Chapter 10: The Lost Clumsy Girl
Misato's grand declaration about "humanity's final fortress" had a shelf life of approximately...
...thirty seconds, from when the conveyor belt came to a stop until they stepped out of the vehicle.
The moment they found themselves inside the dizzyingly vast underground city of NERV Headquarters, the pride on Misato's face was instantly replaced by a familiar look of bewilderment.
"Um... the command center... should be this way, right?"
Clutching a complex paper map with a furrowed brow, Misato stood before a massive junction with six different passages, completely stumped by the choice.
Shinji followed silently behind, watching the NERV Operations Section 1 Director, who had been so confident just moments ago, now spinning in place like a child visiting a mall for the first time. He sighed inwardly.
The reality check had come so swiftly that it left him somewhat unprepared.
Thus, in the following moments, Shinji gained a thorough understanding of what "the internal labyrinth of a human fortress" truly meant.
They rode long, open-air elevators exposed on all sides, shuttling up and down through enormous vertical spaces.
The elevator doors opened repeatedly, yet each time revealed only familiar cold corridors and blinking indicator lights.
"That's strange, it should be right here..."
Standing on the elevator while looking at nearly identical alloy walls and passageways, Misato muttered in confusion.
When the corridor doors opened for the third time at the same level, revealing the platform with massive support pillars and ventilation shafts that Shinji had already grown familiar with, a strong draft suddenly rushed through!
Feeling the embarrassingly chilly sensation between her legs in her short skirt, Misato quietly complained: "This is exactly why! This place isn't suitable for wearing skirts!"
She looked down at the useless map in her hands, scratching her head in frustration. "But... where exactly is Ritsuko..."
Turning to Shinji with an apologetic smile, she said: "Sorry about this, Shinji-kun, I'm... still not very familiar with this area."
Her smile was filled with a "please understand your directionally-challenged onee-san" kind of pitifulness.
Shinji's attention, however, was mostly focused on the thick document Misato had shoved into his hands earlier.
The cover was stamped with the eye-catching title: "TOP SECRET—Project Marduk E Plan Pilot Compatibility Assessment Report (Third Child).
As he flipped through the dense data, charts, and obscure terminology, he mentally complained: 'This NERV is really like some kind of sweatshop company! The entire underground city's 20th level is this huge, yet the planning diagram only marks two public restrooms?! Is that reasonable?! Do the logistics planners have shit in their brains?!'
Hearing Misato's apology, he didn't even look up.
He just instinctively replied in a matter-of-fact, flat tone: "We've already been here. Three times now."
"Uh..."
Misato froze instantly behind him, her apologetic smile freezing on her face before quickly twisting into a pout.
Puffing her cheeks, she made a silent face at the back of Shinji's head, muttering through gritted teeth in a barely audible voice: "Hmph! Brat... so not cute at all!"
With a sharp "thud," Shinji closed the heavy "Top Secret" file.
He took a deep breath. The air here carried a unique, slightly cool, and indescribable... scent of life.
In that instant, an incredibly strange and inexplicable sensation surged through his body like an electric current!
He felt... an inexplicable familiarity with this place!
Not the kind of familiarity from "having seen it many times in anime," but a deeper, almost muscle-memory-like sense of belonging, akin to "home."
The direction of the corridors, the position of ventilation shafts, the faint mechanical hum echoing from afar...
It all felt imprinted deep within his soul.
As if he had truly lived here, fought here, traversed these cold steel corridors countless times, day and night.
The feeling was so intense that he almost subconsciously raised his hand and pointed toward an alloy corridor on his right—one that looked no different from the others, leading deeper inside.
"Misato," His voice carried a certainty he himself hadn't noticed, "let's try this way."
"Huh? This way?"
Misato snapped out of her "not cute" resentment and looked in the direction Shinji pointed, her face full of doubt.
"Are you sure? This looks..." She glanced down at the map. "Is this really okay? Maybe I should contact Ritsuko or headquarters navigation again? Though I'm sure Ritsuko will just lecture me again..."
Despite her words, seeing Shinji's unusually calm and confident gaze, Misato found herself inexplicably not immediately objecting.
While picking up the communicator and muttering as she called headquarters for route guidance and to contact Dr. Akagi, she still took steps forward, following Shinji, who had already started walking toward that corridor.
The two moved one after another through the intricate passageways.
Shinji's footsteps showed no hesitation, as if he had a built-in navigation system in his mind.
He occasionally paused, seemingly "sensing" something, then decisively chose forks in the path or led Misato onto some rather remote-looking elevators.
They descended deeper at times, then ascended again.
Following behind, Misato went from initial skepticism to gradually widening eyes, until finally only pure amazement remained.
She watched Shinji smoothly swipe a card through a restricted access gate, saw him unhesitatingly choose a shortcut not fully marked on the map... Was this really his first time here?
Finally, when they rode a small freight elevator slowly upward from some unknown intermediate level and stopped at the marking for Floor 28, the elevator doors slid silently open.
A wave of warm air washed over them—carrying the strong scent of disinfectant, mixed with a faint smell of blood and... some indescribable, amniotic fluid-like life essence.
What greeted their eyes was a space of unimaginable scale!
Rather than a room, it was more like a massive artificial lake! The entire space was filled with pale red, faintly fluorescent liquid resembling diluted blood! The water surface was perfectly calm.
Enormous steel frameworks arched like ribs supporting the dome, while cold searchlight beams pierced through the mist hovering above the water, casting onto the undisturbed surface.
"This is..." Misato was also stunned by the sight before her.
However, an even more shocking scene was yet to come.
Not far from them at the edge of the pool, accompanied by a splash of water, a figure agilely climbed out of the pale red liquid!
It was a tall woman with an exquisite figure.
She shook her wet, dazzlingly dyed short blonde hair, water droplets trickling down her fair cheeks.
She reached up and removed a peculiarly shaped respirator from her mouth, casually dropping it at her feet.
Immediately after, she pulled down the zipper on the back of her wetsuit with a swift, aesthetically pleasing motion.
The dark wetsuit slid off her shoulders, revealing a form-fitting light blue bikini underneath.
Water droplets rolled over her smooth, taut skin, tracing astonishingly sensual curves.
Beneath the searchlight beams, she radiated a wild yet coldly enchanting charm.
"Yay! Shinji! We actually made it!!"
After a brief daze, Misato burst into excited cheers, enthusiastically slapping Shinji's shoulder with sparkling eyes.
"You're really amazing! Finding the place on your first try! More reliable than an adult like me who's been here for a week!"
She genuinely felt astonished and impressed.
Ritsuko, who had just removed the upper part of her wetsuit and was drying her hair with a towel, paused at the sound.
She slowly turned around, her sharp blue eyes like frozen lakes instantly locking onto the two figures at the elevator entrance, and...
The slender boy in a clean white shirt standing beside Misato.
When her gaze fell upon Shinji's face, a fleeting, almost imperceptible flicker of disorientation passed through Ritsuko's eyes.
It was a complex emotion mixed with shock, bewilderment, and something deeply buried in her memories that had been forcibly stirred.
But in just an instant, she regained her usual precision-instrument calmness, perfectly concealing all fluctuations behind her glasses.
Her eyes swept over the excited Misato as she remarked with her characteristic coolness and mild teasing: "How unusual. You didn't get lost?"
As if Misato's timely arrival here was itself a miracle.
"Hey! Ritsuko! What's that supposed to mean!"
Misato immediately bristled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, retorting with hands on her hips, "I'm perfectly reliable! This time I..."
Ritsuko ignored Misato's defense, her gaze returning to Shinji.
The boy had immediately averted his eyes after she turned around, his gaze fixed intently on his own shoes as if something incredibly fascinating was on the ground.
"So this is... that child?" Ritsuko's voice betrayed little emotion, but Misato keenly detected a faint trace of inquiry.
"Yes!"
Misato nodded immediately, with the solemnity of introducing an important figure,
"He's the Third Child selected according to the Marduk Report, Shinji Ikari."
After saying this, she suddenly leaned closer to Ritsuko, lowering her voice to a volume only they could hear, adding with a mix of emotion and mystery:
"...He looks very similar, doesn't he? I was quite startled, too, when I first saw him."
Ritsuko didn't respond to Misato's whisper, but her eyes seemed to deepen slightly.
Following Misato's earlier observation—Shinji's deliberate avoidance of eye contact—she glanced down at her own near-naked state and instantly understood the reason for the boy's discomfort.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile flickered at the corners of her usually stern lips.
She said nothing, simply walking naturally to the nearby bench and picking up the iconic white lab coat draped over it.
Misato noticed Ritsuko's movement immediately and teased with an exaggerated tone:
"Here, better put this on first, Dr. Akagi! In your current state, you're practically nuclear-level lethal to an innocent boy going through puberty!"
Ritsuko gave a wry smile without rebuttal, smoothly slipping into the white coat.
The oversized lab coat instantly enveloped her striking figure, leaving only her slender neck and delicate collarbones exposed.
That wild, coldly elegant aura rapidly faded, transforming her back into the rigorous, rational NERV chief scientist who radiated an unapproachable air.
"Nice to meet you for the first time, Shinji-kun."
"I'm Ritsuko Akagi, head of NERV's Technology Development Department. Pleased to meet you."
Her voice was steady and clear, carrying the characteristic composure of a scientist.
Yet Shinji keenly sensed something unusual—this voice seemed... to carry an extremely subtle, indescribable warmth compared to the permanently frozen-lake, emotionless Ritsuko Akagi from his "dream" memories? Or perhaps it was a certain restrained... temperature?
Watching Ritsuko's formal self-introduction, Misato couldn't resist commenting: "But Ritsuko, this kid's personality is just like his father's! For example..."
She imitated Shinji's expressionless, monotone delivery: "'We've already been through this area before'—not cute at all!"
Ignoring Misato's teasing, Shinji reached out and gently grasped Ritsuko's slightly cool fingers: "I'm Shinji Ikari. Pleased to meet you, Dr. Akagi."
His gaze met Ritsuko's blue eyes behind her glasses calmly—without avoidance, nor with the common shyness or nervousness of adolescence.
Looking into the boy's clear yet seemingly burdened eyes, and at contours strikingly similar yet subtly different from someone she'd missed during university days, Ritsuko felt another ripple in her heart.
She quickly withdrew her hand and turned toward the small rubber boat docked by the pool: "Let's go. Time is limited—we'll take this directly."
The rubber boat cut through the pale red LCL solution, moving silently and swiftly across the enormous "amniotic lake" toward the opposite shore—where the purple giant stood enshrined like a massive coffin at the pool's center, restrained by countless thick bindings.
The hangar drew closer.
The sleeping purple giant—Unit-01—exuded a heart-palpitating pressure in the dim light.
Shinji's heartbeat involuntarily quickened, a tremor originating from the depths of his blood growing increasingly intense.
He unconsciously pressed a hand against his chest.
The rubber boat reached shore.
Ritsuko stepped onto the platform first, with Misato pulling Shinji close behind.