Title: Above All Else Author: Psilanthropy Chapter: 04 -- A Trancelike State Author's Note: Foul language. As he looked up through his bedroom window, the silver moon caught his eye. Kunihirou stared up at that disc which hung in the dark sky, surrounded by stars. It was a clear night. His mind was blank as he stared up there. It was the moon. The moon had always been there. There had always been something. Something wasn't right. Right away he noticed it. It wasn't the way it should have been. He warily stepped outside, his toes sinking into the warm soil. As he walked on, the moon continued to stare down at him through the treetops. It was unavoidable. The moon was there every night. It bothered him, as his mind was limited by his willingness to comprehend the bigger picture. The boy refused to think beyond himself. Of course he knew the moon had been a part of the night sky for millions of years, but he found it hard to fathom that idea. The moon had been there since the first time he saw it and would, therefore, disappear the last time he saw it. He continued to tread through the forest, the humidity making the air dense. A fog thickened as he pressed forward, drawn by some unknown force. His hands seemed to disappear in the fog, and he could no longer feel them. However he was not worried. He was reassured that everything would be fine. No harm would come to him even as he could not see where he walked. He was guided, by what he could not say, in a direction he did not know, towards a destination he could only hope was there. He felt at ease as the leaves of shrubs and small trees brushed against his body. He occasionally stepped upon sharp rocks, but the pain in his feet quickly drained away. He was reassured that all of his wounds would be healed when he reached his destination. His whole life he had felt this way, and therefore he felt as if nothing was wrong. He felt as if he had no purpose but to continue onwards, even though he knew not where he was headed. Sometimes it was very hard on him. He wondered why. Why was it him that has to be so confused all the time? Why was he the only one who wanders, when everyone else seems to have some kind of higher plan? Why am I different? Why am I here? But after a while he would get over it and continue onwards. He didn't live for any reason, he just lived. He didn't fill any specific niche in any part of his life. His decisions were of no consequence to anyone other than himself. Often he felt alone, so alone that he could not stand it. Deep in his heart, he knew that he did not want companionship, but he also knew that he needed companionship. Living was such a problem. But at that moment, life was not his main concern. He strained past fallen branches and vines, pushing ever closer to his destination. In a dark part of his mind, he knew what waited ahead. He didn't consciously realize it, but he knew. His eyes began to play tricks on him. In the darkness bright images would appear. He didn't comprehend what they meant, but he saw them and they were his own. He moved quickly now, reassured that there was no reason to be afraid. Suddenly he burst into an open field. The grass was tall as he looked at the tall hill in front of him. He turned to look back towards the forest, but found only more tall grass. He was in some kind of abandoned field, a place that had been lost a long time ago. A cool breeze brought him some comfort. The air here was much drier, nothing like the forest. He reached the top of the hill before he realized that he was climbing. He sat down and looked down on the field below. The tall grass seemed to stretch forever in every direction, mountains in the distance being his only point of reference. He felt relieved and then lay down to rest. Once again the moon was there. Suddenly he saw beyond the scope of his years. He understood things he could never have imagined before. His mind was open for the first time in many years. The confusion and doubt that he felt every day was gone. He looked up at the moon for the first time with open eyes. The glints of light were obvious to him. There were three. Two humanlike shapes and one long, thin shape. It was a spear. The sudden announcement scared him. He picked up his bags and looked down the platform to the train running back to his home, which had just arrived. The platform was unusually empty for that time of day, but he made no note of it. He panicked suddenly when the platform worker sullenly asked for his ticket. He dropped his bags and searched through the pockets of his coat, to no avail. He said he was sorry, that his tickets must have gotten lost somewhere. He turned to retrace his steps, but the other man called out to him. A bright and welcoming smile was now across the man's face. The man said that it was OK, that he needed no ticket for that train. He said that everything would be alright. The younger man took his word for it and retrieved his bags before boarding the train. The train began moving as he sat down. He didn't realize that there was a young boy sitting across from him until several minutes later. The boy's head was down, and the orange sun that poured through the windows obscured the boy's face. Something about that boy troubled Kunihirou. "Where are your parents?" he asked quietly. The boy said nothing, not even moving. "Hey, kid, are you traveling alone?" Again, nothing. "It's not nice to ignore people." Just as Kunihirou thought he would get a glimpse of the boy's face, the train entered a tunnel. The boy was gone when the sunlight returned. For just a second, it seemed like the boy had disappeared. Kunihirou blinked unconsciously, but there was another young man about his age sitting across from him. No, maybe he was a little younger... "Who are you?" Kunihirou asked quietly. For some reason he could not raise his voice anymore. He felt like he was frozen, stuck staring into the eyes of the other. "At this point that is not important." That boy's voice came from all directions, and Kunihirou couldn't see his mouth move. "You know what's going on?" "I know." The boy's voice was confident, unfaltering. "Please tell me." "You don't need me to tell you. You already know." "I know it's something to do with the moon. But what does that have to do with anything?" The other boy didn't respond. "Was it those things I saw on the moon?" "Take care of her." Kunihirou felt at ease as the sun began to fade into darkness. -- Three days had passed when Kunihirou regained consciousness. He did not realize this until he checked his cell phone, hours after he had awoken. Fuugo had left a number of messages. There were also a few from various racers. One particular message left him puzzled, though. The call was from an unknown number, and the caller didn't identify herself. There was a lot of distortion, but he did pick up something about an accident. The woman's tone was the most troubling. Kunihirou called his friend first. As the phone rang he looked outside. It was late evening, and the bright orange rays of the sun poured into his apartment. ""Hello?" ""Hey, it's Watanabe." ""Hey! Where have you been?!"" Kunihirou paused, looking slowly around his orange apartment. "I guess I was just sleeping," he said nonchalantly. ""Are you fucking kidding me?! How can anyone sleep for three days, dude? That's, like, impossible! Have you gone to a hospital?"" "No, why?" Kunihirou had been raised in a poor family. Therefore, short of a life-threatening injury, he didn't think there was any need to see a doctor for anything. ""What if you had some kind of seizure? Or what if something is wrong with you, you know?"" "No way. I'll be fine." ""You're scaring me, Kunihirou. You should really be worried!"" "I told you that I'm fine! Don't worry about it." Kunihirou knew he should be worried, but could find no reason to be. He tried to convey that confidence to his friend across the phone. ""Well, whatever. You know that without a doctor's note, the absences from school will be unexcused, right? You missed three whole days of class. The teacher had started asking if you dropped out."" "What a moron." "Well, as long as you're OK..." "I'm fine. I'll be over tomorrow to pick you up." Kunihirou cut off the conversation early as he realized that Megumi hadn't been home. Everything was exactly as he remembered it. She hadn't been home. Take care of her. Kuni quickly dialed her cell phone's number, only to be confronted by ringing in his kitchen. He turned around, to find her cell phone sticking out of her purse, which sat on his countertop. "Fuck," he swore under his breath as he rushed towards the purse. He shut off his phone and dropped it before grabbing hers, dumping over Megumi's purse in the process. It's contents fell out over the countertop as he looked desperately at the cell phone's screen. According to the phone, the only person who had called her in the past three days was Kunihirou. He swore again and dropped the phone, collapsing against the counter. Something was horribly wrong. -- It had become such a part of their lives that they failed to realize that they were more than a kilometer underground. The Commander of NERV sat at the head of the table in the third Debriefing room. His hands were folded just beneath his nose. He did his best to hide his disappointment. Even his eyes gave away no emotion because of his years of practice. He no longer wore glasses or gloves; there was no point. To his right was Lieutenant Suzuhara, who looked more nervous than anything else. The man's eyes darted across the room, trying not to make any eye contact with his Commander. Sitting to the right of Suzuhara was the head of NERV's intelligence, Horaki Hikari. Her face was nearly as cold as the Commander's, but her guilt was evident. She had taken most of the blame, even though she had very little to do with it. To the Commander's immediate left was Doctor Ibuki. The doctor had been up for many, many hours. It was beginning to show. Even as the meeting had begun, she continued to enter data through her handheld link-computer. To Maya's left was her aid, Aida Kensuke. The dark bags beneath his eyes were evident behind his glasses. His hair was disheveled, and the misshapen growth of facial hair didn't help. Ayanami Rei stood in a far corner, clothed in darkness. "I don't think it would be fair to you all to tell you that the mission was accomplished," the commander started, speaking with the clarity and confidence that was expected of him. "Project R's main goal of retrieving EVA-01 and the Lancea Longini was reached." "We all know what happened, Commander. There's no need to dance around the issue," Suzuhara said brashly. "Of course. As you are aware, there was an incident with the pilot of Unit 02. Doctor Ibuki?" Maya finally looked up from her computer. "Yes. As you know there was an unforeseen inconsistancy in the wave patterns of Unit 02, which caused the Unit to malfuction as it was passing through the upper atmosphere. The EVA's entry angle was skewed, and therefore the S-type armor encountered conditions beyond what it was designed to withstand. Temperatures on the outer armor reached in excess of five hundred degrees Celsius. Temperatures inside the entry plug exceeded the maximum safe number by sixty percent. "While Units 00 and 01 entered the atmosphere correctly and landed at the expected location, Unit 02 flew far off course, eventually landing in the Pacific Ocean. We lost all communication with the EVA while it entered the atmosphere, so we had no idea of the pilot's condition. Retrieval of Unit 02 became our first priority. Lieutenant?" Touji cleared his throat loudly before beginning. "I immediately left for the impact scene, and the UN agreed to send a carrier which was in the area. When I arrived at the scene, they had already sent a dive team down. They made contact with the EVA soon after. It had come to rest almost two kilometers from where it entered the ocean. Using a linkup to the MAGI, I was able to send the emergency signal to eject the entry plug. Fortunately the plug's floatation systems worked correctly, and the plug was retrieved." Touji's voice had begun to falter towards the end of his information. Everyone knew what was coming. What Suzuhara had seen in that entry plug brought back haunting memories. Hikari silently put a hand on Touji's leg. The agent was surprised when he tightly grasped her hand in his own as he began to speak again. "The Second Children was heavily injured and unconscious. The Evangelion was in bad shape, and the S-Type armor was in irrepairable condition. Through examination of the pilot and the EVA, I surmised that the Second Children made no attempt to cut the synchronization. She was placed in critical condition by the ship's doctor. Later, he informed me that she had fallen into a trauma-induced coma. Her back was broken in three places, both arms and legs were fractured, among other things." "So she will no longer be available to pilot," the Commander stated coldly. "No," Suzuhara stated in a tone that was just a little shocked. He knew the Commander wasn't exactly a nice guy, but he really had never heard him say anything so heartless. "She won't be for quite some time." "And Unit 02?" "Repairs are underway, sir," Aida said quietly. "They will be completed within two weeks." "What is the status of Unit 01?" "We could find nothing technically wrong with the EVA, however it refused any in-depth probing of its memory or biomechanical systems. I have everyone available working on solving this issue," Ibuki explained. "And to answer your next question, no pilot was recovered." "Indeed. We now have two Evangelions with no pilots. Options?" "Well, sir, as you know, the two pilots we have were personally chosen by you after careful selection by Section 2," Hikari said, finally releasing Touji's hand. "While we do have the original list available, the list of viable candidates is very small." "So in other words, we don't have any other pilots," Kensuke said dejectedly. Of course they still had Rei, but that still left two EVAs without their necessary primary pilots. "The pilots weren't gathered in the schools after NERV was shut down, so they would have to be retrieved if we did find a pilot." "Obviously we are all dismayed at the injuries received by pilot Soryu," the Commander stated, showing his human side again. "Short of a worldwide search for pilots, we're all pretty much screwed," he said, chuckling just a little. It was a measured risk. He tried to soothe his employees' minds by using this bit of unexpected humor. "So what's the plan, sir?" Kensuke asked. "We need pilots." Their leader's lips turned up just slightly. "We have but one option at this point." -- Kunihirou sat limply in his spot on his couch. He had been unconscious or asleep or just passed out for three whole days. Megumi was gone. He had no idea where she was or why she had left. He stared blankly ahead, looking at nothing in particular. The moonlight was the only light in his apartment. An unusually cold breeze caused Watanabe to shiver. The sound of his apartment door's buzzer pierced his nothingness. It buzzed for just a second, then paused. Then the buzzing continued and did not stop for a long time. At first Kunihirou had no intention of getting up, especially to answer his door. Then he started to wonder if maybe Megumi had gotten locked out or possibly it was Fuugo. Eventually the curiosity got to him. He slowly got and approached the door as second thoughts began to claw at his reasoning. As per normal, he ignored common sense and unlocked his door. Of course all the lights were still off, so he was a bit frightened when he was pushed back into his apartment as soon as the door had opened. He tripped over some of Megumi's shoes which had been left behind. Kunihirou stared up at the figure which had pushed him, silhouetted by the moonlight. Very obviously, the figure was female. Seeming to gloat in her success, the figure quickly rushed inside the apartment and locked the door behind her. Something about her was very familiar to Kuni. "That was easy." That voice... Suddenly, in the moonlight, everything made sense to him. He recalled Megumi's phone on that first weekend she had appeared. That message was left by 'Schwester'... Megumi's father was German. 'Schwester' in German means 'sister.' Megumi had a half-sister. "Right now you're thinking, who the hell are you?" "Actually, I think I know," the young man said as he got up. "Oh, really?" she asked doubtingly. She reached over and flipped on the switches which lighted the entrance and living room. The red hair, the level of beauty, the look in her face that wasn't quite Japanese... "Still think you know?" "Yes, Soryu Asuka," Kuni said with confidence. Her own confident face faltered for just a second before regaining her composure. "I didn't know my sister's boyfriend was so intelligent. She must have gotten lucky to get you," Soryu said as she rushed into the apartment. Kuni quickly tried to find some hint of sarcasm in her inflection but could find none. "Get some clothes and some of your personal shit together, quickly." "Can you explain why?" he asked, turning to face her as she ran past him. He watched her quickly enter Megumi's room. "No time! Just grab some clothes so we can get the hell out of here!" she yelled from the room. Again ignoring common sense, he did as she said and ran into his room. He basically grabbed everything which was laying on his floor. He met her at the apartment's threshold. She, too, was holding loosely onto a ball of Megumi's clothes. In his mind Kuni's actions were justified to himself by the simple fact that this was Megumi's sister. Besides the obvious age difference, the two women seemed very similar on the outside. That in itself was enough to make Kuni trust Asuka. A running car was waiting outside his apartment. She quickly opened the black sedan's trunk and dumped all her clothes in. Watanabe did the same. Soryu floored it as soon as Kuni strapped his seat belt on. Her driving style was almost frightening to him, though he could tell that she was a good driver. "What about my car?" he asked as they passed the Circle-K. "Forget it. You can get another car," Asuka said, not looking away from the road. He almost protested but decided against it. Megumi hated it when he was bitchy, so Asuka probably would be, too. "I probably shouldn't ask any more questions right now, huh?" Kuni rested his elbow on the edge of the door and put his head on his hand. "Well, I'll tell you that I am Megumi's half-sister. I haven't really been around for the past few years." "I know. The original EVA pilots all disappeared." "OK, sure, whatever," she said quickly. "I was born in 2000, and I'm 22 years old. Half-Japanese, one-quarter German, one-quarter American..." Her voice trailed off in Kunihirou's mind as simple math began to confuse him. END Chapter:04 AN: If you aren't confused or interested by now, I think I might cry. Peace!