The Cult of Chaos Presents:
                      A One Bad Apple Production...


                 An Evangelion / Angel Sanctuary fusion

                            Agents of Fortune
                                Chapter 1


                         Story By: Berk Watkins

                             
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     A word of warning, Angel Sanctuary is a series dealing with
     mature, often illegal, situations.  If you have any major
     moral issues with the exploration of the concept of incest,
     adult situations and what could be counted as blasphemy to
     some people, proceed at your own peril.
     
     Angel Sanctuary was developed by Kaori Yuki.
     
     Evangelion was developed by Hidekai Anno.
     
     The author of this fanfic claims no rights or ownership of
     the characters herein or the scenarios this fanfic draws
     from.  If you want to post this story on your website,
     please contact the author first at jrandom@ufl.edu.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


It was one of those guilty survivor dreams that had plagued her for most
of her life; as if she stood at the eye of a hurricane of blood and
viscera, unscathed as those around her died in various horrible ways. 
She was a child again.. everything had that slightly unfocused, hazy
quality to it.

That was always the clincher.. she knew she was dreaming.. but she was
trapped, forced to watch the events replaying.

There was a correspondent from some British society or another along on
the Katsuragi Expedition.. at the time she'd thought him a little
'funny' ..  A nice guy, but he had earrings and Daddy didn't trust men
with earrings.  Three of them in a row down his left earlobe.  A camera
hung about his neck as he turned and regarded her father with a faint
smile and said something.. his voice lost on the howl of the Antarctic
winds.  Daddy laughed a bit at whatever it was he said and then there
was a shudder underfoot.

Snowflakes.. big, glowing ones... like feathers...

A cold, shuddering pain...

A blur of motion...

Misato woke both arms reflexively curled round her scarred abdomen as
she tried to find the breath to scream.  Failing that, she lay there on
her side, curled up in a fetal position for quite a long time, listening
to the faint humming of her clock radio and longing that she had
invested in a mechanical clock instead.  At least then she could have
counted the ticks as they went by.

The next morning was a typical one in the Katsuragi household...  Which
is to say, Misato valiantly tried to get herself as blitzed as possible
as quickly as possible while Shinji did his best to cobble together a
tolerable breakfast amid the chaos.  He was getting quite good at
avoiding penguins underfoot and Misatos accidentally trying to cold-cock
him with spent beer cans.

Rei was much easier to deal with.  The albino girl just sort of slipped
into the kitchen through the most efficient means possible, settled down
into her chair and waited patiently for breakfast to be served.  The
Third Child soon passed her bowl of Miso soup to her and sat down across
the table from her, fixing a stoic expression upon his face.

Both did their best to ignore the morning mayhem around them.. it was
the only way to stay relatively sane.

The 'adult' of the household was still sober, she seemed to have decided
to pickle herself slowly on her time off, as opposed to staying
completely blitzed for the duration.  "Don' forget.." Misato murmured,
slowly waking up, "Synchronization tests today..."

Rei and Shinji continued eating for a moment longer before responding in
unison, "I remember," in almost exactly the same tone of voice.  Rei's
rendition was entirely deadpan, while Shinji's utterance had more of a
downturn at the end, as if his voice had already become tired and
decided to put the sound down to rest.

                    *     *     *     *     *

The walk to school.

A standard element of the day to day life of most, if not all, Japanese
children.  There were fewer children those days, thanks to the Second
Impact's culling of a large portion of the world's population, but there
were still some kids out there.  As long as there were children, there
would be schools.

Some things are just standard parts of the package.

The two remaining Children on active duty, both equally quiet for
differing reasons, walked down the street towards the school.  It wasn't
a very long journey to school, no more than a dozen blocks on the
outside, but the silence of the trip was uncomfortable.  Sure, Shinji
and Rei were quiet.. but they were both rather used to the constant
prattle from the Second Child.

"Do you think Asuka will be alright?" Shinji wondered quietly.

Rei said nothing for quite some time before observing, without glancing
over, "It is within NERV's power to do so..."

Shinji paused at that for a moment, watching the back of Rei's head as
she continued on without him.  He then shook his head as if to dismiss
something and rushed forward a little to catch up.  Sure, it was within
NERV's power to help Asuka come back from whatever world she'd withdrawn
into.. but would they?

If there were a camera set filming these events it would pan out here
and refocus on a building across town.  A plain, white structure with
the various and sundry trappings of a hospital.  It even had that
antiseptic architectural style to it that just screamed 'hospital'.  Our
hypothetical camera would focus on a specific window at this point, a
window that was set into the wall of the nurses' station.

Oh do please pay no attention to the new nurse on the floor.  Such an
itty, bitty thing, really.  Probably not very well nourished after
Second Impact.  Must've stunted the poor thing's growth.  Long, black,
wavy hair and big, expressive eyes that made her look all the more
innocent and child-like.

An embodiment of the concept that big things can come in small packages.

The nurse wandered into a room marked 'Langley-Souryu, Asuka', peering
down more at her chart than at the things around her.  She then regarded
the semi-comatose girl in her bed, wires and tubes and all manner of
nasty things poked into her.

"waaaah... you poor thing..." the small lady known simply as 'Doll'
mused with tears in her eyes.  She regarded the clipboard again and
nodded once.  "Okie-dokie, Lord Uriel...  As directed!"

She then set about accomplishing her instructions, handed down from on
high from the being she adored more than anything else above, on or
under the earth.  Uriel had long ago determined how to phrase his
instructions to Doll because, as was a part of her nature, she had a
nagging tendency to be very literal minded.

She was also very lucky, which tended to help more than it hurt.

A fiddled with dial here, a carefully cut wire there and one, special,
extra ingredient in the form of one, wriggling - thing - that she fished
out from behind one of her own ears.  It didn't take very long before
the tiny woman had completely and utterly loused up the machine in such
a manner that it would still send a regular reading to the nurses'
station as long as Asuka was plugged up to it.

"Hmm... now then.. what was the other thing?" Doll wondered to herself,
head titled slightly to one side and a finger held, tapping, to her
cheek.  "Oh yeah.. silly me...."  She fished around in the hip-pack that
was part and parcel of a modern nurse's uniform and produced a vial and
a syringe.  The lettering on the vial was.. well.. indecipherable to the
average human, and most above average ones' too.

Appropriate.

Doll filled the syringe from the vial and pushed the contents into
Asuka's IV line.  She smiled sweetly and patted the girl on the
shoulder.  "Nothing to fear as long as Doll's around..." she said
cheerfully, as if Asuka could hear her.  "Raphiel's medicine'll make you
feel aaaaaaaall better."  With that she settled down in a chair and
waited for her patient to wake up.

Asuka groaned painfully in her sleep and shuddered violently as the
chemical provided by the Physician of Heaven began to devour the drugs
in her system that were keeping her unconscious.  The process was not
without its pain, but there is no such thing as a benefit without a
drawback.

Mama Mama Mama Mama...

Don't go Mama...

I have to go, Asuka.. but you need to be strong...

I don't want to be alone, Mama...

Are you ever really alone?

The image of Shinji, playing his cello.. 'The Ode To Joy'.  What did
that emotional wet blanket ever have to be joyful about?  He didn't even
Want to be there.  He'd be just as happy across the planet, wouldn't he?

Wouldn't he?

Wouldn't she?

What did it matter?  Her brain felt bruised.. everything hurt...  Her
senses swam painfully close to the real world again as she began to wake
up.  Eeeeew, Hospital Smell...  She tried to open her eyes and failed on
the first attempt, a feeling as if each eyelid was held down by a stout,
lead weight.  Discomfort.

Discontinuity.

Someone was wiping her eyes; the touch was light but almost unbearably
painful.  Everything ached.  Her bladder felt funny...  Oh yuck..
tubes.. tubes everywhere...  Get em out get em out.. get em out!

"just hold on a moment..." a soft voice soothed from far away.  "you've
been very sick.. but I'm going to help you."

Sick.  Yeah..  Right...

Some time passed, and Asuka groaned as someone opened her eyelid to look
at her pupil.  "Sorry about that..." the woman apologized, sounding a
lot closer than she had before.  "You're just about cleaned out..  Yes..
I know it hurts."  She then began to slowly unhook the redhead from the
various apparatus that she had been plugged into and had been plugged
into her.

The German girl cursed softly in her native tongue as the catheters were
extracted.  She'd shudder to think what they'd have felt like if she had
been conscious for them being installed in the first place.. but she was
too tired.

There was a pause as the stranger checked her watch.  "Kurai's gonna
wonder where I am..." she murmured softly as she yanked the last of the
wires and made sure that all of Asuka's various IV feeds were removed
and bandaged properly.  "And now.. the stuff hits..."  Doll picked the
redhead up out of bed, hefting her dead weight with a deceptive amount
of ease.  "You need to eat more..." the fake nurse mused as she opened
the door and peered round the corner.  There was a commotion from the
nurses' station, which was to be expected at this point.

She'd had to remove Asuka from the sensors to move her.

Okay then.. run the other way.

The dark haired woman took off on a tear down the hallway at her top,
laden speed, headed for a door that had a fire exit and not a whole lot
else.  She skidded to a screeching halt, the soles of her shoes
chattering against the tile floors as her head whipped first one way and
then the other.  She glanced down at Asuka and grinned a little madly. 
"Never fear, I have a plan!"

Asuka was to exhausted to shudder in pure terror...

With a smooth motion, Doll whipped open the laundry shoot, dumped her
cargo down first and swiftly pitched herself in afterwards, the door
slamming behind her with a resounding clang.  After a great deal of
bumping, thudding and clattering around, both young women landed in the
basement, in a laundry cart filled with linens.  The cart, granted
momentum by the impact of two bodies, rolled out from under the exit of
the shoot and came to a rest with a couple other, full hampers by a
nearby wall.

Then, there were several moments of uncomfortable silence.

The linens shifted and a shrouded figure stood up from the middle of the
hamper, somewhat unsteadily, before pulling the sheet away.  Somewhere
along the line. Doll had managed to discard her nurses's uniform for a
brown and black maid's uniform.  A rather dumpy maid's uniform, but a
maid's uniform nonetheless.  She adjusted her little hat and hitched
Asuka up out of the sheets.  "That was fun!" she chirped as she
womanhandled herself and her charge out of the cart and onto the
basement floor.  "Mou... but where's my ride?"

"Do you have to make everything into a full Broadway production, Doll?"
a woman drawled from somewhere in the vicinity of behind the young lady
with the redhead in her arms.  Her sudden appearance nearly made Doll
jump right out of her skin, but only earned a slightly startled yelp and
a little hop forward.

"Kurai!" Doll yelped softly, before hunching her shoulders a little and
dropping her voice to conspiratorial tones.  "Where's the car?"

"Around back.. c'mon before I get towed...."

"Okie-dokie!"  Doll would've saluted, but she had her arms full.

Hmm.. how to describe Kurai properly?  Perhaps the same age as Asuka..
perhaps older.. it was hard to tell because she was somewhat
underdeveloped by some people's standards and looked more than a little
exotic besides.  Dark skin, silver hair and piercing, blue eyes... and
if you looked very closely, a pair of prominent canines that you could
just about call fangs.  She dressed to blend in with just about anyone
else in the teen-to-early-twenties age group and talked in a similar
manner.  Indistinguishable, for the most part, from any other modern
young lady.  Most people seemed to never notice the fact that her pupils
were slitted like a cat's.

The getaway car was the sort of vehicle that only a demon or a speed
freak would find appropriate to drive.  A big, heavy thing with an
engine designed under the same general principle of a pressure cooker.

Black, deep, deep black.

A sort of black that seemed to stare back at you if you looked too long.

The passenger compartment itself looked more like an aircraft's cockpit
than a car's.  Thankfully the seats were deep and comfortable, and
allowed Doll enough room to prop the semi-conscious girl in her lap and
put the seat belt on over her.

"By my guess.. NERV's bullyboys will be breathing down our neck in
thirty seconds..." the darker girl prophesied as she turned the ignition
over, the turbocharged engine waking to a growling life suggestive of
the dragons she once used to get around.

Of course.. only a child may speak to a Dragon God...

The odds of actually flying over the Geofront without getting shot at
were somewhere between 'unlikely' and 'impossible'.  Her cousin
Arachne's old car would serve just as well, he'd taken good care of the
thing and had left it in a garage outside of Tokyo before they'd gone on
their last, successful hunt for Alexiel's body.

Several men in black stumbled out onto the loading dock just in time to
get a good whiff of carcinogenic smoke from four barking tires and a
nice view of a proudly displayed 'GT-R' badge on the aft end of the
rapidly receding car.

Doll, in the passenger seat, tried very hard not to give into the scary
feeling that she was inside some sort of four-wheeled cannon shell as,
with a quiet huff, the twin turbos nestled on either side of the engine
spooled up and demonstrated why the Skyline GT-R once ruled the highways
of Tokyo with an iron fist.  Kurai, on the other hand, had a carnivorous
grin plastered all over her face that couldn't be denied.  Without the
slightest protest or lost traction, the black sports car gleefully
shattered half the Japanese traffic laws at once and roared off into the
distance.

                    *     *     *     *     *

The number of students in the school had thinned out a little bit more. 
More families had taken their children out of school and headed for more
safe locales in Japan that didn't involve Angels and Evangelion Units
and NERV.  The result was a slightly tightened feel to the classes and a
slightly expanded feel to the interior of the school itself.  A more
favorable teacher to student ratio and more space to move around had
actually improved the overall quality of education over the past month
or so.

PE had been cancelled for the rest of the week, because the school
athletic field was being used as a local staging area for booths in the
upcoming Tanabata Festival.  Maybe the celebration of the Star Lovers
would improve the morale of the people who lived in the neighborhood.

Nothing else lately had...

Shinji and Rei walked into class and settled down at their desks.  The
former opened up his satchel and retrieved a book he was reading, the
latter settled down at her desk and seemed to detach herself from
reality, staring dead ahead.

It was her way of waiting...

Just another day at school.  Nothing much really happened until after
lunch, when it was time for History to come around.  Another day of
listening to Takeru Yoshida, a man who was rumored to be older than
dirt, droning on and on about how the world had been changed by the
Second Impact, as if that was the only important thing to have happened
in recorded history.  The class stood in preparation for the arrival of
the aging teacher.  They didn't get his plodding gate and stooped
posture, though.

They got a dark-eyed valkyrie, who didn't so much walk into the room as
enter into it.  A sheer force of dynamic personality and drive; a
powerful contrast to Yoshida's nearly exhausted energies and complete
lack of enthusiasm for the subject.

"Good afternoon, class," the woman replied to their habitual greeting in
a friendly manner, very relaxed.  There was a faintly foreign look to
her, but considering that Tokyo-3 had a large international population
this wasn't all that startling.  She didn't have an accent, now that was
surprising.  Her Japanese was the sort of language you'd expect to be
heard anywhere in the Kanto region, spoken by a native.  "Mr. Yoshida
will not be able to continue instructing this class for the remainder of
the year.  The school has requested that I endeavor to take his place."

The students glanced among themselves, not entirely certain what to make
of this development.

"My name is Shiro Setsuna," the woman continued, introducing herself and
then bowing.  "It is my honor to be given this chance to instruct you." 
Somewhere during all of this she had managed to write the kanji of her
name up on the board.  "During class, 'Miss Shiro' or 'Teacher' is the
norm.  But when not in class I'm quite happy without the honorifics." 
Her faint smile lit up the room as she looked around.  "I might be
older, but like you, I will always be a student."

She then produced a book from her satchel and grinned.  "Now then..
shall we begin?"  The students soon learned that their new teacher was
anything *but* a carbon copy of their previous history teacher as she
didn't even bother mentioning the Second Impact, and instead started
talking about the history of Imperial China.

Shiro-sensei was apparently not very impressed with the class' ability
to recall general details concerning China and the class shifted tones
into something of a question and answer session so she could get to know
the students better and they could get some sort of idea what she would
be expecting of them.  She walked round in front of the desk and sat
down on it, straightening out her dress a little and crossing one leg up
over the other.  "Let me guess..." she mused, "Mr. Yoshida was one of
those guys who was stuck on Second Impact, wasn't he?"  She looked
around the room, looking for someone to volunteer a response.

The class president stood and nodded once, "yes, Miss Shiro.." she
murmured, sounding a little embarrassed about it.  She then quickly sat
back down and hung her head.

Setsuna nodded once and hmmed.  "Well.. I guess I'll move out of form
for today then."  She smiled a little and gestured to herself.  "I'm
taking off my teacher hat for a few minutes.  I'd like to know a little
more about you all."

The class looked amongst its members, a little bit confused and unused
to this idea.

"Another day behind isn't going to make much difference."  She then
smiled and pointed to her face.  "My name's Shiro Setsuna," she
introduced with a grin, her tone dropping into rather informal, friendly
tones as if she were their age.  She'd started the whole introductory
process over again on a different foot.  "I studied History and
Literature at the University of Denver..." she continued.  She paused a
little bit and then chuckled softly, "I've been married to the first
person I ever fell for for the past four years."  She held up her left
hand, revealing the wedding ring there.

The girls giggled at this admission.

"Yeah, yeah, I know.. like something out of girls' comics."  She looked
around the room.  "Come on.. I let you all know something about me.. 
Let me know about you now.  I want to be able to attach a name to the
faces."

The comment about comics broke the ice.  History was the last class that
day and they spent the rest of the class chatting quietly about each
other, exchanging information and in general establishing Setsuna in a
sort of 'big sister' role for much of the class.

Some basic truths came to life...

The #1 desired occupation of a Japanese teenage girl was still 'bride'. 
The girls in the class were really impressed that Setsuna had continued
to work after she was married, instead of settling down completely to
raise a family.

The guys wanted to know more about 'Mr. Shiro'.  Setsuna, obligingly,
revealed that her spouse worked as a Forensic Pathologist for the Tokyo
Metro Police Department.

By the end of the class, Setsuna had gotten to know the fifteen or so
remaining students in the class well enough to keep their names straight
and have some general idea of their personalities.  "Okay, guys, bring
you're a games tomorrow because we'll be hitting the books.  I'd like
you all to read Chapter Twenty-Three in your books for tomorrow and
we'll discuss it in class."

The teacher stood and bowed once, "Thank you for your attention, class. 
I look forward to seeing you all again tomorrow."  She then grinned
again and procured her satchel from the desk, heading out and returning
the classroom to the control of the students.

"Interesting teacher..." one student remarked, pushing his glasses up on
his nose as they tried to slide down.  "Right, Shinji?"

"Mmmm?  Hmm...." replied Shinji to his friend noncommittally.

Rei had said not a word for the past hour..  She'd been completely and
thoroughly riveted on the front of the classroom.  Something about that
teacher had managed to provoke a reaction of some sort out of the
normally completely apathetic albino girl...

Across the school, perhaps fifteen minutes later, Setsuna was sitting at
her desk in the back of the teachers' lounge, writing something on a
laptop she'd opened up on her desk.  She didn't quite look the role of a
prim and proper Japanese teacher, but she'd been called in to fill in
rather early that morning.  That.. and the fact that she bowled other
people by force of personality, tended to keep people from arguing the
point.

A floor-length, blue-white dress with a modest neckline and a pair of
old tennis shoes.  She had one leg crossed up over the other, giving the
impression less of a teacher at work and more of someone relaxing in the
park.  It wasn't the bizarrely casual air to her that was drawing the
albino First Child to her, though.. there was a strange feeling of deja-
vu associated with her.

Rei rapped once softly on the doorjam and murmured softly to the nearest
teacher, "I am here to see Miss Shiro..."  The fact that she'd actually
spoken was unusual; Ayanami Rei almost never spoke unless something was
asked of her and she'd certainly never come to the lounge looking for a
teacher before.

In the better light of the teacher's lounge, Setsuna's eyes were more
readily discernable against the paler cast of her skin.  A deep,
violet.. almost the same color as high-value amethyst.  With strange,
red flecks that caught the light if you looked her in the eye from just
the right angle.

The First Child sat in the chair next to her desk and went, essentially,
right to the point of her visit to her new History teacher.  "Who are
you?"

"Setsuna..."

"That is not accurate.. how do I know this?"

The teacher smirked ever so slightly at that bewildered, yet somehow
still monotone, question.  "That.. is because you have a hole in your
mind..." she observed.  There was something about the girl that reminded
her of a laboratory mouse.. or maybe a white rabbit.  Either comparison
brought beck unpleasant memories of her 'youth'.

Rei looked up at Setsuna, the look on her face implying that she was
slowly tasting the woman's words and finding them the sweet sort of
speech that turned sour upon digestion.  Her face drooped into suspicion
as she inquired, "What are you?"

"That is a secret you'll have to uncover for yourself."

The sunlight caught the blood red pendant around Setsuna's neck at this
point, casting a haze of red across the albino girl's eyes for a moment
and causing her to first recoil in sensitive reflex and then halt in her
tracks.  Eyes unusually wide and somehow vacant, like the eyes of a deer
mesmerized by the lights of an oncoming car.

Blood...

The exact color of blood...

Rei's pale, thin skin took on a green hue as she rushed out of the
teachers' lounge, one hand clasped desperately over her mouth. 
Although, despite her sudden nausea, anyone familiar with the pilot of
Unit Zero would be forced to admit it was the most alive they had ever
seen her.

The teacher smirked faintly at that and blew a stringy lock of raven
hued hair out of eyes, her expression turning briefly irritated,
glancing upward.

"What was that all about?"

Setsuna glanced over at the approaching teacher and shrugged.  "Maybe
something she ate didn't agree with her?" she offered.

In the girls' restroom down the hall, Rei was washing her face and still
looking decidedly queasy.  What had triggered that reaction?  Something
about the color.. something had invoked something somewhere unexplored
within herself.  A smiling, almost oily man... pale skin.. a crimson
scar across his, otherwise intact, left eye socket.  The gem was the
same color as the scar.

She scowled at that image and shook her head.  No.. she couldn't dwell
on that image yet.  She needed to go to the base and prepare for her
synchronization test with Unit Zero.  She took a deep, cleansing breath
and left the restroom behind.

Ikari had already left for the base, which was to be expected.  She'd
already told him to go on without her and that she would catch up.  She
tried to analyze the sensation she got when she considered the Third
Child's absence and found that she lacked a good word to describe it.

Fascinating...

Perhaps something was wrong with her current incarnation.  A chemical
imbalance?  An illness of some sort that was clouding the proper
function of her brain?  No.. she didn't seem to be running a fever...

Curious...

Perhaps she ought to ask Dr. Akagi for a full physical.  She might have
some way of explaining this dragging feeling in her, distracting her
attention somewhat from her task at hand.  She departed from the school
grounds, preserving the neutral expression on her face as she meditated
upon the situation.  Shinji was a perfectly good cook.. so she could not
be sick from something he cooked.  What could possibly explain her
sudden bout of nausea though?

She dwelled on this problem as she walked, somewhere behind the
expressionless, passive mask of her face.  She found, after a certain
amount of time, that she had come to a halt.  Glancing up and out of her
reverie she realized that she'd stopped in front of the card reader that
granted access to NERV Headquarters.  She'd consciously missed her
arrival while she'd unconsciously made note of it and reacted
accordingly out of reflex.  She fished out her card and proceeded into
the base quietly.

Before heading to the locker room, Rei paused by Ritsuko's office to
report her problem to her.  She explained the situation to the doctor in
the best way that she could with her economy of speech and relative
confusion and waited for some sort of analysis from her.

Dr. Akagi considered Rei's words for a few moments before saying, "Come
in after school tomorrow and I'll run a physical on you.  The tests are
going to run too late tonight to do a physical on you."

"I understand, Dr. Akagi."

"Head on to the lockerrooms, we need to start the tests soon."

"Understood."

In the locker room Rei stripped down out of her street clothes, folding
her clothing neatly and sticking it into the locker that contained her
plugsuit.  Following that, she acquired the white suit she wore while
piloting an Eva and shrugged it on.

All quite routine, really...

Well.. mostly.

There was the nagging feeling that something was out of place.  Some
minuscule detail in her world was wrong; and it had begun to intrude on
how she was accustomed to operate.  Irritation?  Yes.. that was a good
word.  She was irritated that her regular, predictable world was somehow
off.

It was too quiet.

By this point Asuka ought to have been yammering on about some issue or
another that she'd become insecure about and needed to reassure herself
that, in her own mind at least, she was still on top of the heap.  It
didn't take a great deal of self-analysis to understand that she'd begun
acclimate to the ravings of the Second Child.

Another breath...

Find the center and allow all else to spin away harmlessly.  There was
work to do that would be hampered by unnecessary emotions.  She stood up
from the bench and pulled her suit up over her shoulders.  A couple of
quick tugs at the seals at the shoulders and then a simple depression of
the wrist button.  With a faint hissing sound the plugsuit contracted to
fit her snugly, perhaps a bit restrictively, but it provided a whole
battery of additional sensors that allowed for more efficient control of
her Eva.

"Are you ready, Rei?" Shinji's ever-hesitant voice wondered from the
other side of the partition between the girls' and boys' sides of the
lockerroom.  Rei could almost imagine Commander Ikari's son's expression
and stance.  Hesitant.. self conscious.. probably imagining what she
looked like in her own suit and worried about the involuntary reactions
that would cause in himself.

She almost smiled at that - almost - but not quite.

"I am ready," she heard herself reply.

Right then, nothing else really needed to be said.  Rei began to head
out from her half of the lockerroom and met up with Shinji on the way
out.  The two Children made their way from the changing room towards the
lab where Ritsuko and her gaggle of social outcasts would be conducting
her experiments to try and determine their present fitness status as
pilots for the Evas.

It wasn't a far walk from the lockers to the entry room.  Two of the
three simulation plugs were active for that evening's test; Asuka's
would remain inactive until such a time as NERV's doctors determined
that she was in good enough health to try to reconnect to her Eva.

"Standard harmonics tonight, you two..." one of the techs reported as he
punched in the release codes for each plug.  "Saddle up..."

The Children nodded in silent harmony and did as directed.

                    *     *     *     *     *

Classes were done, the paperwork was finished, one worn out educator,
still unaccustomed to such things, was on her way home from the campus. 
"Hey, Sara.. need anything from the store?" she inquired into the a
cellphone as she paused before the corner convenience store.

"Some whipped cream would be nice..." the voice on the other end of the
line offered a bit slyly.  She then laughed softly and reassured, "Just
kidding, Dear.  I didn't have enough time to get everything for dinner
when I got back from work; I'm cooking sashimi tonight to celebrate your
new job."

"You spoil me..."

"Only because you deserve it."

"Be home soon, Sara."  Setsuna hung up the phone and tucked it away into
her satchel, turning to walk into the corner store.  It didn't take long
to track down the ingredients for the evening's dinner, and she was soon
off for the apartment complex she lived in.

It was the evening  before trash day, and Misato was walking off a
hangover when Setsuna arrived at the block of flats.  She couldn't help
but wince a little at the military woman's rather painfully obvious
discomfort as she hoisted the trash up and into the dumpster on the
ground level.

They walked over to the elevator and commenced to waiting for it at the
same time.  "Evening..." Misato finally said for the sake of breaking
the uncomfortable silence she hated so much.

"Good evening," the somewhat taller woman said by way of being
neighborly.  She adjusted her hold on the satchel with her laptop and
some incidental paperwork in it and shifted it over to her other hand as
she glanced upwards.  When she trained her vision back down she caught
notice that the woman who lived in the apartment just under her own was
rather fixated on her left ear.  She arched an eyebrow at the attention
and then explained, "An old friend gave them to me... but they never had
matches..."

Misato had become suddenly fixated on a series of three earrings in
Setsuna's left earlobe.  A small, silver earstud.. a larger diamond
stud.. and a third, larger ruby stud, all in a row from smallest to
greatest from top to bottom.  Exactly like three other earrings she
couldn't get out of her head...  "Haven't seen you around before... did
you move in recently?" she wondered, wanting to know more about this
person.

"No.. but I've been something of a homebody until this week.  I finally
can take time off from my book to do some more teaching.  The local
school needed a new history teacher."

The elevator arrived and both women wandered inside.

"You teach at the school?  What level of history?"

"Third year middle school."

Misato paused at that and chuckled.  "I'm Katsuragi Misato, the guardian
of a couple of your students.  You must be Shinji's new history teacher
then..." she remarked.  "He's rather impressed with you."

Setsuna smiled a little and hmmmed.  "Well.. I'm glad he thinks well of
me, then.  I am Shiro Setsuna..."  She was interrupted by the arrival of
the elevator on Misato's floor.  "Perhaps we should talk some time.  I'd
like it if he and that girl I hear he's associated with would
participate more."

"Rei?  She's a little quiet...." Misato admitted.

"Hmm... true...  See you around, yes?"

"Sure.. make sure to bring your husband too.. we can have a big
housewarming party sometime since I completely missed you moving in." 
There was little doubt, somewhere in the more cynical part of Setsuna's
mind that Misato liked parties more for the alcohol than the
socializing.

"Ah.. but I don't have a husband..." the teacher remarked as the doors
closed.

Misato was left staring at the sickly green elevator doors for a few
moments, looking somewhat bewildered at the reply, doing a little mental
math in her head of what apartments in the block were still occupied. 
"Funny.. it *sounds* like there's a newlywed couple overhead...." she
remarked absently as she wandered back towards her own digs.

"Long day?" a soft voice inquired as Setsuna slipped off her shoes and
wandered into the living room of her own apartment.  A slightly framed
young woman with deep, blue eyes and hair a peculiar shade of silver
that was very almost nearly blue.

Setsuna ran a hair through her hair and sighed.  "It almost feels like
tomorrow already..."  She met the other, shorter woman halfway across
the room and partially collapsed against her with an exhausted,
borderline exasperated, sigh.

The young woman laughed softly and kissed her on the forehead.  "Go get
changed and I'll work on dinner, Drama Queen."

"Cruel taskmaster..."

"I'll make you pay for that."

The taller of the pair smirked faintly at that and wandered into the
bedroom to change into something more comfortable for lounging around
the house.  She wandered out a few minutes later in a pair of old shorts
and a T-shirt emblazoned with the motto: 'Bomb Technician.  If you see
me running, try to keep up.'  "Oy," she drawled as she wandered into the
small kitchen and made her best effort to stay out from underfoot,
"How'd your day go?"

"Two murders and a rape," Sara replied as she transferred some fish from
the cutting board to a plate, preparing it for eating in mid-transfer
with a careful and precise hand.  "Quiet day, really, more people have
left the city."  She glanced to the side, "If nothing happens, how about
we move to New Kyoto?  This place feels 'bad'."

"I'll take it under consideration."  Setsuna moved around behind the
silver-haired woman and wrapped her arms about her waist loosely,
propping her chin on her shoulder.  "A lot of the families that are
leaving here are headed there.  In a decade they might declare it the
new capital at this rate."

A faint chuckle and a quick peck on the cheek from Sara was bestowed
upon the teacher.  "Just you and me - a new city.  Just like when all of
this started."  Sara reached up as she was woolgathering and obtained a
couple of plates from the cupboard.

"Kyoto..." Setsuna observed sagely.

"I wonder if that hotel is still standing?"

"Somehow I doubt it..."

Sara shooed Setsuna away with a faint grin.  "Go make yourself useful. 
Set up the table while I finish this, then we can eat."  She handed
Setsuna the appropriate odds and ends to set up places at a table for a
dinner for two and gestured for her to step to.

Dinner was lovely.  Sara didn't have an opportunity to cook very often,
thanks to her own job, and when she did get the chance to the results
were almost always better than Setsuna's, even after years of practice
on the latter's part.  She seemed to lack some vital talent for flawless
cooking that the other had come upon naturally.

Things settled down into the old, comfortable routine after dinner. 
Sara took her turn through the bath first while Setsuna cleaned the
first half of the dishes, then opening up her laptop to work on her
novel...

A novel that, with her pace of writing, would probably never get done. 
The evening's distraction from her writing turned out to be scheduling
for her history classes.  She hadn't really had a chance to figure out
where she wanted to go with the kids in the class.

When Sara got out of the bath, Setsuna took her turn while Sara finished
what few dishes remained.  Then both were scheduled, by habit, to curl
up at the table and watch the news.. or read.. or write...   Usually
something quiet to occupy the remaining time before they ought to turn
in for the evening.

Setsuna was curled up at the table with her laptop when Sara finished up
the dishes from dinner and wandered back into the living room.  The
teacher had her hair up in a towel and was wearing a big, white bathrobe
that fit her in a manner not unlike a tent.

"What's the story on the class?" the smaller woman wondered as she sat
down behind Setsuna and propped her chin on the other woman's shoulder,
reading the screen.

She closed her grading program and then the latest attempt at continuing
her novel and patted Sara on the side of the head, turning to face her a
bit better.  "Nice kids, their previous teacher was a real piece of work
though..."

Sara nodded a little and wrapped her arms around Setsuna's shoulders
loosely.  She was glad to be able to provide moral support in exhausting
situations, such as these, which would exhaust anyone.  A new school, a
new class, they'd only moved to Tokyo-3 after the attacks had begun, on
the off chance that there might be some relevant use for them to be
there.

Setsuna leaned back a bit against Sara and smiled thoughtfully.  "Any
regrets?" she wondered as she glanced up and right at her directly.  She
chuckled as Sara's arms tightened a bit more firmly around her, her face
moving in above her own.

"I never regret anything," Sara replied, "I don't even regret that
Alexiel isn't a man."  She giggled softly and then kissed Setsuna
earnestly. "Which reminds me.. the other part of that celebration of you
getting a job..."

The ensuing thumps, soft, occasional bouts somewhat naughty laughter and
other sounds associated with loveplay - which continued for a couple of
hours - only served to reinforce Misato's opinion that there had to be a
man in Setsuna's life.

Some time later, Setsuna and Sara were curled up in bed together,
neither one looking particularly like they had any intention of going
anywhere in the next six to eight hours or so.  Both were drowsy and
likely about to nod off.

Sara fell asleep first, leaving Setsuna to her own contemplations for a
few more minutes before she succumbed as well.  Fourteen years.. no..
fifteen that year.  Though she'd never have expected when things had
begun she'd be looking at the world through the violet, violent eyes of
Alexiel.  She hadn't even been sure how long it would've been before
someone had found out about her - then his - relation to Sara.

She protectively curled her arms around Sara's sleeping form as that
line of thought conjured up memories of colder, more disastrous climes. 
A mixed blessing that almost managed to make her fell bad for feeling
almost good.  The world had been scarred forever by the Impact.. but out
of that firestorm, faster than she or Sara had felt it, their problem
was, at least partially, solved.

Solutions, though, have a way of begetting new problems.

Problems she had only just begun to see viable solutions for.

Her mood soured by her thoughts, her dreams should have been stained by
her contemplations instead of the love-tinged ones she had after making
love with Sara.  Instead, she wound up with a rather interesting detour.

Awareness...  A waking dream...

Setsuna swept her gaze around her, taking stock of her surroundings as
best she could.  The area surrounding her faded off into fog, and while
she couldn't see very far, she could hear - or perhaps a better word
might be 'sense' - someone nearby.  "Who's there?" she asked, looking
around, trying to get a feel for who was approaching her.

Uriel's rasping, almost tormented voice came to her ears, "Good evening,
Alexiel, I'm sorry I can't visit in person, but I have something of a
backlog to deal with..."

"I understand," Setsuna replied kindly.  "What reason did you have for
coming to visit?  This still has to take time out of your schedule." 
Hmm.. where was he?  Ah-ha...  Not too far off in the fog, she could
smell the faintly earthy smell that clung to his favorite cloak.

"Keep your eyes open.  I recently chanced upon a soul who seems to have
encountered Tabris."

"Tabris?  Him, I don't need..."

"Good luck, Alexiel...  Setsuna..."

She laughed at that softly and stepped forward slightly in the fog,
finding the dreamself of the Angel of Judgement.  She rested her hands
on his shoulders and kissed him lightly on the cheek.  "I'll take every
little bit of help I can get.. just don't say you'll pray for me."  Sure
it was a little mean spirited to tease Uriel.. but it was a game they'd
been playing for years since the old Setsuna had passed away.

Uriel looked a bit ruffled at that and fretted with a stray, brown
feather before coughing into his hand and slinking off into the fog. 
Setsuna set off in the opposite direction, her conscious awareness of
her dreams fading away into the nonsensical recompiling dreams that she
mercifully still had in common with her 'real' self.

The horrible sensation of deja vu.. and Judgement...

Uriel's voice as it once had been, clear and booming as an avalanche,
announcing her punishment for waging war on Heaven.

Setsuna wrenched herself to consciousness abruptly with a violent
shudder, an arm reaching across the bed to make sure Sara was still
there.  A wave of quiet relief washed through her as her hand found
warm, familiar territory and drew her closer, resting her head on her
shoulder.

No.. the cycle was broken...  Nevermore would she be fated to face in
reality the horrors that sometimes followed her into her dreams.  Her
oldest friend had freed her from *that* long before.

A faint, sleepy chuckle as her bedmate snuggled in closer.  "You've
gotten a lot better at cuddling, Big Brother..." Sara purred drowsily. 
She preoccupied herself with playing with her lover's hair absently. 
Even after over a decade of having been forced back into Gabriel's body
she hadn't been able to *quite* adjust to the angel's subtly..
different.. sense of touch.  It was how different things felt to her
that unnerved her more than anything else.

"I'm sorry .. about..." Setsuna mused, glancing away as she was reminded
of something.  It wasn't the fact that the soul in the body sprawled out
over her was her sister.. she'd gotten over that years before when they
both wore different flesh.

"I got over that years ago...  You had that dream again, didn't you?"

Setsuna nodded sadly into Sara's hair and sighed.  A deep breath drew
into her lungs as she tried to relax a little.  She couldn't help but
compare the scent of Gabriel to the scent of Sara.. it was similar, but
somehow different.  Maybe it had something to do with changing brands of
soap or something.  Maybe it was just a different metabolism.

Maybe there were some things one shouldn't overanalyze...

Sara shifted her weight a little in bed and propped herself up on her
elbows, staring down at the face of the creature that had once called
herself 'the Angel of Death'.  Black, black eyes with little flecks of
red dancing in their depths stared up at the blue orbs that she regarded
the world through.  Tired, burned out and filled with - not guilt - but
rather regret for what could never have been.  She smiled faintly and
kissed the creature that she remembered clearly as having once been her
older brother, and only just dimly recalled once being nearly the
highest of all angels.  "I'll watch over you then.  You sleep and rest
up for classes tomorrow."

"You're too good for me."

"Yes, I am.  Maybe I should find someone better..."

"Liar."

"Yup!"  The Great Angel of Water chuckled softly then and rested her
head on the shoulder of Death, perfectly content to make sure that no
more bad dreams of her thousand years of bondage troubled her spirit. 
She murmured soothing sounds into Setsuna's ear and moved the hair away
from her face as she settled down a bit more comfortably and proceeded
to wait for the coming of dawn.

                    *     *     *     *     *

Who am I?

What am I?

Why am I still here?

Release me...

Cut the cord and let me be...

It hurts.. stifling...  Can't think in this place...

A memory, surfacing from somewhere - deep - within.  A faint laugh and a
remark in a language she'd forgotten.  Wings..  Three wings and deep,
violet eyes..  Such a strange woman.

"I wonder what it's like to live within defined limits..."

"I wonder what it's like to be able to fly..."

A synchronized answer, "It's scary sometimes..."

Laughter...  When did I last laugh?  I can't remember...

Memory...

"Who are you?"

"Setsuna..."

"That is not accurate.. how do I know this?"

The eyes.. the eyes are the same..

Memory...

Wings outstretched, carrying me.. where?  "Sometimes to gain the world
you have to forfeit everything else you know.  Never allow *anyone* to
hold your soul in bondage..."

"Why are you helping me?"

"Because you wanted to know what it was like to fly."

Dr. Akagi frowned a little at charts as they came up on the screens and
glanced over at her assistant.  "Maya.  There's something off about the
First Child's test results.  What do you see?"  She turned her eyes back
to the screen and watched inconsistent numbers scroll along the screen,
being caught for later, in depth analysis by the Magi.

Maya swallowed once, a bit convulsively and replied, "It seems that
Ayanami's projected results are up by ten percent over her previous
test."

"That doesn't make good sense.  What about the Third Child?"

Maya blinked at the results and shrugged a little.  "He's the same as
always."

Curiouser and curiouser said Alice once upon a time...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Life shunned becomes Life enraged;
Beware the wrath of Woman scorned.
She shall slip her bonds in the tribulation;
With a dark blade of hate she will reap a harvest of corrupt souls.
She will use her broken chains to free the captive;
And thus be vindicated.

 - An Excerpt from 'The Book of Judgements'
   A Lost Dead Sea Scroll

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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