% Finally! I got a chance to really look this over.



Part Two:
Convergence

Dear Diary,
    I still react in shock when I found out that my parents didn't like
each other at all when
they first met.

% Asuka rub somebody wrong the first time she met them? Nahhhh!

It just doesn't sound like them.  Yes, I'm quite aware that people can
change,
but the way I remember Mother and Father, I could have sworn they were
always part of each other's
life.

% After what happened to them in the first chapter, they probably have
been, even moreso than either desired, at least at first.

    Today Aunt Rei took me to NERV Branch-1Z, at New Zama, where she works
as Commanding Officer
of the 3rd Terrain EVA Battalion.  I'm always so proud of the way she
walks into her command
building, her long hair looking like a cape against her uniform; or the
way that people snap to
attention and salute her, with a "Good day, Colonel Ayanami, ma'am"; or
the way she just slides
into her combat EVA for her regular training sessions with her troops.
She's important, and if
being a hero of the War of Ascension wasn't enough, one of her best
friends is the Earth Defense
Force Commander, General Katsuragi Misato.

% I wonder what 'General' Misato's reputation is now. Did she clean up her
act, or do the men joke about what drinking binge she went on the week
before?

    It's funny.  Though there's no need for war machines any more since
our planet is now at
peace, all our Army, Air Force, and Submarine units are all EVAs.  True,
they're mecha and not the
biomechanical organisms that my parents, my aunt and their friends once
piloted against the
Angels, but they're still pretty awe-inspiring.  Only one of the original
EVA units is still
left--the others were all dismantled--and that's my parents' heavily
damaged EVA, under a full
repulsor grid at the Terran History Museum in New Paris.  Even so, my
aunt's current model was
redesigned to look like her old one, even though the current EVA Unit 9s
look nothing like the old
terrestrial models.  The 10A and 10B models are transformable and look
like those aircraft in the
video shows from the last century,

% An EVA Veritech? That would be a sight to behold.

and the oceanic Unit 11s are more like frogs than the original
EVA units.
    Well, I gotta go.  Aunt Rei's having lunch with her old friends
Colonels Suzuhara Toji and
Hikari, and she wants me to come along.  I understand that both of the
Colonels and my parents
were best friends, so they can answer any questions I have.

% heheh. I can imagine the accounts they would give.

They also, according to Aunt Rei,
have a son my age named Shinji (named after my father, of course) who's
kinda cute.
    I'll hafta write in here later about what I read in my mother's diary
today.
    Mata ne,
    Ikari Yui Langley


% I have to admit, I like the look of the 'future' being seen through
Yui's eyes. It provides depth to her character while explaining what
happened in the years that followed.


<(*)>

    "Hmm, interesting," Dr. Akagi Ritsuko murmured as she glanced at a
draft of Misato's report to
NERV HQ.  They were currently both at the portside caf� near Pier 15, as
they awaited the custody
transfer of the sixth Angel from American to NERV authority, sipping on a
couple of cups of tea.
"So they both reached 200 on the index, ne?"
    "You make it sound like no surprise," Misato said.  Her tone belied
confusion at what had
occurred, as well as a concern for Shinji.
    Ritsuko gave her friend a response in what she hoped was a comforting
tone.  "Well, they're
both fine, right?  No damage, no mental trauma, and Ship's Medical cleared
them, right?"

% Yes, but now they act like they had their personalities reversed, hardly
a settling behavior.

    "Ummm...yeah, I guess," Misato said, verbally clutching at straws.
    "Well, at least they didn't reach 400 percent."
    Misato nearly dropped her tea in shock.  "You mean it can get
*higher*?"
    Ritsuko cursed at the way she forgot herself.

% Yes. That is quite the slip up. Usually she isn't that clumsy. Still, it
serves to plant seeds of doubt in Misato's mind.


"Ah, yes.   It's, um,
theoretical, mind you, but
it's not considered to be a good thing."
    "Oh?" A violet brow arched in either curiosity or smoldering concern.
"What would happen if a
pilot reached 400%?"
    Ritsuko, realizing she said too much already, added, "That's
classified."
    "Oh really?  How do you know this supposed threshold isn't lower?"
Looking out the window,
she noted both Shinji and Asuka chatting with a couple of the non-rates
from one of the
destroyers.  Shinji was talking and gesturing in a rather animated fashion
for him, but Asuka
stood there, silent and serene.  ((It's almost as though they've switched
personalities,)) Misato
thought.  Turning her attention back to Misato,

% Shouldn't that be Ritsuko?

She noted that they walked in perfect step and arm sway, like a pair of
wind-up toy soldiers.  As
the two climbed into the backseat of the vehicle, Misato continued, "They
just seem...different."

% Wait until you see just how different.


<(*)>

    Shinji laid on his futon looking up at the ceiling. It was a little
after one in the morning,
but there was no easy rest for him.  He couldn't sleep, his mind a raging
maelstrom of emotions
and senses boiling, threatening to break the bonds of the subconscious.
He kept thinking of the
battle and what had happened to him and Asuka.  But the battle wasn't the
only thing that
disturbed him.  No, it was also the images in his mind, those nightmarish
scenes that had migrated
from Unit 02 and into the deepest recesses of his soul:
    The images of Asuka's mother.
    Asuka's mother going insane and hanging herself.
    Her father abandoning her to marry another woman.
    Her loneliness jacketed underneath a steely persona, a persona now as
transparent to Shinji as
glass--perhaps more so.

% Indeed. Nice turn of the phrase there.

    Shinji hadn't known that Asuka had a life just as bad as his, he
Shinji merely nodded his head, moving aside and allowing her into the
darkened apartment.  He
could have mentioned about the loose floorboard, about the sharp turn into
his room, about the
pile of beer cans that Misato left from the other day.

% I'm sure that pile shifts in size and structure every day. ^_^

He could have mentioned anything about all
of it, but the truth was, he didn't need to.  She already knew, though
she'd never stepped in this
apartment before, though they'd never talked about it.
    Laying down on his futon, he laid down,

% 'Laying down...he laid' redundant. I'd probably just change it to:

'He laid down on his futon, with Asuka following a moment later.

or something like that.


with her soon following after.  After a couple of
seconds of maneuvering, they managed to get into some level of
comfort--this was quite obviously
the first time that either had done something of this manner, and while
they knew this was the
only way to get some peace, it was still a jarring factor.  Finally, after
a half-hour of tension,
they managed to come to grips with it, and upon that revelation, both
quickly went to sleep.

% at the same time perhaps? Yet another indication of their synchronicity.


<(*)>

    The next morning, Misato scrambled half-drunken out of bed, as was the
norm for her.  Tripping
over a beer can, she managed to stumble into the shower, getting ready for
the day at hand.  A few
minutes later, feeling a little more human if not at optimum,

% She would need her morning beer for that.

she stepped out of her room, ready
for a nice, simple breakfast, cooking

% ...cooked.   I think


by dear  Shinji...
..who was, inexplicably, not awake yet.  Pen-pen sat there, with the look
of "who's going to feed
me" that only a penguin could have.

% I take it you couldn't visualize it either, eh RB? ^_^

Both sat there for a minute or two, assuming that Shinji was
running perhaps a bit late, and would be coming out any second now.  When
that didn't occur,
Misato had to hold back an ironic grin; life with her was obviously
rubbing off on him, and he had
apparently picked up her habit of oversleeping.
    However, as much as she would like to have been in bed herself, both
of them had to go to NERV
HQ and have Ritsuko run those tests.  As it was, they also had to swing by
Asuka's place and pick
her up before they got to NERV.

% Well, at least she's going to be saving some time.

Figuring that she'd have to skip breakfast this morning or at
least pick up a bento at the corner store, she walked into his room, and
received the shock of her
her life

% What? No knock?

...at least the first of them, anyway.
    There, sleeping on Shinji's futon, rested like a pair of twin babes in
slumber, so innocent at
rest.

% Something about that sentence feels wrong, Perhaps dropping 'like' might
help. Of course it could be just me.


Misato looked at the two sleeping children, shaking her fist out of some
attempt at control
as she stared at the two with a jaundiced eye.  It didn't matter that they
still had their clothes
on--in fact, had they had their clothes off, she could have somewhat
excused it

% Hehehehe. Good ole' Misato.

--the fact remained
that Asuka was sleeping with Shinji in the same futon, clothes on, and
both looking like nothing
had happened, meant something was bizarre to say the very least.
    Taking a deep breath Misato yelled, *"WAKE UP!"* as she assumed a role
she was much
unaccustomed to: disgruntled would-be guardian.
    As if it were a perfectly normal situation, both Shinji and Asuka
opened their eyes. Sitting
up, they blinked at the angry Misato more from adjusting to the sun coming
through the window than
from the older woman's harsh tones.
    "Well, do you two have an explanation for this?" Misato demanded.
    "We couldn't sleep," replied the pair, voices in perfect unison.
    "Will you two stop that!" Misato snarled, their stereo replies
beginning to get her.  "Do you
two realize how creepy that is?"
    "Stop what?" they replied again in tandem, not giving it a second
thought.


% Hehehe.

redhead in the eyes,
Misato asked, "Asuka, what is going on with you and Shinji?  Mind you,
what you two do is your own
business, but aren't you two a little too young?  And you moved pretty
fast, too, considering how
shy Shinji is and that you two only met yesterday...."

% And that the she used to have eyes only for Kaji.

    Asuka looked at her superior officer, astonished.  "You think that
I...?  With *him?  Are you
insane?!??!?!*"

% "We're soul-bonded. That's as far as we've gone. We didn't do anything
else."

 Just as Misato relaxed, in relief that Asuka was
beginning to return to her
normal self, Hyde subsumed Jekyll once more: "He is nice, but, no, that's
not it, Misato.  He and
I...it's more than that, now."  Asuka sighed, something quite out of place
for her.
    A bit confused by the girl's words and by the complete flip-flop in
behavior, Misato asked,
"Can you explain?  I don't understand."
    "Well, when we were underwater fighting, something happened to us,
something both wonderful to
behold, and terrible beyond imagining.

% Again I like the turn of phrase there.

 Something that will effect us for
the rest of our lives."

% As we know from reading the start of the fic. ^_^

    Ignoring the fact that it sounded like something out of a bad science
fiction anime, Misato
pressed on.  "Asuka, you're not making any sense.  What does that mean?"
    Flinching from what had to have been a painful experience, Asuka began
to explain.  "When we
were fighting down there, when the angel bit Unit 02, we blacked out.
During that time, Shinji
and I, we...."  Asuka paused for a minute, not looking at Misato, but at a
spot just beyond her,
as though trying to confine the infinite, to define the inexplicable.
Just as Misato thought that
something was wrong with the girl, "While we were in that state,
we...merged."
    "Merged?"
    Asuka nodded, shivering.  Misato went over to comfort the girl, but
when she saw the look in
Asuka's eyes, she was stunned.  It was a mixture of pleasure and pain, of
rapture and agony, and
somewhere in there--a mixture of the two teens.  "I saw all of Shinji's
memories and he saw mine.
I felt all his pains, his fears, his joys and hopes. He felt mine,
too--everything that I am,
everything that I have ever been and want to be."
    "Are you saying you saw *all* of his memories?"

% Felt them too, which is much worse than simply playing voyeur.

    "Yes.  I saw how his father abandoned him.  I saw how the bastard used
Rei to blackmail Shinji
into piloting Unit 01. I saw that punk Toji beat Shinji up--and he and I
are going to have words
about that, I promise you."

%heh. Already she shows fierce signs of protectivness towards her 'other
half'

 She paused for a second, as if searching for
further proof.  An
impish gleam suddenly filled her eyes as she deadpanned, "I saw how last
Wednesday you got so
drunk that you threw up and pissed all over your--"
    Misato flushed.  "I get the point!"  Trying to compose herself, she
then stated, "Still, that
doesn't explain what was with last night, Asuka."
    The redhead fixed her eyes straight at Misato's as she stammered
something that was clearly
frightening for her:  "I-I need Shinji now.  I need to feel him close to
me, just as he needs me
now.  That's why I came here.  I couldn't sleep separated from him and
neither could he."  Hazel
eyes

% I thought her eyes were blue. Could be wrong, but could have sworn I
remember them that way.


Shinji's a bad person--you said so yourself.  How does he feel about all
of this?"
    Asuka's only answer to that was to look over at the kitchen entrance,
murmuring, "Shinji's
ready now."  The minute she uttered her words, Shinji stepped from the
room, fully dressed and
ready to roll.

% Hmm. Low level telepathic bond as well?

 He looked different, somehow.  Maybe it was the T-shirt
and jeans he was wearing.
Maybe it was the fact that he stood straighter.  Most likely it was the
strong look in his eyes
and the calculating visage on his face.

% Hopefully not too calculating, wouldn't want to look too much like his
father.

 But it was very much the look of
Sohryu Asuka Langley on
the face of Ikari Shinji.
    Before she could ask, Shinji cut her off with a, "Don't bother asking
Misato.  Just don't."
Turning to Asuka, he snarled, "This isn't any easier on me, you know."
    For a second, her countenance grew dark, as though she was going to
launch into one of her
classic tantrums.  Instead, she turned away and sorrowfully said,
"I'm...sorry, Shinji."  Shinji's
response was to go up to her, hug the redhead and swear that everything
would be alright, that
they'd find a way through, and that he would be there for her if needed.

% Hmm. Already they're almost one.

    would.//
    "Well, look at Rei.  She's holding at 94.3%, and staying steady.  If
anything, emulate her."
    The response Misato got back was a twin curse of //...Goddamn Wonder
Girl....// before the
line went silent again.


% Hahaha! I see a lot of Asuka is rubbing off on Shinji.


comm link and voiced, //Umm, Misato, could you let us out for a moment?//
    //We want to try something,// Asuka chimed in, seeing

% 'sensing' might be a better word then 'seeing.' Just my opinion.

 instantly what
he intended.
    Ritsuko looked at Misato, who just shrugged. "All right," the blonde
nodded.  "Raise the
plugs."
    Once the test plugs were raised out of the LCL, Asuka climbed out of
hers. She then went over
to Shinji's and climbed into the small space behind the pilot's seat, just
as he had done the day
before in hers.
    From the comfort of the Unit 00 plug, Rei looked at the sequence of
events with a marked
curiosity.  She felt a curious emotion rising in her, something she'd
never felt before.  am i
jealous?  Unfamiliar with the emotion, she was unsure, but she didn't feel
very disposed towards
Asuka at the moment, as well as a disappointment in Shinji for some
reason.  odd....  maybe i
am....

% heh. So Rei is starting to emote. That might lead to something
interesting down the line.

    A second or two went by as Asuka got

% 'made' sounds better than 'got' IMO.


    "Their life signs--they're all the same.  *Exactly* the same.
Breathing, heart rate, brain
impulses--the works. They're all the same and they're in perfect synch
with each other, like I
dunno, twins in the same mother's womb or something.

% What an appropriate metaphor.

 But the fact is,
they're both in
synchronicity, and functioning like two sides of the same coin."
    "I guess Asuka was right; they really do need each other."  Misato had
an odd look on her
face, one that seemed bemused.  "Well, it's going to be odd living alone
again."
    "What do you mean by that?" Ritsuko asked.
    Misato had a wistful look on her face.  "Someday, that closeness will
bring them together,
mark my words.  But, the only way for them to sort it out would be for
live on their own."

% Being an expert on relationships, she knows about these kinds of things.
^_^

Misato
actually braved a sigh in that room.  "And to think that I was growing to
enjoy having Shinji
around the apartment."
    "If you're going to miss him that much," Maia commented,  "Why not
have Asuka move in with you
two?

% Misato: Because the walls in my place are nowhere near thick enough to
shut out the noises that are going to be coming from their room late at
night.

 He'd still be around, and you could catch the warning signs before
they happen."
    "Um, 'warning signs?'"
    "Well, if you are right, and they are getting closer, sooner or later
something's going to
happen," Ritsuko commented with a catty tone.  "May I remind you that
pregnant people don't fit
well in plug suits, nor do they make the best of pilots."

% An EVA pilot with PMS would be bad enough, I'm sure.

any time, because we don't know when the next Angel will strike."
    Gendo agreed.  "Okay.

% I see him as saying 'Very well,' instead.

 Select the local student as the Fourth Child,
then contact the base
commander at Branch 2 and let them know I want that pilot and his EVA
ready for transfer as soon
as."
    Misato bowed.  "Yes, sir."

<(*)>

    A week later, Shinji and Asuka stood on the gantryway, in front of
Unit 01.  Both were ready
to enter the tandem plug--what the engineers had jokingly termed the
"Double Trouble Bubble"--for
the first time.

% Hehehehehehe. I can really see that happening too.

 The plug had been set for Unit 01, along with a few other
modifications to the
unit made it far more advanced than either of the two EVAs to its side.
With the decision for the
Second and Third Children to pilot Unit 01 made, it seemed that things
were settling into a state
of normalcy around the military complex.
    However, that decision came after the most riotous week in Tokyo-3.
Initially, Asuka had
moved into Misato's house, but instantly "the happy couple" had begun
arguing about such
trivialities as who was going to sleep on which side of the futon, house
chores, and the like.

% Ah, so they are married in all but name.

The battle intensified with Shinji's announcement that they were going to
be piloting Unit 01
together, to which Asuka told him that he could go do something to himself
that was pretty much
anatomically impossible, and that they were going to pilot Unit 02.  The
Battle of Who Could Care
Less, as the workers of Branch-1 came to call it,

% hehehehe. There are some great humourous lines in this.

ended a week later when
Commander Ikari stepped
into the midst of the one of their arguments, and when informing the
Second and Third Children
that they were "acting like brats", he was rewarded with a double-barrel
shotgun's worth of
Japanese, English, and German curses directed at him from the two.

% HAHAHAHAHA!!! It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, and from Shinji
it's long overdue. And I can just imagine how Asuka feels about Gendo now
that she knows Shinji's every emotion on the matter, even the feelings he
didn't want to confront.



Despite that, it had the
unintended success of making the two realize e!

xactly

% There's an '!' inappropriately placed.

how immature they had been acting.
    The weekend had been spent with Asuka and Shinji moving into the
apartment next to Misato.
While Misato had no intention of having a "worse than married" couple
living under her roof--the
constant arguing at 3 a.m. was proof enough of that

% Told you the walls were too thin for the noises they'll be making at
night. ^_^

--she had no intention
of letting the pair
discover the benefits of the Kama Sutra, at least not without *some* sort
of adult advice.

% So she'll what... instruct them on the best techniques to use?

 With
the exception of sleeping arrangements, they pretty much lived at
Misato's, and in the end, she
found out that it was, in a sense, something that she enjoyed.  They had
pretty much meshed into a
family of sorts, and maybe Misato could steer these two into a life that
made a little more sense
than that of her own.

% A nice thought on her part.



    During this time, the Fourth Child had made his debut.  Scheduled to
operate Unit 02, his
talents started off shaky, but soon picked up speed.  Between the training
that he received and
the extra time spent with him by the NERV specialists, the one-week crash
catch-up course worked
like a charm, and he was now averaging a respectable 92.3%.  Today would
be the first day that he
not only would step into the EVA for the first time, but also operate in
tandem with the three
other children.  As he came up the gantryway, headed towards Unit 02, he
felt a pride

% I'd drop the 'a'

as he walked
in his black and gray plug suit, seating himself as normal into the plug,
and making himself
comfortable.
    Once all four children were snug in their seats, the "spinal tap"
occurred again as the four
EVAs were slowly powered up.
    "Unit 01, since you two are trying the new tandem plug for the first
time, we start with you.
You're both reading at 132.7% on the index and doing fine.  01A, report."
    //01A reporting fine at the combat controls.  Systems are reading
nominal.  Control still
feels a little bit sticky, though; It'll probably pass.//  With Shinji in
the primary pilot's
seat, things were all as normal.  Switching nominal control to--//
    //--01B,//  Asuka said as she took over the co-pilot's controls.  //My
controls are fine, but
the HUD displays need to be worked on a little.  Also, the control switch
from Shinji to me felt a
little slow--on the mechanical side, of course.//  Asuka smiled as she
said, //But otherwise than
that, we're ready to rock 'n' roll.//

% I see she's staring to adjust to her new 'relationship'

    "Okay then.  Unit 00, you're reading at 95.6.  That's higher than
usual for you, Rei.  Good
job."
    //thank you,// Rei said with a tone that would have been demure on
another person.  //so far,
everything seems in its place.//
    "Good to know then," Misato commented.  "Now, let's hear from the last
one.  Unit 02, how are
you adjusting to it? You're a little lower than usual, at 90.3%, but we
can chalk that up to this
being your first time actually in the EVA."

% Toji: I want to share my EVA with a babe, too.

    //Well, the actual experience of being in one of these is different,//
Toji admitted, //but
I'm adjusting to it.  I suppose that it could be worse, I could be in the
bubble with the
Newlyweds....//
    *//WHAT?//* both Shinji and Asuka screamed at once.
    On the screen, Toji merely held an enigmatic smile.


Heh.


Next:
Part Three:
Resonance


%A nice work, as always. Sorry I couldn't get this to you sooner.

D.B. Sommer