It wasn't the first time someone had walked in on her in the midst of an embarrassing situation.
That being said, she was going to need a long time and a lot of therapy to completely suppress the look on her friend's faces as her mouth remained melded to Shinji's lips, her eyes wide with abstract horror.
Misato had also decided to be a responsible guardian for a change and join the party.
Where her expression should have been shock and disappointment, Asuka could see glee on the so-called 'adults' face.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Asuka wondered how long it would take before the entire laboratory staff knew about the latest gossip.
Somehow, she was able to kick her brain into first gear and peel her lips away from her love-interest's delicious lips, with the tiniest notion of reluctance. Opening her now unoccupied mouth, she tried to synchronize with her brain any of the excuses that were trying to tumble their way into the airwaves.
"I can explain-"
"Class Rep, I would like you to uhh, pardon my french as it were for... but a moment." Toji Suzihara cleared his throat before ceremoniously yelling.
"I FUCKING CALLED IT!"
"It's not like we all didn't kinda already know it was happening but it's still odd to see it... Live-action..." Kensuke Aida was grinning ear-to-ear. Asuka was surprised he hadn't yet whipped out his camera and started playing the part of the paparazzi.
"It's not-"
"It's totally what it looks like Asuka. There's no alibi in the world that can explain that away." Hikari looked so smug. Asuka loved her as a best friend but sometimes she was a bit too much of a middle-school girl.
"You wanna help me out here Shinji?" Asuka turned back to face him but quickly realized his slacked jaw and dazed eyes meant his brain was still in the process of rebooting. He was going to be out of commission for a while longer.
"Oh for god's sake..."
"Don't blame him, you've gone and fried his circuits." The so-called guardian had found her words. "Maybe we should leave you two in peace, eh?"
With that, she shepherded the gaggle of overexcited students out into the hallway, leaving Asuka slumped forward on her bed, defeated.
Today was going to be a long day.
---
After several hours of tests and general fussing about by various no-name doctors and nurses, Asuka was allowed her freedom.
Hand in hand with Shinji, fingers intertwined, no longer caring about appearances after the 'demonstration' from earlier, Asuka was walking cheerfully towards the apartment. The rest of the tenants were in tow, including both of the Rei's. Usually one of the Rei's stayed at the Artificial Research Laboratory but Asuka had noticed that the two somewhat-twins were attached at the hip these days.
"Maybe she found comfort in her own company?" Asuka thought to herself.
There were a few notable absences from the usual motley crew. Mana hadn't been seen for a while. Usually, Asuka was battling to keep the thieving cat from molesting Shinji, so the peace and quiet was nice. But something felt off about her now lack of presence.
Alongside Mana, Crimson was also nowhere to be seen. This was also a peaceful relief, but it was causing Asuka to think that maybe the two were colluding. She'd have to keep an even closer eye on Shinji over the next few days, lest a kidnapping happened right under her nose.
---
Crimson was, in fact, not consulting with her roommate. Breathing heavily, she was slumped over the controls of her previously imagined EVA.
"Do you maybe wanna run by me one more time why you're doing this?" Misato had found herself back in the VR control room, grimacing at the state Crimson had got herself into. Her voice sounded extra static-y over the comms.
"Ugh... I don't remember it being this hard..." Crimson was muttering to herself.
Granted, it had technically been a while since she sat in the cockpit of an EVA. Her last battle was helped by a generous dose of adrenaline and her lack of focus may have something to do with the bracelet's power, but she was really struggling to get the EVA to heed her.
"Is it because there's no soul inside?" She began pondering as she ignored Misato rolling her eyes on the visual feed.
Fed up with being ignored by the teenager, Misato turned to her other companion who wasn't virtual and was at least willing to hear her out.
"She's probably got a million thoughts to process. Especially if what Mana said was true." Inspector Kaji had graced her with his presence.
His eyes were looking at the monitor that was keeping an eye on Crimson, but Misato knew that he wasn't really looking at her. They both had the latest bombshell running through their mind.
Not long after leaving Asuka and Shinji alone in their hospital love nest, Misato had a call from the lab, direct from Yui.
"I'm gonna need you to come in and talk to Mana. It's urgent."
With the pit of her stomach knotting into a spider's web, Misato had floored it to the lab after dropping Asuka and the others home. Yui and both Mana and Crimson of all people had been waiting for her, all looking grim.
"Mana has been contacted by SEELE directly." It only took a few words from Yui to send the spider's web into a dark void.
Having joined Gendo and Kyoko in the command centre of the lab, a discussion was held about what it was exactly SEELE had told Mana.
"They told me... Or rather, demanded, that I gather as much physical data on the bracelets as possible." Shifting her eyes, Mana looked beyond anxious.
"They told me that if I don't follow orders, they'll do things the hard way."
"What does that mean? Do they have access to weapons or something?" Kaji had asked.
Nodding her head, Mana continued.
"I'm surprised they haven't used a more violent method yet-"
"Did you forget you basically blew up the school on your first day here?" Misato pointed out.
"True. But this time, what if instead of sending in a single spy, they could send in an army..."
"What!?"
"Like the JSSDF?" Yui looked mortified. "How would they even get permission?"
"They almost definitely have spies in the government, I can tell you that much..." Kaji muttered, looking unnerved for the first time that Misato had ever seen.
"If they could, why haven't done so already?" It was Gendo's turn, his gravelly tones also laced with concern.
"The lab is too well known by the public. An attack is going to be difficult to plan without it making anyone lose face..." Yui was biting her thumbnail, frustrated. They had zero defence against the actual military. Their only choice would have to be surrender.
Which wasn't much of a choice at all. Giving their technology over to SEELE would be handing the human race over on a silver platter.
"I can't believe this is happening again." It was Crimson's turn to mutter under her breath. "Doesn't seem to matter what timeline, SEELE still know how to be a pain in the ass."
After talking very briefly with her 'mother', both Crimson and Kyoko had left the command centre, with no elaboration on their plans. It wasn't till much later that Misato found herself overseeing Crimson training in her EVA.
"Where's Mana?" Crimson had finally acknowledged Misato's existence over the comms.
"Mana?" Misato's only response was confusion, until she heard a loud explosion coming from the monitor.
"Oh, there she is!" Crimson sounded cheerful as Misato could only watch dumbfounded as yet another EVA wondered into view on the monitor watching the virtual world.
"I can't believe I get to pilot an EVA!!!" Mana sounded far too excited to be behind the wheel of a potentially world-ending weapon of mass destruction. "Gosh, I can remember when these things were only sketches and toy models I showed to Shinji god knows how long ago..."
Mana's Evangelion was an outrageous pink colour, highlighting in Misato's mind how absurd these walking atrocities were. Surprisingly, Mana appeared to be able to control her Eva with ease, despite this apparently being the first time she'd ever stepped foot into one. She was running around, leaping and overall, putting on the strangest acrobatic show in living history. None of this proved amusing to the now seething Crimson, who proceeded to chase after her, albeit a bit wonkily.
"Tell me your secrets woman!"
"I thought you were supposed to be the one who knew how to control these things? Guess only the original author knows best huh?"
Mana's taunting was only inflaming Crimson's bruised ego, causing the next twenty minutes to devolve into the most lethal game of tag Misato had ever seen. Eventually she decided she would need to put her foot down and try to retain some semblance of order if they were going to get anything done today.
What sounded like a foghorn blared into the virtual environment. Both Evangelions stopped at the sudden noise and turned around, making Misato think of confused dogs. Her hand lifted off a big red button labelled 'horn'. It was a new dream of hers to have a button like this for any other occasion she could think of. Suddenly realizing she could just buy an air horn if she wanted to be randomly annoying, she turned her attention back to the two patiently waiting Evangelions.
"Now... Can one of you explain to me what exactly it is that needs to be achieved with this so-called 'training' session?"
"Essentially..." Mana's voice crackled through the comms. "We need to 'retrain' Crimson's way of handling an Evangelion."
"Retrain? Why? She seemed fine using it yesterday?"
"I was fine. I don't understand why I'm suddenly unable to do half of what I used to be able to do with an Eva..."
Between the three of them, and some disturbing contextual explanations from Crimson about how the Eva's in her world essentially functioned with souls via human sacrifice, versus the ones in this world that seemed to run on bracelet-mana and the power of the imagination, as Mana fumbled her way around explaining, the girls were no closer to figuring out what had Crimson suffering a sudden mental block.
"…a mental block…" Misato murmured to herself. "I wonder…" After some deliberation, she activated the comms once again.
"Crimson, what is it exactly you want to do with the EVA?"
"Uhhhh… Destroy SEELE?"
"Yes, that's great and all, but how exactly? SEELE, from what I'm understanding, is a clandestine organization on-par with the Illuminati. It operates like a phantom, puppeteering the government in the background. In other words, it's a shapeless, formless entity. How do you destroy something that's essentially a phantom?" After a lengthy period of silence to allow her charges some time to think, Misato spoke again.
"I believe you're struggling with your EVA today, because you're suffering from a mental block. Yesterday you were fine because you had a target, whatever that angel thing was. Your bracelet was able to co-operate with you because you had a tangible objective. But today, there is no physical, immediate target to focus on.
It's sort of like writer's block. You have a beginning, and you sort of have a vague, hazy idea of what you want the ending to be, but filling out the middle can be the most challenging part when there's no obvious objectives to complete.
The EVAs in your world, as you described, were controlled via something like willpower, utilizing the souls of loved ones as a catalyst by the sounds of it. But in this world, you need to give the bracelet a target to work with, otherwise it's not gonna work properly."
After another lengthy silence while Crimson processed everything, a sneaky smile flashed on her face.
"Hey Mana!"
"What's up?"
Crimson's bracelet suddenly glowed, flashing through various phases of red and orange as if it were imitating a pool of lava. A giant assault rifle was summoned into the air, caught deftly by the scarlet Evangelion. Moving into position, Crimson had the sights of her weapon trained directly on Mana's bubblegum monstrosity.
"You up for some target practice?"
The next ten minutes definitively proved that not only had Crimson understood the assignment, but she was also having great fun with it as she effortlessly chased after a terrified Mana, bullets ricocheting everywhere. Misato huffed with a smile, proud of her brain.
"Your ability to pull incredible results out of your ass at times like this never fails to amaze me!" Kaji was laughing whilst the sounds of Mana screeching for help echoed over the intercoms.
"It's what I do." Misato winked at him in response, pushing her posterior out at the same time for emphasis.