means.
However, EVA Unit 02 floated helplessly in the deep blue water,
slowly sinking towards the bottom depths, on a collision course with
the seafloor that at one time was a thriving global megapolis.
She tugged harder on the control sticks, but to no avail; all
she got for her efforts were a visual display of error codes in
Japanese and German. She
answered them with a scathing retort of her own.
“Why doesn’t this thing move?!?!”
"It's type B equipment," said Shinji in his usual
blasé tones, his mind between a sickening fear and a jaded emotion of
fatalism.
"Well, do something!" she snapped in response.
He looked at her with a glance that spoke his mind, uttered on
his lips a few seconds later: "Umm, what am I supposed to
do?"
"Well, you’re the famous Third Child!" Asuka
replied in heated tones. “Think
of something, already!” She
then caught sight of the sixth angel coming towards them, its form
racing towards them, a sight both awe-strikingly graceful and
frighteningly horrific. Asuka yelped in fear as the angel opened its
mouth, revealing a plethora of sharp, nasty looking teeth.
A second later those fears were justified as the otherworldly
creature clamped down on the EVA and buried its teeth deep into Unit
02.
Both Asuka and Shinji screamed in pain at the feeling of the
Angel’s teeth biting down onto Unit 02. There was an explosion of
sensations, followed by a feeling of being shredded molecule by
molecule, being split at the nuclear level.
When the pain of that sensation had reached its zenith, the
rollercoaster commenced again as the nervous system began to be
slammed back together, as though it were no more than a ball of clay
being ripped apart and combined with another block of mud.
It seemed to happen over and over again, both Shinji and Asuka
screaming in incomprehensible pain, both voices mingling like a duet
of the damned. Then, as
though their performance was complete, there was a narcotic, restful
darkness.
Inside the Angel’s mouth, the eyes of EVA Unit 02 flared with
an unholy light. That's when all hell broke loose.
"Asuka! Shinji! Come in! What's going on!?" yelled
Misato into the audio pickup of the headset she was wearing.
She’d just raced from the CIC room to the Reagan’s Bridge, located on the 03 level of the island
superstructure. Still
winded from running all those sets of ladderways, her mind was in
absolute disarray and gripped in panic, and even now it still had its
temporary imprint on her in her panicked tone of voice.
Turning to one of her aides, she yelled to him, “Switch
frequencies, damnit!”
Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see the pair that had
accompanied the EVA team to this convoy: Shinji’s two school
buddies, civilians, whose lives were now as threatened as hers.
Suzuhara Toji had that tough-guy attitude he always bore and
Kensuke Aida that apparent joie d’ vivre when it came to military
equipment; now both were placed under the gun, in a situation that no
one should have to be in, much less children.
She was trying very hard to forget that Agent Ryoji was here as
well.
Besides, she had more important things on her mind.
They had just lost contact with Unit 02.
Those attack aircraft were inbound less than 10 minutes and
there was no more time to be prepared for anything.
Those missiles would do absolutely no damage to the Angel.
However, they would completely destroy the EVA unit...and the
two pilots within. She
didn’t know Asuka that well, but Shinji was getting to be important
to her, like a little brother. Especially
when that little brother had Commander Ikari as his father.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Shinji’s two
friends with stunned looks on their faces.
Nothing they expected could have prepared them for this. Hell, she wasn’t sure if even she was prepared.
One minute passed.
Two.
Three. A voice in
the background called out, “Combined Strike Wing ETA ten minutes and
closing. All AEGIS units
linked up; Russian and Australian forces awaiting verbal signal.”
The helmsman hissed in an intake of air before the world went
still, save for the soft beep of the radar repeater as it tracked the
inbound bearers of death.
Then there was a blast of water.
And in that flow of dihydrogen monoxide, the lives of two
people would never be the same again.
In a gigantic funnel of ocean spray, Misato could then see the
Angel burst out of the water, looking as though it were ready to
attack. However, as it
settled on the surface, it began to quiver and shake, as though
something was wrong with it. Something
terribly, horribly wrong.
“Where’s Unit 02?” she demanded, snaring a pair of
binoculars and staring at the creature as it sat in the water, shaking
as though it caught a fever.
“I don’t have a visual, Captain, but I’m getting
confirmed power readings,” the Boatswain’s Mate of the Watch
replied, as he peered into a sensor display.
The BMOW continued to stare as the chaos around him unfolded,
and as the display readings suddenly got really funky, he called out,
“Um, Captain Katsuragi?”
"What?" she snapped
in frustration and nerves. The
combat wing was now within six minutes of the attack window, and there
was no sign of Unit 02. She
bit back the lump of fear that threatened to leap out of her throat.
The BMOW gave her a helpless look before saying, "I-I
don't know what a lot of these things mean, ma’am.
Your sensor systems are a little different than ours, so not
everything’s the same. Does
‘SYNC: 200%’ mean anything important?"
Misato’s eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets.
"Im-impossible!"
But not as nearly impossible as what happened next.
Without warning, blood and bits of Angel went flying everywhere
as Unit 02 burst from within it, exploding free from its bloody womb
not unlike an image from a movie a few decades back.
Blood and ichor spurted everywhere in ribbons, a grisly
fountain in a horrific garden of gore. Roaring like a very demon that had crawled its way free from
the netherworld, Unit 02 began tearing the angel apart, clawing and
biting it, as savage as any beast, as vicious as any raptor.
"What the hell are those two doing!?" Misato shouted
rhetorically.
The BMOW at the sensor picked up on that and replied,
“Lifesigns are reading dull but stable, Captain.
If I’m reading this right....”
His voice trailed off as clarity set in.
His next words were said in complete shock: “Your pilots are
unconscious, Captain Katsuragi. According
to the readings, Lieutenants Ikari and Sohryu are out cold.”
“That’s impossible! These
EVAs don’t move around by themselves,” she shouted, still looking
as Unit 02 maimed the creature it was meant to destroy.
“It’s not like they’re alive, or--“
Her face then paled as she realized that the EVA wasn't biting
the angel. It was...
"It-It's eating the Angel?" said a sickened Toji.
The look on Kensuke’s face would have been described as pure
repulsion. The bridge
crew was stunned. Unit 02
was hunched over the remnants of the sixth Angel, gnawing on its
corpse as though it were a lion that was feeding on prey it had been
chasing around the savanna. It
looked up at the sky and bellowed an inhuman, metallic scream that
split the air. It then
turned and faced the Reagan
and her battle group with those sinister, glowing eyes; optical
sensors that spoke of more than visual feeds, of more than a simple
biomechanical unit designed to combat unknown creatures from the
beyond.
Time stood still. Then,
it seemed to turn to feed again, but instead apparently powered down.
Overhead, the Combined Strike Wing flew by as it aborted its
attack run.
An hour passed as the fate of Unit 02 was decided.
The rest of the fleet command had been notified of the event in
addition to NERV, and all that had been entailed.
At the moment, the senior command group was standing on the
flight deck, staring at the immobile EVA, still on its haunches on the
floating carcass of the Angel, appearing like a giant statue of a
surfer.
“Okay,” Austin said, her tone clearly showing contempt for
Misato, “the destroyers Schneblen, Aguilar,
and Ouellet
will tow the remains of the Angel back to New Yokosuka and turn it
over to NERV research. The
RAN and Russian ships will act as picket for the force until we reach
port, after which they will be returned to national control.
And as for the EVA Unit--“
"Reel it back in," said Misato, interrupting
Austin’s speech.
"Are you crazy!?" Shearen said.
“If you think I’m carrying that...thing...aboard
any of my ships, you’re out of your mind, Katsuragi!”
He turned to Austin. “Signal
all ships to report to New Yoko or New Sasebo, and await further
orders. Under no
circumstances are they to approach that--whatever the hell that thing
is out there. For all I care, it can swim to New Yoko!”
The repulsion and disgust on his face was clear.
"Damnit, do it! I want the pilots out of there!"
Misato said, her voice a terse, barely audible growl.
“Do it or I’ll contact CINCPACFLT at Joshua Tree and force
you to do it.”
Austin was having no more of this.
Signaling to the pair of Marine sentries on guard, she hissed,
“Place Captain Katsuragi under arrest and escort her to Conference
Room 2, where she is to remain until she is handed over to NERV
authorities.”
Misato, however, made a play of her own.
As the sergeants approached, she turned to her aide and
shouted, “Get a hold of our liaison over at Joshua Tree and get
these idiots to comply!”
Austin turned and shouted, “Belay that order, soldier!”
“He’s not under your command, Admiral Austin,” Misato seethed.
“He’s NERV personnel.
He’s under my authority.” And
with that, the two women entered a very palpable and heated Mexican
standoff. Both women
stared each other down, waiting for one, the other, or perhaps both to
make the next move.
Finally, Kaji spoke up, breaking the silence.
“Admirals, Captain Katsuragi, I believe we’ve come to an
impasse. However, this
situation leaves me in the uncomfortable position of being able to
break the stalemate. And
since I believe that Captain Katsuragi is right, I’ve no choice in
what I must do, indeed, as have any of us.”
Turning to the NERV Comms operator, he drawled, “Do not
contact Joshua Tree. Get
me CINCUNMILCOM at the New Pentagon in Washington-2.”
He then turned to Admiral Shearen.
“Your move, Admiral.”
Reluctantly, the Admiral agreed to reel Unit 02 back onto the
aircraft carrier. About
half an hour later, the still unconscious pilots were removed from the
entry plug.
Shinji and Asuka lay on bunks in the Reagan’s
sickbay, unmoving, still as a pair of effigies on coffins.
As if in synchronicity, both their eyes opened, and they sat
up, a fluid and perfectly timed motion.
Initially, the pair looked around their new surroundings with a
sense of disorientation, then finally looked at each other.
They stared at each other silently, a form of communion between
the two. Then, Asuka
hopped off the mattress and hugged Shinji.
"I-I'm sorry...I'm sorry."
Shinji stroked her hair fondly, instinctively knowing it would
calm her. "It's
okay. You didn't know that would happen."
“I thought you would be angry at me,” she reasoned.
His response was a simple, “You know better than that.”
She looked at him, then smiled warmly.
“Yes, yes I do.”
"Am I interrupting something here?"
The pair turned, to face Misato and Shinji’s two friends,
standing in the doorway. Misato
had a puzzled look on her face, but the best looks went to the stunned
gazes on Toji and Kensuke’s. Who
would have thought Shinji to be a stud all of a sudden?
The two pilots let go of each other and looked at Misato.
At the same time they replied, "No ma'am."
Misato blinked, a little surprised at their answer. She had at
least expected Asuka, between her reputation and the earlier events
prior to the Angel’s attack, to blow her top. "Umm, are you
guys okay?"
"Yes, ma'am," answered Asuka and Shinji, at the same
time. Again.
In unison.
"Umm, right,” Misato said, trying to figure out just
what the hell the two were up to. “Well, get your stuff together; we're nearly tied alongside
the pier. We’ll be
leaving for Tokyo-3 in an hour.”
“Of course, Misato,” Shinji replied, moving forward, and
heading for the door with Asuka not much farther behind.
Why is she following him
like that? Misato wondered. As Shinji approached, she said in a teasing voice, “Oh, and
Shinji, I want all the details about what you and Asuka were doing
just now."
He looked at her with an annoyed expression.
"Give it a rest, Misato, or else I'll give Kaji your
address and phone number." Nothing
further to add, he moved on. Asuka
simply gave her a “Sorry....” glance before following Shinji.
"Hey! Wait one minute!" Misato shouted to his back as
the teen left the sickbay. Since when did he get
so cocky?
Toji
was next to comment. Turning
to Shinji, he said, “Studly, man. Didn’t know you had it in you!”
His question was met with a scathing retort from Shinji--in
German. He was
furthermore stunned when Asuka turned to him and calmly said,
“Can’t you be just a little bit nicer?”
Both then continued down the passageway, as though nothing else
happened.
All three of them stared in stunned silence, but finally it was
Kensuke who voiced their thoughts best:
“Could someone rewind the day?
I seemed to miss something during the commercial break.”
Next:
Part Two: Convergence
