Chapter 72

Misato slumped down on the nearest chair she could find, which happened to be right across from Dr. Ritsuko Akagi's desk. The fake-blonde doctor raised her eyes from the mountain of paperwork she was currently examining and looked at the Major.

"Yes?" Ritsuko sounded harassed.

"Whatcha doing?"

The vein on the side of Ritsuko's forehead was so large it could have popped. "Work," she managed to answer.

Misato leaned forward and made a face. "You are always working."

"That's why they call it work," Ritsuko said, looking back at her paperwork. "What about you? How was the test?"

"Fifty six point something." Misato answered, then drew her eyebrows together. "What, you didn't read the report?"

"It's in my stack." Ritsuko pointed to one of the paper piles. "Is it stable?"

"Yes," Misato said, looking at the pile. She moved her hand over it and made a show of straightening it out. "Looks like you could add maybe a couple more folders up there."

Ritsuko sighed. "I meant—"

"I know what you meant," Misato cut her off. She crossed her legs and leaned on one of the chair's padded leather armrests. "God, Ritsuko, you have absolutely no sense of humor, do you? Anyway, yeah, it's stable. Maya said there was a signal discrepancy but nothing serious."

Ritsuko thought about that for a minute before returning the files spread out in front of her. "Asuka should be pleased. I was afraid her sync-ratio would continue to deteriorate as time went by."

And she would end up back in a hospital bed, Misato thought. Alone, forgotten.

"Asuka is a fighter," she said. "I think we can all agree on that. How's the clean-up going?"

"Slowly." This time Ritsuko did not even look at her. "It's amazing how much damage five minutes of battle can do. At this rate it will take weeks to clear it up. We have some more equipment coming in, but we are still short on staff. And, of course, we can't just throw it all out the window. Most of the debris is highly sensitive. Proper disposal procedures have to be followed."

"I don't like procedures."

Ritsuko smiled. "I know."

The smile made Misato feel a little better. Her work might be all that mattered to Ritsuko, but that didn't change the fact that she was one of the very few people Misato could call a friend. Even if she disagreed with her, she could at least be honest. Otherwise, she wouldn't have come. "Ri-chan?"

"Yes?" At first Ritsuko did not lift her gaze, but when Misato hesitated she realized something else was going on. Her green eyes met Misato with cool interest. "Look, I'm busy. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's nowhere near as important as—"

"Asuka just asked to move back in," Misato said quickly, as if that would ease the guilt she felt in breaking the promise to keep Asuka's request a secret. And Ritsuko had to be informed of the pilots' whereabouts at all times anyway so it wasn't like she would be able to hide it from her. "I told her that if it made her happy, then I'd think about it," she added.

Ritsuko pushed back on her chair, her expression growing heavy with weariness. She sighed and raised a hand to rub the bridge of her nose. "And why would you do that?"

"Because she asked," Misato said sharply. "I couldn't say no outright."

"You could have," Ritsuko told her.

"I wasn't going to."

The call had been as much of a surprise as the serious tone Asuka had used. People had a habit of taking the haughty redhead a face value, seeing only what was right there on surface and never bother to dig deeper. That was what Asuka wanted. She had spent her whole life trying to push people away, with violence and with insults. But sometimes how Asuka said something mattered a lot more than what she said.

And Misato knew that this was important to her. She had heard it in the young girl's voice, and the fact that she had called to ask and made her promise to keep the secret was more proof than she needed.

Ritsuko was shaking her head. "You are not seriously thinking about this."

"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't," Misato admitted.

"You were wrong before," Ritsuko said, pressing her lips together. "And how did that end? You just don't get it. They will never get along, no matter how much you want them to. They are too much alike, and that means they only person they clash with more than themselves is the other. I don't suppose you even thought to consider how this might affect their ability to pilot the Evas."

"Is that all you care about?" Misato retorted. "I'm trying to do what's best for Asuka and all you can think about is piloting Eva."

"It's a matter of survival."

"So? When Asuka's happy, her Eva works. Cause and effect. I would have thought someone as smart as you could figure that out."

"Or maybe it's the other way around." Ritsuko's eyes flicked downward, and she moved her hand across the desk, brushing aside a file and grabbing another one from the stack. "Playing mother didn't get either of them anywhere before."

It hurt to have her failure so blatantly exposed. And she had failed. After months in the hospital, she sincerely believed that having familiar people around her was best for Asuka, living in a familiar place, doing familiar things. It didn't turn out the way she hoped, and she regretted the naiveté that led her to underestimate the hostility in the girl's relationship with Shinji.

This time, however, it was Asuka who asked to move back. Misato had to believe that she realized the implications of such a request.

"You are asking for trouble," Ritsuko said after a moment. "I doubt you even understand what you are getting into."

"I guess I don't," Misato said, leaning back as a sign that she was removing herself from open confrontation. She knew that there was little she could say to make Ritsuko change her mind about Asuka. Fortunately, she was here for advice, not permission. "But at least my attitude doesn't need fixing, unlike yours."

"What attitude would that be, Misato?" Ritsuko asked, her voice sounding disinterested. Her attention had gone back to her files now, eyes moving back and forth on printed text.

"The cold, inhuman, heartless doctor attitude."

"And how do you propose fixing it?"

"Getting you a man, I suppose," Misato said, rather pleased with the come-back.

Ritsuko shook her head, and as she went back to examining her papers, her expression became deadly serious. "Oh, by the way, I've got something for you from the US Department of Foreign Affairs."

Misato raised an eyebrow in surprise, erasing her smile. "What? What for?"

"Well, it was actually for the Commander. He's delegated the responsibility to you. Here." Ritsuko reached through her papers and produced a folder embossed with the logo of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the United States. "I wasn't planning on broaching this until the evening meeting but since you are here I might as well. It's important."

Her curiosity piqued, Misato took the folder and opened it quickly, wondering what the content could be. She pulled out a document from it brandishing the seal of the United States, an eagle clutching arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other. It was in English—Americans never wrote anything official in any other language. She read it, and as she did, her eyes grew wide with shock.

"This…can't be right." She read it again, then looked at Ritsuko. "Can it?"

"Of course it can," Ritsuko said, ignoring her reaction.

There was a lump in Misato's throat. "When are they going to—"

"They already did. Those movement orders were issued well after it left port. It's almost like they didn't want to give us the chance to refuse, not that we would have. At any rate, it's not going back. We either take delivery or they will destroy it. I think you can safely guess which option the Commander agreed to. ETA is roughly 36 hours."

Misato had a bad feeling about this. She had been there for Unit-03's activation—she had barely survived it. It was a nightmare she didn't care to repeat. "What does it have to do with me?"

"The Americans don't seem to trust the Japanese government any more than they do the UN. They want someone from NERV to take the delivery in person," Ritsuko explained. "I'm afraid I'm much too busy with the clean-up here. So it was decided that you just earned a trip to New Yokozuka."

"You decided, but nobody thought to tell me."

Ritsuko dismissed her with a shrug. "Like I said, you were supposed to be informed in the evening."

"I can't go. Not now." Misato shook her head. "I'm in the middle of this thing with Asuka. I can't just leave."

"You have to go," Ritsuko said. "As the third highest-ranking officer and Operations Director it's your job to take care of this sort of thing. I understand your concern from a logistics standpoint, but we will not be rebuilding Unit-00. There's no longer any need for it, and we do not have the time or resources to rebuild it from scratch. And this just happened to land on our laps."

Misato almost snorted. "Oh, yeah, I'm sure it just happened to land on our laps. I'm not stupid."

"Given the current situation, I'm sure you see why this is more important than whatever sense of obligation you feel towards Asuka."

"I can't just leave her hanging," Misato said. "You know how she is."

"You told her you would think about it." Ritsuko wrote something down on the paper she was reading. "Then think about it for a few days, while you are away."

Misato jumped to her feet. "Dammit, would you at least pretend you care about her."

"I do," Ritsuko assured her, but apparently not enough to look up. "Her ability to pilot Unit-02 is of paramount importance."

Typical, Misato thought. She glared at the document with the American emblem, wishing she could set the thing on fire and forget about it.

"What is the point of even bringing it here?" she hissed quietly, folding her arms in front of her. "We have no pilot for it."

"We have people taking care of that," Ritsuko said, as calm as if she were talking about the weather. "You are right, of course," she added when she noticed Misato's puzzlement. "I suppose there is no sense lying to you."

"Because it's not like you never lied before."

Ritsuko nodded. "Have it your way. The truth is that it has been arranged for some weeks now. Up until very recently we weren't sure Asuka would ever be able to pilot Unit-02 again. She was expendable."

Misato wanted to slap her. "You were planning on replacing her after all."

"And we have a matching core too."

Misato said nothing to that. The scope of her authority failed to extend that far, and she had no illusion that even if it did she would be listened to; shipping out an Evangelion, and selecting a core and a pilot were certainly not done overnight. Ritsuko did not seem concerned at her reluctance. She could file a protest, as it was her right to do, but it would hardly make a difference.

Realizing her impotence, Misato returned to her reason for coming here in the first place. "This isn't settled." She slipped the documents back in the folder and closed it. "About Asuka, if she really wants to come back then it means she understands that what happened between them was wrong. She isn't a child. She knows how to behave."

"I doubt we are talking about the same person." Ritsuko pressed her lips together, her aggravation clear. "An equipment train will be dispatched tomorrow morning for Yokozuka. Feel free to use it."

Misato looked at her for a long moment. Then said, "Well, I guess this conversation has reached its logical and predictable conclusion." She made to leave. "Now if you don't mind, I need to meet a man about a computer."

But Ritsuko apparently did mind. "You shouldn't be doing that," she said. "It doesn't matter what you think you want to find, you will not like it."

Misato did her best impression of a rock. "I don't know what you are talking about."

It was still a blatant lie. And Ritsuko knew it.

"Who do you think set up all the security that you and your conspirator are trying to break through?" Her gaze shifted down. "Who do think gave Kaji a key that would allow him to log in without being tracked or traced?"

The game was up then, Misato thought grimly but strangely unsurprised. The only question left was why Section 2 had never come to break down her door and take her into custody, as they were surely to do if …

"You haven't told anyone, have you?"

Ritsuko did not move, did not shake her head, did not make any gesture whatsoever. She just said, "No."

Misato stared openly at her, an empty feeling in her chest. "Why?"

"Maybe a part of me thinks it's time you knew the truth, that you have earned it. That would be the idealistic part—we don't talk much. Or maybe I just want to screw with the people who have caused me so much grief. I hope that you do remember that while you were sneaking around, I spent three months in isolation. In the dark. Alone. I do remember. And Akagi women do not let go of grudges."

Misato was honestly surprised by that. Ritsuko was right. And she could very well imagine the hell she must have gone through in those three months. It made her feel awful that she had never shown any concern for her.

"Ri-chan, I'm sor—"

"Don't be," Ritsuko interrupted, still not betraying any hint of emotion. "It helped me rid myself of certain delusions I previously had. I finally realized the truth. And that is, perhaps, another reason why I never turned you in. Except, of course, our truths are different. My truth is selfish. Yours … you just want to know."

"You know, you could always just tell me," Misato ventured with a smile.

Finally, after a long silence, Ritsuko shook her head. "Find your answers on your own, and if you don't like them then you have no one else to blame."