Disclaimer: I do not own Evangelion

"Have you heard about the new student?" Hikari asked, leaning down to be eye-to-eye with Asuka.

"Who?" Asuka asked, arms on desk and head on arms. It was getting harder to stay awake through the entire school day. She glanced at the clock over the door. She swore. In her mind. Hikari was very sensitive about profanity.

"The new transfer student that's arriving today for our class. I thought for sure you'd know."

"Not every transfer here is a pilot." She looked at the clock again. Had it only been sixteen minutes since she sat down?

"Oh, uh, I didn't even think about that. I just figured—"

"Out with it."

"Well, her name is Asuka, too."

"And?" Asuka said, realizing too late she chose the wrong way to communicate her desire to not hear anything else about this name-stealing harlot.

"Well, yeah, it isn't a completely unusual name here but, ah… she sort of looks like you, too."

Asuka gave her a look.

"Not, I mean, she isn't as, ah, pretty as you are," Hikari began rambling, "but I heard she is from overseas, and she does have red hair and… well it isn't as nice as your hair of course but… ah… you don't have any cousins or sisters do you—"

"No, I do not," Asuka stated. She brutally forced the memories down. "What is this girl's name? The rest of it?"

"Asuka Langley Shikinami."

Asuka Langley Shikinami did not look anything like her, Asuka Langley Soryu thought. Shikinami had a sharper face devoid of her subtly appealing curves, Shikinami had violently blue eyes without her gentle hidden depths, Shikinami had gross fluorescent carrot-colored hair that lacked her thick lustrous shade.

Asuka supposed certain superficial similarities might lead the less mentally equipped to jump to some kind of ridiculous conclusion regarding shared heredity or familial relationship. Granted, they appeared to be the same height and build, Asuka refused to accept the girl was thinner or had a bigger bust, but the odds were likely that at least one person in existence would in some insignificant shallow ways resemble her own unparalleled greatness.

Shikinami scrawled her name across the blackboard, introducing herself with exaggerated pomposity before sweeping a predatory eye over the class. She walked over a cushion of whispered amazement from the class and without hesitating she chose the empty seat in front of Asuka, not bothering to acknowledge her existence as she plopped down. Being ignored was a stab at her vanity. Losing her footrest was just needless cruelty.

That Shikinami chose the desk directly beside Shinji's didn't even register for Asuka until the girl turned to him, said or did something Asuka could not hear or see, and he blushed the brightest red she ever saw on him.

Her feet ached the rest of the day.

Asuka refused to approach the new girl first. Seeking her out would only add fuel to the gossip bonfire the school was engulfed in. Was Shikinami a new pilot? they wondered. Was she a long lost twin sister? A clone? A robot? A traveler from a parallel dimension? Asuka's own theory, that this girl was a stuck-up bitch who somehow plagiarized her entire look had yet to gain a foothold in the student body's psyche.

Their inane speculations grew throughout the morning. Asuka had to shut off her computer to avoid the deluge of private messages and quickly dragged Hikari out of the class when lunch break finally began. She was so intent on escaping the storm of idiocy she forgot her bento in her desk.

This is pathetic, Asuka berated herself. Being affected by their stupidity. I'm better than this.

"Shikinami this, Shikinami that," she growled. "You'd think the morons at this school never saw a new transfer student before. What's so great about her? Even Hikari can't let it go."

She turned the corner and entered class 2-A and, because Hikari was not currently with her, Asuka finally did swear.

"I cannot and will not believe Shikinami is related to Soryu," Kensuke was saying, "physical similarities notwithstanding. She's just so much cooler. She's like Soryu, only awesome."

"Yeah," Toji said. The two were stationed at a window, eating their lunches atop a pair of desks. "She's a treat for the eyes. And your wallet."

"The masses are hungry, my friend. My humble camera and I simply feed them."

"For a price."

"A reasonable price. It's basic economics. Supply and demand. Our classmates demand pictures of the new transfer student and I supply. Without me the system breaks down and we have anarchy."

"So you say. So you've said before."

"No, no, no. Hear me out. I mean, without pictures, the new transfer student would be harassed and bothered by all sorts of people. It might even lead to some distasteful incidents. I'm fending all that off by meeting her admirers' interests from a safe distance. So, really, I'm helping her out too."

"You should join the debate team," Toji said.

"Those losers?"

Asuka silently retrieved her bento and snuck up behind the two boys. Their eyes were fixed out the window, not even bothering to look at what they ate.

"Beautiful," Toji drawled with a lazy smile, still staring outside. "Eh? No camera, Kensuke?"

"While I remain a vital link in the chain of supply and demand, market saturation can be detrimental to all parties involved. Besides, anyone can ogle her at lunch. The rarer the picture the higher the demand."

"And the higher the price you can charge. You selfless humanitarian, you." He admired the view another moment. "Really, though, she is a looker."

"I know. What the hell was wrong with Shinji?"

Asuka's interest took a baby step toward actual interest.

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean what do I mean?" Kenuske shook his head. "You were there earlier when he openly wondered what all the commotion over Shikinami was and he—"

"I was?"

"Yes. And I said it was because she was gorgeous and cool and then he looks at me, then looks at her, then he looks back to me and says, and I'm quoting directly, 'oh, really?'"

"I know I should be furious, or at least confused," Toji said after a pause, "but his reaction, though outwardly troubling, is easily explainable. He lives with Ms. Misato."

"Ah. I suppose cohabitating with a goddess would indeed dull the effects of mortal females upon his constitution."

Asuka's interest took a triple jump from idle irritation towards physical violence.

"Or he's learned incredible, nay, superhuman discretion," Kensuke went on. "His wife keeps him on a very short leash. The threat of punishment must follow him like a noonday shadow."

"I guess I can cut Soryu some slack in that regard," Toji said with a snicker. "I mean, with Shikinami around, why would Shinji want to be stuck with old Asuka?"

The two shared a lighthearted, trouble-free laugh until Asuka introduced her bento to the back of their skulls.

"What did you call me?" she spat out. She was having none of their sputtered denials or explanations. "Say it to my face, losers. What did you just call me?"

Toji, in a daze of pain and fear clouding what normally passed for self-preservation around girls, told her: "Old Asuka. Y-You know, since you were here before the new Asuka, who's New Asuka. So you're Old Asuka. And Shinji might want someone new and not old. See?"

Old Asuka hefted the bento in her hand, judging its effectiveness for continued use as a weapon. Kensuke backed up against the windows, debating whether to satisfy his morbid curiosity at whatever fresh hell was about to be unleashed or simply jump and take his chances. He checked to reaffirm that, yes, they were on the third floor, and what he saw in the courtyard made him forget about Old Asuka.

New Asuka was where she had been when they took up their surveillance, on a small ledge beneath a shady tree trying to ward off several unwanted advances from classmates. Sometime between Old Asuka's initial assault and her imminent second strike Shinji appeared and within the course of less than a half minute successfully convinced New Asuka to share his lunch with him.

"Am I already dead?" Kensuke managed to get out, staring in open astonishment and newly reinforced envious respect for his friend.

Toji risked a glance out the window and words failed him.

Asuka looked and words failed her too but not in the brain-erasing manner that afflicted Toji. The vocabulary in every language she knew rushed so fast to properly vocalize how outrageously wrong the sight was for so many reasons everything jammed together and temporarily shut down. All that was left was an angry embarrassed stab of betrayal she did not want to feel.

The bento felt heavy. It would make a decent weapon for at least two more strikes.

"W-Well it isn't like I wanted to eat with him, it's just I forgot my money, I did just move here, and I saw he had a lot so… don't laugh like that!"

"Sorry, sorry," Hikari said, holding up her hands. "But out of all the other guys who asked you to eat with them why did you pick Ikari?"

"That's simple," New Asuka said, exasperated yet benevolent when dealing with those possessing slower mental faculties. "Because he didn't ask me. He wasn't ogling me like the rest of the boys or drooling when I glanced at him. He's harmless. So I let him eat me. I-I mean eat with me!"

Hello, Dr. Freud? I've got a new patient for you, Old Asuka thought as she watched Hikari perform her duty as class representative to ease in the new transfer student with disgusting thoroughness. One that likes to steal looks and friends and my private chef. Oh, and who's also a massive bitch and a slut and I hate her.

"I heard Ikari's a pretty good cook," Hikari remarked. She was in the seat in front of Shikinami's desk.

"He's passable. Though I suppose for a guy he'd be considered decent."

"So 'decent' is enough for you to request the leftovers?" She pointed out the bento carefully stowed beneath her seat.

"Th-That… that's just… I mean, he practically threw it at me after lunch. I'm just humoring him. He must have gotten the wrong impression. I didn't have breakfast this morning so I may have eaten his lunch with a little more enthusiasm than it merited. So now… ugh, it's too much of a hassle to explain it all to him and he did already make it so it would only go to waste if I didn't eat it."

"Really?"

"Yes, really." Shikinami sounded flustered. "I said it was his idea and I'm just humoring him. I don't like him or anything so don't you dare think I do. How could you think that? What are you, stupid?"

That…! Old Asuka froze. She even stole my vocabulary! And she's saying it all wrong! Who the hell does she think she is?

Asuka Langley Soryu broke the mold. God wasn't supposed to be churning out cheap knockoffs. How could you improve on perfection?

The teacher entered to begin class and all conversation gradually died. Hikari started back to her own desk.

"Traitor," Old Asuka hissed at her as she turned to go.

Asuka walked home alone. She left school without bothering to say goodbye to Hikari. She successfully stopped herself from breaking Shikinami's nose as she left to make sure people would tell them apart from now on.

She passed by a small fountain in a plaza downtown and saw Rei standing motionless by it. The fountain wasn't working; the water in its pool was stagnant and turning strange colors from the rust. No one else was around.

Alone and useless, Asuka thought. Oh, and there's a busted fountain, too.

Rei turned slightly to look at her. The red eye did not waver.

"Oh, please," Asuka said. "Don't tell me you feel sorry for me." She gave a helpless shrug and continued walking. "Save your dead-eyed pity for Shinji."

"Stop looking, idiot," Asuka growled from the kitchen table. Shinji was at the counter making magic for dinner and stopped every so often to glance at her hand. "I told you, I just got a splinter from the cheap shoddy doors at that crappy school I have to go to."

He turned away and she didn't have to lie to him again. She didn't want to lie to him but she didn't want to tell him the truth because if she told him she cut her palm open when she smashed her bento against the tennis court behind the school after lunch break she'd have to explain why she smashed her bento against the tennis court behind the school after lunch break.

Why did I wrap so much of my hand? she thought, taking a good look at it. Almost her entire palm was bandaged. Stupid Shinji. It's his fault I was distracted when I was doing it.

She watched him to make sure he didn't glance back again. He didn't.

"I forgot to tell you I need a new bento box."

Asuka kicked her bedroom door open. She stalked to the kitchen, rubbing the wrinkles from her uniform and the sleep from her eyes. She had little under a half-hour to eat and get to school. She hadn't slept through her alarm because she refused to use it; Shinji was her wakeup call in the morning. It was far more desirable since alarm clocks didn't respond to shouted obscenities and thinly veiled threats to correct subpar performance.

Shinji had, through a lot of trial and error, finally figured out the right way to wake her up: a soft knock on the door, then a tentative call if she didn't respond, then to repeat the process in five-minute intervals. And God help him if the shower was not ready for her, with breakfast waiting when she was done.

But he did not knock on her door this morning, or call her name, or make sure the shower was ready. Asuka did not find any breakfast for her in the kitchen. There was no bento for her lunch. Shinji's shoes and school satchel were gone. There was no note explaining his complete abandonment of self-preservation, or even some lunch money to buy a stay of execution.

She grabbed an old rice ball from the refrigerator and ran out the door. She wasn't worried about beating the late bell for homeroom. She was fast enough to be in her seat with time to spare if she cared enough. The school, the city and everyone on earth owed her for saving their collective backsides on a regular basis. Being late for class was a pittance, and she didn't learn anything there anyway.

She ran to find Shinji and make sure he knew how much his thoughtlessness made her suffer, and in turn how much he would suffer. General Soryu did not put up with dereliction of duty from the grunts. So she ran.

Asuka did not spot him until she reached the school's courtyard. The crowd was thinning out as students made their way to homeroom, parting like a curtain around Shinji and Shikinami standing in the shade of a tall tree with branches like arms. Asuka stopped to watch him dig his own grave deeper.

He pulled a bento, her bento, from his satchel and held it forward to Shikinami. She lightly ran her fingers over his as she accepted it. Their faces were stained red. Shikinami took a shaky step back then turned and entered the school. Shinji did not move, staring after her.

"Hey, idiot!" Asuka snapped at him. He stared straight ahead. "I am talking to you, Third."

She strode to his side and the crunch of gravel filled the courtyard. She waited for him to turn and acknowledge her. He refused, eyes vacantly focused on a point she could not and did not want to see. Asuka balled her hands into fists and stepped in front of him.

"Earth to Shinji. Calling all idiots." She stabbed a finger after Shikinami. "What was that? What do you think you're doing? You gave her my bento. That was the one I told you to buy. For me. Not for that loser. So you left early today, without waking me up, without making my breakfast, without making my lunch, all so you could sneak behind my back and give my bento to that cheap wannabe? I knew you were an underhanded coward but this is beyond the pale. I wonder what your little girlfriend Shikinami would think if she knew how absolutely spineless you really are."

He was so close but she couldn't see his eyes.

"She's what you wanted all along, isn't she? Asuka lite? A kinder, gentler Asuka? All you're doing is stealing my face and voice and body and pretending the rest doesn't exist. She's just like a picture of me for you to use for… for whatever sick little things you want. She's nothing but a…"

A doll

"I am not a doll! I am not a doll for your personal fantasies! Just because you're too much of a coward to say what you really want you have no right to treat her like me! She is not me and you are not allowed to act like she is!"

"Stop it," he rasped.

"Why won't you ever look at me?" she screamed at him. "You're pathetic!"

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Another new student had transferred into class. Asuka refused to believe Tokyo-3 was the hot new destination for families with teenage daughters. Even if there hadn't been an attack in a while the only job opportunity was NERV. Was that so desirable? Were people's memories so short to risk dismemberment and death from Angels to land a position here?

The new transfer said her dad was a military contractor or something, which Asuka supposed NERV might make use of, though she never heard of it happening before. She tuned out when the girl started talking and would have felt guilty but reminded herself she didn't care.

But she wasn't taking any chances this time. She used to remove her neural connectors in the bath and to sleep but now she needed them more than ever. Shikinami must have stolen her thoughts during those brief intervals when her guard was down. How else did that fake copy so much from her?

Her neural connectors blocked the electric secrets her brain transmitted from shooting out into the world where anyone could see them. The barricades in her bedroom and the bathroom must have been weaker than she thought.

Now Shikinami was feeding on the electric secrets of everyone else around her. It was the only logical explanation for how everyone only talked about her, looked at her, praised her. She was eating their thoughts until she was all that remained and they forgot everything about Old Asuka.

Real Asuka, Old Asuka reminded herself.

The newest transfer student looked nothing like her and Asuka knew her plan worked. She was pretty, in a plain kind of way, nothing special like Asuka, so the girl made up for it by acting overly friendly. She made no distinction in her attitude between girls and boys, leading to various insinuations and rumors regarding her sexuality and promiscuity. Asuka knew the reality was far less dramatic: the new girl just wanted to fit in.

So of course she'd pick the most popular, prettiest, smartest girl in school to latch onto. In a show of generosity Asuka didn't tell the girl to get lost when she began following her home after school. It was just charity and certainly had nothing to do with Hikari's defection to team Shikinami.

"… and then he was all like, 'but your dad knows the military, right? So he has to know about Trisect or Trident' or whatever he called it. Can you believe it?"

"Utterly ridiculous," Asuka remarked idly. She wracked her brain for this girl's name. "Listen, ah, Mari, was it?"

"Mana."

"Right. How far do you plan on following…" Asuka stopped, staring across the street as Shinji stepped onto a crosswalk obliviously chatting away to Rei, at his side.

"What is it?" Mana asked, following her line of sight. "Oh, that's… Ayanami, right? And, ah, Ikari?"

Rei turned her head slightly and stared at Asuka with one red eye, keeping pace with Shinji who still talked.

"Yeah," Asuka muttered, watching as the two reached the end of the crosswalk and continued down another street. "That's them."

Mana was silent for a moment before asking if there was anyone Shinji liked.

Asuka stumbled out of the bathroom stall and into the sinks. She hated the school's restrooms. She didn't understand how Tokyo-3 could house such technological marvels as retractable buildings and magnetic lifts for giant robots but the school designs seemed to be frozen several decades ago.

She washed her hands and turned to leave, running into the stall door she left open. She punched it closed. Why was everything so cramped in this place?

Wrong word choice, Asuka thought, clutching her abdomen. It's like someone's wringing out my insides. Why do girls have to suffer so much? Boys have it so easy. I hate boys.

Adding insult to injury she and Shikinami were on cleanup duty today. She made her way back to the classroom slowly through deserted halls. They hadn't spoken yet and Asuka was determined to keep it that way. She gingerly cracked the door open and peeked in. Shikinami was standing at the windows looking out, completely motionless. Outside in the hazy blue sky a group of clouds slowly rotated in a ring, framing the back of her head.

The world shook brutally and Asuka's guts leapt up somewhere around her clavicle in a desperate bid for freedom. She gritted her teeth and ordered them back into place. The floor quaked again, knocking her off her feet. Asuka shook her head clear and looked up. Shikinami had not moved, but beyond her the sky was tilted at a crazy angle, and all the clouds were gone. There was only the blue of the sky and the frantic edge of the horizon as the school somehow fell into the dark ocean.

The impact was worse than Asuka expected. She was thrown off the ground, floating in midair as her surroundings spun madly until the floor slapped her in the face. She stayed still until she was sure nothing was broken or dislocated then looked up to assess the damage around her.

"You're finally up," someone said to her.

Asuka saw a pair of feet suspended above the floor.

"Mama?" she wondered aloud, peering up. "What are you doing here?"

She was no longer in the school. Shikinami was gone. There were only the towering white walls of the hospital room.

"I'm right where you left me," Kyoko told her. Her head tilted unnaturally against her left shoulder. The noose was taut around the bruised skin of her neck and stretched up into the infinite darkness of the ceiling.

Asuka's mother loomed over her, impossibly tall and thin. Hair coiled around her face to hide it in shadow, only two red flickering pinpricks of schizophrenic light where her eyes should be.

"What… what is…" She couldn't breathe. She felt like she was drowning. Her limbs were heavy. Every movement was met with unnatural resistance.

"I told you. Don't look so shocked. This is where you'll always wind up." The glimmer of her eyes grew and they fell from her head, landing silently before her daughter. "And I'll always know when you're coming. I gave you my extra pair."

"No!" Asuka screamed. She shut her eyes and covered her ears. "I don't want to be here! I hate this! I don't want to be with you anymore!"

"What you want and what you have are never the ssssssaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmme."

"Shut up!" Asuka opened her eyes and looked up.

Her mother's body bulged beneath her hospital gown, ripping the fabric apart, then ripping her skin apart, then bursting open and splattering the floor with steaming viscera. All that remained was a head swinging by a noose, two new red eyes shining unsteadily.

A sudden flash of light dispersed the darkness above her and the clouds Asuka saw outside the school window returned, circling overhead in a lazy ring. They began to descend towards her, gaining the definition and shape of strange birds. They swept down, hungry for her mother's insides, getting bigger and bigger until a single feather would crush her.

"Stop it!" Asuka yelled. "Get away from me!" She covered her head with her arms and curled into a ball. "Go away and leave me alone! Everyone go away and just leave me alone!"

The school was quiet and dim. Cicadas outside were singing to the approach of night. Asuka had no bento at lunch and did not eat. Classes were over now and no one witnessed the indignity of her buying food from the school cafeteria.

Asuka ate by herself on the east wing's stairwell second floor landing, not because no one would see her there but because she didn't want to be around anyone. Hikari chose to run off with Shikinami without so much as a goodbye.

Not that Asuka needed her. She didn't care who Hikari ate lunch with, or who she talked to. If she didn't want to hang out anymore she should come out and say it instead of all this petty teenage behavior. Asuka couldn't remember why she ever wanted to hang out with that child anyway. She just looked better in comparison to the rest of her peers. Everyone around her was so immature.

She heard a gravelly shuffling beside her and looked up with a start. When did he get so close?

"What do you want?"

Shinji was on the landing by the window holding a bento. The sun was setting and he looked blurry and warm.

"Well? What are you doing here?" Her eyes narrowed. "Were you planning on eating here? With me? Aw, did you think I was lonely?"

She stood and stepped dangerously close. He backed up against the wall and she followed. Her bangs whispered across his forehead.

"Just admit you were lonely. We both know it's the truth. Did you get tired of your little plaything Shikinami? Is the rest of your fan club getting to be too much of a hassle? Did you think because Hikari doesn't eat with me anymore I'm as pathetic as you? Just because you have friends doesn't mean anything. Nobody really likes you because they don't really know you."

He was so close but she couldn't see his eyes.

"Stop it," he rasped.

"Stop what? Stop telling you the truth? It hurts, doesn't it? Too bad. You've lived in a fantasy world too long and everyone else just goes along with it. I'm sick of it. I won't go along with it anymore."

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Shut up! I don't need your pity! I didn't want you to come here and rescue me from being alone! You are the absolute last person I'd ever want to rescue me! You're worthless! You can't save anyone! You can't even save yourself!"

Asuka slapped the bento from his hands. It toppled between their feet and broke apart on the floor with a wet crack.

"So what? So what? Did you really think I'd eat with you?"

She pressed her forehead against his and screamed as loud as she could.

"I'd rather die than do it with you!"

Her hands tightened around his throat. It was soft and yielding.

"Stop it," he rasped.

She heard him clawing the sand. It made a gravelly crunching noise.

He coughed and hacked. Her hands squeezed until he couldn't.

"You're pathetic," she told him.

He was so close but she couldn't see his eyes.

"I'm sor—" he began.

Then she made him stop speaking.

She walked across the beach on shaky feet. The sand crunched like gravel. The sky was dark again. Sometimes it was light but right now it was dark.

"Mama? Where are you, mama?"

Asuka could have sworn she was just here. She wasn't worried though; her mother came and went as she pleased. All Asuka could do was be patient and wait. She resigned herself to do so and sat on the beach, drawing her legs up to rest her chin on her knees. Her head swam from the effort. She didn't know why she felt so weak. It had only been a few hours since she last ate. Or days. Or minutes. She didn't have a clock or a calendar so how could she tell time?

Something like a fist squeezed her guts. It felt like her insides were being wrung out. She looked down but there was no fist. She licked dry lips and had a hard time swallowing.

She stared out over the rust-colored ocean to Rei Ayanami's giant smiling face, cracked in two, resting on a horizon of smooth and organic-looking mountains.

"Stop winking at me, pervert."

Asuka shut her eyes, eye, no, eyes and drifted off to sleep and dreamt of terrible things.

It was still dark when she woke up and her mother was still absent. Asuka did not let her disappointment show.

She was on her side, resting heavily on the beach. Sand clung to her face. There was some in her mouth. She tried to spit it out but all she could manage was a soft sputtering cough. She didn't know why she felt so weak. It had only been a few hours since she last ate. Or days. Or minutes. She didn't have a clock or a calendar so how could she tell time?

The sick feeling wrung her insides again. She ignored it.

That giant white face was still winking at her. She couldn't summon her voice to admonish it. She looked away and she saw a boy lying on the beach near her. He was on his back, dull blue eyes staring up into the dark sky. His neck was ringed with thin purple blotches.

Asuka watched him very carefully. Boys could be very tricky.

She watched him for a long time. It felt like a long time but the sky was still dark and the boy still stared up at it. He had not moved, he had not blinked or even breathed since Asuka began watching him. Boys could be very tricky.

Her eyelids felt heavy. It was too hard to keep them open so she shut them. She hoped her mother would visit when she woke up.

End

Author notes: a lot of this sounded like an angry Asuka fanboy's diatribe against 2.0. I swear that wasn't my intent but damn it did it come out like that.

OMAKE… I couldn't help it. I am so sorry.

The impact was worse than Asuka expected. She was thrown off the ground, floating in midair as her surroundings spun madly until the floor slapped her in the face. She stayed still until she was sure nothing was broken or dislocated then looked up to assess the damage around her.

"You're finally up," someone said to her.

Asuka saw a pair of feet suspended above the floor.

"Mama?" she wondered aloud as she peered up. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, just hanging around."