The First Child sits in her room, the Commander's old, broken glasses clasped between her hands. Functionally, they serve no purpose- Rei has no need for glasses, and the lenses are too cracked to see out of even if she did. It's her one sentimental allowance, this relic, a reminder that the Commander had once saved her, even though he didn't need to.

Rei's thought about it often since then- in the moments of waking that preclude sleep, when she stares out the window of the school classroom, tuning out the teacher's voice. She's been told two things since she first awoke- that her purpose is to carry out Gendo's Scenario, and that she is ultimately replaceable. The Commander himself told her this, and yet he was the one who saved her.

There must be something in that act that carries meaning, but Rei doesn't know what.

Her hands tighten on the glasses; she hears the plastic frames strain and crack beneath her touch. Rei turns and places them on the table beside her bed, where they lay reflecting the sunlight trickling in through the window.

Today, there is no class, and so Rei will stay in her apartment. There's no need for her to go outside- Section 2 brings her food once a week, and she receives all the sun she needs from her window and the balcony just outside her apartment, where she'll sometimes stand and watch the birds fly across the quad below. She's waiting, as she always does, for orders. They never come on days like these, but something about today feels different: she can sense it in the air. Someone is coming today.

Briefly, Rei wonders if it might be Shinji. But no, there isn't any reason for him to come. On a day like this, where would he be? Probably in Misato's apartment with the Second, Rei thinks. She doesn't understand how he can bear being in close proximity with her so frequently. Maybe he's grown used to it, maybe behind that quiet exterior he longs for company, no matter who it is. Or maybe it's because he doesn't hate the color red, which Asuka seems to exude so frequently. Rei's never seen her without her neural clips, not even during their P.E. classes, as if Asuka is reminding not only herself but the rest of the world that she is an EVA pilot.

Another alternative- it might be Rei who's just the odd one out, preferring the quiet and the solitude of her mind to the constant presence and chatter of others. Rei can bear the Commander since he rarely speaks outside of giving orders; she can tolerate Shinji, who's gentle and soft-spoken. It's the Second who Rei can't stand, who always seems to have something to say whenever they're in the same room together for more than two seconds, a blazing ball of emotions that Rei decidedly would be better off not knowing.

Rei's eyes scan the room, falling upon Gendo's glasses again. Here's the greatest paradox in her otherwise simple life: she shouldn't feel, since emotions would only get in the way of the Scenario, but she knows she should feel something. Gratitude most likely; yes, that's it. She should be grateful that Commander Ikari wrested her from the entry plug, that he- did he save her? The others say he did, though Rei doesn't quite remember. What she does remember is the ringing of his voice, the grating of metal as he worked to free her from the entry plug. Rei wonders now what he might have felt aside from the burning of his palms: a sense of urgency, but why? If she truly was replaceable, why bother with the effort?

The simple answer is that he cared. Of course he did- he raised her, after all. Beyond that, Rei isn't quite sure. There must be something to describe it, a word to put to this strange stirring in her chest, but she doesn't know and she's never thought to ask. The knowledge is irrelevant to the Scenario, and thus to her.

But she feels it all the same in fleeting moments that she can never seem to hold on to: the warmth that sometimes fills her body when she looks at the glasses, the memory of Shinji telling her to smile. It's the things like these, irrelevant but not, that confuse her, that she tries to avoid accumulating any more of. It's why, though she'll never admit it, she stays in her apartment. Things are simple here, and she doesn't have to feel anything.

There are footsteps outside, ringing in the stairwell. Rei knows from their weight, from the echoes, that it must be Section 2. They're coming to retrieve her. That's odd- there's been no notification from the Commander that she's needed at NERV today, but perhaps it's something urgent.

Rei's opened the door by the time the first of the men in suits come into view. "First," one of them says. "You will come with us."

"Yes," Rei answers, and steps out of her apartment. She leaves the door slightly ajar, following Section 2 down the staircase. She doesn't need to lock it; the thought never crosses her mind. No one comes here for Rei Ayanami, not unless she's needed.

They drop her off a few blocks from one of NERV's surface entrances and tell her the Second and Third will be coming along shortly. There'll be a sync test, assuming Doctor Akagi activates Unit-00 without any trouble. Rei has no reason to believe Akagi will fail, and so she prepares herself while she waits. The best sync tests are done with a clear mind and sharp focus-

And as soon as Asuka crests over the top of the nearby hill, shouting something at Shinji, who's lagging behind her, all of Rei's concentration shatters. "First!" she hears Asuka call from atop the slope. "Decided to grace us with your presence, I see."

"Second," Rei says, her tone flat; this is the only greeting she's ever offered to Asuka, the only one she can see herself offering. Even 'Soryu' is too much for her; it implies a level of closeness to the Second Child that Rei will never see herself having, and she doesn't want to encourage anything. She doesn't want to be friends. She wants to be left in her apartment, as far away from human contact as possible until her duty requires it.

"Ayanami!" Shinji manages to wave as he reaches the top of the hill, pausing to rest his hands upon his knees. "Asuka, do you have to walk so fast? We aren't scheduled to do that sync test for at least another hour!"

"Kaji's in the Geofront," Asuka says, stressing the first syllable. "The sooner we get there, the sooner we can find him!"

Which means, Rei notes, that she would be rid of Asuka's company. For once she and the Second can agree on something, and that is getting to a surface entrance as quickly as possible. Asuka sweeps past; Rei follows after her, turning briefly to make sure Shinji is coming after them, then trails Asuka down the sidewalk.

They continue onward, a disjointed sort of train with Asuka at the head, and Rei and Shinji lagging behind. For once it's Shinji who's at the back, and this leaves Rei to follow Asuka at a distance she finds comfortable- not too close, so Asuka won't try and talk to her (and Rei won't have to look so much at her hair), not too far so Asuka won't snap at her.

Shinji doesn't catch up entirely until they're at the entrance to the Geofront. Asuka stands to the side, uniform shoes tapping an impatient beat on the pavement while Rei swipes her card through the reader. Nothing. She swipes again, aware that the Second Child now looms over her shoulder with narrowed eyes, as if the sheer force of her demanding presence would cause the reader to suddenly work. There's still nothing.

"Let me try that!" Asuka says. Rei feels a hand grip her shoulder- warm, firm- and Asuka pushes her to the side, swiping her own card through the slot, then repeatedly running it along the reader.

"I think they're all broken," Shinji says from the next turnstile.

"Of course they're broken, stupid!" Asuka says, turning from the card reader and examining the city around her. She stows the card in her school bag, storming towards the stairways a little ways away, the ones that lead to the cargo transports. "Some place this is, can't even keep things working."

Shinji pauses to shove his card into his pocket, offering Rei a tiny shrug and a smile. Rei ignores this, marching after Asuka, trying one of the locked metal doors. "It appears these entry points are all broken, too."

"No kidding," Asuka shoots back, her tone laced with sarcasm. Still, she tries the door in front of her. It stays shut, as she'd expected. "Damn it!" she says, stomping a foot against the ground. "Did something happen down there?"

A thought springs to Rei's mind, one that would be unusual to anyone who hadn't had years of conditioning and training. She sits on a nearby chair, digging in her bag for the small pamphlet given to all pilots for emergencies. Asuka turns, sees her, and starts doing the same. "Of course!" she says, pausing in her search only to snap at Shinji when he asks what she's doing. "The emergency protocols!"

"It says we should go to the Headquarters," Rei says, reading off the card. Her mouth twists in what might be a hint of a frown, eyes narrowing at the thin text. The contingencies have nothing on what to do in case of a total loss of power, yet another failing that NERV hasn't taken into account until it's far too late. But of course it would be this way- the only thing Gendo's bothered to consider in full is his Scenario and the inevitable confrontation with SEELE.

"Well then let's go!" Asuka says. "But first, we should choose a leader. I, of course, volunteer."

"Asuka-" begins Shinji, but Asuka's already passed by him, taking long strides.

"Second." Rei stands, replacing her protocol card in her bag. "There is an underground service shaft in the opposite direction."

"Shut up, First, I knew that!" Asuka storms by, retracing her steps. "I just was- testing your knowledge of the facility!"

It's a lie, of course, but Rei doesn't argue it. Doing so would only be a waste of her energy when there's much more to worry about- the power outage, the disturbing lack of contact from below. She trudges after Asuka, Shinji again bringing up the rear, as the three of them descend into one of the many underground passages into the Geofront. There's a tingling feeling in her chest, not the same sensation as the one she usually feels before entering combat- no, if she were to put a name to this emotion, it would be annoyance. An unnecessary thing: it plays no role in the Scenario, and thus Rei doesn't need to feel it.

Rei attempts to shove this feeling down, and yet it persists. It lingers in her stomach, makes her want to clench her hands into fists, or perhaps tell the Second that Rei knows she isn't nearly as confident in where she's going as she appears to be. It shows: her steps are forceful against the steel floor, and her blue eyes dart around the corridor every few seconds.

They come to a door at last. Asuka plants herself in front of it, pointing directly ahead. "This has got to be it!" she declares, and approaches the door. A well-aimed kick throws it open, bright sunlight peering down to illuminate the dark tunnel that the pilots had just traversed. There's a single, crystal clear moment in which the stillness of the city sweeps over them, and then a gigantic dark mass slams down in front of the door.

"What the-" Asuka staggers back, arms pinwheeling. One nearly catches Shinji in the face; Rei step to the side, neatly avoiding the other. "What is that?"

Rei approaches the doorway, peers out into the sunshine just as the mass lifts off the ground, vanishing from sight. There's another mass in the distance, reminiscent of a large, spindly spider's leg. And something more- a stirring in her gut, visceral and sickening. Rei too stumbles back, her face contorting with distaste. "Angel," she says through the sudden dryness of her mouth, and wonders why she's so physically bothered by this. She's been trained for this duty for as long as she can remember, but actually being within touching distance of the Angel is another thing entirely.

"An Angel?" Shinji grabs the metal door and swings it shut, blocking the Angel and the city from view. The churning in Rei's stomach doesn't dissipate, not yet, not until she's sure the Angel's moved far beyond the tunnel she's huddled in. "Shouldn't we hurry to NERV, then?"

"That'd be fine, if we knew where we were going!" snaps Asuka.

"I thought you knew?" says Shinji.

"I do, I just-"

"It is this way." Rei finds herself staring into the darkness of the next corridor. She doesn't remember walking there, or when she stopped shaking, but she's there. "Come."

She advances down the tunnel without waiting for Asuka or Shinji. They hurry after her, footsteps ringing in tandem, and as always it's Asuka who catches up to her first. "Of course the Commander's favorite would know where to go," she says, and there's something in her tone that makes Rei bristle in a way that seeing the Angel had, only warmer.

"I am not his favorite," Rei replies.

"Of course you are!" Asuka turns sharply, and Rei nearly runs into her. Asuka bars the way with her arms outstretched, glaring at the First Child. "The Commander's precious pet who does everything he asks, who's perfect at everything."

"Asuka-" Shinji begins.

"Shut it! Tell me something, First. Do you feel at all? Or do you just do as you're told and nothing else?"

The answer that Asuka's looking for, obviously, is that Rei doesn't feel a thing. It's an answer that wouldn't be true: Rei does feel around Asuka, quite clearly in fact, and that emotion she feels is annoyance. But of course, she isn't supposed to feel, and so Rei shakes her head and brushes past the Second Child.

"I knew it," Asuka mutters, hovering by Rei's shoulder. "I bet you think you're better than us, don't you?"

"I do not."

"Whatever." Asuka dismisses this with a wave of her hand. She glares at Rei again, expecting her to say something, but the only thing that Asuka hears is silence.

They come to a stop some minutes later in front of a hatchway partly blocked by debris and twisted metal spars. Rei immediately begins to dig through the surrounding rubble while Asuka and Shinji approach the door, gazing up at it.

"Is this the right place?" Shinji asks.

"Does it look like it?" Asuka places a hand on the concrete slab obstructing half the doorway. "Wonder Girl's led us in the wrong direction-"

"NERV is past that corridor," Rei says, calmly picking up a steel rod from the ground. "The way is blocked. The easiest solution is to open an air vent, then travel through the ventilation shafts."

"Can we do that?" Shinji's eyes dart from the rod in Rei's hands to the vent mounted on the wall. "Will we fit?"

"We will need to crawl, but I believe we will be able to access NERV Headquarters in such a manner."

"Crawl? In these?" Rei's eye twitches imperceptibly as she begins prying at the vent. Asuka's voice has hit that shrill pitch that means she's going to start shouting soon, and it's either that or just the sound of it that makes Rei wish Asuka was still on the other side of the planet. "There's no way I'm going in there, not with Shinji!"

"Why not?" Shinji asks. He's managed to pry up a piece of rubble, holding it with both hands as he lumbers over to the vent to help Rei open it.

"Because! I don't need you looking up my skirt!"

"I… I can go in front-"

"You, go in front? I'd have better luck asking Wonder Girl here for directions!"

"At least she knows where to go, I think-"

At last Rei manages to slip the rod into a crack between the wall and the grate. She tugs on the rod, and the vent covering clatters to the ground, drowning out the sound of Asuka and Shinji's bickering. The other two pilots turn towards Rei, momentarily silenced.

"Ikari will go through first," says Rei, tossing the rod to the side. It bangs off a rock and falls into the piles of debris to be lost from sight. "Soryu will follow. I will be last. I will give Ikari directions."

"What?" Asuka advances up the rise of packed gravel, draws within a breath's distance of Rei. "You expect you can just follow me like that? What if you're looking up my skirt, too? Huh?"

"I see no reason why I would want to do that."

Rei thinks there might be a tinge of red on Asuka's cheeks as she turns away, wheeling on Shinji, who's standing watching this with the rubble still clenched in his hands. "What're you staring at?" she snaps. "This turn you on, or something?"

"N-no-"

"You're pathetic! Just get moving already." Asuka grabs the rock from Shinji with one hand, tosses it to the side. It bounces off a larger piece of rubble, splitting into multiple parts as it falls. "There's an Angel out there, remember?"

"Okay!" Shinji approaches the vent, places his hands on the metal. He peers into the darkness beyond, grey walls extending until they merge and blend with the shadows. "Rei, are you sure this is going to take us to NERV?"

"It will."

Shinji's feet disappear into the vent as he crawls through, every movement producing a rattling sound. Already Rei can tell this will most likely be unpleasant. At least with Shinji in the lead, Rei knows he'll follow her instructions.

Asuka approaches the mouth of the vent, hesitating as she places her hands on either side of the opening. "How far is it to Headquarters?" she asks. She still sounds angry, Rei thinks, but her voice isn't as hard as before- there's something undermining it, but what it is Rei doesn't care to know.

"It is not far," replies Rei. "If you worry that the Angel will strike before we arrive, it will not."

"I don't see why I can't just go behind you." Asuka's mouth curves into a frown, and her blue eyes flash sharply in Rei's direction. "No, wait. There's no way I'm going behind you. Fine, I'll go second, but if I catch you looking up my skirt you'll have to answer for it later."

"That is not something I intend to do."

Asuka sniffs and lowers her head, crawling into the ventilation shaft after Shinji. Rei hears her banging down the narrow corridor, knocking elbows and knees against the walls. Briefly she wonders if the ventilation system will hold the three of them on their descent. Of course it would- surely this is a contingency that Commander Ikari had planned for when the facility was built, isn't it? It has to be. The Commander thinks of everything. Rei knows this.

She climbs into the shaft, the blue of Asuka's uniform just barely visible ahead. Further down, Shinji is navigating the tunnel with the speed of a snail. Perhaps Rei's estimate was wrong- perhaps they'll arrive just as the Angel does, and then what'll they do? No- Commander Ikari will have a plan for that, too.

Rei shifts her attention to the metal beneath her palms, still warm but cooling. The power's been out here for quite a while then, and the problem extends below the surface of the city. That the entire Geofront's been crippled is a possibility Rei hasn't considered. If the power is out, the Evangelions won't be able to launch, and if they can't launch-

"Rei?" Shinji's voice drifts back towards her. "Which way do we go?"

"Right," says Rei. She hears more rattling as Shinji departs down the right branch of vents, Asuka following closely behind. If anything, she notes, despite Asuka's feigned indifference, she appears to be the one who most wants to get to NERV. Maybe she wants to fight the Angel already, or just to get somewhere that isn't dark and cramped. It isn't a concern of Rei's. She feels no such urgency- just the steady beating of her heart, reflecting the lack of obligation within her. The only thing Rei Ayanami is beholden to is Commander Ikari's plan, and this is but a small part of it.

Shinji calls again, and Rei answers. In the middle of this, Asuka remains silent. It's a curious silence, one that Rei allows herself to dwell on briefly. It's possible that the Second Child, like herself, is lost in thought. More likely, she's just trying to get to Headquarters as quickly as possible so she can get into Unit-02. Of all the pilots, Asuka is the one most at home in her Evangelion, and if it weren't for her oversized ego and inability to take instructions, Rei thinks she might have been a decent pilot otherwise.

The tunnel begins to slope downwards, gently, the only hint that they're beginning to near their destination. The air here is warmer, thicker, like a physical pressure threatening at any moment to send them crashing through the vents to whatever lies below. Up ahead, Shinji seems to sense this- he moves quicker, as much as is possible in this tight space.

Then, up ahead, Shinji stops. Rei lifts her head, trying to spot what kind of intersection the Third Child has encountered, and instead finds herself looking at exactly what Asuka told her not to. She expects, for a moment, that Asuka will somehow wheel around in the cramped vent and begin shouting at her. Instead Asuka says, "What is it now?"

"Don't you hear that?" asks Shinji. "I hear voices."

"Then why are you stopping, idiot?" Asuka prods Shinji's thigh with an impatient finger. "We're almost there!"

"I just wanted to ask Rei if-"

"She hasn't said anything, so get moving!"

"But-"

Between Asuka and Shinji's voices echoing in the tunnel, Rei barely notices the creaking noise coming from beneath them. Shinji falls from view; a moment later, Asuka shrieks and is gone too. Then there's a split second in which Rei feels weightless, not quite the same sensation as the one she gets from being immersed in LCL. It's almost like the time her entry plug was ejected, but this time there's Asuka's body to soften her landing. Rei drops from the vent, somehow ending upright with her feet planted on Asuka's uniform. Again she expects shouting, complaints, but Shinji just groans and Asuka directs her blue eyes upward. "Get off!"

Rei steps away, for the first time taking in where they've ended up. By chance, they've arrived in the EVA bays: the sources of the voices Shinji heard are down below, crews of NERV personnel working to prepare the EVAs for launch. Rei passes her gaze over them and glimpses familiar orange spectacles and white gloves- Commander Ikari. So this was his plan; of course he would be prepared. There was no reason to worry at all.

Misato rushes up a stairwell to their right. That urgency that Rei doesn't feel is present in her voice, in her touch as she tries to herd the three pilots from the scaffold where they've landed towards their EVAs. Rei begins walking towards hers without Misato's urging. She doesn't need to be told where to go- she's always known; it comes with the same certainty that tells her she doesn't need to worry about the upcoming battle.

If she dies, she can be replaced.

Asuka and Shinji vanish in the opposite direction, but the sound of Asuka's voice lingers far after she's gone from sight. She isn't angry, but she sounds it, and here's that confusion that Rei doesn't want to bother with, here are Asuka's emotions being flung onto her, and when Rei climbs into the entry plug and is sealed off from the rest of the world, it comes as a relief.

Now she can focus on what lies ahead- the Angel, and perhaps that cessation of life she's been promised. It won't quite be an end; there'll always be another Rei until there isn't the need for one any longer, but it will mean the end of this one. If that's the cost of defeating an Angel, then everything will even out. More Angels will come, and another Rei Ayanami will be the one to face them.

Briefly Rei wonders what it might be like to die. She's been told that others are afraid of it, of the inevitability- it might hurt, but death itself implies an end, and isn't that what she's been waiting for, anyway?

The EVA lurches beneath her, systems powering up. The Commander's voice booms from the outside, aided by a megaphone. "Push off the restraints," he says. "Move your EVAs to the launch track."

Rei complies, wondering for a moment exactly how the EVAs are expected to launch with the facility blacked out. Then there's Misato's voice: equally loud, directing the pilots with such unremarkable confidence that it would seem like this is just another Angel to fight, that the entirety of NERV lies crippled with the enemy at its doorstep. "There's enough hydraulic fluid left in the track to send you all up, but once you're there, you only have five minutes. Even if we had power, there's no way to get the umbilical cords into the ventilation ducts. The Angel is directly over one of the maintenance shafts. It's already melted through the street, and if it continues, it'll come straight through the Geofront."

"Vents again," Asuka mumbles. Rei imagines the Second Child sitting in her EVA with her arms folded across her chest, head turned to the side in a show of indifference. Would she be afraid to die, Rei wonders. Most likely, yes- there's no glory in death for her, only in piloting.

"Rei, you'll grab a pallet rifle from the weapons depot. Unfortunately we can't access any others because of the outage. That'll be the only weapon you have."

"Wait, did she say 'melted'?" asks Shinji.

"Remember, you don't have much time. Move out!"

Before any of the pilots can say another word, the catapults fire. Rei braces herself, grabbing tightly to the control sticks. No matter what they call this- launching, deploying, whatever word Misato's decided to employ- this feeling is the same, of being thrown upward, and part of Rei expects at any moment to encounter something blocking her path. She expects to crash against it, to fall, to be hurt again, so when the EVAs begin to slow the unfamiliarity of it all makes her pause.

"Get into gear, Wonder Girl!" Asuka shouts. Unit-02 has already left its catapult, crawling through an opening in the walls. A maintenance tunnel, Rei notes, conveniently EVA-sized.

"What did she say about melting?" Shinji urges his EVA after Asuka's, head low so as not to drag Unit-01's horn through the top of the tunnel. Rei turns, grabbing a rifle as Misato had instructed, and follows after him.

This time, though Asuka's in the lead, they seem to be going in the right direction. It's probably because there only isone direction to go. Rei gets the feeling that Asuka will brag about this at some point, makes a mental note to herself to try not to point that out. As much as it seems irrelevant to her, the Second Child's self-esteem is supposedly critical to her success as a pilot, and so she will not interfere. There's that nagging curiosity again: she wants to know whyit matters to Asuka, even if it shouldn't matter at all. Perhaps it'd help Rei understand why the Second Child is so annoying.

There's a bang: Asuka's kicked in the thin metal grate blocking the way out of the duct. Her EVA disappears from sight, moving upward. A moment later, she hears Asuka declare, "There's the Angel, dead ahead." Shinji swings out, climbing up, and by the time Rei gets into the maintenance shaft there's barely any room to visually confirm the Angel's presence. She'll have to rely on Asuka's report: there's supposed to be something funny about that, Rei thinks, but she doesn't quite understand why.

"Rei, you've got the rifle, right?" says Shinji. "Shoot it."

"Don't shoot it!" Asuka snaps. "Pass it up here. If you shoot from down there, you'll end up hitting one of us!"

"I will not," Rei says, though the idea of shooting the pallet rifle in the maintenance shaft sounds ludicrous. To do so, she'll have to use both hands, and if she does that her EVA will no longer have a grip and she'll fall.

"I bet you don't even have a good shot from down there. Can you even see it? I-"

"Guys?" There's a nervous note to Shinji's voice, rising to the surface of it. A second later, something splatters on the shoulder of Rei's EVA. She thinks Unit-01's sprung a leak somehow, but then Unit-00 is sliding back down the maintenance shaft, and there's more of this raining down from above. She hears Asuka shriek; Unit-02 impacts on Unit-01, and then both EVAs begin to crash down upon Rei's.

"The tunnel!" Asuka shouts. "Get back to the tunnel!"

By some luck, Unit-00's hand catches on a seam between plates in the wall. That's all Rei needs to slow their descent; she clambers into the tunnel where they came from, followed closely by the others. A moment later, a stream of orange liquid plummets past the space they once filled, dripping towards the heart of NERV.

"So that's what Misato meant…" Shinji's face pops up in the lower-left corner of Rei's screen. Asuka's appears too; she glares directly ahead, and Rei can't tell whether that gaze is meant for herself or Shinji, or both of them.

"What was that?"

"Acid," mutters Rei. "The Angel is trying to attack NERV directly with it."

"What're we going to do?" asks Shinji.

"We're going to kill it, duh!" Unit-02 smacks a fist against the metal walls, producing a ringing that makes Rei want to cover her ears. Leave it to Asuka to be as abrasive as possible, even during combat.

"How? Rei dropped the rifle, and we're down to less than three minutes."

This causes Asuka to pause. It appears, for once, she's taking this seriously- which would mean she hadn't been doing that before, but wasn't piloting the only thing she truly enjoyed? Rei frowns, and the visual feed shifts slightly, focusing on Unit-02. This might be it, the moment in which Rei decides Asuka is too confusing to understand and her efforts are better used elsewhere. It won't be, though. This paradox of Asuka's is one that's too enticing to look away from, that swirling mix of emotions that keeps Rei's attention even as it repulses her.

At last, Asuka speaks. "I've got a plan," she says. "We'll do it in three parts. The defense stays here and shields the others from the acid. One of us will go down to the bottom, retrieve the rifle, and throw it up. Whoever gets the rifle will shoot it. The defense will get out of the way, and we'll kill the Angel that way. Got it?"

"Understood. I will serve as the defense-"

"No way!" Asuka's voice splits through the communications, drowning out Rei's. "I'm doing it."

"But Asuka, isn't it dangerous?" asks Shinji.

"Precisely. I owe you from our last fight. You don't think I was just going to forget about that, do you? You fire the rifle. Rei can get it. Understood?"

The way Asuka gives orders, Rei notes, is nothing like how Misato does it. Asuka gives orders just to give them; Rei wants to point out the flaws in Asuka's plan, mainly that Rei- the replaceable one, as they've established- should be the one shielding the others. But they're far too short on time to debate this, and she knows Asuka will stand firm, so she merely nods. After a moment, Shinji does too.

The EVAs gather near the mouth of the vent, watch as more acid goes by. "Go!" Asuka shouts, and Unit-02 grabs the lip of the vent and flings itself upward. The red EVA spreads itself across the maintenance shaft, blocking out the sight of the Angel, the light, and the acid that comes pouring from above. There's no avoiding it, and as Rei lands at the base of the shaft she hears Asuka groaning, the shuddering of metal above as Unit-02 fights to keep its hold.

"Ayanami!" Shinji shouts, the hand of Unit-01 extended to receive the rifle. Rei tosses it up; Shinji catches it in one motion, the EVA bringing it up to a firing position. "Asuka!"

Asuka doesn't need to hear anything more: she throws her EVA out of the way, narrowly avoiding the stream of bullets Shinji sends flying towards the Angel. They don't see the shots connect: Asuka's EVA lands heavily atop Unit-01, and they slide back towards the vent. Through the link in their EVAs Rei hears Asuka say, "There. We're even." Then the volume cuts out: Unit-01 and 02 lose their grips on the sides of the maintenance shaft as their batteries fail, fingers cutting deep into the metal as the EVAs come to settle on the bottom next to Rei's.

Even stuck here in the darkness and silence, Rei knows Asuka must be cheering in her entry plug, something like that. Here's another puzzle for Rei to work out: what exactly hadShinji done for Asuka's pride to insist she be the defensive position? It's something, no doubt, that will stay between them both. There won't be any use asking, and even if she did, what would she want that knowledge for. Curiosity? Yes, that must be it- and that won't do at all.

Eventually Rei hears a tapping at the outside of her EVA, the sound of voices from before. There is grating, a shift in the LCL around her, and at last the entry plug pops open and she can make out the figures of workers just outside. One helps her out of the entry plug, points her in the direction of a door. "The others are waiting for you," he says. "The power's still out, so Captain Katsuragi is going to take you someplace else until the power's back."

Rei nods and walks past the workers clumped around the EVAs like so many ants. She doesn't question why she was retrieved last, why the others left without her. These thoughts don't register within her: the curiosity from before is gone. Alone, among the NERV personnel, she is simply the First Child. They don't look up as she passes by them; Rei doesn't spare them a glance. They are all working towards the same goal, Ikari's, though Rei is the only one aware of it.

Misato drives them to a hill overlooking Tokyo-3, which to Asuka would be nice if she hadn't been wedged between Shinji and Rei on the drive there. She wrestles herself free of the seat belt as soon as Misato slows to a stop, clambering over the First Child in her haste to exit the car. "Ahh, fresh air!" she says, hopping out onto the grass. "Where are we, Misato? This is the middle of nowhere!"

"I thought you three might want to get away from everything after that fight," answers Misato. Asuka looks away, concealing a roll of her eyes. Of course Misato's idea of somewhere to relax would be a nondescript, plain place like this.

"Couldn't have taken us to the hot springs again?" Asuka mutters beneath her breath, though she knows it's an impossibility. She wouldn't want to share the same water with Rei either, now that she thinks about it.

"Ritsuko told me it shouldn't take too long for everything to get working again." Misato consults her phone, looks out at the blacked-out city, a jumble of jagged shadows against the distant hills. "I have a few calls to make. You three can hang around here, but don't go too far."

Shinji slides out from the car, staring up at the star-filled sky. He turns back, placing one hand on the roof of the car as he bends slightly. "Hey," he says, and Asuka realizes he must be addressing Rei. "You should come out here. It's nice. Kind of like that time before the Fifth Angel."

"She's not gonna come out here," Asuka scoffs, but she's spoken too soon. A pale arm emerges from the car, ignoring Shinji's offered hand; Rei steps out, and the first impression Asuka gets is that she's looking at a ghost. She sniffs, turns on her heel, and stalks a little ways away to throw herself down upon the grass. Shinji and Rei follow her- of course they would, couldn't they think on their own for once?- and lie down beside her, one on either side.

"The stars look so much better with all the lights off," Shinji says.

"It's so dead, though!" says Asuka. "All these dark buildings. It's like no one lives down there." On the horizon, a flickering- one that blossoms quickly into towers of light. The city is coming back to life, drowning out the sky with its artificial brilliance. "See? Much better."

"Man fears the darkness, so he scrapes away at the edge of it with fire." The voice speaking is so soft that for a second Asuka can't place it: she's not entirely used to how the First Child sounds yet.

"Ooh, what's this? Our Wonder Girl is a phi-lo-so-pher."

There's a brief silence, stretching on just long enough to be awkward. There's no answer to what Asuka's said. Some part of Asuka, deep inside, chides herself for expecting a reaction from Rei.

"I wonder if that makes man special, then," Shinji says. How like him- missing the point entirely. "Is that why the Angels attack us?"

"Don't be stupid! How're we supposed to know something like that?"

"Well, I- Rei, what do you think?"

"I do not know," Rei says. It's as good of an answer as they'll get. The First Child's mind has gone wandering, has been drifting ever since the pilots got into Misato's car. The question of the night: again, what would it be like to fear? She thinks of man and his lights and the inevitable: death is darkness, and Instrumentality will be happening soon. It's useless to fear something that will come, eventually.

Her eyes wander to Asuka, to Shinji sitting behind her. Would they feel fear in the end? She can't imagine that Shinji would; if anything he would go towards it and accept it in the same measured way he moves through the world. Asuka- she wouldn't go in fear, either. Rei imagines Asuka's end to be an explosion, all the emotions contained in that body fleeing into the world all at once. An end that might be called beautiful, if there would be anyone left to witness it- Rei doesn't imagine that anything less than instrumentality could finally still her.

Shinji gets to his feet, arms stretching upwards. "Where are you going?" Asuka asks without looking away from the city.

"I want to see if Misato's done," he replies. "I'm kind of tired after all that."

Asuka waves a hand; Shinji, interpreting it as dismissal, turns and starts back up the hill. He leaves behind Asuka, who's settled back against the grass with her hands under her head, and Rei, who watches her closely. She seems, somehow, entirely relaxed, as if she hadn't hours before had acid pouring down on her.

"Second." The word slips from Rei's lips almost carelessly, an accident brought on by her thoughts. Asuka's head whips around, eyes focusing like blue spotlights on Rei. It occurs to Rei that without Shinji there, the totality of Asuka's attention will fall upon her, and for a moment she's left with her mind completely empty, the stale air in her lungs clawing for an escape.

"What is it?" asks Asuka. She waves a hand in front of Rei's face. It looks like she might move closer to see if she can startle Rei, anything to get that vacant stare off her face. "Hello?"

"Why did you do that?"

"Do what?" says Asuka. Rei's voice sounds distant, restrained. Asuka repeats the waving motion from before, lowering her hand when Rei's eyes shift slightly and settle on hers.

"Why did you protect us?"

"Weren't you paying attention? I owed Shinji from before, and now I don't."

"You needed to defend your pride, so you chose to risk your safety. That is illogical, Second. If you are killed, you will no longer be able to pilot."

"Do you think I'm that incompetent?" Asuka tilts her head to the side, a grin upon her face that slowly metamorphoses into unceasing laughter. "There's no way I'm going to get killed by an Angel! You're joking, right?"

"I am not," Rei whispers, but the words don't quite leave her. They lodge in her throat, held there by the same pressure that keeps her still now: Asuka's confidence, she realizes, a force so potent it might as well be a tangible thing. How nice it must be, to feel such things, to believe in oneself so totally that death doesn't register as a threat. There's the answer to Rei's question from before, though now she wishes she'd never asked it: this proximity to Asuka is too much, and her emotions threaten to spill over and touch Rei.

"Why are you so worried about me, anyway?" asks Asuka. "I thought you didn't care about anyone besides your precious Commander."

"I am curious," Rei says. "The logical choice for the defender would have been me."

"And why's that?"

"If I die, I can be replaced."

"That's nonsense, First. It's not like NERV has someone ready for Unit-00 if something happens to you. Thinking like that's just going to get you killed."

Rei bites back her instinctual response, the one that tells her that Asuka is wrong: in ignorance of Ikari's plan, but still wrong. Atop the hill, Misato's car roars to life, horn sounding across the landscape.

"Looks like she's ready," Asuka says, getting up and brushing herself off. "I'm going."

She leaves Rei by herself, still sitting in the grass with this new puzzle to solve. Both Shinji and Asuka, for all their differences, refuse to believe that she is replaceable. And yet, it's the truth, though the others will never know why. For some reason Rei finds herself hoping they'll never find out.

Rei stands, preparing to depart from the hill and return to the city. She knows Section 2 will be there to retrieve her when Misato arrives at her apartment. She knows she'll be taken to her residence, that Commander Ikari's glasses will be waiting for her there, watching her through sightless orange lenses.

Orange. Orange like the lights of the city, like LCL pouring out of the entry plug as the door is yanked aside by gloved hands. Orange like acid dripping from above, blocked by the body of Unit-02.

It seems, Rei thinks as she turns away from the city, that no matter how large her world grows, the only ones who'll think her replaceable are herself and the Commander.

It's wishful thinking to hope that a blackout would cancel classes the next day, but of course life must go on as normal. Asuka's eyes sweep the classroom, observing the other students gathered in groups for lunch. They don't know that an Angel attacked the day before; they will never realize how narrowly it was defeated. That's a secret that will lay with Asuka; with Shinji who stands by Toji's desk, talking to him and Kensuke; with Rei, staring out the window at the sky above.

Idly, Asuka wonders what Rei might be thinking of. Does she even think; are there any thoughts in that skull of hers that don't deal with piloting and orders? It's a question that bothers Asuka, but that's not quite it: she's avoiding the real question. Does Rei really believe she can be replaced?

Asuka tells herself it's just morbid curiosity that makes her want to know, and not the memory that follows her from waking into her dreams, the knowledge that before the end, Kyoko had replaced her. Maybe she's been reading Rei wrong this whole time, and she's not the first one the Commander has favored. Things would make more sense that way- but that still doesn't explain Rei's utter lack of a reaction to anything.

Asuka stands slowly, methodically, careful to avoid attention. She picks her way through her classmates over to Rei and leans forward, hands splayed out upon her desk. "Ayanami," she says, and her voice is hushed: this is a conversation for pilots only, but more so for Asuka's own satisfaction. "Last night, when you said you could be replaced- what did you mean by that?"

Rei turns her head, adjusting herself slightly in her seat. "I meant that if I died, it would not impact the ability of you or Ikari to pilot. You will not-"

"That's bullshit!" Asuka hisses. There's something in her hand, warm and firm; she looks down and realizes she's taken hold of Rei's arm. "Do you know what'll happen if we get a new pilot?" Rei opens her mouth, but Asuka barrels on, not allowing her a word. "We'll have to get used to them, we'll have to coordinate with them and try to get along, they'll have to get competent. Do you know how much work that's going to be? Way too much! You're not replaceable, First, and you'd better quit thinking that way, or you'll regret it!"

Asuka throws Rei's arm down hard against the table. A flicker of something, maybe pain, flashes across Rei's face as her elbow knocks into the wooden desk. The room has gone quiet around them, silence radiating out from Rei's desk in ripples; no one knows what it is that Soryu and Ayanami spoke about, but Asuka is angry about something.

Hikari catches Asuka as she storms away, gliding up beside her. "What happened?" she asks, but Asuka brushes her aside and makes a beeline for Shinji. She grabs his elbow, pulling him to the back of the classroom, where at least if anyone tries eavesdropping they'll be easy to spot.

"Asuka?" Shinji says. "What's going on?"

"Wonder Girl's being an idiot, as usual, that's what's going on," Asuka snaps.

"What'd she say?"

"I'll tell you after class, unless you want me to tell everyone here, too."

Shinji hesitates, nods, wrests his arm free of Asuka's softening grip. His eyes dart to Rei- she's gone back to staring out the window- and when they return to Asuka he finds she's already returned to her seat.

The eyes of the class are divided between Asuka and Rei. Asuka, entrenched deeply in her thoughts, ignores them all and glares in Rei's direction, watches her watching nothing. For a moment, she loses sight of Rei, and they aren't in a classroom any longer but a hospital ward. It's not a window any longer, but a one-way mirror that Asuka finds herself looking at. There's nothing on the other side- there never is these days- but when she tears her gaze away, Rei is still watching the window with that empty expression. Asuka lowers her head upon her desk, hides her face behind her arms. "How did someone like you ever get to be a pilot?" she mutters, and in the back of her mind she hears the laughter that so often plagues her dreams. "You fucking doll."

This marks the third time Asuka's spoken to Rei, one on one, and again it's been unproductive. Rei is beginning to think all the conversations they could possibly have will go like this. When Asuka is governed by her emotions, and she always is, their talks become greatly one-sided. What would it be like, Rei wonders, to live in such a way for the entirety of one's life? To let emotions run so wild that they could serve as the answer to everything- it goes against everything she knows. Perhaps that's the part that entices her, and not the emotions themselves: those, if anything, seem to be more trouble than they're worth.

She's been thinking like this ever since the last Angel. Last night she thought not of Ikari's Scenario, as she always did, but of her thoughts upon the hill. What had she to fear? Nothing, she'd decided. Nothing that wouldn't fade when Instrumentality was complete, but that she'd even considered fear implies a desire for something more, something to be felt, a defiance of her status quo. She has had no need for emotions; she never will.

Something must have changed during that battle to make Rei think like this. The answer is immediate and obvious, but it makes no sense. Asuka had served as the defense, rather than Rei- she said it was to even the score with Shinji- but Rei had been there, too. Why not assign Rei to the task of guarding them, why not assign herself to fire the rifle- she has the highest sync ratio of them all; why not let Shinji be safest at the bottom?

Asuka had protected her, along with Shinji. Asuka told her that she could not be replaced. She cares, Rei realizes, like the Commander and Shinji- but why? Rei had tried to make it clear when they first met that she wasn't interested in interacting with Asuka if she hadn't been ordered to. So again, why?

Rei lowers her head onto her arms, folded neatly atop her desk. She must be missing something, she thinks. There has to be something in their conversation from before that she's overlooking, something that'll prove that Asuka's actions are born of nothing more than pity or disgust. She plays the conversation over and over in her mind until it becomes a droning, mixed with the monotonous voice of the teacher. She hasn't missed anything; if anything, it's clearer now that the Second Child has not yet given up on a friendship with the First.

A mile is meant to be run in eight minutes and walked in twelve. Asuka and Shinji average a mile in ten minutes, and by the time they get to Misato's apartment the only thing Shinji wants to do is sink into the couch and try to get some rest. Asuka doesn't allow this; she paces in front of the couch, demanding the Third Child's attention as she rants.

"Then she said if she died she could be replaced, and I told her she'd better stop thinking like that. What kind of a mentality is that?!"

"She's told me the same before," Shinji points out.

"She doesn't even care about her position!" says Asuka. "'I can be replaced' - what kind of crap is that? We're pilots, not spare parts!"

"Are you trying to imply they should take the designation from Rei and give it to you?" Shinji asks. "I don't think that'll happen even if you ask."

"I'm not implying anything!" she snaps. "I'm saying I want little Miss Perfect to take our job more seriously!"

"Asuka, you can't expect things like that from us. We're only children…"

"Children who're saving the world- oh, why am I talking to you? You're useless, too!" Asuka stamps her foot and storms from the room, leaving Shinji with the softness of the couch and a brief, blissful silence. It lasts for as long as it takes for Asuka to return to her room: the door slams, and the rumblings from behind it tell Shinji that Asuka won't be calming down any time soon.

"Stupid, emotionless doll!" Asuka snaps, throwing her school bag against her chair. The chair topples easily, clattering against the floor. "Does nothing but follow orders from her Commander, says she can be replaced; what, did he tell her that, too?" Asuka flings herself upon the bed; pillows fly away from her, only to be found by reaching fingers and pulled back in. "You don't even feel, do you," she asks, and the silence that answers her might as well have come from Rei. "You're nothing like me!"

She isn't, Asuka thinks. She doesn't even know why the First Child pilots, aside from that she's told to. There's no pride in it for her, no thrill from combat, not even the joy of hearing praise from the Commander. At least Shinji, the most boring of them all, works for one of these things.

"So stupid," Asuka whispers, and this one is directed at herself. The apartment outside is quiet- Shinji must still be on the couch, lying there. Her obligatory burst of anger is spent; now Asuka can do the same, gazing at the ceiling as her thoughts swarm around her. That's how she hides what she feels, by concealing it in a storm of other emotions so strong as to overwhelm what she's really trying to say. After Kyoko passed, it's the only way she's really managed to communicate, and it's a failure.

The girl who feels too much, and the girl who doesn't feel at all. Asuka thinks of the fairytales her stepmother told her, the one of Goldilocks and the Bears. That would make Shinji the boy who was just right. Which would make both of them failures- how's that for some irony?

Asuka feels her chest beginning to ache, that creeping loneliness that comes whenever she's like this- thinking by herself- wrapping around her. Yes, she's popular at school, but there isn't really anyone to talk to about things like these. Her problems will just go over Hikari's head; she doesn't want to rely on Shinji for anything more than she needs to.

In the end, Asuka's more similar to Rei than she'd like to admit- she just would have to look a little harder. Asuka curls up against the pillows and the sheets, biting on her lip to fight the heat stinging her eyes. She'd sworn not to cry at Kyoko's funeral, and it's an oath she's intent on keeping. That's all she is, Asuka realizes- empty promises, feigned emotions, a smile painted on her face like that of a doll's.

How sickening is that.