From: mew3point14@doramail.com (Daniel Snyder)

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful bride. She knew love, and she 
knew what it was to be loved. But she was proud, too, and resolved not to 
give herself to anyone.

"On day of her wedding, she was dressed in her most beautiful gown and 
surrounded by everyone she loved. But she frowned, because she was 
proud and she had only half-chosen her husband-to-be. Although she 
knew him by the word of others, she had never seen his face.

"'Smile and love your husband,' they all shouted, 'smile and love your 
husband.' And the longer she did not smile, the louder they shouted, and 
the more impatient everyone became.

"Finally, she swallowed her pride and smiled weakly. In that moment, her 
bridegroom came to her. She saw him for the first time.

"He was beautiful to look upon, and charming in his bearing. Willingly, 
she smiled then. Willingly, she married him.

"What was the name of the bride?"
--
Through the eastern window came early morning sunlight, illuminating 
the room and its occupants. It fell upon the edge of the digital whiteboard 
and on the right side of Fuyutsuki Kozo. He was pointing at a drawing of 
southern Europe with Rome as its center. Toulouse was its westernmost 
city, Thessaloniki its easternmost, Frankfurt its northernmost and Tripoli 
its southernmost. Running back and forth across the map were colored 
arrows showing the advances and retreats of the European armies.

"By 1187, the worst fears of the dissidents within the Church had come 
true. The Crusades, once a means of uniting all of Europe underneath the 
banner of the Church, had evolved into an almost purely political 
campaign to remove the Muslims from the Holy Land. For the hard-line 
conservative members of the papacy, this wasn't an issue: they  had a 
target and they had an eager audience. But for the reformers, who had 
hoped to, well, reform, it meant that the politicization of the Church was 
now inevitable. Its original goal, the salvation of the human soul, had 
been left by the wayside.

"What I doubt anyone could have realized is that the governments of 
Europe and the Church were trapped in an intimate and inextricable 
relationship. The kings and dukes needed the Church's backing and so 
were obligated to participate in the Crusades. At the same time, the 
Church had created an enemy, and saw itself responsible to its followers 
for the continued call to arms. 

"The dangers of a theocracy, or ties between a state and a bureaucratic 
religion, are well worth keeping in mind for the future. I think we've had 
enough for today." Fuyutsuki stepped away from the whiteboard.

The class roused itself out of its collective stupor. The lecture had been 
interesting enough, and some students had actually learned something. 
But being forced to keep still for almost an hour had made the student 
body lethargic. They were eager to get on to the next stimulus. Some 
were outright impatient. When Fuyutsuki, looking at the overstuffed 
briefcase on the table in front of him, asked "Could someone lend me a 
hand with my papers?" something about the mass of a marble was 
already in flight towards the back of Ikari Shinji's head. His "Ow!" a 
moment later could not have been more entertaining in the context.

"Ah, Ikari-kun, thank you very much."

"But...but I...all right." Shinji shuffled to the front of the classroom and 
struggled to lift up the briefcase. Turning bright red as one attempt after 
another failed, he succeeded by sliding it off the lip of the table into both 
of his arms. He staggered out the door under his burden.

When they were outside, Fuyutsuki said, "You understand now why I 
needed help with it. I won't be bringing this much with me to class again."

"Do we have far to go?"

"A ways, yes. Over to the faculty lounge. I'll write you an excuse for your 
next class."

The faculty lounge was adjacent to the building that had held the dance. 
The lounge was small in area, perhaps 500 square meters. It was covered 
in wood paneling and bookcases filled with books. There were thick chairs 
and tables throughout the room. Brass lamps hung down from the ceiling 
high above.

Shinji set the Professor's briefcase down by a paisley-upholstered chair 
while Fuyutsuki fetched two cups of tea from a samovar. He took a seat 
and gave Shinji his cup, pointing the boy to a neighboring chair. "I have to 
be careful about what I eat and drink as well," he explained. "I've got a 
rather weak heart, and to make matters worse it's been giving me trouble 
lately. Now, my doctor's been telling me not to worry about things. How 
can I not worry when people tell me not to worry?" He smiled at the 
irony, taking it in good humor.

The boy sipped his tea. "Have you been teaching here at Feuervogel 
many years, sensei?" he asked at length.

"No, I haven't," Fuyutsuki replied. "This is my fourth year. Um, it must 
have begun before that, I suppose, but three or four years ago 
Feuervogel started expanding its enrollment and faculty. Quietly, mind 
you, without any kind of publicity whatsoever. I came mostly for the 
money they offered, but also to teach in a less stressful environment. 
Several other people came to Feuervogel at about that time. Dr. Lorenz 
the mathematician, Pribnow, Gauff, Dirac and Katsuragi the mycologist."

"Katsuragi...as in Katsuragi Misato? He's her father?"

"He was her estranged father, yes," said Fuyutsuki. "His wife divorced him 
when the girl was eight, I believe. And the girl was starting her first year 
here when he arrived to teach. It's funny...I remember how much she 
resented his being around her! Every time there was an excuse he would 
invite her along on something, staying right beside her, having her 
included in everything. She hated it, but she would always come along."

"What subject does he teach?" Shinji asked.

"He taught biology, and he also led the mushroom club. But he's dead 
now." Fuyutsuki swished the dregs of his tea around in the bottom of his 
cup. In shadow, in sun or in the chandelier's light, there was no future to 
be foretold. "He died in Akumafune with his daughter standing outside."

Shinji was growing more and more excited. He wanted to know about the 
secrets of the school, secrets that he felt he had been excluded from. "Tell 
me about what happened at Akumafune," he said breathlessly.

The reply was some time in coming. Finally, Fuyutsuki said, "I'd rather 
not talk about it, but since I understand you're living in the haunted 
dormitory, I will. Well, then. Akumafune was part of an experiment in the 
living situation here at Feuervogel. It was to be a co-educational 
dormitory, with boys and girls living on alternate floors. How these ideas 
get started is beyond me...but whoever it was who thought that high 
school children should be living together had the presence of mind to only 
allow upper classmen in the dorm.

"The first night of occupancy there was a large party--chaperoned, of 
course. It broke up at the 10 PM curfew, and the boys and girls were 
settled into their rooms. The hall monitors were in place. And that's the 
last that anyone knows for sure.

"At 1 AM that morning someone started pulling the fire alarms on the 
buildings neighboring Akumafune. The girls next door in Kazarashi and 
the faculty who happened to be in earshot, we all came outside in an 
orderly fashion, and...we were standing out front on the grass...my God, 
Ikari, it was the most terrible thing we had ever seen, because we did not 
understand what was going on. All of the lights in Akumafune were off. 
The only things we could see inside were shadows upon shadows. There 
was this...noise...there's just no way to describe what it was like. It wasn't 
mechanical, because there was no sense of droning to it. But it grew 
louder and louder, so loud that nothing in the natural world could have 
made it, either. And we couldn't make any sense of it. Not like running 
water, not like crinkling paper, not like leaves blowing. Not anything.

"We were out there--there were the girls from Kazarashi, and the faculty, 
and young Misato-chan was in a stupor in front of us. She had been with 
her father that evening. I never learned what she was doing there at all. 
Then the boys from Nagamara started arriving, that's how loud the noise 
of it all was, it carried all the way across campus. We were standing 
around on the lawn, just watching, because there was nothing really we 
could do: we didn't dare go inside. Cowardice, I suppose.

"Then the noise petered out. We could hear the fire alarms from inside the 
building, and the neighboring buildings, but that one noise was gone. 
Only then, Ikari, did we notice the bodies. It was like a blind spot had been 
healed. And I don't want to sound sensationalist when I tell you this, Ikari-
kun, because it's pure fact. Every one of the bodies had been mauled, 
shredded. They were torn through skin and even bone, sometimes. Most 
of the bodies were in Akumafune itself, but others...others were found all 
around the campus, all out of doors and on the ground, but some by the 
boy's dormitory, some on the main campus, some on the open area at the 
southern gates. The most peculiar thing of it all was that, even though 
they were most savagely ripped apart, not one cadaver had blood 
splattered on it. It was as if whatever the cutting implement had been was 
somehow sucking up the blood itself.

"As I told you, young man, it's a grisly tale, but I..."

"No, no, that's all right." Shinji set down his teacup on the table in front  of 
him. "I'd been wanting to know the truth for some time now, and nobody 
had told me. Thank you, sensei."

Fuyutsuki bobbed his head in acknowledgement. "You, ah, haven't seen 
or heard anything in Akumafune, have you?"

"No, not at all. It's been perfectly quiet."

"I see. In that case, I suppose I'd best let you get back to class." Fuyutsuki 
fumbled with his briefcase for a moment and extracted a sheet of paper. 
"Now, let's give you that note."
--
Shinji was in no particular hurry to return. He skipped physical science 
entirely and arrived late for English. The class passed quietly as the 
students pretended to learn some irregular verbs. Shinji's mind was on 
the conversation that he had had with Professor Fuyutsuki. He had 
learned what had made people afraid of the dormitory. In the process, 
Misato's strange history had been exposed. Shinji didn't know what to 
think. Although he didn't hate Katsuragi Misato, not even begrudging her 
for the Duel, he didn't think of her as a normal person, either. But how 
had she gone from a disconsolate professor's daughter to a popular party 
girl?

Class was dismissed for PE. Outside of the classroom, Shinji and Rei were 
accosted by Hyuuga Makoto, the Student Council treasurer. Shinji smelled 
trouble. Hyuuga was a member of the Student Council, and that meant a 
Duel. Worse, the young man was not in good health. He wore a lopsided 
smile and his face was flushed.

"Ayanami-san, Ikari-san," he said with forced joviality as he herded them 
off away from the rest of the crowd, "I'd like to talk with you about some 
problems in the budget. It's the greenhouse, you see. Now, I agree that 
it's important that we grow roses on the campus, and so we have a nice 
budget for Ayanami-san here. However, she's been going through that 
budget rather quickly these past few weeks. Isn't that so?"

"I do not understand," Rei said.

"Allow me to explain, then," Hyuuga went on. "Since Ikari-san arrived on 
this campus, you, Rei, have spent a considerable amount of money on 
fungicide for the greenhouse. In fact, you've bought over twenty liters of 
concentrated fungicide. That's too much. Far too much. And how much 
fungicide have you actually used, Rei?"

"None at all," she replied.

Hyuuga smiled. She had fallen into the trap. "Now, Ikari, I understand 
that Rei here is your bride. So I am holding _you_ responsible for her 
misappropriation of the school's funds. I believe that this is grounds for 
challenging you to a Duel."

Shinji glanced over at Rei. "Is...is it true, Rei? Have you been buying things 
you weren't supposed to?"

The mind of Ayanami Rei was both sophisticated and naive. She could 
explain to Shinji what the chemicals themselves were called, what their 
molecular structure was, how they operated; she could tell him how much 
she bought, when, and using what forms. But it hadn't ever occurred to 
her that because she was not buying something for herself, she should not 
buy it at all. And she never even thought about lying.

"It is true," she answered.

Hyuuga clapped Shinji heartily on the shoulders. "Well. Well! It looks like 
we've a date set, then."
--
In the chemistry laboratory everything lay still. There was no hiss of gas 
from the Bunsen burners. Glassware made no noise, only refracted the 
incoming sunlight. Dust settled onto the ceramic tabletops. There were 
almost no souls present to concentrate the force of life in the room.

"I wonder, I wonder...do you know what I wonder?"

"I wonder how much you can hurt yourself before you kill yourself."

"I wonder how much you can contaminate yourself before your body 
dies."

"I wonder how much you can sin and still call yourself a human being."

"Is hurting only yourself a sin?"

"People need to hurt something or someone. Nobody can deal with the 
pain forever."

"But that is why people have catharses and projections. Means to work 
out the pain in, if not always constructive, at least socially-acceptable 
ways."

"'Do unto yourself as you would have the world do unto you.'"

"I can't see myself objectively. I don't know if I'm good enough to have 
the world look at me."
--
The seven hooks threw Ikari Shinji out into the Dueling Arena. His 
landings hadn't improved any, and the boy sprawled out onto the red 
marble tiles. He picked himself up off the floor, staggering the few steps 
to Rei's side. In his heart, he was angry at having his thoughts on the 
school interrupted, angry at Hyuuga Makoto for interrupting them, and 
angry at himself for still failing to arrive with any dignity in this, his sixth 
Duel.

Rei's mouth opened towards the sky like a chalice. The elemental white 
light poured forth, carrying the purple-silver sword on its tide. Shinji 
seized the handle and drew it, saying, "Now is come salvation, and 
strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ!"

The slow cold anger became a ray of light at the tip of his sword. It was 
his own anger, like a frostbitten finger was still a part of the body. 
Whatever dissociation he once felt in combat, it was no longer his guiding 
force. He was in control, for the beginning, if not further.

Ten paces away from him, Hyuuga was tossing his sword casually from 
one hand to the other. "Are you ready? Are you prepared?" he said. "It's 
my responsibility to see this through."

Shinji was not the Duelist he had been, half-willingly losing himself into 
the fight. "Why are you doing this to me?" he snarled. "Why do you keep 
setting me up for these damned Duels?"

"It's the way of human society," Hyuuga replied. The look on his face was 
inscrutable. He might have been telling the truth, or he might have been 
ad-libbing as easily. "All human societies are necessarily exclusive. That's 
the only way a person can have an identity--by defining what we are 
_not_ as well as what we _are._

"And you, Ikari-san, are something we are not, and do not wish to be."

With the sword in his left hand he feinted to Ikari's right chest, right thigh, 
left thigh. Then he switched his sword hand and with a yell lunged at 
Ikari's Angel's Heart. Shinji parried in the nick of time, deflecting the boy's 
blade upward, slicing along his collar. It was a narrow miss.

Shinji thrust Hyuuga away with his arm and sword, and stood en garde as 
Hyuuga came in for a second attack. This time, Hyuuga held his sword in 
both hands and slashed down Ikari's chest, taking a button off the boy's 
shirt. At Shinji's knee level, Hyuuga suddenly swung up and lunged, 
narrowly missing Shinji's ribs. This time, the younger boy recovered fast 
enough to counter. Shinji punched the inside of Hyuuga's right arm, 
giving it a bruising blow. The treasurer faltered, grabbing at his arm, 
roaring in pain. Shinji used the opportunity to step away and consider his 
situation.

_Hyuuga Makoto,_ he thought. _His fighting style is very unpredictable, and 
it's showy, but he's not good enough to know when to lay off the 
showmanship...how can I use his weakness?_

Hyuuga had switched his sword to his left hand again and charged at 
Shinji. Before his opponent's sword was even in range, Shinji swung 
around to Hyuuga's left side. He corrected, turned about on his toe and 
ran back at Shinji again. This time, Shinji feinted a step to the outside but 
drove in to the inside. Hyuuga watched, following too slowly as Shinji's 
raised blade intercepted his forearm, driving deep into the flesh. The blade 
fell from the treasurer's hands. Shinji flicked his blade out of the wound, 
knocking the Angel's Heart from his opponent's chest.

"It is over," Rei said softly.

The loser started to collapse, but Shinji seized him by the right arm, 
catching him. "Tell me now--what is it that I am that you don't want to 
be?"

"Ah?" Hyuuga gasped in a nasal whine. The pain was cutting deep into his 
mind.

Shinji shook him, squeezing the forearm tightly, so tightly that the boy 
could feel the humerus in his palm. "What am I that you all don't want to 
be? What is it?"

Groaning, Hyuuga gave Shinji a shit-eating smile. "You honestly don't 
believe you're better than anyone, Ikari," he stated. "You think you're 
equal to everybody else on some level, and that makes you all the same. 
And...if we believed that...we'd never get anything done."

The boy blacked out. Shinji dropped him onto the red marble floor, but 
paused in wonder. All up and down the treasurer's jacket sleeves were 
small red stains. Confused, Shinji pulled the jacket off and looked at the 
arms beneath them. They were covered in red puncture marks, like a field 
of poppies growing from the skin.
--
Aoba Shigeru and Tsuwabuki Mitsuru were working listlessly on their 
math problems when there was a knock at the door. Shigeru's mind had 
been elsewhere--he was thinking of stargazing--and the interruption came 
as a welcome distraction. He opened the door to find Ayanami Rei, 
backed by Ikari Shinji, standing in the corridor.

Rei was blushing. There was no doubt about it--color ran across her 
cheeks. She also spoke very cautiously. "I am here. I would like to buy 
back from you, to buy back from you the fungicide. The four five-liter 
bottles of fungicide that I bought for you. I would like to buy them back. I 
have the money."

Shigeru nodded at the handful of bills Rei presented to him. "But I'm 
afraid," he said gently, "that three's all I've got. I'd used one up to kill 
some dry rot in the bathroom."

"Oh?" Shinji said in surprise.

"Please come with me." Shigeru led the group into the bathroom and 
pointed to a large white stain on the linoleum. "Bleach wasn't working, so 
I tried the fungicide, and it worked like a dream. But I can get you those 
three bottles I still have right now."

He made an elaborate show of drawing out three identical plastic bottles 
from under the sink, placing them in a plastic bag and counting out their 
exact cost. The money exchanged, he cordially pushed Rei and Shinji out 
the door, closing it behind them. Still working at their table, Tsuwabuki 
was smiling.

"You gave in to them awfully easily," he observed.

"That's one thing about Ikari, he doesn't know anything about drug 
running." From under his bed, Aoba drew out the fourth bottle of 
fungicide and transferred it to the bathroom. "True, I've cut into my 
resources, but I'm also certain he won't be bothering me anymore. All 
I've got to do now is find a new supplier." He flopped down onto the floor 
at the table and glanced back down at the math problems. "And that's just 
one of the costs of doing business."

Outside, Shinji and Rei walked side by side to the greenhouse. Black inside 
and iridescent outside, it looked like a cage for phantoms. Rei was inside 
only long enough to place the containers by the door and close it behind 
her. "They'll be safe inside there," Shinji said.

"Why did you have me talk to Aoba?" Rei asked.

"Because you were the one who sold him the fungicide."

"I did not know."

"You do now, though."

Rei was almost scowling. "I...I did not like to talk to him like that. I like to 
talk to you, and I like to talk to Ibuki-san, but I did not like to talk to 
Aoba-san like that. I felt as though I was making him do something he did 
not want to do."

"I guess...but he shouldn't have been buying fungicide from you to sell as 
a drug, should he?"

Rei thought about it for a while. "He should not have used the fungicide, 
and I was the one who bought Aoba-san the fungicide...and yet...I did not 
like being the one to tell him. Conversations are very difficult," she 
concluded.
--
They walked past Kazarashi dormitory. In her room, Katsuragi Misato 
was surrounded by lights and surrounded by darkness.

She whispered to the lights that could not reach her, "Tou-san..."