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?"
--
Ikari Shinji emerged from the shower toweling his hair. "Did you want to 
use the shower next?" he asked Rei.

"I think not, Shinji. I will shower in the morning." Taking his cue, 
Pen-pen waddled past the boy into the bathroom, closing the door firmly 
behind him. Nonplussed, Shinji stared at the closed door for a few 
moments before looking at Rei once again. Ayanami Rei was dressed for 
bed in her accustomed nightwear: underclothes and a button-down shirt, 
one of Shinji's spares. She was watching him attentively from a seat 
across the room. "Did you have a nice shower?" she asked pleasantly.

"I did," Shinji replied. He climbed up into his bunk as Rei followed him 
into hers. "Rei, I've been thinking. Why don't we invite Maya over 
again? We've only had her over once, and that didn't go too well. She 
was nice enough to talk to both of us at the picnic. I think it would be 
good of us to repay her kindness."

"Very well," Rei replied. "How will we invite her?"

"Go up to her and just ask her, I guess. It can't be that difficult. 
Shall we invite her for Wednesday evening?"

"If we invite her to come on Wednesday, we will have to make time with 
our studies. Thursday is a school day, and we will have homework due."

"I think we can work together and get it done."

"We will work together, then," Rei concluded. "Tomorrow morning we will 
go up to Ibuki-san and invite her for dinner on Wednesday evening. 
Between now and then we will collect the ingredients for our meal, and 
we will begin to cook when Ibuki-san arrives on Wednesday afternoon."

"It's decided then."

Pen-pen emerged from the bathroom smelling of mouthwash. He hopped up 
into bed with Rei and curled up with his head resting on her pillow. 
Shinji pulled himself out of bed to switch off the light.

He exchanged good-nights with Rei and they soon fell asleep. Neither had 
broached the feelings of insecurity and loneliness they felt deep 
inside.
--
"I wonder, I wonder, do you know what I wonder?" Hyuuga Makoto mused 
aloud. "I wonder where Kaji's gotten to?"

"Did you try his room?"

"Did you try the bathroom?"

"Did you try the cafeteria?"

Makoto nodded. "All three. And I've walked to his homeroom, and he's not 
there."

"Well, then, you've got me."

"I haven't seen him all morning."

"Buy a newspaper?"

He fished a few 10-yen coins out of his pocket and gave them to the Magi 
for a newspaper. "WE SLANDER ONE PERSON AND MISREPRESENT ANOTHER IN AN 
EFFORT TO OVERSIMPLIFY A PROBLEM OF TERRIFIC SCOPE!!!" screamed the 
headline. There was no story attached. Hyuuga thumbed idly through the 
remaining pages, skimming through the articles as a familiar ache came 
from his arm. He would need to see Kaji about getting a fix, and soon.

The boy met a pair of underclasswomen who said they had seen Kaji 
entering the library. Hyuuga walked back across campus and found the 
former Student Council President alone at a table, staring into the open 
pages of a book. His face was buried in his hands. Hyuuga could follow 
Kaji's glance back and forth, around and around the table top. There was 
no way that Kaji could be reading the book. He sat down opposite the 
other boy.

Kaji and Hyuuga were at one of the tables in the reading area, south of 
the stacks themselves. Here, a dirty yellow carpet lay under the 
rectangular tables, each one with two pairs of chairs that faced each 
other. The tables and chairs were both of dark stained wood. The books, 
in languages found all across the globe, were on metal shelves running 
north-south through the middle of the library. The area beneath the 
shelves was uncarpeted wood that squeaked in a few places.

"Hey," Hyuuga said, "I've got something interesting on Michimoto." 
Kaji's face rose up like a bubble from the depths of a lake. He looked 
at Hyuuga with pupils dilated from excitement. "He's nowhere. He's 
nothing. I did a full and total search of the databases last night. 
There's no Michimotos, no Wakamugis. There's nothing."

Kaji stared blankly at Hyuuga for a moment, then asked in a quavering 
voice, "Why on Earth is this helpful?"

"'Cause that means the administration doesn't know he's here," Hyuuga 
explained. "That means that he'ssss..."

Kaji had risen up onto his feet. Trembling, he seized Hyuuga's jacket 
and jerked him across the table. "THAT IS COMPLETELY USELESS!" he 
shouted. The noise flew on furious wings through the library, echoing 
taunts. "Misato is _gone_, don't you realize? She's been gone for three 
days. Nobody on this campus saw her go. Nobody knows where she is now. 
She could be anywhere, she could be dead. What the fucking hell have you 
been doing for the past three days, you little shit?"

As diplomatically as he could, Hyuuga Makoto eased the front of his 
jacket out from between Kaji's fingers. "OK, it is a little difficult to 
see at first, you're right, but just listen to me. Are you listening? 
Good. Here's the connection.

"We thought at first that Michimoto might be tied somehow to Ikari 
Shinji, right? But Ibuki said that Ikari and Shekhinah didn't know him. 
So far, nothing there. Now, we can't find any connection between the 
school and Michimoto. Neither the school itself nor Ikari has any direct 
connection.

"And I was on my way over here when the final piece came to me: there's 
no connection between the student body and Michimoto, either. Do you get 
it?"

"No, you dumb fuck," Kaji growled. "Pray enlighten me."

Hyuuga smiled. "That means that NOBODY here on campus has any direct 
relationship to Michimoto Wakamugi. Who's the only person in the world 
as we know it who'd want as much influence as possible here, at 
Feuervogel, without anyone knowing he was here?"

Kaji stopped being angry long enough to try and think out the question. 
He was unsuccessful. "I give up, Makoto-kun. Who?"

"Rokubungi Gendou, of course."

The former president said nothing, and Hyuuga swept on. "Rokubungi's the 
one responsible for the state of affairs here, after all. Not just here, 
but in whatever's left of the outside world. Everyone here knows he's 
responsible. But for whatever reason that the campus has been spared--I 
presume it's the same reason--he wants to control life on campus here. 
So he got us elected into office and told us to control Shekhinah. Then 
he was going to control us, of course. Except that Ikari Shinji showed 
up and ruined him. So Rokubungi sent Michimoto to campus, and...that's 
as far as I've gotten."

"So what you're saying," Kaji said slowly, "is that the disappearances 
around campus are somehow related to Michimoto's--and by extension, 
Rokubungi's--plans to gain control of Shekhinah?"

Hyuuga shrugged. "That's one interpretation. Another is that Michimoto 
is no longer directly under Rokubungi's control, and he's plotting his 
own game against Rokubungi. There's probably other ideas, but I haven't 
had time to work them out."

Kaji nodded. His self-control, if not his self-assurance, was back: with 
arms crossed and back straight, he seemed prepared once again to seize 
the reins of the world around him. "Makoto, I want you to get Maya..."

"Already on top of it," the boy said, smiling triumphant. "She's having 
dinner with Ikari-kun and Shekhinah tonight. I'm going to replicate my 
searches through the databases for information on Rokubungi Gendou, but 
that's going to take time. As for Ritsuko-san, I thought that she could 
go through our old letters from Michimoto, and maybe she'd find a clue 
there."

"Good, good."

"And that brings us to the payment you mentioned....?"

"Oh. Right." Kaji let out a sigh, then said, "Just have Shigeru send me 
a bill or something. I'll...I'm going to my room to get those letters 
for Ritsuko-chan. I'll put them in a folder in her mailbox for her."

Hyuuga nodded. He stepped back away from the table and pushed his chair 
in. "And after that, I presume you'll be hitting the old campaign trail, 
eh?"

"Er...right. That's exactly what I'll do." He pushed in his own chair 
and followed the younger man out of the library. Outside, Kaji Ryouji 
made no farewell to Hyuuga Makoto, losing himself in a sweeping gaze 
across the campus. The stairs of the library led down to a walkway that 
traversed the campus. To his left, the east, lay the girl's dormitories 
and some storage sheds. In front of him, separating the main body of the 
campus from the parkland, was a dense thicket of evergreen trees. Groups 
of students were standing beneath them and around them; it was passing 
time, and there was a few moments' respite from class. Kaji had no 
respite. The pain of his loss, even if it was to uncertainty, was a part 
of his sense of touch. The air around him burned. Gay laugher, others' 
laughter, reminded him of something he did not have.

Kaji turned to the west and began the long, slow walk to his dorm room, 
moving within crowds like any other person would move--not a leader, not 
a hero. The occasional well-wisher or friend was greeted with a half-
smile and a weak wave. He stopped when he heard Ibuki Maya's voice; 
Maya, whose name Hyuuga had mentioned a little while before.

Maya was half-walking, half-skipping alongside her friend Arisugawa 
Juri. Juri had an uncharacteristically sour look on her face, in strong 
contrast to the younger girl. "C'mon, c'mon," Maya said in an earnest 
pleading tone. "It's just a meal. It's not like you haven't been living 
next door to him since he moved in, either."

"I am not sitting down to dinner with the son of Ikari Gendou," Juri 
replied flatly.

"He isn't that bad a guy," Maya came back. "And it's not like it's going 
to be the two of us, either. Aida-kun's going to be there, too. Suzuhara 
was going to be there, but he bailed..."

"No means no, Maya," said Juri. "But I'm not going to stop you, either."

"Ooh, I get it! You're curious about him, aren't you?"

"I'm just keeping an eye out for kohai..."

The young man watched them as they passed out of earshot. _It wasn't 
pleading,_ Kaji thought. _It wasn't wheedling. Maya-chan is actually 
looking forward to being with Ikari...even a sniveling little wuss like 
him has friends.

_And what have I got?_

Before he could mark the time, he was alone in his room, with his 
keepsakes and photos spread out before him. There was the picture of 
himself, her, and Ritsuko, from freshman year. There was the note she's 
slipped to him in Precalc the year before with her lipstick on it. There 
was that dumb hairbrush she'd left in his room and never got around to 
taking back with her. It was all the flotsam and jetsam of his memories.

And buried deep within his heart, there was the whispersoftsecret 
memory, the one that he promised himself he would never, ever forget. It 
had been when they first met. It was his first Morning After. Hers, too. 
Neither of them could remember anything of the Night Before, how much 
they'd been drinking, if they'd danced, if they talked. They'd laughed 
about it afterwards, covering up their true feelings. It was all all 
right, of course, because they'd started going out immediately. But 
Kaji's memory of the girl with the violet hair--spread out in the 
morning sunlight, all across her shoulders, like angel's wings--the girl 
sleeping peacefully, almost immaculate and almost innocent, the sight, 
touch and smell, the curve of her body, the very gravity drawing them 
together, he could remember it all. And it had been enough for him to 
promise himself that someday--someday--he would make an honest woman of 
her.

_We were going to stand together, side by side, proud of what we'd 
accomplished.

_Misato, I was going to say, we've revolutionized the world.

_Ryouji-kun, she was going to say, we've changed the world. _

"Dammit--dammit--where is it? It's here somewhere."

Kaji carelessly threw socks and underwear from the top drawer of his 
bureau. A moment later he gave a cry of anguish as he drew out a piece 
of paper. Eight lines were scribbled upon it, a few dozen words. Despite 
his hope, despite what _should_ have been, the letter was still 
undelivered.

"Misato...Mi-chan...did I ever tell you..."

The young man--boy, really--his cell phone rang. Dumb, Kaji flipped it 
open and pressed the Talk button.

"Heh--hello? Is this Kaji-sama? Ah, hi, I'm, uh, Sonoda Keiko...I'm a 
friend of Asuka's...I've wanted to talk to you for a long time..."

The cellular telephone left his hand, spinning gracefully towards the 
window. It shattered through the glass and carried shards out into the 
blue of the sky. Further, further it flew, all the while growing 
smaller, farther away. Black upon blue. A bruise, shrinking. Like a 
bruise to the heart.

Kaji Ryouji threw himself face first onto his bed and cried.
--
"EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it!"

"Today we are proud to announce the winner of our Poetry Competition. If 
you would do the honors?"

"Thank you. *a-hem*



"Mother of pearl, the touch of your skin,
The smell of the sea in your hair,
I beg, Lorelei, don't tempt me with sin,
For I love you like birds love the air.

"Driftwood is bent, my hand touches yours.
The stones, they all break into sand,
Quickly, my love, else the mountains fall down,
My heart's in the palm of your hand."



"The winner is Kaji Ryouji for his untitled poem. We can't make any 
monetary award, but then, it wouldn't be in the spirit of poetry if we 
did."

"I didn't know Kaji was so poetically inclined."

"He's not, really. I just copied a little ditty he had in his sock 
drawer and submitted it for him."
--
Aida Kensuke bugged out his eyes and stared into his camera's lens. "AND 
NOW! Presenting the Incredible Amazing Wonderful Stupendous Allergen-
Free Guaranteed-Scrumptious DINNER! BINGO BINGO BINGO!"

He swung the camera around to pan across the table. "We will begin with 
a soup course of cheese soup and broccoli, with a side of bread. 
Continuing on to the main course, we have stir-fried vegetables with 
something called 'Three-Bean Salad', because it's only got three beans 
in it."

Off camera, Shinji laughed.

"I've just been informed," Kensuke hurried on, "that it's called 'Three-
Bean Salad' because it has three TYPES of beans in it. Obviously, if 
there were only three beans in it, one of the four of us would have to 
go hungry. And for dessert, we'll be having some kind of filo dough 
concoction that only Maya knows about..."

"Sopapillas," Maya broke in.

"Soapy-pita. We'll be looking forward to it." Kensuke carefully set his 
video camera down on the edge of Rei's bed and joined the rest of the 
group at the table. "Now, much as you'd like to find out about who chews 
with their mouth open, I'm going to stop the tape here. See you again in 
a little while."

Kensuke crawled on his hands and knees back to the bed and pressed the 
Stop button. "That's a wrap, folks," he said over his shoulder. "Let's 
eat."

Maya had changed out of her school uniform into a pair of jeans and an 
orange t-shirt, but the others were still dressed from class. They sat 
at the table where Shinji and Rei took all of their meals. As was usual 
when there was a great deal to eat, the food was in the center of the 
table, surrounded by the place settings. Pen-pen's place was not set, as 
he had only waddled in from the furo a few moments before.

"Itadakimasu!"

"I can serve the soup. It'll be easier that way. Hand me your bowls."

"Are we supposed to dip the broccoli in the soup?"

"It doesn't matter too much. I'm just dropping mine in my bowl."

"Wark!"

"Y'know, if we're having stir-fry, we should've made some rice, too."

"Then I will make rice."

"No, don't trouble yourself. Just use the bread."

"The salad isn't bad for it, either."

"You don't think the dressing's too heavy, do you?"

"WUAGH!"

"Are you hungry, Pen-pen?"

"Squark! Waaargk!"

"Can I feed him?"

"Sure. I'll show you where we have the fish."
--
Outside of Feuervogel, night was falling. Kaji Ryouji was standing on 
the front doorstep, waiting for the light to come on. He knocked on the 
door.

"Ikari, it's me. Kaji."

No response. He knocked again.

"Ikari, I know you're in this evening. I can hear you."

A pause. A night bird or a bat fluttered in the sky behind him. Kaji 
stared vehemently at the unyielding door.

"Listen to me, this is important. I need to talk to you. It's about your 
father."

A few moments passed. Against his better judgement, Kaji tried the front 
door. It was unlocked.

"Ikari? Are you there? I'm coming inside."

He swung open the door and stepped inside Akumafune Dormitory. It closed 
of its own accord behind him.