Gospel 1:10

Asuka watched Shinji as he picked listlessly at his lunch, his mind seemingly elsewhere. He wasn't actually eating anything, just picking through the bento, stop and look like he was about to put something in his mouth, then go back to picking. She was really starting to worry about him. He'd visibly lost weight; his cheeks had turned to sunken hollows, and his cheekbones cast long shadows down his face.

"You know Shinji," she said, trying to draw him out into conversation, "my birthday is coming up. Have you gotten me a gift yet?"

He didn't look up as he mumbled something too quietly for Asuka to understand.

She pretended that his answer had been in the negative. "Well, you don't want to wait until the last minute. You may have been willing to let your birthday slip by unnoticed, but I'm not. The fifteenth birthday of Asuka Langley Soryu," she declared with a flourish, "will be an event to be remembered."

"If only because you won't let us forget," Kensuke cut in.

Asuka shot him a glare of pure acid, but before she could come up with a suitable retort a shadow fell over her. She glanced up, further annoyed by the interruption, but her ire turned to a different emotion when she saw who it was.

Terry had his mouth half-open but the words froze in his throat as he saw her expression, the transition of emotions on her face. The confrontation he'd been expecting had stirred up long dormant memories and her expression brought one in particular to the surface.

"Do you have something to say or are you just going to stand there looking dumber than usual?" Asuka demanded, returning him to the present. Her expression was guarded, smoldering. She was waiting for him to say something so that she could justify lashing out at him.

Terry was sure that he could almost hear the bastard lurking behind her lips, just waiting for him to give her a reason to say it. Terry forced down all of his anger, all the painful memories; he wasn't going to give her a reason to call him that name. "Asuka, I know that too much has passed between us for us to ever call each other friend, but, for our sake, can we at least be allies?" He extended his open hand towards her and drew his lips back in what he hoped was a friendly smile.

His confidence began to slip both his smile and offered hand wavering as the seconds ticked by without Asuka replying. Instead, she stared at him, an unreadable expression on her face. Finally, with quiet dignity she stood and Terry felt his hopes rise as she stared down at his hand and her own began to move.

SLAP!

Terry's hand went numb from the force of the blow. The expression on Asuka's face became all too readable as her lips drew back from her teeth in a snarl of unrestrained fury. "Ich verzeihe dir nie!" she hissed. "Nie!" she shouted. Before anyone could react she turned and walked away her body practically vibrating with barely contained fury.

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As soon as she was sure that she was out of sight, Asuka turned and vented her anger on a nearby tree. How dare he do that in front of everybody! Leaves and twigs pattered from its branches and its trunk shook under her repeated blows. Did he honestly think that all he had to do was smile and say a few pretty words and I'd forgive everything that that rotten little bastard has done to me? Still quivering with fury she looked for something else to pummel. "I'll never forgive him!" she hissed. "Never!"

The words carried a memory with them.

He'd thrown together that whole charade of pretending to be sorry just to throw her off balance, to humiliate her further. She'd show him she couldn't be shaken. For now, she'd pretend that nothing had happened, but when the right time came….

"That bastard'll pay in full," she vowed.

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Rei walked along a path bordered by semi-wild growth several hundred meters from the school. In her hands she clutched a small book, it's cover decorated with pale rose print.

When classes had adjourned from lunch Rei had left the school and returned to the downtown district, returning to the flower shop that she and Terry had visited that morning. When they'd been there earlier she'd noticed a stack of objects on the counter and now she returned for one of them.

She slowly opened the girls' diary to its first page, ignoring the slow crackle of its spine as it bent for the first time. When she purchased it there'd been a small brassbound lock holding the diary shut; the first thing that she did was tear it off.

The pages were the same pale pink as the roses on the cover. As she ran her fingers down the stiff lined paper she couldn't help but think that it almost seemed to yearn for the touch of a pen, any mark upon its surface, as if such a thing would grant validity to its existence.

She stopped walking and looked up as a man stepped out of the growth along the path in front of her. He was dressed in camouflage and held a rifle that was pointed directly at her. She glanced over her shoulder as two more men stepped onto the path behind her.

The soldier in front of her began speaking into a microphone attached to his helmet. "Team two is confronting target alpha. Teams one and three have sighted beta, gamma, and delta targets and are moving into position." He seemed to listen for a moment before speaking again. "Understood. Cutting uplink now." His eyes flickered to the other soldiers before returning to Rei. "Fire."

All three soldiers opened fire at once, their weapons spitting bullets at full automatic. None of them reached their intended target, instead striking and ricocheting off of a hexagonal distortion that rippled through the air around Rei.

The ground beneath Rei cratered and she hung in midair as the AT field unfolded around her, expanding outwards before the soldiers could react. She closed her eyes against the sudden spray of red.

Rei stepped daintily across thin air until she reached the edge of the crater. She broke into a run, ignoring the gore that coated the ground, as the sounds of gunfire echoed down from the school.

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Asuka sighed as she laid her head down on her arms. It'd taken more effort than she had anticipated getting her emotions back under reign. She ignored the pointless chatter of the girls around her and let her eyes drift across the room.

The teacher was facing the blackboard, his back to the class, prattling on about some pointless fact or another. The class had taken advantage of his inattention and broken into groups, ignoring Hikari's scandalized demands that they pay attention until she'd finally given up and resorted to glaring at everyone who opened their mouths.

Her eyes continued to move, deliberately avoiding Terry. When she'd returned from lunch red-eyed and puffy-faced, there might have been a few people who would've cracked wise about it, but when the first boy opened his mouth, the glare that she'd given him had caused to immediately close it again. No one else dared to even look at her after that.

Her eyes stopped on Shinji, who had his head resting on his arms, looking out the window. He might not have been present at lunch, for all the reaction he had shown to her confrontation with Terry. Terry had tried to talk to him after lunch, and from the glances he'd given Asuka when he thought she wasn't looking she was sure what he'd been talking about. Asuka had to hand it to Shinji that he'd managed to not even look at Terry, and the other boy had finally given up and gone back to his seat.

Rei was still missing, which Asuka regretted because she'd been sitting in a seat that completely blocked her view of Terry. The thought of the two of them together made Asuka feel that her declaration about the world's sanity had been perfectly accurate. She couldn't imagine what Wonder Girl could possibly see in the 6^th Child, but Asuka wouldn't mind if some of Rei rubbed off on him, and he zombified his way into an unobtrusive little lump.

She started tapping her finger against the desktop. That was exactly what Shinji seemed to be doing, but he wasn't the one that she wanted to fade out of existence. With sudden resolve Asuka stood and walked over to the desk in front of Shinji's, turning the chair around so that she could sit and face him.

"Hey Shinji, what'cha thinking about?" she asked, trying to force her voice into a cheerfully coquettish tone.

He didn't turn his head away from the window as he answered with an unintelligible mutter.

"What was that Shinji," she asked sweetly, cupping a hand to her ear. "I can't hear you over our dear learned teacher."

Shinji glance up at her before returning his eyes to the window with a long drawn out sigh. "Nothing."

"You know Shinji," Asuka began, blatantly ignoring his body language, "Misato's right. When you say 'nothing' like that it draws attention to you like the geofront draws Angels. You should join the military. Your commander could send you onto the battle field saying, 'nothing, nothing,' and the enemy will be so busy watching you that your side can just waltz on over and pow!" She accented the word by slamming her fist against her palm.

Shinji didn't look up at her as he muttered a reply to quietly for her to understand.

She pretended that she had anyway, assigning her own meaning to his words. "You're right, you'd probably screw that up too. I mean, you can't even eat lunch without messing up."

This did earn his attention and he raised his head to look at her. "What?"

"You managed to get jam on your forehead dummkopf." Asuka reached out to wipe the small circle of red off of Shinji's forehead but when her finger touched it, instead of smearing stickily beneath her finger, all that she felt was his skin and the small dot of red appeared on the back of her hand. Asuka stared at it as she pulled her hand away and the dot reappeared on Shinji's forehead.

"GET DOWN!" she screamed with sudden realization and threw herself forward, knocking both Shinji and his desk over. As she fell, the windows shattered and she felt something tug at her hair; then her head struck Shinji's overturned desk and she knew nothing more.

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Terry tilted his chair on the back to legs of his chair, resting his arms on the desk behind him, staring up at the ceiling. He wondered how the teacher could keep rattling on and on without seeming to stop for breath or noticing that he'd completely lost the classes' attention.

He caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head far enough to see Asuka rise from her desk and go sit over by Shinji. He suppressed a surge of anger. He'd tried to put things right between them, but she had all but spit in his face. He'd been right, he'd grown up but she was still the same little brat. In his mind, superimposed over Asuka was the image of a young girl, glaring at him and clutching her mother's hand as a stretcher carried her away. "I'll never forgive you! Never!"

He nearly flipped his chair over backwards as Kensuke pounced on him, thrusting his camera in Terry's face. "Smile for the camera, Terry!"

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Terry demanded as he righted the chair.

"Making a documentary. Evangelion: The Mecha and the Men Who Pilot Them."

Terry gave a terse nod in Asuka's direction. "What about her?"

Kensuke thought for a moment. "Okay, so I'll call it 'The Mecha the Men and the Demon Bitch Goddess Who Pilot Them."

"You're forgetting Rei," Terry said, glancing over at her still vacant seat.

"I can't think of a handy way to include her in the title. Oh well, it's an unauthorized documentary anyway. I can make something up."

"I don't think I like the sound of that."

Kensuke opened his mouth, but his words were cut off as Asuka shrieked and the windows exploded inwards. Terry lost his balance, tipping his chair over backwards. As he fell, he opened his mouth to yell but something thick and hot splashed in his face. He spit as he hit the ground, trying to rid his mouth of the salty taste that suddenly filled it.

A stuttering roar filled the room: the windows looking out into the hall blew out and something chewed holes through the plaster of the walls. With a strange sense of detachment Terry recognized the sound: automatic weapon fire.

The noise increased as more automatic weapons opened up, along with the smaller, softer cough of small arms fire. The hail of bullets entering the room slackened off, then stopped completely, although the sound of gunfire still came from outside. More than a minute passed before the firing stopped completely.

Carefully, students began picking themselves up off the floor and Terry shakily pulled himself to his knees. He looked towards the door and his heart nearly stopped in his chest: Rei was standing there, covered in blood.

"REI!" he screamed and scrambled to his feet, rushing over to her, his momentum carrying them both out into the hallway and then to the ground. He didn't know where to look for the injury. Her uniform was completely soaked with blood. A splatter of drying blood across her face looked like freckles.

"I'm all right," she said calmly before he could do anything. "Are you?" She wiped his forehead with her hand and it came away coated red.

Terry's stomach did a slow loop as he remembered the hot wetness splashing across his face and the hot salt taste in his mouth. He looked back into room. Some students were shakily getting to their feet, but there were pools of red on the floor, pools of red that continued to grow and spread. The color drained from Terry's face and his eyes grew very large.

Rei pulled him close as he began to tremble uncontrollably, cradling his trembling head against her neck as the wail of sirens rose in the distance.

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Misato paced restlessly along the upper deck of the command center. She fought down the urge to stop and watch what the techs were doing over their shoulders; they'd chased her off three times for doing that already.

She suppressed a sigh of frustration. That's the problem with this job. When everything isn't going straight to hell, it's so god damned boring.

At her console, Suiko sat up straight at the same time that Makoto tensed, pressing the earpiece of his headset tightly against his ear.

"An AT field has been detected within Tokyo-3!" Suiko shouted.

Makoto followed right on her heels. "Section 2 reports gunfire in the vicinity of—! Could you repeat that?" he asked into the headset.

Misato's head whipped back and forth, trying to focus on both of them at once. "What? Where?"

"First Tokyo-3 Junior High School!" they shouted simultaneously.

The Commander was on his feet, his face gray. "The Children?" he demanded.

Makoto listened intently to his headpiece before answering. "Unknown. Section 2 is declaring a situation red and requesting that we send all available agents."

"The AT Field has vanished," Suiko reported.

"Major—" Gendo found himself talking to air. Misato was already at a dead run out of the command center.

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As she took the last turn Misato swore violently, the tires of her car screaming in protest as they skidded across the pavement at nearly a hundred kph. According to the clock on the dash, it'd been over twenty minutes since she'd dashed out of the command center. A missed turn on the way to the car train had eaten valuable time, as had the actual ride to the surface. Misato'd tried to make up for it once she reached the surface, but there was a limit to how fast even she'd drive within the city.

As her car cleared the gate to the school lot, she had to crush the brake pedal to the floor to keep from plowing into an ambulance, throwing the car through half a revolution and stopping it inches away from said emergency vehicle.

Once out of her car she had to force her way to the school entrance, pushing through a swarm of police and emergency workers. Two armed policemen stopped her at the entrance, but they let her through when she flashed her NERV ID, directing her to a windowless conference room on the school's first floor. Before she reached it two paramedics passed her, bearing a stretcher that held a small, sheet-shrouded form. She stopped them and after showing them her ID, they allowed her to pull back the sheet.

She felt guilty about the relief she felt when she didn't recognize the girl beneath the sheet. The girl's eyes didn't quite point in the same direction but both were wide in an expression of surprise. There was a hole just above her left eye, about the size of a five-yen piece. "How many?" she asked.

"Five so far, six that we're not sure about yet."

"None of the mecha pilots were seriously injured," the other paramedic rushed to tell her. "They're in—."

"I know where it is," Misato interrupted, dropping the sheet back over the girl's face.

When she arrived, it looked as if the entire 2-A class was crushed inside of the small conference room. All that are left, her mind tacked on. Despite the days' heat most of the children were wrapped in blankets and police officers were passing out steaming cups of tea that Misato was sure contained no small amount of sedative.

She saw Kensuke and Touji first. Touji's left arm ended just above the elbow in a jumble of metal and latex; a police officer was cutting him out of the prosthetic arm. Kensuke was silently staring at his camera. A round hole had been punched through the side, just in front of the eyepiece. A few centimeters farther back and the hole would have been in his temple.

She found the Children in the room's far corner. Rei and Terry were sitting side by side. He gulped down the steaming cups of tea without seeming to notice their heat and as soon as he finished one, Rei would hand him another. Misato wasn't sure how many cups he'd had, but it must have been a lot. His movements were sluggish and his eyes were glassy and dull.

Shinji had his back pressed into the corner, his head pressed between his knees. He looked like he was crying.

Asuka sat back against the wall, an ice pack held against an ugly purple goose egg protruding from her temple. Her face was an unhealthy looking shade of white and her eyes were in constant motion, trying to watch every single person in the room at once. She saw Misato first, the tiniest of smiles flashing across her face before being obliterated by a grimace of pain.

Misato rushed forward, wrapping all of them in a hug. Terry spilled his tea on her, but she ignored the pain as it soaked through her clothes. "I'm so glad you're all okay," she whispered hoarsely around a sudden lump in her throat.

Asuka broke down and started sobbing. "Why, why?"

Misato shushed her gently. "It's all right now," she said, trying to hold back the tears in her own eyes. She refused to let them go until several Section 2 agents entered the room. A path immediately opened in front of them. Although none of their actions were outwardly threatening, the agents all seemed to be poised on the razor's edge, ready to explode into violence at the smallest threat.

Misato reluctantly let the Children go, guiding them after the Section 2 agents. As soon as they were out the door, they were joined by more agents and NERV security, until a wall of blue and tan surrounded them.

They were led out of the school and into the parking lot, where an armored transport awaited them. Misato stayed behind as the Children filed in. "There are a couple things that I need to take care of here. Don't worry. I'll see you back at the geofront."

Misato watched as the carrier rolled out of the parking lot, then turned, looking for something in particular. It didn't take her long to find it. Amidst the crush of people in the parking lot, there was one group that formed an island of its own, an undeclared no man's land separating them from everyone else. It was to this group that Misato made her way.

Twelve bodies made the island's center: four of them were hidden beneath sheets, only their black shoes showing. The other eight bodies all wore camouflage and their faces had been hastily covered with handkerchiefs.

Misato pulled back the sheet covering the bodies of the Section 2 agents: three of them had been shot in the head. The fourth had had his throat cut. As Misato turned to the other eight, she noted that none of them had died cleanly. All of their uniforms sported multiple holes in the chest and probing one of them she felt the flattened bullet, still embedded in the flak jacket. Seven of them had died of head wounds. The eighth had a neat stitching of bullet holes running up his inner thigh and had bled to death.

No one had bothered her while she was examining the bodies, but an agent was by her side as soon as she replaced the handkerchief over the last soldier's face. If he noticed her red eyes or puffy cheeks, he was tactful enough not to comment on them. "Is this all of them?" she asked.

To her surprise, a disquieted expression crossed the agent's face, "No ma'am. There were three other but… their bodies were in no condition to be recovered."

"What do you mean?"

"Current conjecture is that they were transporting a concussion weapon that somehow detonated prematurely."

"I… see. Was there anything else?"

"We took one of the attackers alive," he said, pointing to a cluster of agents. Misato had disregarded them earlier, but now realized they that were standing in a circle, hiding something from outside observers. The something turned out to be another soldier, bound and gagged, an ugly purple lump rising out of his forehead. "This man was the commander of the attacking force. We knocked him out and then requisitioned some sedatives from the paramedics to ensure that he remained that way."

"I trust that you were careful in how much you gave him. We don't want anything to happen to this prisoner."

"Pardon me, ma'am?"

"Don't play dumb. You don't think I'd recognize a bullet wound like that?" Misato balled her fist and placed a finger against it to illustrate her words. "The only way that those two," she gestured back at two of the soldiers, "could've taken a wound in the head like that would be if your agents had been hanging out of a tree when they shot them, or if they'd been on their knees, heads pointed down. So tell me, how many did you take alive?"

"Just the one—."

"I want the truth." Misato stared back into the agent's eyes through his sunglasses.

"Three," he relented. "However, when it became apparent that those two had no useful knowledge, it became too much of a security risk to keep them alive."

"Of course it did."

The agent tensed. "One cannot spend the majority of ones time watching children without developing a certain fondness for them. Ma'am."

"Your paternal instincts do you credit," Misato said dryly. "I'll see that no mention of this makes it into the official report."

The agent relaxed at her words and nodded once.

"How long before you finish operations here?"

"We've finished at the school. However, there are still agents combing the surrounding area for clues to the attackers' identities."

"You don't think they'd be dumb enough to leave their unit insignias lying around do you?" Misato asked, glancing down at the unconscious man's uniform. In several places across the chest and arms were darker spots where patches used to be.

"Of course not, ma'am. However we can get a manufacturer's stamp off of something as small as a bullet casing and trace it from there."

"I see. And when you track them down?"

The Section 2 agent's smile was brief, but sharp. "We'll make them pay." After a quick glance at the man lying at their feet, "more than they already have."

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Commander Ikari sat in the middle of the circle of monoliths, Fuyutsuki at his side.

"You overstep yourself, Ikari." The fifth monolith said menacingly.

"You have no right to call a meeting of SEELE." The fourth declared arrogantly.

"I give myself the right," the Commander said, his voice tight with anger.

"How dare you—!"

"Silence!" the first monolith ordered. "Speak, Ikari."

"At twelve hundred hours and twenty-three minutes today, an attempt was made on the lives of the Children. A military force murdered four NERV Section Two agents and then, using automatic weapons, opened fire on the Children's classroom."

Silence held sway over the room before the second monolith spoke, its voice guarded. "The results?"

Gendo glanced over towards Fuyutsuki, who cleared his throat before speaking. "The Children themselves suffered only minor injuries. However, eight of their classmates died and three more are in critical condition, one of whom is not expected to live the night."

"The attacking force?" asked the first monolith, its voice grave.

Gendo answered the question. "Out of twelve attackers, eleven were killed. The one that was taken alive, who, incidentally, was also the force's commander, is currently undergoing interrogation. Should he survive, he shall be turned over to the U.N for trial and sentencing. They have been tentatively identified as American in nationality, although as of yet there is no evidence linking their actions the United States government of military. "

"'Should he survive?'" The twelfth monolith's voice was icy. "There are rules for the treatment of prisoners that the U.N. abides by."

A grin curled the edges of the Commander's lips. "NERV security does not have to answer to U.N. protocols. Treatment of prisoners is whatever NERV deems fit."

The twelfth monolith's voice grew angry. "You dare! How dare you treat one of my countrymen like that! There will be repercussions for this? There—!"

"SILENCE!" If the twelfth monolith's voice was angry, the first's was absolutely infuriated. "Never did I think that you could be such a fool!"

The twelfth monolith's voice sputtered off. "What?"

"Do you really think that you could plot something like this and not be noticed? We could have stopped you at anytime. We would have stopped you, if we'd known how stupid you are."

"B-but you said, about controlling Ikari—"

"How do you think it furthers our goals to kill the very children we need! Eight! EIGHT children dead! Eight children who could have piloted an Evangelion!"

"But what it says in the secret Dead Sea scrolls! What you showed us—!"

"SILENCE!" The voice of the first monolith reverberated like nearby thunder. "The only reason I don't throw you to the wolves is that they might learn something from your stinking corpse."

"W-what-?" The twelfth monolith's reply was cut off as the sound of breaking wood, like a door being kicked in, was heard. The voice of the twelfth monolith could be heard begging for mercy, before being abruptly silenced by a burst of gunfire.

"The target's status?" The first monolith asked.

"The target has been terminated." A new voice came from the twelfth monolith.

"You overstep yourself, Kihl!" The seventh monolith shouted.

"DO NOT ADDRESS ME BY NAME HERE!" the first monolith roared before regaining a measure of control. "I overstep nothing. This scenario has progressed too far to allow for mistakes. I speak the literal truth when I say that the fate of humanity rests upon our shoulders. We can neither suffer the presence of fools nor afford their blunders. Let this be a lesson to all of you, especially you Ikari. At this stage of the scenario, no mistakes can be allowed, and no one is irreplaceable."

The monoliths faded away without another word. Once they were gone, Gendo let a tight grin spread across his face.

"Happy, Ikari?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"We caught the old men off guard and off balance. They let slip things that they never would under any other circumstance."

"And the fact that the circumstance that allowed it was the near death of your son?"

The grin slipped slightly. "Regrettable, but I would be a bigger fool than the old men if I didn’t capitalize on any opportunity presented to me."

"And the prisoner? Will we be turning him over to the U.N.?"

Gendo shrugged casually. "If they want what's left of him when we’re done."

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Despite the relatively small space inside the transport, Rei sat alone in a corner. The guards that had followed them onto the transport were all by the windows, eyes in constant motion. The other three Children were all crowded into another corner of the transport, surrounded by NERV medical personal. Rei was left unaccosted because out of the four of them, she was the only one that they deemed 'all right.'"

She still held the diary in one hand, and somehow, despite the chaos, had managed to retrieve her school briefcase. She withdrew a pen from the briefcase and drew her legs up, bracing the diary against her legs as she opened it.

The first page was no longer a flawlessly blank sheet of pink: dirty brown spots now dotted its surface. Ignoring those, Rei placed the point of the pen on the paper and paused for a moment to think, before setting the pen to motion. I killed today, she wrote, then paused again before continuing on. And, I was kissed.