From: Paul Corrigan <corrig11@pilot.msu.edu>

This is the closest to a fanfic about the events of September 11, 2001, that 
I will ever write. If what you want is a more factual account, I've already 
put my own "war journal" on the Studio Poutine website under the title 
"Second Impact."

Originally, I was going to add another self-contained section, recounting 
Ritsuko's Impact experience in more detail. It would have also explained how 
Ritsuko was "recruited" by GEHIRN. But the fact is, like I said in "Second 
Impact," it is impossible to desribe with certainty the thought patterns of
those capable of such acts. It may not even matter.

Misato, though, I think I understand a bit better now.

May those who have lived through Second Impact yet be spared the Third.

Comments welcome.

God bless America.

Paul Corrigan
corrig11@pilot.msu.edu

---
His Soul Is Marching On
---
A _Neon Genesis Evangelion_ (_Eva_) fanfic by Paul Corrigan
---
_Eva_ concept devised by Gainax
---

	The first real difference I had with Misato Katsuragi--not the petty 
squabbles that roommates have, though you may trust me that Misato's slovenly 
habits ensured we had plenty of those--was because, of all things, of Second 
Impact. It makes sense. Everything to do with Misato had something to do with 
Second Impact.

	The first conversation we had had to do with Second Impact. It was 
actually at the posting of the results of the entrance exams for Kyoto 
University. I was suitably pleased to have gotten in, but the girl with the 
long hair next to me, wearing slacks and a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture 
of Ebichu the Housekeeping Hamster, was literally jumping for joy.

	I recall her saying, "Mission accomplished!"

	"You sound pleased as punch," I said.

	She remembered herself, and stopped jumping, but she still was smiling. 
"Oh. Yeah. You can tell?"

	After the mutual introductions I naturally asked, "So what department 
do you plan to join?"

	"Poli-sci. What about you?"

	"Biology."

	"Ew." She pulled a face. "Not my thing at all. Why d'ya wanna do that?"

	I thought a moment. "Hm. Sort of expected really. My mother's a 
neurologist. You might say I'm sort of her assistant..."

	"Wow. You must be really smart, Ritsuko."

	I'm sure I blushed. "I like to think so. So, what do you want to do 
with your life?"

	She didn't hesitate or show any sign of indecision. "I want to work for 
GEHIRN. It's a..."

	That threw me for a loop. "You know what that is?"

	Misato blinked. "_You_ know what that is? Most folks don't."

	"My mother works for them..."

	"Wow. What a coincidence!" Misato beamed and took my hands in hers, 
unnerving me a little. Touching isn't something I do well. "GEHIRN brats! 
We're like sisters already!"

	"Then someone in your family works..."

	Misato's expression darkened. "Worked."

	"Oh. Who?"

	"My my father. He died."

	I remembered something through a haze. "Wait. Did your father work in 
Antarctica?"

	"Yep!" She was all smiles again. "Yep yep yep, you are looking at the 
sole survivor of GEHIRN's lab in Antarctica. Luckiest girl in creation, the 
tabloids said. I was their darling for weeks afterwards. The ones that kept 
printing anyway. Should have made them pay for the story. Mom didn't want to, 
though."

	"Yes." I remembered the news reports now. "Yes, I think I remember your 
name now. I suppose I'm in the presence of celebrity."

	"We will be taking autographs later, ladies and gentlemen! All righty 
then. What say we blow this pop stand and get some lunch?"

	I smiled. "All right. Do you wanna pay or shall I?"

	"You pay. I'm broke."

	What can I say? I couldn't help but like her--well--bubbliness at once. 
Who was it said that opposites attract? She seemed to be everything I wasn't, 
and plenty of things I wished I dared be: boundlessly energetic (even then 
she could drink like a fish and be completely in the pink the next morning); 
not the least bit self-conscious (or for that matter demure); hopelessly 
flighty--I shan't say "dim," because she did after all get into Kyoto U, though 
I occasionally wondered how, but she didn't care to be terribly deep, or for 
that matter to take things seriously at all. Compare that to myself, who, 
when Misato was cheerfully exploring her sexuality with Kaji for hours, 
sometimes days on end, was still busily researching and reading up on the 
latest in neurological advances and their applications to computer 
technology.

	(I was doing this, I should explain, to aid mother in her research; I 
was getting my degree mostly for appearance's sake, because by the time I got 
into Kyoto U I already had what amounted to a decent medical school 
education. One thing I will say for mother, she taught me everything she 
knew, and that was plenty. I was probably spending as little time on my 
actual coursework as Misato, if not less.)

	Of course, I did occasionally find her apparent inability to take much 
of anything too seriously a bit unnerving. The first hint I got of that was 
actually at lunch. Even the fact that she was the sole survivor of Second 
Impact she had told me in a manner one would normally reserve for an anecdote 
based on something funny that had happened to one on the way to the mall the 
previous day.

	"Misato," I asked, picking at my food.

	She looked up at me with a mouth full of noodles. "Wha?"

	"Pardon me for asking, but if you don't want to talk about it..."

	Misato swallowed. "About what? Second Impact? Nah. No big deal. Ask 
away if ya want."

	"I mean"--I was struggling for the right words--"it must have been 
terrible. I mean, a front row seat to Armageddon..."

	Misato continued to eat. "Yeah. Sucked ass. Wound up not being able to 
speak for two years."

	This the tabloids hadn't reported. "Two years?"

	Misato suddenly smiled again. "Yeah! Pretty freaky, huh? Mom says now I 
must be making up for lost time and I guess I am a bit of a blabbermouth, 
huh? Then again, she can talk with the best of 'em herself. Armageddon, huh. 
I knew a kid who'd been there once, before Impact. The Valley of Megiddo. 
It's in Israel, I guess. It's mostly cow pasture. Real pretty, she said. Up 
in the north, where it's all green. Not like the south, it's all desert. Real 
CNN, you know?" She pointed to my all but undisturbed food. "Say, you gonna 
eat all that?"

	I should have known better than to take all his bluster and diversion 
at face value, I suppose, but even if I hadn't, clearly it would have been a 
sign she didn't want to talk about it at all. Not with someone she'd just 
met. At any rate, her diversion tactics worked, because I didn't raise the 
issue again at lunch, or for that matter at any time at all over the next 
year.

	The day it did come up again it would have been unseasonably warm even 
before Impact, never mind after, and if one had no air conditioning because 
one was a poor student it was even more hellish. After a long day at the 
library I briefly considered spending the nightthere, just to get some cool 
air, but decided against it and headed home, where at least I'd be able to 
get out of the sun.

	Misato always turned her back to me when changing. That had struck me 
as shyness uncharacteristic for her--she was quite proud of her figure, and 
made sure I knew it in no uncertain terms--but I let it pass. When I came 
into the apartment without knocking at about 6 p.m. I found her in nothing 
but a white bra and panties, dozing on her futon (it was a studio, obviously, 
and a cramped one at that) trying to get what relief she could from the heat 
with aid of our fan.

	I saw for the first time the enormous scar of a gash that ran her right 
shoulder to near her navel. One would think someone had tried to eviscerate 
her, like a butcher would an animal in a slaughterhouse.

	I startled her by the noise of my coming in. "Whoa! Oh, Ritsuko, hi. 
Jeez, don't just leave the door open so every pervert in the complex can get 
off on me. Were you born in a barn or what?"

	"Sorry." I shout the door, but I didn't take my eyes off her for a 
second.

	"What?"

	"Um..."

	The she remembered herself. "Oh shit." She grabbed the closest T-shirt 
to hand and pulled it on. Then she looked back at me, a sour expression on 
her face. "You can stop staring, show's over."

	I shook myself. "Yes. I beg your pardon. I saw something I shouldn't 
have, didn't I?"

	She laughed harshly. "Gad, will ya listen to yerself? 'I beg your 
pardon, Miss Katsuragi! I saw something not appropriate for mixed company!' 
Jesus Christ...Ritsuko, you're something else, you know that?"

	I swallowed hard. "You got that scar in Second Impact, didn't you?"

	She looked at me, not as sarcastic but still on guard. "Who wants to 
know?"

	"It would explain why you wouldn't let me see it before."

	Then Misato looked away. "That obvious, huh?"

	"Look, I..."

	"Stop apologizing, okay? Probably you would've seen it eventually in 
any event. You've seen less of me than Kaji has, that's for sure."

	"Yes. I expect so."

	Misato looked back up at me. "You gonna come in or just stand there all 
day?"

	"Right." So I came closer, but I didn't sit yet. "Misato..."

	"Wha-at?" I was getting on her nerves.

	"Misato...you never told me why you had your heart set on working for 
GEHIRN, of all places. Is it because of your father?"

	She slumped down on the futon. "Jeez, I guess that's why they call you 
the genius around here. Isn't that your reason? 'Cause of your mom?"

	"Well...it's not quite the same...she..."

	"Goddammit, Ritsuko, are you gonna stop beating around the bush and ask 
me about Second Impact because I know you're just dying to ask, or am I going 
to beat it out of you?"

	I was actually glad, after a fashion, that he's relieved me of the duty 
of bringing it up, but still I couldn't help but ask: 

	"Are you sure you want to?"

	"I dunno. Do you?" Misato sat up again. "Actually, while we're at it, 
if this is your idea, you'd better be at least polite enough to go first, 
right? Where were you during Second Impact anyway?"

	"I missed it."

	That was my usual pat answer. Most people took it as a sign that I 
didn't care to talk about myself and took the hint, but Misato wouldn't have 
a bit of it. "Excuse me? How do you miss something like that?"

	So I finally sat down beside her on the futon and told her, "During the 
Second Impact I was safely tucked away in the GEHIRN headquarters in what 
they call the 'Geofront,' several kilometers below the earth in the area of 
Tokyo-3. That is, when it happened I was probably in the safest place on 
Earth a civilian could have hoped to be. I was given the gory details by a 
co-worker of my mother. Dr. Yui Ikari, may she rest in peace."

	"_That_ Yui Ikari? The one who died and it got in all the papers?"

	"Yes."

	"So..."

	"So what?"

	"Did her husband..."

	"No!" I spoke a bit too sharply. "No. He had nothing to do with it. The 
man was never the same after that. They were inseparable, you know. Poor 
fellow probably depended on her for everything."

	"Hm."

	"I do know," I went on, "that Dr. Ikari was a great person to have in a 
crisis. Mother...well...she wasn't quite sure how to tell me what had 
happened. Not so much with the facts--it's just that reassuring people wasn't 
something she did well. Empathy was never her strong point. Even as far as 
the facts went, she knew less than Dr. Ikari did about what had happened. 
She--mother I mean--heard the bad news herself where everyone else did. On 
CNN. Of course, times were hard for us after that as well, but I was very 
lucky, I know that." I paused. "Nothing else to tell, really."

	"Huh." Misato thought a moment. "Guess now it's my turn, huh?"

	"Well, I wasn't going to press you, but..."

	"No." I'd never seen her so serious. "No, Ritsuko, you can stop now. 
Really. It's all right." She reached over to the fridge and pulled out two 
beers, handing me one. "Here. This'll take a bit longer than you did."

	I looked at the can, rather astonished. "Your Guinness stash?"

	"'Guinness is good for you.' Is what Mom used to say."

	"I thought you said if I ever touched your Guinness you'd hunt me down 
like a dog and administer heaven's punishment?"

	"Just drink, okay?"

	I tried. Porter is an acquired taste. I wasn't sure I was quite in the 
mood for acquiring it, and in any case alcohol is not one's friend in searing 
heat, so I just took tiny sips. Misato, on the other hand, took a good swig, 
and leaned against the wall, clearly trying to decide where to begin.

	"My father," she settled on at last in the most serious narrative tone 
I'd ever heard her take, "was a bastard. Oh no, I know what you're thinking, 
Ritsuko, you're thinking your mother's a bitch. Maybe it's even true, I 
dunno. No way in hell was she as big a bitch as my father was a bastard, 
though."

	"Thanks, I think."

	"Oh, no, don't get me wrong," Misato went on, warming to her subject, 
"he didn't hit me or have his way with me or anything. He didn't do anything 
with me, at all. Me and Mom were lucky if he gave us the time of day, even 
when he was in Japan, which wasn't a lot of the time. He did most of his work 
down in Antarctica doing God knows what. He never talked about it much. Hell, 
he rarely stooped to saying much to us at all. Did your mom ever mention Dr. 
Katsuragi?"

	"Once or twice. I never heard anything bad about him from her. I 
actually met him once, in Japan. He seemed pleasant enough. But you'd know 
better than I would..." I never was much of a judge of character.

	"Yeah, figures. Folks who didn't know any better figured he was sweet 
and agreeable when the fact was he was just a gutless wonder who cared more 
about what his bosses at GEHIRN thought of him than about us. He gave Mom 
money and not much else. Don't get me wrong--before Second Impact we had a 
good bit of that, I always had enough clothes and food and things and never 
wanted for anything, but--Mom practically raised me alone. Not too well, 
either. Did I mention she drank?"

	"No. No, you didn't."

	"Yeah. They say lots of things cause it, but I still think he drove her 
to it." She looked at me then. "Yeah, I know. I worry about it myself 
sometimes. But Jesus, she could have at least done something, especially when 
I was bigger, instead of sitting home sobbing into her sake. I dunno.

	"Point is, I didn't have a lot of people to look up to. I remember in 
eighth grade, my first composition assignment for the school year was I had 
to write about what I wanted to do with my life. Pretty dumb, huh? Not much 
beyond 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' Probably a lot of other 
kids made stuff up. I mean, come on, we were getting to be teenagers. Kids'll 
be like, 'I wanna be a doctor!' 'I wanna be a fireman!' 'I wanna be a bride,' 
even. You're a teenager, you don't have a clue." 

	"What did you write?"

	"We were supposed to write a page, but I only wrote a few sentences. It 
went something like: 'I do not know what I want to do. My father works all 
the time and never comes home. I don't want to be like that. My mother sits 
at home and does nothing all day. I don't want to be like that either.'

	"Of course I knew I'd get in trouble, but being a dumb and impulsive 
teenager I handed it in anyway. I got a zero and a good yelling at by the 
teacher about not taking the assignment seriously, and I had to clean the 
classroom single-handedly. Oh yeah--the teacher insisted I get a note signed 
by my parents--that would be Mom--so when I got home and had to explain where 
the hell I'd been she found out all about it. Mind you at the time all she 
seemed to care about as far as I could tell was what a public spectacle I'd 
made out of her, which was crazy, because only the teacher actually read the 
damn thing.

	"So I told her, 'Good thing I didn't tell him about the sake.' Just for 
that I got sentenced to my room for a month.

	I must have been looking a bit too shocked, because she looked at me 
then. "What?"

	"I thought my home life was rough."

	"Yeah, well at least you actually _had_ a mom." She took a swig of her 
Guinness. "Sort of. What happened to your father anyway?"

	"I didn't tell you?"

	"No. At least I don't think so."

	"He died in a car accident when mother was expecting me. I don't know 
much else. Mother never talked about him much."

	"Hm."

	"But still--I've met your mother. It never occurred to me..."

	She waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, she's fine now." She took a swig. 
"Sometimes I think, 'now my father's dead.'"

	I thought about that. "That's pretty harsh."

	"It's supposed to be." Misato let that sink in then continued. "She 
gave it up about two years back. After we'd lost our house during the floods 
from Second Impact and the wars and the recession took care of whatever else 
we had left. Her cue to pull herself together, I guess. People hit bottom for 
the strangest reasons. Somehow GEHIRN decided to pay for my therapy. I dunno. 
I think they figured at the time if I unblocked they could learn something 
about Second Impact that I knew and they didn't, which was crazy. I was just 
a kid...

	"But, yeah, she's much better now. Still kinda annoying, but she's good 
people really. We get on okay. 'Course, we're not as close as we could be..."

	"Join the club." It was supposed to be sympathetic, but that's not 
something I do well either.

	"Yeah, really."

	"So...why did you tell me that just now?"

	"Because," said Misato after a lengthy swig, resuming her narrative, 
"the reason I was in Antarctica in the first place was that when Mom finally 
got her divorce from my father, she got alimony okay, but he got me. Guy 
lived in a world of his own. I guess he figured he didn't really need the 
money. Not like he ever bought anything. From what I could gather in 
Antarctica he only had the one shirt. He got me because he was able to 
convince the judge that because Mom drank she was an unfit parent. Hell, it 
might even have been true, but I didn't figure he'd be much better. When Mom 
asked for a divorce, actually the first I heard about it was he sent me the 
most pathetic e-mail I ever got in my life. He said, quote, 'Misato pet, your 
mother doesn't want me any more. You'll come live with me, won't you? I love 
you more than anything.' And I just laughed my ass off. Thought he got what 
he deserved. And even looking past that--Antarctica? I was like, 'Is he out 
of his mind?'

	"'Course, then the joke was on me, because he wound up winning the 
custody battle and before I could say ''fridge freezer' I was winging my way 
to the South Pole in the middle of the Antarctic winter. Because it was 
summer in Japan when I left. Good thing he wasn't around to hear me laugh."

	"What was it like in Antarctica?"

	Misato pulled a face. "What d'ya think it was like in Antarctica? It 
sucked ass. I couldn't go out because it was cold, and dark 24/7 the whole 
time I was there--I was only there for one winter--and I had nobody my own 
age to talk to. At least in Japan I'd had friends, sort of, that I could go 
to the stores or a movie with. God, I didn't even have any damn penguins to 
keep me company. They all were on the coast and I was in the damned interior 
surrounded by hundreds of miles of snow and ice and rocks. Far as I was 
concerned it was like hell." Suddenly she started to crack up. "It was like 
living in a quiet village in hell!" she said, trying not to laugh too loud.

	Once she'd sobered up, Misato went on: 

	"Because it was a small settlement, with living quarters for people who 
worked in the labs there. A few hundred people'd be there at a time, spending 
a few months doing research on this and that and then going home. Of course, 
now I was with him in Antarctica my father had no reason to go home at all, 
so I couldn't go home. And to cap it all he still hadn't any time to spare 
from his precious research to look after his precious daughter that he loved 
more than anything. Neither did anyone else. The other people there pretty 
much told me that. Some were nicer about it than others. I mean, they were 
polite to me, but that's all. Not like they got all their research grants and 
shit so they could baby-sit Katsuragi's kid. Fact is, I was just in the way."

	"So how did you spend your time?"

	"To keep from going nuts? That was a tough job, let me tell you. The 
time I wasn't taking junior high school courses on line I'd spend hanging 
around in me and My father's living quarters, playing video games, surfing 
the 'Net, listening to the same six CDs over and over again, hanging around 
people's labs 'til they told me to beat it...anything. The first drink I ever 
had was because I was so bored I figured I'd try breaking into My father's 
liquor cabinet and try some stuff out. 'Cause he was never in our living 
quarters, and he didn't drink much anyway, so it wasn't like he'd notice, 
never mind care. Ever try mixing green creme de menthe with Seven-Up?"

	"No."

	"Don't. Tastes like shit."

	"I'll take your word for it."

	"So." Misato cleared her throat. "September 13, 2000, at 0830 Zulu or 
thereabouts, the Mac I did my assignments on decided it didn't feel like 
working right, and of course I didn't have a clue how to fix it, so I spent 
the next hour or so wandering all over, trying to find someone who (a) might 
know what was wrong and (b) would condescend to having a look at it. Trust 
me, that was an uphill struggle.

	"So about 0930 I was begging Dr. Garcia--she was one of the younger 
researchers down there--to come over and look, and she was saying, 'I'd love 
to, but I'm really busy right now, Misato' which really meant 'Go to hell, I 
have real work to do,' when an alarm went off over at the lab where Dad 
worked. You could hear it throughout the complex, and then, people yelling, 
shouting, screaming. I looked at Dr. Garcia as if she knew what the hell was 
going on, but then there was a terrific explosion. 

	"I blacked out."

	"When I came to," Misato continued, "I could feel I was in someone's 
arms, and that someone had picked me up and was putting me down into placing 
me in--hell, for a moment I thought it was a coffin. I guess it was some sort 
of escape capsule, I don't know exactly. I felt what I thought was a drop of 
warm water fall on my face. Then I looked up and I saw it was a drop of my 
father's blood."

	"Oh my..." I'd heard and seen many such stories, but even so I found
myself covering my mouth in shock.

	"It had to be, because he was obviously the one who'd put me in the 
capsule. All I could see was him, because he was blocking my view of what was 
going on. I dunno--maybe somehow he thought he could shield me from whatever 
it was that way by not letting me see it. I could smell smoke, but that was 
the only clue I had. 

	"So I looked and I looked well, and I looked at his face and I looked 
at his arms as they placed me in the capsule. He," said Misato, her voice 
trembling a bit here, "had had most of his skin burned off his face in the 
explosion. There was some hanging off him, like in those pictures of victims 
of firebombings during the wars after Impact. Skin, hell. I'm sure I saw bone 
sticking out from his arms. He'd had flesh ripped off. He was a mass of 
blood. Probably if he'd been able to get to a hospital in time he mightn't 
have made it, he looked so bad. Not quite a dead man walking, I guess. He 
lived long enough to get me somewhere he figured I'd have a chance of making 
it. But he literally looked like he'd been cast into hell and roasted over 
the coals a few times.

	"And I looked at him, and I said, 'Daddy?'

	"He didn't answer. He did something with the capsule, I guess, and the 
lid of it shut. And then there was a dull roar and I passed out again. And 
that was the last I ever saw of him."

	She stopped, trying desperately to fight back tears, though I was 
perfectly prepared to let her cry.

	"Misato...it's all right...you don't..."

	Suddenly she scowled at me. "I'm not finished yet!" she yelled, loud 
enough to actually make me jump a little where I sat. Then, she resumed:

	"I'm sorry. There's more."

	"What do you mean?"

	She looked at me suspiciously. "You've done work for GEHIRN already and 
you don't know?"

	"Know what?"

	"Don't play games with me, Ritsuko!" Misato suddenly snapped. "Listen. 
I'm only telling you this at all because I figured you'd be more likely to 
understand. Because I figured you'd believe it, because you'd know more than 
the average Joe who'd think I'd pulled it all out of the Book of Revelations 
or something. Guess not...Jesus..."

	"Well...having security clearance means they trust you to know things 
that aren't for public consumption. I can't volunteer anything. And there's 
plenty mother can't tell me."

	She backed down a bit. "Fine. Whatever." She took a swig.

	"If you're worried I'm going to deny what you saw with your own eyes, 
though," I went on, "I don't plan on doing that. The problem is I'm afraid 
I'd tell you something you don't know, because I don't know what you did see. 
Not yet."

	"Okay. Guess that's my cue to tell you, ain't it?" 

	"I get the impression you haven't told many people about this, then."

	"Not the details, no. It's a pretty tall story, much of it."

	"I mean--I can see this is pretty rough on you. If you don't--"

	"Cut it out!" Misato took another swig, then moderated her tone. 
"Listen. I am _not_ going to cry. I am not going to stop talking about this. 
I tried stopping talking for two years, I tried cowering in fear for two 
years. It didn't do me any good. No more." 

---
The woman saw all, then she saw nothing.
---

	Misato took a even longer swig, perhaps to steel herself, then went on:

	"I don't know how long I was in that capsule before I tried looking 
outside. Anything from a few minutes to several hours. I lost track of time 
real fast. Anyway, for however long it was I was in there in pitch darkness 
drifting in and out of consciousness, with a dull pain in my chest. The wound 
that left the scar. It actually wasn't that deep, but that didn't mean I 
didn't lose a good bit of blood. It really was a miracle I survived, they 
said. They didn't find me for four days. Long time to go without food and 
water _and_ be losing blood. Only reason they did find me was there was a 
radio homing signal built into the thing, and the recovery mission just 
happened to come down from the direction I was floating in, and there I was, 
drifting in the Southern Ocean. Made it all worthwhile, they said later. They 
didn't count on finding much to recover, never mind any actual people to 
rescue.

	"But anyway." She took a swig. "I guess you might have read some of 
that in the paper, right?"

	"I might," I said.

	"So, one time, when I was conscious, I guess I got a little 
claustrophobic, because I thought I had to open the door. So I did. It was 
all I could do to sit up.

	"I was adrift, out on the ocean. I'd no idea how I'd gotten there. No 
telling how far the explosion blew me. I still don't know how far from the 
pole I was. Didn't occur to me then that half of Antarctica had disappeared 
and the other was about to be swamped by melting ice. I looked at the ocean. 
Where I was the water was still clear, but the red tide was creeping up fast. 
You've probably seen the red tides on TV since, but I was probably the first 
to see them for myself. Really I was only able to see them at all because of 
a dull glow on the horizon, so it was way brighter than it really should have 
been. But it wasn't quite as bright as day, really, so it looked darker than 
it actually was and it was like a big slick of blood right on the ocean.

	"God, I was freezing. It was then I touched my chest where the pain 
was, and looked at my hand, and say it had come away with blood on it, and 
I'm like, 'Okay, this is interesting.' Still real calm. Because even then I 
still wasn't sure just what had happened. Or maybe just because I'd lost 
enough blood that I hadn't the energy to panic any more, I don't know.

	"So I looked towards the horizon, to see where the light was coming 
from. That's when I saw..."

	"Saw what?"

	Misato took a deep breath. "I saw in the distance a huge cloud of ash 
and soot and God knows what else, that filled the horizon. The red glow was 
surrounding it. It was like a huge island that was all on fire. 

	"And then I heard a scream, like the cry of an enormous bird or 
something, and out of the cloud I saw some _thing_ emerge from it. Some 
enormous thing with huge wings without feathers, like a bat. Actually, I 
couldn't see its body--the wings were all I could really see. The body was 
still hidden in the cloud. Thing was I could only really see the wings 
because the edges of its wings glowed white, like a neon lamp. I don't know 
what it looked like. It looked literally like a bat out of hell, or a demon, 
or--"

	"An angel?"

	My interruption apparently aroused Misato's curiosity. "A what?"

	"That's what Kyoko Zeppelin called it. SHe was a colleague of mother's. 
Actually she called it 'Engel,' in German. Yui Ikari called it a _shito_, as in 
an apostle of Jesus of Nazareth, so that's its name in Japanese. 'Angel,'
though, 
stuck pretty much everywhere else. Everywhere else they study this sort of
thing, 
I mean."

	Misato thought about that. "Freakiest looking angel I ever saw."

	"What it looked like wasn't really the idea. The idea was that it was a 
messenger of God..."

	At that Misato laughed out loud. It wasn't a pleasant laugh either. "A 
messenger of God? What the hell was God supposed to be saying by blowing 
Antarctica off the map and drowning half the species, huh? 'Fuck you, foolish 
mortals?' Your mom knows some pretty whacked-out people, you know that?"

	"I suppose the notion was angels and apostles of God tended to be 
communicating God's wrath. 'Then the second angel blew his trumpet, and 
something like a great mountain of burning fire was thrown into the sea. A 
third of the sea became blood, and a third of the creatures living in the sea 
died, and a third of the ships were completely destroyed.' Religious types 
had a field day with stuff like that for a while. Or don't you remember? The 
author of the Book of Revelations was supposed to be an apostle, I think..."

	"Look, cut the theological shit, okay? Who's telling this, you or me?"

	"I'm _saying_ I believe you, what you saw was real, and that no, you're 
not crazy, and you didn't dream the whole thing. All right?"

	At that Misato backed down. "All right." She stared into her can. "God, 
I wish I had."

	"Of course, I never saw it up close."

	"You're the lucky one, trust me."

	"You must have been terrified..."

	"That's the weird thing. Actually I wasn't. Not then. Like I said, I 
mightn't have had the energy to panic just about then. It still hadn't quite 
sunk in, I guess, that I was in any immediate danger. It wasn't panic or fear 
so much as awe. It took my breath away looking at it."

	I thought about that. "Must have been quite a show."

	"No kidding. Show of a lifetime and I had a front-row seat.

	"I guess you'd expect that to be the last thing I remembered, but it 
actually wasn't."

	"What was that?"

	"Anyway, I saw the angel, or whatever you wanna call it--it was huge. 
For all I know the wings were kilometers high and wide. So I looked up, and I 
couldn't see the aurora australis. The Southern Lights, you know?"

	"Right."

	"Because I guess the sky was full of ash and smoke and soot and stuff. 
So the only light was from the angel. But that day there had been a decent 
display of the lights." For a few moments Misato smiled and stared off into 
space, apparently taking refuge in a genuinely pleasant memory. "I used to 
watch them for hours on end, you know. Real pretty. Kind of reassuring in a 
way. It was real nice."

	Then her face fell, and she added:

	"So when I looked up and they weren't there I guess I got my first clue 
that something really was wrong.

	"And then I didn't see anything at all."

	"Meaning?"

	"I blacked out again and I stayed blacked out. That's all I can 
remember.

	"I didn't come to for two weeks after they picked me up, they say, so I 
had to have been out for at least then, maybe a few days more. It was in a 
hospital room, in Japan--I could tell that much because there was someone 
sounding off in Japanese, outside. I was all alone, which was weird looking 
back, because by then the human casualties in Japan were in the millions. 
What made me so special? But at the time I didn't know that, so I'm in bed, 
wondering how I'd wound up in a hospital bed in Japan with an IV in my arm--I 
could feel it in my arm without looking--and then why I was still alive.

	"I could hear someone crying. My mother crying. I looked to my right 
and there she was, sniffling. She smelt like liquor something awful.

	"I looked at her and what I said to her was, 'Mommy? Where's Daddy?'

	"And she screamed at me, 'Where do you think he is, you stupid girl? 
The bastard's in hell where he belongs!' And then she really broke down.

	"I tried to answer, but then I realized I couldn't make myself say 
anything in response. It took them two years to get me to unblock. 

	"Because it was then I made the connection. Between my father and the 
angel, or whatever the hell you want to call it. That it had killed my 
father. You know I still have nightmares sometimes? About that thing dragging 
my father and me into hell? Because of what Mom said. I mean, she was crying 
about him being dead--_and_ drunk--so I know now she can't have meant it--
but...it was then I really became terrified. And I stayed terrified, for two 
years."

	"So...how..."

	"How'd I unblock?"

	"Yes."

	"Wasn't anything the shrinks did, that's for sure. Trying to get me to 
open up, when the whole problem was I couldn't do that no matter how much I 
tried. Quacks, every last one of them. Even at GEHIRN, if you can believe 
that. If they wanted to help they could have put me up in better digs than 
they did. What I had wasn't much better than a padded cell."

	"So what snapped you out of it then?"

	Misato took a swig. "There were two guys standing at the door of my 
padded cell one day, from GEHIRN. I don't remember who they were. They were 
talking about me, and who my father was, and how sorry they were about the 
whole deal. And one of them said, 'You're continuing Katsuragi's research, 
right?

	"And the other guy goes, 'Yes.'

	"And the first guy goes, 'Big shoes to fill.'

	"And the second guy goes, 'They're shoes worth filling. He did 
everything his faculties allowed to prevent Second Impact. We owe it to him 
to make sure nothing like Second Impact never happens again.'

	"Now here's the thing. Nobody, and I mean nobody, had ever told me 
what, if anything, GEHIRN and my father actually did. So I said, 'I want to 
help.'

	"And they looked at me, like they couldn't believe I'd even heard what 
they said. I didn't say stuff, but I could hear stuff. So I said again, 'I 
want to help.' Because I thought if I helped stop another Second Impact, I 
wouldn't have to be afraid any more. 'Course, I didn't know what that would 
involve, but I knew I did want to help.

	"And that's why I want to work for GEHIRN. To stop whatever it was that 
happened from happening again. To stop anything like that _thing_ from ever 
harming anyone ever again. This is bigger than my father now. Call me crazy, 
but I've made it my mission in life to find out just what the angels are, and 
destroy them, once and for all..."

	"So what will happen to your life when you've done that?"

	Misato looked at me, thunderstruck.

	"What's _THAT_ supposed to mean?"

	"May I ask you a hypothetical question?"

	"I want _you_ to answer mine."

	"I'm trying." I sipped my Guinness as calmly as I could. I could tell 
she didn't like the sound of what I was saying, but I didn't quite grasp yet 
what I was walking into. "I don't quite know what the angels are or where 
they came from, either, but..."

	"'But' _what_?"

	"Let me ask you this. Fighting 'things' is one thing. What if you found 
out they'd had help from human beings?"

	"Human beings?" For a moment Misato looked thunderstruck, as if this 
had never occurred to her before.

	Then she began to laugh, a sickening, depraved laugh. There was a leer 
on her face I'd never seen her wear before. 

	"You gotta ask?" she said.

	She looked me in the eye. My heart skipped a beat. 

	"You really gotta ask, Ritsuko, ol' pal? I'd hunt them down and I'd 
personally tear their guts out with my bare hands and I'd strangle them with 
their own guts. If I was feeling nice that day. That's what I'd do. Why?"

	"Even if you knew one of them was your own father?"

	That did it.

	Misato dropped her beer and lunged at me, pinning me to the ground and 
grabbing my throat, literally about ready to strangle me. I dropped my own 
beer; I could hear it gurgling out onto the floor over my pounding heart.

	"What the hell do you know about my father's work that I don't? Is that 
classified too?"

	"Let me go," I croaked.

	"TALK!"

	"Nothing! Nothing at all!" I thank God I was able to say that and have 
at least that be the truth. I've lied to her far too often since.

	I think Misato sensed it was the truth, because she let go of my throat.
But she kept me pinned down

	"Misato," I started, "all I meant was..."

	"What? That half the human race is wiped out and I'm not supposed to do 
anything about it? I'm supposed to cower in a corner like I did for two 
fucking years of my life? All right, Ritsuko, you listen and you listen good, 
that sick joke of an angel killed my father and I couldn't do a damn thing 
about it, and so help me I'm going to _do_ something about it, and if you're 
too squeamish to handle that, tough fucking shit, all right?"

	"So what? This is all about avenging your father?"

	"No shit, Sherlock! That and a million other things like staying alive! 
Of course you didn't have to worry about staying alive because you were safe 
in you goddamn bunker with your mom and all her pals and got to watch the 
whole thing on TV while some of us literally got cast into _hell_! If you're 
not going to help, then at least stay out of my way, because if you think you 
can talk me out of this you've got another thing coming!"

	"Dammit, Misato, for all I know we'll be colleagues. What makes you 
think I'm trying to?"

	"What the hell are you trying to do, then?"

	"I'm _trying_," I said, "to tell you to control yourself!"

	"I want revenge! Who the hell wouldn't?"

	"Enough to strangle your own roommate?"

	"What, you want the truth? If I thought it'd help, I'd do it in a 
heartbeat!"

	"Misato," I said, as calmly as I could (which wasn't saying much), 
"I think this is about your father in more ways than one..."

	"This is about more than my father, dammit!"

	"Yes. It's about your mother as well. You never liked your father. 
You're absolutely thrilled he died and gave you an excuse to seek revenge. 
Because in the end that was the only thing that you could find that gave you 
a purpose in life you so desperately sought, wasn't it? What does that say 
about you?"

	That was the first time Misato ever slapped me. It wasn't the last, 
either. 

	"I don't care what it says about me!"

	She got up and grabbed her coat and purse.

	"Let's do this. Let's us two pretend that we were ever friends and that 
I ever tried to talk to you about anything important, because we'll obviously 
never work this out and the last thing I need is the likes of Miss 
Intellectual telling me how I feel."

She opened the door, but before leaving she turned back and said:

	"Matter of fact, don't ever speak to me again!"

	And with that she slammed the door behind her.

	There was nothing I could do. I just let her go, staring frozen for a 
few moments at the door, letting the Guinness finish spilling out of the can.

---

	The next I heard of her was when I got a phone call at about 10 p.m. I 
picked up.

	"Hello?"

	"Ritsuko, is that you?"

	I tried not to sound too worried. "Oh, Kaji, hi. I'm glad you called. 
Say, have you seen..."

	"Misato has been here for the last several hours, drinking my beer and 
crying her eyes out. The only coherent statement I've been able to get out of 
her is quote, 'Ritsuko you bitch,' unquote. What the hell did you do to her?"

	I was silent a moment. "Is she there? Let me talk to her..."

	"She's dozed off. Just as well. Something tells me she's not in the 
mood to talk anyway. I, on the other hand, am. Talk."

	So I told him what had happened, leaving out the bit about how what 
Misato had seen was called an Angel, but leaving in most of everything else. 
I wasn't sure how much Kaji knew.

	When I was quite done, I added, "Go on, say it. That was cold even for 
me."

	Kaji paused a moment. "Empathy really never was your strong point, was 
it, Ritchan?"

	"I'm afraid it doesn't exactly run in the family," I shot back. "And 
don't call me Ritchan."

	"As you please, Ritchan."

	"Oh, stop it, Kaji. You're not helping."

	"Neither are you."

	"Goddamn it, what the hell was I supposed to say, I'd like to know?"

	"I had a job answering that question myself."

	"Then you knew? When did...oh..." I stopped myself.

	"Don't you think that's a rather personal question, my dear?" He paused 
a moment. "Let's just say it came up. You've probably noticed those scars are 
hard to miss."

	"Yes. I expect so. So. What did you tell her, then?"

	"Not that she was mad for wanting revenge, that's for sure."

	"Oh for God's sake, answer the question."

	"I told her that I wouldn't let her do it alone."

	I thought about that a moment. "I see...actually no, I'm not sure I do. 
What did you mean?"

	"Well...it sounds like GEHIRN might be an interesting place to work."

	"What?" I was incredulous. "Why?"

	"Why not? I had no other strong preferences as for what I wanted to do 
when I grew up. And if I get to be around such beauties as yourselves, that's 
reason enough, wouldn't you agree?"

	"Trust you, Kaji. Trust you."

	"You know, Ritsuko?"

	"Yes?"

	"I meant every word I said. You had a point, Ritsuko, I'll give you 
that. She's crazy if she thinks she can do this alone. And you know what? 
I don't plan on letting her do it alone."

	He was silent a moment, letting that sink in I suppose, before going 
on:

	"You know, Ritsuko, she really hasn't told a lot of people about this. 
But then again, there's not a lot of people on this hellhole of an earth she 
trusts enough to tell them."

	"No. No, I suppose not."

	"I'm saying, Ritsuko, you were actually rather privileged to be 
divulged that information. That, and you blew it. Horribly."

	"Yes." I cleared my throat. "Tell her I'm sorry."

	"I will, when she wakes up. For what it's worth."

	"Look...I just...do you think she'll be coming home?"

	"How I wish I knew myself, Ritsuko."

	"Should I bring her stuff over?"

	"No, no, no...just give her a few days to cool off. Get her head 
together." He actually chuckled then. "Not like I really have the resources 
to keep her in the manner to which she is accustomed. Or the room."

	Then I found myself laughing too. "Oh, I don't know about that, Kaji, 
you've seen our place. It wouldn't be that difficult."

	"Yes. Yes, I have. All right, strike that last remark from the record 
then!"

	And we both laughed, but I should add we didn't laugh all that loud, 
either of us. When we were done I had to add:

	"She was right, you know."

	"About what?"

	"I really don't understand. I don't think I ever will."

	"Neither do I."

---

	I shared no classes with Misato, and I didn't have a good grasp of her 
class schedule, so I had little information to go on even if I'd wanted to 
track her down. As it was I was sure I'd never see her again.

	That made it even more surprising that Misato came home completely 
unannounced on the evening of the fourth day. I had just come home and was 
lying on my futon, which I was now using to cover up the beer stain, and 
feeling sorry for myself when she came in the door as if nothing had 
happened. She was still wearing the clothes she'd left the apartment in. She 
must have been freezing; it had cooled down a good deal since she'd left.

	I rose to meet her as she was putting her purse away.

	"Misato...you're back..."

	"No shit I came back," she said, pulling a face. "My name's still on 
the rental agreement and no way in hell am I letting you have this place all 
to yourself, even if it is a shithole. That, and these clothes reek. Move. I 
wanna change."

	"Yes...the manager wants to see you about the floor..."

	"What about the floor?"

	"I'm afraid you made me spill my Guinness. It leaked through the mats 
all the way to the room below us. Needless to say she was furious..."

	I should stress I said all that in a completely non-accusatory tone. 
Misato looked at me, looking genuinely worried. "Uh oh." She looked around. 
"Where's the stain?"

	"Under my futon."

	"Oh."

	"Look...I'm sorry about the other day..."

	"Why?" she asked, having her hand at me while she dug through a pile of 
clothes for something clean. Laundry was never one of her strong points. "You 
weren't the one throwing a tantrum and being an all-around bitch, were you? 
Damn. Got a clean top?"

	"Yes. Yes, of course." 

	It was only very rarely that I lent her any clothes at all. Take that, 
if you will, as a sign of how relieved I was to see her. What Misato made of 
it I do not know. I do know that armed with my blouse she changed her top, 
not bothering to hide her scars.

	In the spring of our senior years Misato, Kaji and I got notice of our 
appointments to GEHIRN on the same day.

TSUZUKU
TO BE CONTINUED
in art as in life