Archive of Our Own ^beta

Disclaimer: I do not own Evangelion.

"Come again?" Police Detective Asuka Soryu said, staring at her long-time partner in confusion. Police Detective Toji Suzahara sat down at his desk and tossed a folder file to her, barely managing to avoid knocking over her coffee mug.

"Shinji Ikari should be dead," Toji said again, making as much sense this time as he had the first. He leaned back in his chair and nodded at the folder on her desk.

"Ikari?" Asuka asked with a resigned sigh. Her partner frequently made no sense, but this was a new level of nonsense even for him. "The noodle shop guy from the armed robbery case two weeks ago?"

"That's him," Toji confirmed, leaning forward to start digging through the mess of paperwork on his desk. The two had been partners practically since they made Detective, but how they each approached the job was entirely different. Asuka's desk was neat and tidy, with organized stacks of case files and notes, while Toji's was a morass of clutter. He found what he was looking for in his piles and tossed it to her desk. "There's the original evidence photos from the shop."

"Are you going to make me read this myself, or will you explain your mindless ranting?" Asuka picked up the new folder and started scanning through the documents.

"Don't get your panties in a twist, Red. The forensics team got done with their ballistics tests on the rounds they pulled out of the back wall. All eight bullets had blood residue on them. There was no mention of anyone being shot during the altercation, but all eyewitness statements agreed that the suspects fired at the proprietor. Everyone thinks they just missed, which is lucky since they were firing at almost point-blank range." He shrugged. "It happens, so no one thought much about it. But the forensics team swears that by everything they see is that someone got shot eight times."

Frowning, Asuka started rereading the report, eyes narrowing as she picked out pertinent details. "It says there's no DNA match to anyone on file."

"Not unusual," Toji said. "We don't have general access to DNA information on general citizens, only if we've taken it as evidence before."

"Also says the rounds match with two drive-by shootings and another armed robbery case."

Toji shrugged. "Low-level scumbags doing low-level scumbag stuff. Same MO as the other armed robbery- three perps show up, dark clothing, masks, wave a gun around, shots fired, and then run off."

"Who's working that other case?"

"Aoba and Hyuga."

"Those slackers?" Asuka rolled her eyes as she started reviewing the initial investigation's photos. Crime scene photos were hardly ever arranged for aesthetic value, but these things made the noodle shop's interior look like it left something to be desired. The photos showed the wall immediately behind the register, with eight circles marked around the bullet holes. No blood stains were visible anywhere, nor was there anything to indicate anyone had been hurt or killed. Frowning again, she went to her neat stack of files, pulled out the collected reports and forms for the case, and began running through them as well.

Eyewitness statements agreed with Toji's brief description of the events. Just after the dinner rush, three suspects busted into the hole-in-the-wall noodle shop, waving pistols and a bag. The proprietor, one Shinji Ikari, immediately goes into action by complying with the thugs and emptying his cash register- which, as he only accepts cash, is quite full at this point. He quietly dumps his evening's earnings into the bag. The perps began hassling the customers, demanding phones, wallets, and jewelry. A middle-aged customer sitting at the counter had been several beers into his dinner and refused to cooperate. One of the thugs gets into a tussle with him, but Ikari tries to intervene, resulting in one of the perps firing off his pistol at the man but missing. All three perps flee with their ill-gotten gains.

All the witness statements- one from Mr. Ikari, one from his employee Ms. Mana Kirishima, and three customers, including the man who had argued with the perps all agreed that the shots had missed Mr. Ikari despite the closeness. It wasn't entirely out of the ordinary- many of the low-level scum that served up the bulk of her casework were atrocious shots. There was a note in the file saying they were waiting on the security footage from the shop's camera system, but Asuka couldn't find where anyone had followed up on getting it.

Closing the files and putting them back on top of her stack, she looked back at Toji. "Well, it looks like we're still waiting for the security footage. Wanna go get some lunch?"

"You know me," Toji said, grinning. The man was a bottomless pit, capable of putting away food at a prodigious rate that went back to middle school. He was always ready to eat. The pair had attended the same middle and high schools but had not been friends. Asuka had been friends with his then-girlfriend and eventual wife, and the boy would devour the lunch she made for him and the one he brought for himself.

Asuka sighed again but smiled. "Yeah, I do. You'd eat your own boots if I let you." She pushed back from her desk and stood, stretching and popping her back. "I could do with some noodles."

The shop was entirely unimpressive from the outside. Asuka sized up the joint with a practiced eye, assessing the state of the general area to the windows and door of the shop itself. It was one of a thousand noodle shops in the greater Hakone region, and there was nothing to draw one in. Nothing to excite attention or to say that this was the shop that would satisfy one's hunger. The windows were covered in a thin film, keeping one from seeing inside while letting light in, and the short curtain over the open door simply stated 'Ramen'. A faded menu was taped up by the entrance, listing the limited items available for purchase. It looked like a dump, but the smell of the small shop was thick and enticing. It was the only thing to commend an otherwise nameless and unobtrusive restaurant.

Asuka and Toji entered, surveying the interior, and they moved to a table near the rear of the facility that would offer them eyes on the entire shop. Taking their seats, she took note of the man and woman behind the counter, each dressed as one might expect. Both wore aprons that were entirely devoid of any branding or logos. The woman had her hair tied back with a bandanna, and the man wore a nondescript white cap. It was past the regular lunch rush, but the small shop still hosted a full counter of customers, all bent over their bowls with intense attention.

In her initial assessment, it seemed to be the sort of place that you only knew by word of mouth. The place was doing its best to be unpretentious, unassuming, and unnoticed.

To say that the establishment was a simply decorated place was putting it mildly, even for the ascetic noodle shops Asuka was familiar with. No calligraphy scrolls, no photos of the shop's proprietors through the ages, not even any posters or pictures graced the walls. The furniture was all simple but mismatched. The walls were a light beige, with teak wainscoting. She could see the bullet holes in the wall behind the counter from where she sat, as yet unrepaired, although the marked circles from the photos had been removed.

The woman, presumably Ms. Kirishima, popped around from behind the counter, pad in hand, to take their order. She greeted them with an easy smile. "Welcome! What can I get for you today?"

"I'll take a bowl of the shoyu with a double chasu and egg," Toji said, eyes scanning the menus on the wall behind the chef. "And I'll take a tea. And a serving of gyoza."

"Very well. And you miss?"

"Tonkotsu ramen, please. Water for me, please."

"We'll have it right up."

They watched the restaurant in comfortable silence, eyes moving, and watched the employees' movements and the customers eating. The atmosphere was muted, filled primarily with the sounds of cooking and people enjoying their food, but very faint music played in the background. To Asuka's interest, it wasn't any traditional or pop Japanese music but Beethoven. The fifth symphony was an odd choice to be playing, especially for the low-key environment, but the music was being played at a low volume and was almost inaudible.

Both detectives visualized the events of that night two weeks ago as they watched, picturing the three men bursting into the quiet scene. They watched as demands were made, picking out where they would have moved had they been robbing the place, where their attention would have been to cover the place as they emptied out the register. The menus declared the establishment was cash only- not unusual in establishments like this but starting to become uncommon, especially in places headed up by younger generations. Looking at the placement of the bullet holes in the wall behind the register, Asuka knew where she would have to stand to put those rounds there. The eight shots were relatively tight together, three neat clusters peppering the wall with deadly intent. These were not wild shots, fired without care. The person pulling the trigger had been shooting to kill.

Asuka shifted her attention to watch the man behind the counter. Shinji Ikari was as unimpressive as his shop. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties. Clean-shaven, he was focused entirely on his work. He moved with deliberate motions but an economy of ease that spoke of long practice, hands constantly moving over pots, the grill, and the prep area. Ms. Kirishima returned with their drinks and Toji's plate of gyoza, from which Asuka absently stole one. Toji rolled his eyes but let it go unremarked upon.

As a detective and police officer, Asuka intimately knew the popular mass-produced dumplings that most shops served as sides. The delicate dumplings of pork and cabbage on the plate before them were not one of those. Instead, an unusual but eminently familiar flavor profile assaulted her, cutting across the ginger and sesame undertones. Toji frowned at the unorthodox dumplings but didn't pause as he ate.

"Odd. Who puts caraway seed in dumplings?" She asked, running her tongue over her lips, savoring the flavor before stealing the last one from the plate as Toji made an anguished expression. She bit down into the dumpling, devoting all her attention to it as she watched Ikari behind the counter, savoring the hot juice that burst into her mouth. Pork, cabbage, ginger, and sesame were there, all standard to the dumplings, but the caraway seed was something special. The distinct earthy flavor of the spice evoked a far-away sense of longing. When she wanted to use it in her cooking, she had to special order it online. The shops she and her husband frequented didn't carry it, and the German ex-patriot community here was insufficient to allow specialty shops to stay in business long. Why was this man putting it in his dumplings? What had possessed him to do so in the first place? With how hard the rest of the shop was focused on not standing out, why dabble in German-Japanese culinary fusion?

Soon enough, their orders were completed, and the steaming bowls were delivered to their table. The detectives dug in, relishing in the rich flavors, and before long, their dishes were empty. They were also nearing the end of the time the shop was open in the early afternoon. Soon, the shop would be closed and open again for the dinner crowds later on.

Asuka went up to pay at the register, watching the last of other customers leave the establishment. Kirishima took the money for their food with a smile as Ikari cleaned up the work areas.

It had not escaped her notice that the man had studiously avoided looking at them the entire time.

There had been some culture shock for her when she moved to Japan many years ago, but now Asuka was as immersed in the social mores as one might be. Three-quarters gaijin she might be, and she certainly put people's perceptions of her to work for her as a detective, but it didn't mean she didn't know how things were done in the country.

The man behind the counter saw them enter, opened his mouth in a reflexive and automatic welcoming statement, but immediately shut it and began purposefully ignoring their existence.

She smiled at the woman as she paid their bill, handing over the yen. "Are your dumplings homemade?" she asked, eyes focused on the woman taking her cash but watching the man out of the corner of her eye. "I've never had ones quite like the ones here."

"All our food is made in-house," Ms. Kirishima said, a note of pride in her voice. "Mr. Ikari does everything by hand. Aside from the drinks, we don't use any prepackaged items."

"Well, it was all very excellent," Asuka said with a smile. "But I have to admit, the caraway threw me for a moment."

"It's Mr. Ikari's secret ingredient," Mana confessed, eyes sparkling. "Most people don't know what it is, but it adds a wonderful exotic taste to the dumplings."

"It's a mainstay in the food back home," Asuka replied, pointing at her hair, the red coppery sheen saying everything else that needed to be said. "I can hardly find it here."

Mana looked delighted at this revelation, which was at odds with how most of the people Asuka interacted with dealt with her mixed heritage. Of course, many of the people she dealt with were criminals being arrested, so one had to consider how pleased they were to see a headstrong foreign woman. Mana leaned in, her voice lowered in a conspiratorial whisper. "Mr. Ikari is a genius with cooking. Everything on the menu has a secret little flair. I had doubts when I started working here, but it's made us a loyal customer base." Her eyes sparkled as she bragged about her boss, confirming Asuka's suspicions that had formed while watching the pair at work.

Asuka smiled back before letting her face shift into business mode. "Can I speak to Mr. Ikari? It's related to the robbery case." She pulled her badge out, watching with detached sadness as Mana's face fell into a schooled neutrality. It was always this way when people found out that she was a detective working on their case. She still didn't know if it was mistrust of her as a cop in general or her as a cop specifically.

"Of course. I'll go get him."

Asuka watched the woman converse with the man, who sighed, the resignation settling over him like a blanket. His face as he turned to approach the register was perfectly neutral. To her practiced eye, it was the face of a man prepared to lie to her.

"Mr. Ikari?" she inquired, flashing the badge again. "My name is Detective Soryu. I've been assigned to your case with my partner." She motioned back towards Toji, who sat watching them, his face impassive. "Detective Suzahara. How are you doing?"

"I'm doing quite well, thank you, Detective." Shinji Ikari's voice was weary but polite. "How is the investigation going? Are there any leads?"

"Not at this time, but we have connected the suspects to a few other crimes in the area," she replied, looking him over. He was slightly taller than she was but slender. His clothing was nothing special, and there was nothing that gave any indication that he had been shot eight times at close range two weeks ago.

He looked perfectly normal. Perfectly boring. She would have passed him by without further notice if she had come upon him in the street. Nothing about him registered any interest or threat to her senses.

"While we enjoyed the meal, I have to confess we came here with ulterior motives." She paused, watching his eyes for any indication of something, anything. His eyes were a dark blue, unusual enough for the Japanese, but that was the only indication of foreign admixture. His eyes were devoid of anything indicating deeper knowledge of what they were talking about, but to her, they looked haunted, something perhaps enhanced by the dark circles under his eyes. "I wanted to see about getting your surveillance footage." She pointed at the small camera in the corner watching the register, one of three cameras in the room. They were unobtrusive, but the detectives had picked them and their sight lines out upon entering.

"Oh! Of course!" Ikari replied, nodding in agreement. "I downloaded the footage to a thumb drive, but the officer who said he would be by to pick up never came back."

Asuka snorted dismissively. "I have to apologize for my coworkers, Mr. Ikari. If we don't get everything all at once, it's easy to get wrapped up in the next case and forget to follow up. I'll take that thumb drive if you don't mind."

"Of course, I'll be right back."

As Asuka waited at the register, Toji joined her, smiling warmly at Ms. Kirishima, who had been eavesdropping on the conversation while pretending to clean up.

"Have you worked here long, Ms. Kirishima?" Asuka asked, watching the woman straighten up.

"Five years," she replied, studying the pair of detectives. "Mr. Ikari has been good to me."

"Was anyone hurt during the incident?" Asuka asked, motioning at the bullet holes behind the woman. "I don't have to tell you how terrible some people can be, I'm sure."

"No, no one was hurt, thank god. They got the money and took off. I hope we never see them again."

"Well, I hope you do, but that it's in the courtroom," Asuka replied. "I'd rather like to get them off the streets."

"Oh, of course!" she colored, going red. "I didn't mean to suggest otherwise!"

Asuka smiled again at the woman. "How long have you known Mr. Ikari?"

"Five years. I needed a job, and he needed more help in the shop."

"That's a long time. How long has this place been open? I've never heard of it before."

"I think it's been open for nine or ten years? Mr. Ikari was working by himself before he hired me."

"So it's not a family restaurant? Not passed down, father to son?" Asuka asked, feeling something click into place. The shop environment was one of old traditions, yet Ikari himself was too young to have established it. The place seemed older than it was, yet older than it was trying to be- an interesting paradox for a mind keyed into riddles and things being out of place.

"Mr. Ikari's never spoken about his family to me. He started this place himself." Mana's words were defensive and protective. It again confirmed to Asuka that the woman had feelings for her boss, feelings that were obviously ignored or unacknowledged. She looked around the place again, trying to reassess it and get a better read on it. There was still something missing about the place, her gut told her. Something small yet supremely important.

Apart from the menus on the wall, there was only one personal touch in the place: a small funerary shrine on a shelf by the doorway to the back spaces of the establishment. It was a modest affair, consisting of a small bowl of rice with accompanying chopsticks, a mostly burned-out stick of incense, and a framed photo of the deceased. An unopened can of Yebisu sat next to the rice, making specific implications about both the deceased and the survivor. It also spoke of how the deceased probably didn't die- but with the unorthodox photo choice, his sensibilities were obviously out of step with the norm.

The photo itself would not be considered appropriate for such a shrine. The buxom woman featured in it was dressed in cut-off shorts and a tank-top, with an arrow pointed at her not inconsiderable cleavage. Remnants of a lipstick-marked kiss marked the upper part of the photo, and some smeared writing was barely readable. The tousled hair, provocative pose, mischievous grin, and sparkle in her eyes- everything about this picture of the woman seemed to genuinely capture the essence of who she had been. Still, at the same time, it was wildly inappropriate to display it with the quiet reverence it was.

"Look here," indeed. Asuka had some opinions on the sort of person who would send such a thing, let alone someone who would use it to remember someone else. At the same time, it was completely at odds with what she had seen of the shop and its proprietor. Anomalies like that were catnip to detectives. Why was this calm and demure man showing off such a thing? He didn't strike her as the type of person who would do something like that without good reason.

Ikari reappeared, handing over a small thumb drive with a passive face. He certainly did not live up to the image of a boisterous, cheerful shopkeeper. Asuka tucked the drive away in a pocket and nodded at the shrine.

"That's an unusual photo choice to use."

Shinji stiffened, and his face somehow became even more blank and still. "She wouldn't want me to use anything else," he said after a moment of silence. "That was her favorite photo. She said it caught her true self."

"Who was she, if you don't mind me asking?"

Shinji's impassive face softened. "Misato." He swallowed and took a deep breath. "She was very important to me. I didn't fully understand how important she was until after she was gone."

Asuka nodded solemnly as Toji reached across the counter to clasp the man's shoulder in an overly familiar gesture of comfort. "Don't mind our questions, Mr. Ikari," he said, his voice soft but strong, the comforting voice he pulled out when trying to reassure people. "We're detectives, and we can't help ourselves in asking questions sometimes. We don't mean any disrespect."

Ikari nodded again, his face held carefully blank. "I understand."

"We'll review this footage and contact you if there's anything else," Toji said, fishing a business card out from his jacket to hand over to Ikari, who accepted it without further word.

"Thanks for the meal, Mr. Ikari," Asuka said, smiling again as she handed over her card. "We'll be in touch."

"Any time, detective."

Asuka rewound the footage and watched it again for the tenth time in a row. Ikari had given them footage from the half hour before the incident to when the last cops had left his establishment that night. There was three hours of footage in all, most of it routine and fairly uninformative.

But the interesting part, which she and Toji were interested in, was only six minutes of action, a little longer than usual for a simple cash grab, but with the final struggle, perfectly normal. She restarted the footage as the three young men entered the shop, their movements almost, but not quite the same as she had envisioned as she sat at the back table. She watched as they brandished their pistols and the bag and Ikari emptied his register.

It was everything he was supposed to do in cases like this, to cooperate with the criminals so they would leave as quickly as they came and hopefully leave everyone alive in their wake. Still, the servile ease at which Ikari obeyed them turned her stomach. She told herself it was irrational to feel that way as she watched him hand over the night's earnings, but wasn't he a man? Didn't he have any pride at all?

Kirishima had ducked under the counter, lying prone on the floor, trembling with fear. Two of the remaining customers had ducked down low, likewise offering no resistance to the thugs. They handed over their valuables without comment or dirty looks.

The middle-aged customer at the counter was cut from a different cloth than the rest of them. He had argued over handing over his phone and wallet and had drank enough booze to be convinced of his ability to fight off the thieves. A large man, he wore the standard uniform of the salaryman, but he had enough physical presence to offer a valid threat. The two men had struggled as the other criminals grew more and more agitated but were unable to keep covering the other victims or get a clean shot at the man.

Ikari had finally intervened, trying to pull the perp off the man. The perp, embarrassed and angry, leveled the pistol at Ikari and fired off his shots. The security footage showed the assailant as being barely a foot back from the victim and clearly showed the gun going off and the rounds impacting the wall behind the counter and Ikari.

Asuka had watched this footage ten times now. Shinji Ikari should be dead from where she was watching and from where she had stood in the shop. He should have been dead over a fortnight ago and certainly not served them up noodles and dumplings yesterday.

She rewound it for the eleventh time and watched it again.

She couldn't explain it at all.

How was Ikari still alive? How was he unharmed?

Toji came in, his face clouded with worry. Asuka looked up at him, unimpressed. "You're late."

Toji sighed, making a face. "There was an issue down at the courthouse. Stupid, worthless shitheads down in evidence fucked everything up on the Ibuki case."

"What do you mean?" Asuka asked, mortified. The Ibuki case had been ten months of careful, painstaking work, putting an otherwise unassuming woman at the heart of a massive, widespread corruption and embezzling case. She had orchestrated theft on a grand scale from the research labs at Hakone University, funneling the stolen money and items to some still unknown location and purpose.

"The entire thing was dismissed," Toji said, disgust dripping from every word as he glared at the ceiling. "She's getting cut free right now."

"Are you serious?" Asuka growled, gripping the edge of her desk so hard the wood creaked. "What did they do?"

"They completely fucked the chain of custody of the evidence. We're talking things missing outright, from the evidence to the registers and access logs."

"You can't be serious. That's obviously someone doing something to get this thrown."

"It's already done."

"Holy shit."

"Yeah."

They sat in silence, ignoring the rest of the office as detectives and officers went about their work. Months of work were gone and down the drain. Finally, Toji looked back at his partner and nodded to the opened files on her desk. "What are you working on now?"

"I'm going over the footage Ikari gave us yesterday," she replied. "You were right. Ikari should be dead."

"Yeah?"

"Come look at this."

Toji wheeled his chair around to her side and silently watched the six-minute clip. He reached over to her keyboard, cut it back halfway, and watched it again, his eyebrows doing a good job of trying to reach his hairline. He rewound it, and they watched it together for a third time. He leaned back and let loose a low whistle. "Well, look at that."

"Toji, I was standing right there," Asuka said, stressing her words. "I was standing right where that guy pointed his gun at Ikari and pulled the trigger. There's no way this guy wasn't hit. There's no way he didn't just eat eight bullets. How is he walking around and serving up noodles right now?"

"I have no idea."

Aoba walked past them, nodding as he did so. "Hey guys, Commissioner Fuyutsuki wants to see you in his office. Something about the Ibuki case."

Both detectives groaned.

Asuka sat at the same table as before, savoring the food before her. She had wolfed down a plate of the gyoza, the taste of the caraway in them summoning a primal sense of home she thought she would never feel here in Japan, and was currently demolishing the extra large bowl of ramen. Tonkotsu was her favorite, but something else to the dish elicited a familiar sense of nostalgia. She was three beers into her dinner and trying to figure it out. It was still eluding her, but after Mana had told her on the first day about the secret ingredients, she was intent on figuring them out.

As before, Shinji had studiously avoided looking her way after his first greeting. She was used to some rude behavior from people, both as a police officer and as someone visibly not entirely Japanese, but this was something else. Rude behavior aside, his food was good. The prices were good too. She watched him work and move back and forth amongst the pots and grills. He definitely didn't move like someone who had been shot. His clothes were simple and offered nothing to suggest that he wore body armor. Which, she reminded herself, still wouldn't explain eight bullets with presumably his blood on them being lodged in the wall.

How had he done it? Why was he here serving noodles and being rude to her instead of leaving a closed shop behind as he rested in the grave?

She grinned predatorily at Mana as the woman shot her a disapproving glance. The woman wore her heart on her sleeve as far as Asuka was concerned, and she was obviously concerned about a female interloper moving in on the man. It was clear to Asuka, though, that Shinji had no interest in returning his employee's feelings. Just as obvious as that was that he was trying to hide something from her, which was a mistake on his part. The bizarre nature of this case aside, Asuka would happily chase that down without further prompting. Mana had no need to worry about Asuka's intentions towards her boss in the romantic sense. She was here for a different sort of satisfaction.

She finished her food and got up to pay. Mana went to intercept her at the register, but Shinji cut her off and greeted Asuka with a terse smile. His eyes, so strikingly blue, seemed far away as they exchanged pleasantness and money. Asuka thanked him again for the food, which he accepted with a strangely sorrowful gratitude. "Has there been any luck in finding them?" he asked, handing back some change. "I'd really like it if they were off the streets and not able to hurt anyone."

"Your case has been linked with the suspects from some others, as I think we said last time," Asuka said as she tucked her change into her purse. "Your case is being transferred to the detectives working on that one, so if anything comes up, you should contact them." She handed over a card with Aoba's contact information. He took the card with the same quiet acceptance as he did everything else, which irked her. "Can you tell me what the secret ingredient in the Tonkotsu is?" she asked, the words spilling out unbidden.

His eyes, already distant, took on a far-away quality to them. "Herring," he answered, not looking at her. "I always use herring in the broth with the pork."

Asuka's jaw dropped, the missing piece falling into place. She ran her tongue over her lips again, nodding. "Of course! That's it!" she said, louder than she meant to, but ignored the looks from the other customers. "You know, I really like your food. It's a shame you don't have a nicer place; your stuff really is top-notch."

He seemed to shrink under the praise, cringing away from her words, leaving her grasping for some meaning behind it. Embarrassed herself without knowing why, she gave him another nod, left the establishment, and headed home.

Work piled up as it sometimes did, and Asuka and Toji were kept busy as they worked their caseload, chasing down leads and presenting testimony in court. Even though the case had officially been handed off to the older pair of detectives, the bizarreness of the events surrounding Ikari niggled at her night and day. She had no satisfactory answers to her questions, nothing to quell the Detective's lust to get to the bottom of things.

So when she had a few minutes to herself, she poked around and stuck her nose in places it didn't belong.

She had started by investigating this Misato person in his unorthodox shrine. After getting nothing, she progressed to researching Ikari in the system, which opened up a whole bucket of eels.

Shinji Ikari, for almost all intents and purposes, did not exist.

He had no driver's license, no passport, nothing. He had no family register on file. He wasn't an organ donor. She had practically nothing on file for him in the systems she had access to.

Shinji Ikari was seemingly a ghost in more ways than bullets passing through him, leaving him unharmed.

What had started as an idle break between working on her caseload had become a full afternoon's work, and she had nothing to show for it. She was a woman possessed, intent on solving this riddle. She was deep in the weeds now, going through the business registry information. He had a restaurant license on file, but there was nothing to show who owned the real estate it was registered at.

His whole establishment didn't exist as far as the city was concerned. They acknowledged the lot the address existed at, but had no records of the small building she had been in twice.

How did someone manage to do this? How did one exist as a ghost in this day and age?

She couldn't find anything on him except for the license and the complaint about the robbery.

As far as Police Detective Asuka Soryu was concerned, that was impossible. Perhaps Misato had lived and died in another city before he moved here and set up shop. That might explain why she couldn't find anything on her. But Ikari himself? After twelve years of living here and running a business, no matter how small or attention-avoidant?

Nobody avoided amassing at least some sort of bureaucratic paperwork like this without being a hermit out in the wilds, and those lunatics still had birth certificates, even if they denied their existence.

Shinji Ikari appeared out of thin air some twelve years ago, filing for a business license and receiving it. There was nothing before and nothing after.

"Asuka!"

She looked up at Makoto as he practically shouted her name. "What?" she irritably asked.

"Fuyutsuki wants to see you in his office."

Kensuke Aida was no slouch when it came to understanding his wife for all that they had only really connected after they graduated high school. Both his best friend, Toji Suzahara, and she had gone to the police academy together and had likewise come up in the ranks as a pair. Kensuke was self-aware and knew that he was an unlikely friend to both. A full-fledged nerd and otaku, most would never expect him to be friends with Toji, let alone romantically involved with Asuka. But he had the respect of both and the latter's love in full, and he could tell when something was bothering her.

Something had been bothering her for the last three weeks beyond the usual nonsense she had to deal with at her job. She had been somewhat distant, and in her eyes, he could see the gears turning as she tried to figure out whatever puzzle was bothering her.

It wasn't often that they got to have dinner together, their shifts being flexible, to say the least, but tonight was one of the rare nights they got to spend in each other's company. Kensuke had watched as she absently picked at her food before he asked what was wrong.

She told him of an inexplicably nostalgic noodle shop, whose proprietor sat at the center of a bog-standard criminal complaint but who somehow managed to be beyond all explanation. Kensuke took it all in, as he usually did when she complained about her cases, but this time, his own curiosity was aroused in a way that it normally was not.

"How does someone go unnoticed in this day and age?" he wondered aloud. "Evading the all-seeing panopticon is not easy to do, even when you're actively trying to minimize your digital footprint." He shoveled rice into his mouth, turning the puzzle his wife had shared with him around in his mind. Typically, one needed to be aggressively meticulous to eke out such a hidden existence. But from Asuka's description of the man, this Ikari fellow didn't seem to be that tech-savvy or that driven to stay off the grid.

"You know, I could look him up in our databases," Kensuke offered, not really worried about the breach of ethics he waved in his wife's face. He was the senior system administrator for the largest hospital system in Hakone, with few practical checks on his power apart from his own conscience. Moreover, with the coordinated system for providing care to the city's residents, he could also plumb the other two major hospital systems' record systems.

Asuka looked up over her plate at him, eyes sparkling in a way that told him he was in danger of violently enthusiastic and unrestrained affection. As always, it sent a thrill of excited terror through his spine.

"Really?"

He swallowed down a gulp of beer. "I mean, I can't tell you any specifics of care, but I can tell you if he exists for us. If this guy is as much of a ghost as you claim, it'd be something, right?"

"Would you really do that for me?" she probed, her coy tone underscored with a knowing look.

"Anything for you, babe."

It wasn't a lie. Kensuke Aida would walk through fire for Asuka. There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for her. At the same time, there wasn't anything that she wouldn't do for him. The scion of a bio-mechanical research family, she had moved across the world during middle school, transplanted with her family to better suit her father's business interests. She had largely existed outside the normal cliques of middle and high school but, at the same time, had been so far removed from what would be Kensuke's orbit except for their connection through Toji Suzahara.

Toji had inexplicably been his best friend for years before Asuka had shown up, and the Toji and Hikari Horaki had always been sweet on each other, to the point that no one else thought it worthwhile to confess to either of them. Asuka had few real friends apart from Hikari. While her exoticism garnered her attention, her caustic attitude scared most others off. After Toji and Asuka entered the police force, Kensuke and Asuka hooked up one night and effectively sealed the deal.

Though their connections and dedication to each other had been unexpected, they were strong and true. They finished their dinner without further discussion of Ikari and retired to the bedroom after washing up.

Shinji Ikari didn't exist in the medical system either.

Nothing. No prescriptions, no emergency room visits, nothing. Nothing even as mundane as a checkup. No flu shots. No immunization record.

Kensuke had first been impressed, but then he became perplexed. While most men didn't seek routine medical care for things, the odds of someone living in a city for twelve years – the amount of time they knew he had been around in Hakonne, without leaving some sort of medical footprint was unlikely in the extreme. As far as Kensuke could tell, he hadn't even had a dental cleaning.

It was honestly impressive how much the man didn't seem to exist.

What was he hiding, that he had gone to such troubles to avoid leaving an imprint?

After finding nothing on Shinji, he started looking for Misato. Like Asuka, his searches had not produced anything for women matching her description.

Asuka was currently at City Hall, ruining the day for a pair of bureaucrats. After her husband returned with nothing on the man, her detective senses became more inflamed with the desire to get to the bottom of the case. The two women allegedly helping her in her inquiries were doing their level best to prevent precisely that.

"Look, Detective," the first clerk said, her voice bored. "We see a lot of cases where people want to avoid a lot of notice. People value their privacy."

"But-" Asuka said, her voice tightening, "this is different! There's literally nothing on file for this guy! Nothing! No record of his birth, no parents, no address history. No family register. He doesn't show up in any census data. How is this normal at all? How is he paying his taxes?"

The other clerk, a tall, middle-aged woman who had probably been her high school queen bee, shook her head condescendingly. "Not all records are perfect, Detective. It's possible that his information was lost or never properly filed. We can't possibly know every detail about every person in the city."

Asuka's frustration flared as she stared flabbergasted at the woman. When, in all of recorded history, had a bureaucrat accepted incomplete paperwork? "I'm telling you, this man doesn't exist. Not in your system, not in any system at all! How can you just accept that? He's running a restaurant, for god's sake. The health inspectors have never been to his place!"

The first clerk, clearly disinterested, waved a hand dismissively. "Look, if you're looking for a paper trail, you're wasting your time. Most small business owners are terrible record keepers. People constantly move around, and sometimes people slip under the radar. It's not our problem."

Asuka stared, flabbergasted, at the woman. In police work, the devil was in the details. Very rarely was there some great bust where people were caught red-handed. It was usually in small, procedural things that the greatest criminals were brought to account. She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms. She could feel the heat rise in her chest as her patience wore thin. "So you're telling me to just accept that this man with no records whatsoever opened a restaurant and has been doing business for the last twelve years without anyone in a regulatory position noticing?"

The woman sighed as she leaned back in her chair. "You're a detective. You know all about the sovereign citizens. You know these people exist. People don't always fit the mold. Sometimes, they come in from nowhere and blend in until something happens to draw attention to them. Doesn't mean that there's anything more to it."

Asuka wanted to scream, to shake these women by the lapels of their shitty off-the-rack suit jackets until their heads fell off. "You really don't care about this?"

The clerk looked at her, unimpressed. "Detective, with all due respect, we don't have the resources to chase down every oddball case. If you think there's something more to this, you're welcome to look into it, but frankly, we don't see what the issue is."

Asuka stared at them for a long, tense moment, her mind racing. Nothing about this sat right with her. If there was one thing about bureaucracy she knew, it was that it hated things outside of its purview. The two cogs sitting in front of her should have been incensed at the idea of some man popping up out of nowhere and running a business in their town with incomplete paperwork, but they were completely indifferent to it.

"Alright, what about his taxes? What about his business license?" She tried to keep her tone civil despite her growing frustration. "There has to be a record of that somewhere."

"We don't handle that," the first clerk responded, her voice unduly exasperated. "You'll want the registry office and the revenue office."

The urge to pistol whip the woman was almost insurmountable. If they didn't handle that, why was she even here? "The registry office says that he's been registered for twelve years. One noodle shop registered to Shinji Ikari, and that's it. Nothing else."

"Well, there you go," the second woman said as if that satisfied everything. "If they are aware of him, I'm sure everything is in order somewhere. If the municipal government was concerned about his taxes, I'm sure the revenue teams would investigate it themselves. We wouldn't look into his case unless there was a real issue."

Asuka's patience was wearing thin. "You're telling me there's no oversight? You're telling me that someone with no family records, no history at all in any system of record, can set up shop without anyone noticing or asking questions?"

The first clerk, who had been looking at her screen, finally met her gaze, a slightly tired look on his face. "Detective, I don't know what you're trying to prove, but honestly, there's not much we can do. His business is, or was- operating under the radar. The system isn't perfect, but it's not our job to second-guess every person who comes through. If everything's in order on paper, then there's no issue. We'll add his name to our list of people to follow up on to ensure the paperwork is completed, but it's a low priority for our office."

Asuka's mind raced. The records were incomplete, if not missing outright, yet the shop hadn't been fined or shut down. The clerks' indifference only heightened her suspicions, feeding that gnawing sensation at the back of her mind. There was something else going on here.

"So, that's it then?" Asuka said, keeping her voice steady despite the growing sense of unease. "You won't look into it further? Just let it go and pretend it's normal?"

The second clerk gave her a flat look, already tired of this discussion. "Detective, this is the real world. We can't go around investigating everyone who seems a little strange. There's a lot of paperwork, a lot of bureaucracy. If you want to dig into his personal life, you're going to have to do it yourself. But you won't get any help from us."

Asuka stood there momentarily, trying to contain her anger and understand how it was so easy for Shinji to slip through the cracks. She had expected skepticism, sure, but not this level of dismissal.

"Fine!" she exclaimed, pushing back from the desk. Storming off, she cursed under her breath in German, ignoring the confused looks of the others as she passed through the halls. She would get to the bottom of this.

Toji and Asuka had taken up eating at Shinji's little shop, partly out of wanting to keep an eye on him and partly because the food was that good. It was yet another normal evening, with nothing out of the ordinary. Customers came and went, noodles were dished out and consumed, and drinks bustled out to tables and patrons by the ever-smiling Mana. Asuka shot a look at Toji as he started in on his fifth beer and third ramen bowl.

"Hikari is going to have my ass if you go home drunk out of your mind. Lay off the sauce a little, for my sake, why don't you?"

Toji grinned at her as he downed half the glass in one go. "What, you think this is enough to get me drunk?" he asked before draining a third of the broth from his ramen bowl. "I thought you were made of sterner stuff."

"I can drink you under the table any day, Toji," Asuka bit back. It was true. She could hold her booze better than anyone else in the office- something that she had proven time and time again. Of course, that wasn't to say that she was completely composed as she put her fellow detectives under the table- as both Kensuke and Toji could attest to. "I don't want to wake up to another round of angry text messages."

Engrossed in their conversation, they almost missed it, but the enlightened sixth sense that all detectives shared made them look over at the service counter just in time. Mana was moving a large pot of broth up from the back area but must have slipped on a wet patch of floor, sending the pot and its contents flying over Ikari.

Both detectives jumped to their feet as boiling liquid splashed out over the man, but they stopped short as he acted completely unconcerned. Mana gushed apologies, and they set to clean up the mess. They hovered over their seats before sitting back down, exchanging looks.

"Did you see that?" Toji hissed, eyes not moving from Ikari as the man wiped down the counter.

"He's perfectly fine!" Asuka hissed back, watching Mana bring up a mop from the back room. "How? How?"

"He looks like he's fucking dry!"

Shinji Ikari seemed perfectly fine, perfectly dry, and perfectly unaffected by the five gallons of boiling hot broth that had been flung over his work area. The rich brown liquid didn't even stain his apron, as if they had not just seen the accident firsthand.

The rest of the evening passed without further incident but Asuka remained awake long into the night as she lay in bed, her mind buzzing as she tried to make sense of the mystery of Shinji Ikari.

It had been three months since they had first taken on the case of Shinji Ikari. Other casework came and went, and while they were occupied with other issues, the mystery surrounding the unassuming man never fully left their minds.

Asuka was in the courthouse to testify on another case when inspiration struck. After giving her testimony, she went upstairs to the office that managed the jurors. She smiled as she entered the room, striking up a conversation with a bored-looking clerk.

"Can I help you, Detective?" The clerk asked without looking up.

"I need to check the records for a man named Shinji Ikari. I want to know if he's ever been called for jury duty," Asuka replied, calm but eager to see what her systems would show.

"Shinji Ikari? Let me see." She typed the name into her computer, the clacking keyboard filling the quiet room. A few seconds later, the clerk looked up after the computer beeped. "There's no record of him in the system."

"No record?" Asuka repeated, not wanting to believe it. "Are you sure? Not even for jury duty?"

The clerk nodded, still frowning. "Nothing at all. He's not in the system. There's no record of him ever being called or even being eligible. It's like he doesn't exist in our database. Does he go by another name?"

Asuka sighed in disgust. She had expected some sort of discrepancy, but not this nonsense again. Shinji hadn't been called to serve as a juror or been flagged for any civic duty or legal matters? It felt like he had been completely erased from the legal system, just as he was apparently missing from medical records, taxes, and business filings.

"Are you sure?" Asuka pressed, her voice edged with growing tension. "Could there be an error or some kind of clerical mistake?"

The clerk shook her head. "I ran the search again, but unless he has a different legal name, he's not in our system. There are no records for being called in, no records of being eligible, and no appeals to get out of jury selection. Are you sure there isn't another name for him?"

The weight of the clerk's words hit Asuka like a sledgehammer. How can someone just vanish like this? "Not that I know. He has a business license under that name; I don't imagine they would hand one out under an assumed name."

"I wouldn't put it past the jokers in administrative to do that," she said, making a disgruntled face at that news. "They're hardly up to our standards over here in the judicial system."

Asuka muttered a non-committal response as she left the office.

Asuka sighed as she left the apartment and headed to the next one down the row. This building was a complete slum, and the people living here were definitely not friendly to the police or talking to detectives investigating a penguin smuggling ring. Those who lived here had no better options. This was a place for the down and out, the losers of the world. The whole place smelled like mildew and damp, and the stairwells smelled like urine. Junkies were present, as the assorted detritus of their activities was everywhere. Unimaginative and uncouth graffiti was painted and carved into the railing overlooking the street below.

Knocking the door to apartment 402, she pulled back as a bleary-eyed Shinji Ikari answered the door, dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a white t-shirt. He recoiled as he recognized her.

"Detective Soryu?" he asked, rubbing at his eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"Mr. Ikari! How nice to see you again!" she responded, holding up her clipboard. "I'm investigating a penguin smuggling ring that was headquartered in this building." She studied him, seeing him outside the shop for the first time. His hair, normally kept out of view, was a dark brown and messily cut. "I wouldn't have imagined that you would be living in this part of town."

Shinji stared at her, obviously not sure what to say. "It's just temporary. It's quiet enough. Nothing special."

"Oh, of course!" she said, face neutral but mind racing as she processed everything. He was clearly uneasy, and his discomfort went beyond casual interaction with the police outside the context of his noodle shop. More than anything else, his body posture screamed to him like he was hiding something. She could see beyond him into the small apartment, which she knew from the previous interviews consisted of a small kitchenette, bathroom, and a single room. On casual observation, the place looked cleaner than the others she had been in today but more empty.

"Quiet, huh?" she asked, eyebrows raised. Private, possibly. The people here did not want to intrude into other people's lives as they wanted others to not intrude into theirs. But quiet? She knew full well that the regular patrolmen were out here every week chasing down reports of shots fired or overdosing junkies spazzing out in stairwells. "Seems a bit run down for someone who owns a noodle shop as good as yours."

"I don't mind it," he quickly said defensively. His eyes grew wild, and his obvious discomfort grew with each passing second.

"Well, I'll take your word for it," she said breezily. "Moving on, have you ever noticed this man?" She moved the clipboard around so that he could see the mugshot of a sneering man in his mid-forties. He had been the subject of one of her more long-running cases, involving the international smuggling of endangered species.

As it turned out, no, Shinji hadn't seen him around. Shinji mostly stuck to himself and minded his own business. Asuka thanked him and moved on to the next apartment, but her mind kept returning to the mysterious man.

Asuka stared at her computer screen, but not seeing the blinking cursor. She was supposed to be writing a report on yesterday's findings, but she was thinking about other things.

That part of town was a dump. She didn't expect to find Ikari, the proprietor of a quietly successful restaurant, there.

Now, the apartment was owned by a certified slumlord, a sleazeball that had his own legal issues beyond unwittingly letting a penguin smuggler operate out of one of his properties. When questioned, he had been confused to be asked about Ikari. While not tied to the case, Asuka wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to get more information.

Ikari was a quiet man who paid his rent on time and in cash. Never had any complaints to make and never had any complaints made about him. A perfect tenant.

It was high praise, coming from such a person as his landlord.

Most people didn't continue to rent from the man for more than a few months to a year at most- Ikari was his longest-running client in that building. Just about twelve years, in fact. So much for his claims of it being a temporary place.

It was the first concrete way she could point to Ikari lying to her. What she was going to do with that information or what she could do with that information was another matter.

Her phone rang, pulling out of her reverie. Seeing Toji's name and smiling face on the screen, she answered it.

"What's up?" she asked, going back to look at her empty report.

"Asuka," Toji's low voice came over the phone, calm but with an edge. "I need you to listen to me."

"You got my attention." She sat up straight in her chair, focusing on the phone. Toji was very easygoing and was not often given over to hysterics. Whatever he was about to spill was bound to be good, or terrible, but in either case, important.

"I'm down at the harbor. I was following up on the bust from the smuggling ring. Guess who I saw down here this morning?"

Asuka glanced at the corner of the monitor, checking the time: just past eight in the morning.

"Who?"

"Shinji Ikari."

"Ikari?" Her heart began to race, her mind flying. Was Ikari somehow involved in the smuggling ring? It seemed absurd, but it made as much sense as anything else revolving around the man.

"Yeah. Apparently, he's down here most days to pick out stuff for the shop. Nothing unusual. Fish, seaweed, crabs, shrimp, that sort of thing."

"Is he driving a truck? He's not in the system for a license."

"No, he pays them all to deliver to him. According to one guy down here, he shows up early on the bus, does the rounds, and heads out. Deals exclusively in cash."

Asuka didn't know enough about the market to tell how unusual his case was, but Toji made it sound slightly strange. "Anything else?"

"Well," he began, voice going distant, "there is something else. I saw him get hit by a truck."

"Shit, is he okay?" Asuka asked, worried for the man in addition to anything else.

"He's perfectly fine. Asuka- I watched him get hit full on by a delivery truck- and not a kei truck- and he's completely unfazed by it." Toji's emotions were running high, she could tell. Both had worked the regular police beat before they made Detective, and they had both been present to clean up pedestrians getting hit by vehicles. It wasn't anything they enjoyed doing on a full stomach.

Asuka felt the blood drain from her face. "Wait, what? He got hit by a truck? And... he's fine? No cuts, no bruises? How?"

Toji was quiet for a moment. "That's what I'm trying to figure out. I approached him afterward, but he went on like nothing happened, completely unfazed. It was almost as if the truck never hit him. And when I asked if he was alright, he gave me a polite but distant response- like he wasn't concerned at all."

"Unbelievable," Asuka muttered under her breath. "This is beyond strange, Toji. I mean, a truck- really? How is that even possible? People don't just get hit by trucks and walk away," she paused. "Or get shot eight times. Or get boiling broth dumped all over them."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. That's why I'm calling you," Toji said, his voice serious. "I'm starting to think Shinji is more than just some guy with a weird past. There's something about him that doesn't add up. Something supernatural, maybe."

Asuka's mind raced. It sounded insane. Supernatural? Preposterous. But nothing about the man added up in any logical fashion. They had him on tape, getting shot to no obvious effect. They had watched as Mana dumped boiling liquid all over him, and he escaped without even looking wet. Now Toji witnessed him in a traffic collision as a pedestrian, and walk away.

What was it that the Commissioner always said? "One time is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action?"

All of that was even before getting into his records with the city, which was to say the near-total lack of any such thing. Not to mention the appalling lack of interest in city officials to correct that.

Everything about this man hinted at something else. Something hidden. But what, by whom, and for what purpose?

An unassuming man making fantastic food in an unassuming shop while living in an unassuming slum.

The only things they knew for sure about him was his name, how long he had been in the city, his association with Mana, and the memory of a dead woman named Misato.

"I'm following him," Toji continued. "I think I might be able to get more answers. I'll keep you updated."

Asuka's thoughts were a blur. "Be careful, Toji. We know that he's hiding something. Whatever it is, I don't know, but… we need to be cautious. I feel like we don't know what we're dealing with."

"I'll keep that in mind," he said softly before hanging up.

Asuka stared at her phone, feeling a chill settle deep in her bones. What is he? Who is he? What is he hiding? These questions had haunted her for months, and she was still nowhere near getting closer to any answers.

Part of her was exhilarated. A routine case dropped on their desk, somehow segueing into a seemingly invulnerable mystery man? Unknown stakes, scant leads, incomplete information? It set her Detective's blood racing, made her veins pulse, and made her heart hammer in her chest. It made her feel alive.

Another part was worried. What had they stepped into? Even if they accepted as truth his invulnerability, it had to have come from somewhere. It wasn't natural. If someone was covering his tracks, their reach was frighteningly long. If he was in hiding, the people he was in hiding from could only have malign intent. Hakone was home to several well-known biotechnology firms that were all at the cutting edge of science. Her father's company was one of them. Was he an escaped test subject? Was he a failed test subject who was released from the program? Did this Misato woman play a part in his emancipation?

That was also assuming that he hadn't escaped here from somewhere else. After all, if she was on the run, she wouldn't just stay in the same city.

This all took for granted a scientific reasoning behind the mystery man. Toji's family had always been superstitious, but even with the apparent lack of explanation, Asuka refused to believe in the supernatural. Shinji Ikari was not a ghost, goblin, or vengeful spirit. Forensics had pulled blood residue from the bullets. It had been human blood.

Shinji Ikari might be invulnerable, but he was still just a man. She simply needed the right piece of the puzzle, the right bit of information, and then everything would fall into place.

They would have to tread lightly to avoid the scrutiny of the powers behind his existence, and they had not been exactly subtle so far in their investigations. Caution would have to be their byword, and prudent, thoughtful deliberation would be needed before they took action.

She grinned again, her predatory smile prompting a shudder from Aoba as he passed her desk. They would get to the bottom of this case, though. One way or another.

Asuka sat on her couch, staring at the printouts covering the living room floor. Each one represented some fact, some person, or some bureaucratic office. Some had additional files, but most did not. At the center of her papers was an enlarged photo of Shinji Ikari, surreptitiously taken last week while she was at his shop. He had precious few personal connections to look into. Mana, his landlord, and a few people who supplied him with fresh ingredients for the restaurant. They all had complete histories, which were printed out and placed underneath their photos. She knew Mana had done a brief stint in the JSDF before separating. She had taken on a string of unimpressive jobs before landing her spot at Shinji's shop. He paid her well, and she was devoted to him. His landlord had always been a known person to the police department, and his record was not unblemished, but it was likewise complete. The merchants supplying Ikari were long-time residents; their shops were inherited from family. Nothing special about any of them. No unusual connections. Nothing missing. On the other hand, Shinji's information seemed perpetually out of reach, buried under a labyrinth of bureaucratic indifference.

She had spent the past week bouncing between the tax and business licensing divisions, the recorder's office, and the vital statistics office, all trying to get a solid lead, but all she had to show for it was a string of unhelpful responses and the same inconclusive records.

"His taxes are filed," the tax division clerk had said with a shrug. "But yeah, it looks like he missed a few forms. No big deal, though. Happens all the time."

"But why doesn't he have full documentation?" Asuka pressed, her frustration mounting. "Why are there gaps in his records?"

The clerk had barely looked up from her screen. "We're more focused on actual evaders, Detective. People who are dodging taxes. People like Ikari, who file and pay, aren't really a priority."

And the licensing division wasn't any better. "He's registered as a business owner," the clerk had said with a bored tone, "but we don't track every last detail. Not everyone keeps their paperwork up to date. If you want someone to investigate, go talk to the inspectors. We don't go digging through people's lives unless there's a reason to."

That phrase set off alarm bells in Asuka's mind, "We don't go digging through people's lives unless there's a reason to."

How many times had she heard that? How many times had she been told that making sure Ikari's paperwork was complete was a 'low priority'?

At first, she had been stunned. It wasn't just that the records were incomplete—it was the blatant indifference to the missing information. The tax division had no concerns about the gaps in Ikari's filings because there were "plenty of other people actually evading taxes" to go after. Business licensing had been similarly unconcerned, brushing it off as a small administrative oversight. The health inspectors said they would add him to the list, but they had a huge backlog. They hadn't received any complaints, so they were unconcerned.

In Asuka's experience, people did not skate by with submitting incomplete paperwork to the government. For there to be this level of bureaucratic disinterest and this willful blindness to Ikari's existence, someone had to be pulling some strings. But it was so total, so complete in its thoroughness of being incomplete, that things started to make sense. It wasn't so much as the blanks were being filled in, but the general shape of things was being revealed. It was like a ship coming into view through a fogbank.

Someone at the highest levels of government wanted Shinji penned in the Hakone region but largely left alone. Somewhere, somehow, he had acquired an immunity to harm. Illegal human testing, industrial accident, something had left him invulnerable. Misato had died, either in that event or in the government's reaction to it. But how does one deal with an angry, invulnerable man? How does one stop him from taking revenge?

You cut a deal. As long as he keeps silent, doesn't draw attention to himself, and stays put where they can keep an eye on him, they leave him alone. They removed all traces of their accident, their mistake, but the bureaucracy still needs some level of paperwork to function. So his records, and Misato's, get expunged saved for the bare minimum to pass the smell test. Different city departments are 'encouraged' to not look into things further.

And for twelve years, it had worked. It had worked perfectly for all involved until the day that three idiots decided to knock over a cash-only noodle shop.

Asuka grinned. It was a compelling case. A man bogged down with grief over losing this Misato, content to not put his invulnerability to the test by tearing apart the systems and structures that had created him. A man given everything he needed to live a quiet, unobtrusive life without undue interaction with others beyond what he wants. Nothing to disturb a sleeping dragon, in the eyes of the government.

Now, she had to prove it. She needed to find a biotech corporation with a callous approach to morality and a voracious appetite for profits. A company that would shed no tears doing the government's dirty research. Fortunately for her, she knew just where to start some subtle inquiries.

Toji Suzahara knew he usually wasn't the smartest person in the room at any given time. He had no problems admitting that to anyone, even if his wife objected to him being overly mean to himself. But he was doggedly persistent and could see when things didn't add up correctly. He could chase things down and run them into the ground. Let Asuka be looked at as the brains of their duo; he was fine with that. She frequently was, possessed of a mind that made massive leaps of logic, linking together things that others overlooked to form the connections that made their cases work. She called herself a wunderkind, and for as long as he had known her, he couldn't say otherwise. He'd never admit it, especially not in her earshot, but to say she was a genius was putting it lightly.

But Asuka couldn't do everything that he could.

She had joined the force to snub her family, who had expected her to follow in their footsteps, heir to a grand science and research empire. Her father ruled an international company with an iron fist, making money that Toji's family could never dream of, but Asuka had walked away from it all, telling them to go pound sand.

Asuka never did anything half-heartedly. Once, when both had been drunk, he had asked her why she had joined up. She could do anything, go anywhere, be anyone. Why be a cop? Why not go back to Germany, a place she very clearly missed?

It all boiled down to two things, really. Asuka's massive fucking ego and her need to be absolutely, beyond any doubt or reproach, better than everyone else.

Her father's company dabbled in things that, while perhaps not illegal, were certainly immoral. And Asuka refused to take part in them- at all, full stop.

She had shouted at him, at length, and in German, the whole thing. After he had gently reminded her that he didn't speak her barbarian language, she boiled it down to a concise statement: Asuka operated from a position of absolute moral authority. She refused to do things that would dirty herself.

So, she would never do what he was about to do.

Toji didn't sidle up to the door to apartment 402 or do anything to act like he was trying to avoid attention. Instead, he wore a high-visibility vest, a yellow hard hat, and a tool belt. He knocked on the door, knowing full well the apartment was empty. Shinji Ikari existed in one of four places- the apartment, the shop, the markets, and on a bus or a train. When Toji and Asuka started their investigation into Shinji Ikari, they came to know his routine fairly well.

In Toji's opinion, he was quite possibly the most boring person on earth, apart from being a digital ghost and apparently invulnerable to harm. No dates. No going to the movies. No going out drinking. No going bowling. No going fishing. No vacation. Just work, shopping, and home.

The apartment building was a dump, and the locks were equally garbage. Toji bumped the lock without issue and let himself into the apartment.

He surveyed the place with a practiced eye, noting all the details that were present and, more importantly, the ones that were not.

It did not look like any place a person had lived in for twelve years. It was neat and clean, almost ludicrously so for the building it was in. No photos and no personal effects stood out at first glance. No television. Nothing for guests- the cupboards were empty, and all the dishes sat in a drying rack- a single cup, plate, bowl, and mug were drying. A single pair of chopsticks sat in another cup by the sink. The refrigerator was devoid of anything of interest, as was the freezer.

Many people liked to hide things in the freezer, thinking themselves clever. It was usually the first place the police and criminals looked. Some enterprising people would stick things in the bottom of a large bag of rice. Neither one of these places held anything out of the ordinary in this case.

Moving deeper into the apartment, he found the main room sparsely furnished. The only furniture was a small bed, a table, a chair, and two bookcases. The bed was made, and a small laptop sat on the table. Toji ignored it in favor of checking over the bookcases. They were mostly empty, and the majority of the books were cookbooks. What stood out among these were the ones on German foods, a strange choice for a ramen chef. The other books were mostly things beyond his scope of familiarity- they looked like texts on philosophy and religion and one on string theory and quantum mechanics.

On the top shelf of one bookcase, he found something else- three small items, the only real personal touches in this almost sterile environment. The first was a small cross pendant on a chain necklace. The second was a pair of broken glasses- prescription glasses that were almost certainly not Ikari's. But it was the third and final thing that made his breath stop and set his heart racing.

It was a small, old photograph, well worn but reverently handled. It was of three people—two of whom Toji recognized.

Asuka, Ikari, and a second girl stood together in the photo. Shinji looked embarrassed to be having his picture taken, while Asuka's face was a well-known expression of impatience. The mystery girl looked completely devoid of emotion. Toji could discern no clue as to what she was thinking as she stared blankly at the photographer. She was slightly shorter than Ikari and shorter than Asuka, who was taller than both- and had blue hair and red eyes. She was someone Toji had never seen before in his life. They were all wearing some school uniform he didn't recognize either- a blue dress with a red bow for the girls and only black slacks and a white shirt for Ikari.

By the time Asuka was the age in this photo, Toji had already known her for a year. They had gone to the same schools. His school uniform had plaid pants, and the girls wore the same pattern in a skirt.

This photo was impossible, but here it was, held in his shaking hands. Carefully, he took out his phone and took a picture of it before putting the photo back. Looking around for a last time, he left the apartment.

He needed to see Asuka as soon as possible.

Asuka let Toji into her home, struck immediately by the haunted expression on his face. They went into the living room where Kensuke waited, and he looked around at the knickknacks and photos as if for assurance that this really was her place. The photos were mostly of Kensuke's family, but there were others of them as a couple, some more still from high school, and a photo of the two of them graduating from the academy. There was exactly one photo of Asuka with her family. Toji and Hikari were frequent visitors to this room, and he knew it well.

Around the room were some books, computer parts, mail, a forgotten glass, all the things that showed a place to be somewhere people lived and didn't just pass through. Toji sat down on the couch with an exhaled breath, one that neither had noticed he had been holding.

"What's up, Toji?" she asked, her voice flat, but there was an edge to it, as if she could sense something was off. "You're acting weird."

Toji hesitated, his fingers twitching slightly as he held his phone in his hands. It was bad enough that their subject was invulnerable and a digital ghost. But the photo stored on his phone was a personal impossibility. It was something that argued against the past that Toji knew.

"Yeah," Toji began, leaning back in his chair, "about Ikari's apartment..." He paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts. "I found something. Something you need to see."

Asuka furrowed her brow. "What did you find?" she asked, glossing over the question of how exactly he had gained entry.

"Wait," Toji interrupted, cutting her off before she could get too far ahead. "It was like you said- empty. Very clean. It's not like your place," he said, waving an arm around around the room. "Or like mine. He doesn't live there. He just exists. I've seen people in prison with more personal effects."

She watched him as he sucked in a deep breath before continuing. "The only interesting stuff, the only personal touches, were some books. Some cookbooks." He locked eyes with her, wanting to see her reaction. "He had German cookbooks. Like the ones you've got." He nodded as she went still. "He had other stuff, real highbrow things. Philosophy. Religion. Some science stuff. Not exactly light reading. But he also had three other things, actual mementos or something. I took a photo of one. Tell me if it makes any sense to you, because it sure as hell doesn't make any sense to me."

He pulled out his phone, unlocked it quickly, and flipped to the picture he had taken earlier. He handed the phone to Asuka, trying to gauge her reaction.

Asuka took the phone and stared at the image, her face unreadable. There was silence in the room for a few long seconds, broken only by the faint hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. Asuka's eyes slowly narrowed, her lips tightening into a thin line.

"Is this some sort of joke?" she asked, her voice low.

"I'm not laughing."

Asuka's eyes darted back and forth between the photo and Toji's face. "What is this supposed to mean, Toji?"

"I don't know. I was hoping you tell me."

Kensuke took the phone from Asuka and studied the photo. It was unsettling to see a picture of his wife that couldn't exist. He was fairly certain he would remember a girl with blue hair, even if the uniforms matched what they had worn.

Asuka stood up and started pacing across the living room, blood pounding in her temples. Nothing about this made any sense. She was starting to freak out, to have a panic attack, something that hadn't happened to her in years.

Was it just the photo? Or was it something else?

It did validate a gut feeling she'd had the first day they had gone to check out the restaurant. "He recognized me," she said, turning to stare at the men. "He recognized me the moment I walked into his shop. He tried to hide it, but he knew who I was."

"But we've never seen him before in our lives!" Toji protested, but his gut was telling him his partner was right. "How does he have an old photo of a past that never happened?"

She didn't have an answer for that, just like she didn't have an answer for so many other questions revolving around the man. She walked back over and took the phone from Kensuke, staring at the three children standing in that frozen snapshot. Her hands trembled as she held the phone, but no matter how long she stared at their faces, answers did not come.

Toji stood up, watching her closely, concerned. "Asuka,"

"No! This is... this is wrong!" Asuka snapped, her voice rising into a shout. "How does he have this? Who is this girl? Who is he?" Her words came out in a rush, her chest tight as if something was suffocating her from the inside.

Kensuke leaned forward, his face tense with concern. "Asuka, calm down. You're scaring me. This could just be a weird double, some lookalike. Maybe it's something to do with Shinji's past-"

"No!" Asuka cut him off, her voice raw. She looked at her husband with fear in her eyes. "This is way beyond just something about his past. This is me! ME! Why am I in this picture? Why don't I remember anything about it? What is going on?"

She looked back down at the image and resisted giving up the phone as Toji reached over to reclaim it.

"The more I look at this girl, the more it feels like I should know her," she confessed, "but it feels wrong. It feels like I hate her. How can I hate her? I've never met her!" Her stomach was tied in knots, and the back of her throat felt wet, like she was about to vomit. "There's something else that we're missing. Something to make this all make sense."

"You said there were other 'mementos' at his apartment," Kensuke said, looking over to Toji. "What were they?"

"Nothing like this," Toji replied, gesturing with the phone. "An old cross pendant on a chain necklace and a busted-up pair of prescription glasses."

"That doesn't seem very helpful."

"Like I said, the photo was the important thing."

Asuka stood stock still in the middle of the floor, staring at the ceiling.

"I'm done poking around in the dark and getting nothing." She turned to look at them again, angry determination on her face. "Toji, let's go. We're going to go finally get some answers."

"I'm coming with you, too!" Kensuke's voice was strained as he stood, unwilling to let his wife face this mystery without him.

"Honey, it's too dangerous. I don't know what game he's playing at, but I don't want to expose you to it."

He crossed to her and grabbed her hands, staring straight into her eyes. Beneath the anger and the confusion, there was still a tiny undercurrent of fear. "I'm not letting you go alone."

"I'm going with her, you idiot," Toji drawled, but good-naturedly, despite the steel in his voice.

"I don't care. This involves me just as much as it does you two. I'm going."

Asuka studied him for a second and then nodded in agreement. "Alright. Let's go on a noodle run, boys."

Asuka, Toji, and Kensuke entered the shop and headed to the back table. Kensuke looked around the place with the interest of someone seeing it for the first time, his mind racing as he tried to put everything together. He frowned as he studied the man who somehow had been in a picture with his wife from years ago, a photo that couldn't be real but was.

Mana approached them, but Asuka shook her head, face locked in business mode. "I need to speak to Ikari."

Mana didn't quite glare at the trio but retreated around the counter to whisper to Shinji. He sighed, made a few gestures to the pots and the grill, and then headed over to them. He had an air of resignation over him, like he wanted to be anywhere but here.

"Can I help you?" he asked, voice polite but distant. He stared at the wall ahead of him, not meeting their eyes.

"We need to talk," Asuka said, "Alone." Her voice carried all the authority of her position in the force, a stern undercurrent that made it clear she wouldn't take no for an answer.

Shinji's face didn't change at all as he waved at the counter full of hungry customers. "We're in the middle of the second dinner rush."

Toji stood up from the table, his face just as cold as his partner's. "Let me have your attention, please. I would like you all to know that this place is under police investigation, and you are requested to leave." His voice was level and carried throughout the small shop, and all noises of people dining ceased. Heads turned to look at the towering man and his companions. "Now."

People stood up from their stools, some silently, some muttering darkly under their breath. None of them looked happy. Shinji bore the loss of money walking out the door better than his assistant, who turned with a face full of fury to glare at them. She opened her mouth but closed it again as Shinji shook his head.

"Mana, go ahead and go home early. I'll close up shop when I'm done."

Asuka almost felt sorry for the woman as she gaped at her boss.

Mana settled for sending another withering glare their way and left, pulling her jacket on as she went out the door. Toji walked over and locked it.

"So what can I do for you?" Shinji asked again, voice quiet.

"Who are you?" Asuka sharply asked, studying him. "You are a ghost. You don't exist on paper except for a business license. Nothing. Birth records, identity papers, hospital records- nothing."

"I'm just a noodle shop owner," Shinji began, eyes dead.

"Don't lie to me!" Asuka shouted, rising to her feet and pointing a finger in his face. "Who's the girl in the photograph?"

Shinji looked at her, face empty. "I told you, her name is Misato. She-"

"Not that photograph, asshole. The one of you and me, and some other bitch. Explain that one."

"That's Rei," he said matter-of-factly. If he was surprised at the question, he gave no indication. He didn't ask how they had seen the photo. It was almost like he was expecting it.

"Rei," Asuka repeated, rolling the name around on her tongue. "Well, that's a start. Now tell me, Mr. Ghost, how someone I've never seen in my life before I got assigned to your case somehow has a photo of himself, Rei, and me from middle school. In a school uniform I've never worn." She glared at him, but the menacing aura was wasted on the man, who simply shrugged and sat down at the table.

"I am a ghost because I shouldn't exist," Shinji started without preamble. "There are few records of my existence because people don't care about me. I am Rei's favored one, and she's made it so that things are easy for me."

"Who the fuck is this Rei bitch?" Asuka snapped.

Kensuke held up his hands placatingly. "Look, we're not trying to be mean here, but..."

"I understand, Kensuke," Shinji said. The three others stilled as he addressed Kensuke by name.

"How... how do you know who I am?" Kensuke asked softly, pulling back from the table.

"I knew you before," Shinji explained, looking at all three. He sounded dead tired, utterly exhausted, but at the same time a little relieved. "I knew all three of you before."

"Before what, man?" Toji asked. "You're not making any sense."

Shinji sighed. "Nothing I have to say will make sense to you. It's easier to show you." He got up from the table and walked back around the counter. "I suppose it was the shooting that started this," he said as he picked up a large knife. Toji and Asuka drew their pistols on him immediately.

"Put the knife down! Fucking drop it!"

Shinji stared at them, his gaze hollow, unmoving and seemingly uncaring about the weapons pointed his way. "I am the chosen one of Rei. I can never die," he announced, his voice steady but laden with weariness. Without hesitation, he raised the knife to his chest and plunged it home, straight into his heart. The blade went into him, and he pulled it back out, completely unbothered. The trio's jaws all dropped. "Shoot me if it makes you feel better," he told them, dropping the blade into the sink. It was red with blood. "It won't matter."

Silence reigned in the shop, none of them moving for several minutes. "Ikari," Toji started, "who is Rei?"

"Rei is God," Shinji said, voice hitching a little, the first real emotion he had shown that night. "Or something close enough to not matter."

"I've never heard of her," Kensuke said, trying to pick his words carefully in the light of what he had just witnessed. "You said that you're her chosen one?"

"Yes. She chose me, over my father, over everyone else, to assume the mantle of Instrumentality. To become God. But I ran away from it like I've run away from everything else in life."

"Sounds like there's some history there," Toji said, lowering his pistol. "Wanna get us up to speed on the new faith? Can Rei come out and talk to us? She's a real person, right?"

"Rei's not just like anyone, not like you or me. She's God- or a god, whatever. She'd never admit it. She doesn't want to be worshiped." He shook his head sorrowfully. "She was always so much better than I ever was. She doesn't deserve it, but I trapped her in it."

"What do you mean you trapped her? How did you trap her into being a god?"

"It was supposed to be me. Well, originally, it was supposed to be my father, but she chose to give it to me. And I killed the world and ran away from my mistakes. But Instrumentality can't be denied. Someone has to be God. There are things that need to be done. She's very busy, keeping track of all the things that need to be observed, things that need to be made sure to have happened. So she makes her scenarios and lets them run in the background while she does her work. It gives us all something to do, I guess. But she makes it easier for me because she loves me."

"Things like people not caring that you don't exist?" Asuka asked, starting to put some of the pieces together. It was all insane, of course, but she had seen the footage. She had seen an impossible photograph of herself as a child. She had seen bureaucrats ignore situations that they would normally be all over. She had just watched him shove a knife through his heart. "How did you kill the world?" She lowered her pistol and waved an arm around the room. "You saying this place is a dream?"

"I was supposed to become God, to decide what to do with all the souls of humanity," Shinji started to explain. "But I decided that what I wanted all the souls to do was die. So I started the process of killing everyone." Ikari had worn a thousand-yard stare ever since the three had walked in, but it took on a new quality now. "But I panicked, changed my mind, and ran away. Ran away crying, from what I did. But Rei fixed everything. She took up the responsibility. It was supposed to be me, and I trapped her in it."

"Are you her representative? Her prophet?"

"I told you, she doesn't want to be worshiped," Shinji snapped, growing angry. "I'm nothing. I should be nothing, but she loves me. She won't let me die. Won't let me be hurt."

The three audience members of this rambling story immediately caught the ugly insinuation.

"I… see. But what about that photo?"

"It's a remnant from the old world. Apart from me, it and a few other things are all that's left. I keep them safe. It's all I can do."

"So in this other world, the one from before, we all went to school. Then you got picked to be God, somehow, but you decided to kill everyone, only to choke halfway through. Rei took over and became God instead, and while she's off doing god stuff, she makes a little dreamland for us to play around in?"

"Yes."

"If I didn't have some convincing evidence to the contrary, I'd say you're insane."

Shinji shrugged. "Say whatever you want. It doesn't matter. Rei's going to reset everything again soon."

"What do you mean, reset everything?" Kensuke asked, looking around nervously.

"I mean, reset everything," Shinji replied. "She'll make everything stop, come up with a new scenario, and let it go while she takes care of making sure reality doesn't explode. Quantum states can't go on unresolved forever. Someone has to observe things and collapse the waveform to resolve the issue. Otherwise, things start to break down. She's usually pretty busy but keeps things going for everyone on top of it. Because she cares."

"And you know this happens because you're the favored one, right?"

"I've witnessed every reset."

"How many?"

"Millions. Some last a short time, and some go on for years. But something always happens to make her need to fix things again."

"Why?"

"Because I'm looking for a scenario where everyone is happy."

There was a subtle shift in the atmosphere of the noodle shop, a sudden increase in pressure, but also something that sent the hair on the back of their necks to stand at attention. Asuka looked around and saw her standing just inside the shop, just past the door that had been locked after the last customers had left.

She was an adult version of the girl in the photo, with long blue hair twisting down to her waist. She was nude, but Asuka's first instinct wasn't to shout at her husband not to look at her. This woman, who could only be Rei felt real, more real, than anything else she had seen before in her life. Where she stood, things started to look washed out, like a faded drawing. The idea of ascribing sexual connotations to this woman was laughable. She simply was.

Rei looked at Shinji, whose silent tears streamed down his face, impacted more by her sudden arrival than he had upon stabbing himself in the heart. There was something deeply maternal in how she looked at the man, and when Rei turned to look at her, Asuka felt a deep longing that she had thought excised for years. Asuka felt like a child again, standing before this strange, otherworldly woman, who exuded a sense of warm comfort that was diametrically opposed to how seeing the photograph of them together had made her feel. It was like the woman was looking deep into her soul, peeling back time and memories, uncovering her true self and embracing it.

"Rei…" Shinji said, almost sobbing.

"Shhh, Shinji," Rei murmured, raising a hand. In the space of less than a heartbeat she had moved from the entrance of the shop to his side, and she caressed his face, delicate fingers brushing aside his tears. "Sleep, now." They had not seen her move, save for the motion of her hand.

A peaceful look spread across Shinji's face as his eyes closed. They stared in mute terror at him, sleeping standing up, his body posture now completely relaxed and devoid of the tension that had filled him only a moment before. The stillness was eerie, and if not for the continued rise and fall of his chest, they would have sworn he was frozen in time.

Asuka's breath caught. "What the hell-" she hissed, stepping back, her blood pounding in her ears. She tried to raise the pistol again, but her trembling fingers refused to obey her.

"Asuka," Rei breathed, her voice soft but resonant. "It is okay. Everything will be fine."

"You're going to reset things?" Asuka asked, finding her voice. She hated that it wavered. "You're going to make all of this disappear like it never happened?"

"Yes. I create, and I destroy. I refresh and renew. I cast aside that which did not work and look for the next path forward." Her voice carried no self-recrimination, no accusation, no emotion. It was calm and serene, as if this was the thousandth time she had said those words.

"Why?"

"Any place can be paradise as long as you have the will to live. I seek the place where anyone can make where they are at heaven." She smiled at Asuka, lips curled almost imperceptibly upwards. "Because I love you."

The words struck Asuka harder than she expected, a thrill of warmth flooding through her. She swallowed, and cast a glance at Kensuke and Toji, who were just as lost as she was. "He doesn't look very happy." Asuka jerked her head over at Shinji.

"I am trying to correct that." Asuka realized Rei was sad, and somehow, that made her sad as well. "He is punishing himself for what he did."

If he really did start to kill everyone in the world, Asuka wasn't about to say that he didn't deserve at least some punishment. But the moment before she was about to snap that at Rei, she hesitated, something terribly ancient and mournful in those crimson eyes making her falter. "Why does he remember everything, but the rest of us don't?"

"He can recall because we shared in the power of Instrumentality. I cannot make him not recall if he wishes to remember, to hold on to the past." She looked around the room at the others. "There is little time. I must leave soon. The reset cannot wait." She held out her hands, and an orb of dark stone materialized out of the air to float between them. It was perfectly spherical, with a smooth surface without any imperfection, but it was completely black, giving off no reflection. It seemed to absorb the light around it, the world bending to its presence, drinking it in. Rei looked back at Asuka. "What would you like to be in the next world?"

"What... do I want to be?" Asuka echoed, still staring at the orb, distracted by it. It was like a hole in reality itself.

"In this life, you are a detective. In your last life, you were a race car driver. Before that, you were a lawyer." Rei watched her, an expectant look on her face. "What would you like to be next?"

Asuka's mind spun, trying to grasp the enormity of the current events. Unless they were all having a shared mass delusion, this woman was about to end the world and restart things. Shinji had checked out already, and her two companions were petrified in either awe or terror. "You'll let me pick out what I want to be?"

"If you like. I can't make you choose something, but I can make the path to it easy."

Asuka mulled that one over. "What was I when that photo was taken?"

"You were an Eva Pilot."

"Well, I want to do that again."

Rei looked doubtful. "The world before Third Impact and Instrumentality was not pleasant. None of us were happy then."

"That's the world that got us into this mess, right? So there's a chance that if we redo it, Shinji won't choose to kill everyone and will do something else instead."

"No. Instrumentality has occurred. The next scenario is a shared dream within the human gestalt."

Asuka frowned. "So it's not actually resetting the clock and trying something new."

"Correct. I cannot restore those who died before Instrumentality to life; I can only provide a facsimile of them. I cannot send us back to before Instrumentality occurred. I can only provide a dream world in which the souls of humanity can dream together in pursuit of shared happiness. Just as the future is the undiscovered country, the past is a land you can not return to."

So Rei wasn't all-powerful. Just extremely so.

Biting her lips, Asuka nodded. "Fine. I still want to be an Eva pilot. I want to be his friend," she said, nodding at Shinji. "And I want to be your friend." Her eyes slid over to her husband, who she nodded at. "And I want to get married to him."

Rei studied her, and Asuka felt like a mouse in a laboratory cage. "You will make your own choices. I cannot force you to be friends."

"Make it convenient then," Asuka shot back, the manic grin more defiant than sincere.

"Is that what you want?" Rei asked, her eyes piercing and unyielding. "You are willing to relive that life of pain? Of suffering?"

Asuka grinned, only partly bluffing. "It couldn't have been an easy life, if the first thing he wanted to do when he became God was kill everyone. But we were friends, right? Him, you, and me?" She looked over at the picture of Misato. "Her too, right?"

"We were not friends," Rei said, her words carrying no judgment or accusation. "But I would like it to be that way."

Asuka held her breath, staring at the goddess about to end the world. Or rather, end this dream and start a new one.

"Do it."

The orb floating between her hands began to glow. Asuka felt a warm, peaceful sensation flow over her, and she wanted to close her eyes and float in that feeling forever. The last thing she heard was Rei breathing out, "I love you."

And then, there was nothing.

When Shinji opened his eyes, he was standing at an abandoned train station. Movement down the street caught his eye, and he saw Rei standing in the distance before she vanished like a trick of the light.

In the distance, a car's engine could be heard, and beyond that, the sounds of cannon fire filled the air.

"Why?" He asked, staring at where Rei had been. "WHY?" he screamed, as a blue Alpine Renault tore into view.