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The difference that a simple gesture and civil talk can make.

"You're just like me."

Shinji takes just the slightest different action when Asuka offers a kiss...and everything changes. Suddenly, they're no longer alone, and start becoming far stronger than they've ever been before. And from their new bond, changes start to ripple outward. The Angel War, and the plans of SEELE and NERV, will never be the same.

Advice and Trust is a What If? Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfiction written by Strypgia — author of A Crown of Stars — where the events of a fateful kiss take an unexpected turn...and lead to Shinji and Asuka becoming a couple. Action, humor, suspense, and loads of warm and fuzzy feelings await as the two struggle to keep their relationship under wraps, all while continuing the fight against the Angels.

Originally started in the forums of Sufficient Velocity.com, this fanfic has been (per Word of God) highly influenced by other NGE fan stories Nobody Dies, Walking in the Shadow of Dreams, The Second Try and Once More with Feeling. The story can be found on Sufficient Velocity (here), and it is also hosted on FanFiction.Net (here) and SpaceBattles.com (here).

It has a continuation crossover of sorts with The Second Try, approved by both Strypgia and Jimmy Wolk. In The "Chronicles" series by BG_Character_592, the A&T cast finds and watches the original Evangelion series, and later read TST and its webcomic continuation Aki-chan's Life.


Tropes:

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    A-C 
  • Abhorrent Admirer:
    • Chihiro Tanaka is this to Shinji. Beauty is not the issue—she is a beautiful girl, but she chases Shinji obsessively, even though Shinji has already said he is not interested and he very obviously likes another girl (and Chihiro is aware of that). In addition, Chihiro treats him like a prize to be won (which he hates), and when she tries to flirt with him she disses Asuka and Rei (which he really hates).
    • Asuka had a horde of boys chasing her as well. In chapter 8, she points out the differences with how she and Shinji handled their unwanted admirers:
      Shinji: Maybe that will finally get them to stop chasing me like I'm a prize to be won. [...] How come I'm the one with the pack after them? You were ten times as popular as I was, a week after you arrived, miss incredibly-hot-exotic-foreign-transfer-student. I know Touji and Kensuke were making crazy amounts of cash selling beauty shots of you almost right away. Why haven't I had to chase away a pack of boys drooling after you?
      Asuka: Because I already had them properly terrified and respectful after I mashed the first two flat when they tried to ask me out the week I got here and refused to take 'no' for an answer, [...] Putting a couple of them on the ground with a few punches when they got rough taught the others to keep off. You're just too polite and sweet to girls to scare them off, my darling baka.
  • Above the Influence: In a scrapped scene, Rei tried to make a move on Shinji and Asuka when she was heavily medicated, insisting that she was more than clear-headed enough for making such a decision, and the detox was mostly just messing with her inhibition not to hit on them. Even so, Shinji and Asuka tried to resist.
  • Abusive Parents: During their conversations, Shinji tells Asuka how he was abandoned by his father only to be called ten years later because his father needed him to pilot a giant robot; and Asuka explains to Shinji how her father cheated on her mother, and after her demise he married his mistress and refused to take care of his own four-year-old daughter. Although the worst would be Asuka's stepmother, who put her on benzodiazepines (which are incredibly dangerous when used improperly) to make her "a placid little doll".
  • Accidental Pervert: Early during their special group training period, Rei tells Asuka how Shinji accidentally fell on top of her when she was naked. Asuka is not happy about it, giving a blistering Death Glare against Shinji's shirt; but since it was an accident (and because Rei's Troubling Unchildlike Behavior soon becomes the more pressing issue), she lets it go.
  • Accidental Proposal: Downplayed; Misato's proposal to Kaji was more a matter of panicked babbling than misunderstanding, but it was still pretty much unintentional, and everyone has fun talking about it as such. (But the answer was "Yes.")
  • Accidental Truth: In chapter 4, Asuka thinks that Rei is acting less like a teenage girl than like an alien that looked like one... which is actually true, since Rei is an alien being's soul stuck inside a clone human body, but Asuka did not know that at the time.
    • Misato also refers to their counter-conspiracy as "the side of the angels" during the Christmas party (in the "good" sense, not in the "Eldritch Abomination" sense). Said group is run by Rei and Kaworu.
  • Accuser of the Brethren: Asuka refuses to forgive Ritsuko for all the horrible things she did to Rei, even after Rei herself forgives her. However, she never makes her contempt known directly.
    Asuka: I don't care how guilty she feels now. She's going to need a miracle to get on my good side again. She hurt you, Rei, and you know how I feel about people who hurt the ones I... care about.
  • Ace Pilot: Asuka is the best Humongous Mecha pilot in Tokyo-3, having trained since she was four years old and devoting her life to it. As they bond over their shared burdens and traumas, Shinji and Rei also improve their Eva performance with Asuka.
  • Adaptational Context Change: Asuka's argument with Shinji over forgetting to pack their lunches. In the anime, it's legitimate; whereas in this fic, because they're hiding their relationship, Shinji deliberately forgot to pack the lunches so he and Asuka could stage a public argument to keep up appearances.
    Asuka: (discussing their next public argument) "Ugh, that means school food. I won't even have to act that part. I like your cooking. Fine, that'll work."
    • In fact, a number of their canon arguments get this treatment, as cover in front of their guardian Misato.
  • Adaptational Early Appearance: Kaworu arrives after the fight with Zeruel in this fic, rather than after Armisael like in canon.
  • Adaptational Jerkass: Asuka's date at the amusement park. In the original anime, Asuka merely blew off the date because she found him boring, but in this fic Asuka mentions to Hikari that he also tried to feel her up only an hour into their date.
  • Adaptational Sexuality: Rei is bisexual, the otherwise straight Asuka has a case of If It's You, It's Okay towards Rei, and Kaworu is Ambiguously Bi. In canon, the former two were straight and never made any exceptions respectively, and the latter was Ambiguously Gay. There's also Ritsuko, who's also bisexual (if not a case of If It's You, It's Okay for Maya) in this fic in contrast to canon.
  • Affectionate Gesture to the Head: In chapter 8, Shinji rubs the top of Asuka's head while she rests it on his lap.
  • Affectionate Nickname: Asuka and Shinji both refer to Rei as "our Rei", which basically hangs a lampshade on the Threesome Subtext between them. Its affectionate nature becomes especially apparent in chapter 11, when she reveals her true nature to Asuka.
    Asuka: You're our Rei. Lilith or whatever, I don't care. You were our Rei first.
  • After-Action Healing Drama: Several scenes happen right after a battle, usually involving an injured character.
    • Shinji and Rei keep watch over Asuka after Unit-02 violently escapes Leliel's Sea of Dirac, leaving the Pilot exhausted.
    • Ritsuko ends up injured during the battle against Zeruel. Maya spends the whole day waiting for her to wake up, and Misato visits her friend afterwards. The contrast between Maya's attentiveness and Gendo's coldness pushes Ritsuko further toward giving up on him.
    • After extracting Hikari from her giant robot, Shinji and Asuka sat by her side until she woke up. Touji also visited her, with the Pilots buying the two as much alone time from the staff as possible.
    • Ritsuko is injured again, leaving her in a hospital bed when Unit-00 went berserk. Rei talked with her while Ritsuko was still resting, and Maya took care of her after Rei left. A key part of Ritsuko's Heel–Face Turn was the fact that Gendo didn't visit her in hospital at any point previous, and when they next spoke after she regained consciousness, his primary concern was when she'd be ready to return to work, not her well-being.
  • Age Lift: Strypgia bumped the main characters' age up by a year (stretching the Angels' attack timeline so that over one year has passed since Sachiel and Shinji came to town) so that he doesn't "feel quite as awkward having them going at it hammer-and-tongs nightly".
  • Agony of the Feet:
    • Humorous example: The morning after the Big Damn Kiss, Asuka leaves the bathroom to see Shinji bringing breakfast to the table. He's caught off-guard when he sees her...which leads him to stub his toe on the table. Shinji manages to set the tray down safely before grabbing his foot and jumping up and down.
    • Less humorous example: Ritsuko steps on the shards of her shattered porcelain cat figurine while in a serious bout of drunk depression. Because she is also pounding painkillers, she doesn't even notice until she spots the blood trail.
    • Another dramatic example: Asuka gets shot in the foot during an assassination attempt. Astonishingly, she doesn't particularly care—not when her boyfriend and several of her friends were also shot at and hospitalized.
  • Air-Vent Passageway: Rei has apparently memorized the vent system at NERV HQ to the point she knows how to use it to get around the base unseen. She even shares this information with Kaji. In Chapter 11, Rei uses this to get from Ritsuko's lab to the room where Kaworu is healing after SEELE's attack on all the Pilots.
  • Alcohol Hic: In the prologue, Misato talks to Shinji after knocking back seven beers, hiccuping and slurring while she gives him relationship advice.
  • Alcohol-Induced Bisexuality: In chapter 8, it's revealed that Misato was subjected to this in the past when she brought up a certain incident involving her and Ritsuko during their college days. It doesn't apply to Ritsuko on the account that she is a bisexual in this story, if not having a case of If It's You, It's Okay for Maya. See Let Us Never Speak of This Again below for more details.
  • All Just a Dream: Ritsuko does this in chapter 9. She's lying next to Maya after a fabulous and romantic date... and then she wakes up and realizes that she was dreaming during the LCL-healing procedure.
  • All There in the Manual: In the thread in the Sufficient Velocity forums Strypgia provides supplementary notes and commentary.
  • Alpha Bitch: Shinji's classmate Chihiro Tanaka. She is not so bad deep down, but she is popular, bratty, and obsessed with Shinji. She insistently tries to hang out with him, in spite of his reiterated negatives, and she does not hesitate on trying to put Asuka and Rei down only because Shinji is extremely close to them ("trying" is the keyword here — unfortunately for her, bullying Rei is a BAD idea, and bullying Asuka is downright suicidal).
  • Always Someone Better: Asuka to Shinji. In chapter 2, Shinji is sad because, after undergoing several synch tests, he managed to catch up with Asuka for several seconds, but then she beat his score again. When he says he wanted to beat her and trying to keep up with her is intimidating, Asuka replies that Shinji being second only to her is not a bad feat, and she encourages him to keep trying to catch up with her.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Kaworu. He only ever shows romantic interest in Rei during the story proper, but he mentioned that loved Shinji in at least one alternate timeline. The ambiguity comes down to how much those alternate Kaworu's can be considered to be him. He also rants to Rei about how his body is reacting to everything, including the "boys at school."
    Kaworu: "You are distracting. You, Shinji-kun, the Second, the Fourth... the girls at school. The boys at school. Swimsuits. Posters in the shops. The... Major Katsuragi's car, even... They all... have caused my body to react, and... and... it is distracting!"
  • Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Misato loves embarrassing Shinji and Asuka (although to be fair, most of the time they have it coming). After telling them they're allowed to sleep together as long as they have no sex until they're at least fifteen, Misato then demands details about their sex life:
    She grinned and looked at Asuka. "So... does he 'berserk' in bed?"
    Asuka's jaw dropped. "What?!"
    "You've been 'entangling your AT-Fields' for weeks. Having fun? Enjoy 'firing the Positron Cannon'?"
    "Misato, what the Hell happened to 'we're too young for this'?!" Asuka was turning red. Shinji was turning red faster.
    Misato just grinned wider. She finished the beer, tossed the can at the recycling bin, and grabbed another. "The cat's out of the bag, we just finished the official business part, and now it's time for your big sis Misato to embarrass the Hell out of you both. I get my payback."
  • Amazon Chaser: Shinji loves Asuka, among other reasons, because she kicks massive ass.
  • Amnesiac Lover: Rei ends up losing all her memories of Kaworu after her Heroic Sacrifice during the fight against Armisael, due to her last memory backup having been before they met. She has a hard time believing that she could have ever fallen in love with an Angel, and probably would have dismissed it as a lie if Asuka and Shinji hadn't corroborated the story. Fortunately, Rei regains her memories of that time via her connection to Lilith. Before that, Rei realizes Kaworu can be trusted when he successfully fools SEELE during a telepathic meeting.
  • Analogy Backfire: Rei's suggestion to Kaworu on how to respond to the dozens of girls that are bound to come after him is to be more like Kensuke (i.e. act like a gentleman and don't let it go to your head).
    Kaworu: I should... date as many girls as possible, then select two?
    Rei: No!
  • Ancient Conspiracy: SEELE is a secret cabal has been planning for a long time to turn everyone into LCL and merge their souls. Asuka meets them after fighting Leliel, to learn of her experience inside the Angel's Dirac Sea. Following this, she and Shinji gradually realize that behind the scenes of the Angel War, there is something much more sinister going on amongst the human faction.
  • And Mission Control Rejoiced: In chapter 7, Zeruel has ignored or blasted into oblivion all defenses surrounding Tokyo-3, has easily maimed Dummy-controlled Units -00 and -02, has smashed Unit-01 with Rei at the controls, and has invaded the Geofront—and nothing NERV throws at it works. Right when it is about to blast everybody, Shinji and Asuka come along riding Unit-03. Everyone on The Bridge practically leaps out of their seats cheering.
    "YES! WAY TO GO, KIDS!" Misato shouted in joy.
    The mood on Central Dogma's command deck had suddenly swung from mounting despair to shouts of relief and cheer. Shinji and Asuka, the Pilots who'd won victory after victory, had appeared once again to save the day.
  • Angrish: In chapter 4, the trope is mentioned by name. Asuka is trying to explain to Rei that she cannot let Shinji see her naked, without telling the real reason (Asuka and Shinji have got together, but they are keeping it a secret). The frustration of being unable to clearly express her primary motive is getting so strong that she becomes incoherent. Naturally, Rei does not understand the Angrish language.
    "You can't do that with Shinji! He's..." 'MINE! Just for me! Taken! Claimed! In love with me! GAAAAGHH! I can't say any of that!' "He's... not... you... WHARRGAGBBL!"
  • Apologises a Lot: In chapter 3 Shinji and Asuka are pretending to be arguing, but Shinji is so distracted by the sight of Asuka wearing nothing but a towel that he is barely capable of saying "sorry". It prompts Asuka to, as per canon (but for different reasons), criticise his habit of apologizing for everything constantly without being really sorry.
  • Arc Words:
  • Archnemesis Dad:
    • Gendo becomes this to Shinji. He abandoned his own son, turned Rei into his drugged-up slave, hurt Asuka's self-esteem by firing her from her Pilot role, and may try to ruin Shinji's relationship with his girlfriend.
    • After spending more and more time without drug-induced apathy, Rei regards Gendo as a threat whose plans would destroy her best friends and their relationship.
  • Armor-Piercing Question:
    • In chapter 3, Asuka is trapped inside Leliel's Sea of Dirac, and NERV's plan is to throw all of their bombs at it. Dismayed, Shinji asks Misato if Asuka can survive the blast, and Misato evades the question (which was noticed by Shinji).
      Misato: Shinji? [...] Get ready. The bombers are on their way. We're five minutes from the mark.
      Shinji: "Misato-san... I don't like this plan. How... how can we be sure Asuka can even survive the blast?
      Misato: Her batteries will be all but drained by now, Shinji. We have to try something before it's too late, or there'll be no hope at all.
      Shinji: (thinking) She didn't answer my question.
    • In chapter 7, Kaji finds out that Shinji and Asuka are having sex and he tries to discourage them... unsuccessfully. When Asuka says Shinji has said he loves her, Kaji asks why she is so sure that it will last as long as she thinks. Shinji's answer shuts him up and makes him look away in shame:
      Asuka: He loves me, Kaji. He's said it right to me. No one else ever has. Not even you.
      Kaji: It's just words, Asuka. Words are easy to say. They're a lot harder to really mean. How can you possibly know if it's true, and will be for as long as you're talking about?
      Asuka: I believe him.
      Shinji: (coldly) Just words. [...] Just words... have you said them to Misato-san?
      (Kaji suddenly can't look at Shinji in the eye)
    • Kaworu does a more heartwarming example in chapter 11 when Rei III denies any feelings for him because it was Rei II who fell in love with him.
      Kaworu: Do you love Shinji and Asuka?
      Rei: (angrily) Of course I d—
      Kaworu: Who fell in love with them?
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: At the end of angsting about Rei and her boyfriend both being alien hybrids, him swapping between feeling suicidal and wanting to destroy the world, two different organisations including their own boss having their own plans to end the world, and an Assassination Attempt yesterday that has left Shinji and Toji comatose, Asuka also notes that her foot hurts. Then again, she had been shot in the foot.
  • Artifact Title: The title references Misato advising Shinji to trust his feelings and ask Asuka out. That was in the prologue—the story was supposed to be a one-shot. A bunch of chapters have come out since, and Shinji and Asuka got together very early on, so the title does not describe the fic anymore.note  There are other examples of advice and trust through the fic, such as Rei trusting Asuka's advice on the former not needing Akagi's perscribed regimen of drugs.
  • A Shared Suffering: In the first chapter, Shinji blurts out that his father sent him away after his mother's death. Stunned, Asuka replies she also was abandoned by her father after her mother's death. A little exchange later, they realize they do understand each other perfectly and become a couple.
  • Assassination Attempt:
    • In Chapter 11, SEELE sends sniper teams after the Pilots and their friends, in order to eliminate them and trigger Kaworu's Angel side in response. While they succeed in inflicting some serious injuries, everyone survives.
    • SEELE tries again shortly thereafter, having an agent infiltrate NERV's medical center disguised as a nurse and try to kill Kaworu in his recovery bed, again to try and force Tabris to emerge in response to a threat on his life. Again, SEELE fails to achieve this, thanks to Asuka and Rei intervening.
  • The Atoner: After a conversation with Rei, Ritsuko decides to covertly work against Gendo in an attempt to earn redemption for the terrible things she's done.
  • Aura Vision: Unsurprisingly, Rei possesses this thanks to being half-Angelic. The special thing about her Aura Vision is that it allows her to see everyone's bonds. For example, Asuka and Shinji's loving relationship is like a dazzling, blazing fire in her eyes.
    • Kaworu has something similar, but with one major difference. He doesn't see bonds as clearly as Rei, but he hears them in a way she can't.
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Even though Shinji and Asuka deliberately argue frequently to try to hide their Relationship Upgrade, they cannot successfully hide it all the time — see Shinji's and Asuka's reactions when Leliel swallowed Unit-02.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis:
    • In chapter 5, Rei notices that Shinji and Asuka came back to class smelling of chlorine, ammonia, dust and each other. Quickly she deduces that: they just had sex in a janitor's closet; they are together; they are keeping it a secret; and they have very good reasons for maintaining secrecy. And she guesses all that just from the scents that waft past her as they walk by!
    • Later, Shinji and Asuka realize their mothers are stuck inside their giant robots just by talking about their pasts and their experiences piloting their Evas and comparing notes.
  • Awful Truth: Every single one of the students at the school Shinji, Rei, and Asuka attend is a pilot candidate. Pilots are only able to sync with Eva via a bridge provided by the soul of a close loved one who resides in the unit's core. Every pilot candidate at the school has a Missing Mom. When Shinji and Asuka piece this together, they are absolutely horrified. What keeps this from being purely an Awful Truth is the revelation that both Pilots' mothers have always been with them in their Evas.
    • Ritsuko learns from Rei that her mother Naoko had killed the first Rei clone. She takes this revelation far worse than Shinji and Asuka had taken theirs; to the point that she spends the night alone in her apartment with a dangerous combination of severe depression, wine, and painkillers. Fortunately she calls someone for help before the situation gets worse.
  • Awkward Kiss: Subverted. In the first chapter, Asuka and Shinji's kiss was very awkward and tentative at the beginning and was heading towards this path when Shinji accidentally placed his hands on her waist to steady himself... and things changed. A lot.
  • Bad Boss: Commander Gendo Ikari is prone to making bad choices and blaming them on his subordinates. He came up with a terrible strategy to defeat Bardiel at the expense of Unit-03 and Hikari inside, partly to protect Unit-01/Yui Ikari. Shinji, Asuka and Rei had to go against his orders to triumph, and his reaction was to fire his two best Pilots for insubordination and reprimand his remaining loyal Pilot for going along with them. When Zeruel attacked and Ritsuko got hurt, he ordered her hauled out of the way because she was "irrelevant". When the two Pilots that he had fired returned and helped to defeat Zeruel before it killed Rei, he got mad. And when SEELE ordered him to apologize to Shinji and Asuka and permanently reinstate them, he got it over with with the most token, backhanded apology conceivable at the time.
  • Badass Boast: Asuka gives one about herself and Shinji in chapter 3:
    Asuka: Don't. Being the second greatest Eva Pilot in the world isn't exactly making you one of the unwashed masses, Shinji, especially when I'm the top mark. You brought your score up six points in a week, and almost matched me. And who beat Sachiel with no training? Who beat Shamshel despite two Stooges in the Entry Plug with him weighing him down? Who was right there with me against Gaghiel and Israfel? Hm?
    Shinji: (blushing) Me.
    Asuka: Damn straight. So straighten up and be proud of it, Shinji. You're more than good enough to fight with me. We're elite Eva Pilots, one in a billion. Don't you ever stop chasing me, either. You and me are the most dangerous people on the planet. There's no one else I'd trust to have next to me in a fight like you.
    • Shinji also gives one when he's placed under arrest for fighting Arael against his father's orders.
      Shinji: You think you've got enough men to take me? My fellow Pilots and I kill gods, Lieutenant. I've saved the world half a dozen times already. Let's get this over with.
  • Badass Bookworm: Asuka is the best Humongous Mecha pilot in the story, and she is also a certified genius from having attended a university.
  • Battle Aura: Referenced in chapter 4. Asuka begins losing her temper when another girl insists on flirting with Shinji, and Shinji notices:
    Another, darker shadow loomed from behind him. He was faintly surprised there wasn't a glowing red aura around Asuka.
  • Battle Couple: Shinji and Asuka, natch. And given the nature of Evas, they're not merely more competent as a result, but more powerful as well.
    Strypgia: "The best part about being a couple: Combo attacks! :)
    It's even canon: look how powerful they were together versus Israfel! And from now on, every battle is going to be like that for them."
    • In chapter 3:
      "Damn straight. So straighten up and be proud of it, Shinji. You're more than good enough to fight with me. We're elite Eva Pilots, one in a billion. Don't you ever stop chasing me, either. You and me are the most dangerous people on the planet. There's no one else I'd trust to have next to me in a fight like you." Asuka stopped and blinked to herself. She hadn't intended to be that open. She hadn't even realized how true that statement was until she said it. But it was. The thought of going into a fight now without her baka-Shinji at her side was profoundly unappealing. When they were together, they won. "Until the end of the world, you and me, against the Angels and anything else that tries to hurt us."
  • The Beard: Word of God says that Sayaka and Kyoko originally hooked up with Kensuke to cover for the fact that they were with each other, but it eventually evolved into a genuine three-way relationship.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Asuka wanted to show everybody that she was the best pilot, and she wished that Shinji got her blatant hints. At last Shinji got her hints, and because she became more psychologically stable (thanks Shinji) she became the Number One, and she and Shinji defeated an enemy together... but because they did not win as Gendo wanted, he fired them, showing that he could render all her accomplishments irrelevant in three seconds flat.
  • Bedmate Reveal: Shinji and Asuka both have a moment of this immediately after their Relationship Upgrade, though they were more surprised that it wasn't All Just a Dream (a really, really nice dream, for once) than who the other person in the bed was.
  • Beautiful Dreamer:
    • In chapter 1, after sleeping in the same bed for first time, Shinji wakes up and spends a while staring at Asuka.
      He stood by the bed for a moment, burning the sight into his memory.
    • Kaworu later watches Rei wake up via A-T field.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Subverted. Before hooking up Shinji and Asuka often fought and argued despite being clearly drawn to each other. Eventually they got together but they don't want anybody knowing, so that they pretend their relationship is still stuck in that stage.
    • They look for places to talk without being seen by their friends because the two of them having a close, perfectly civil conversation would blow their cover.
  • Beneath the Mask: Shinji had noticed that Asuka pretended to be harsh and prideful, but she was a frightened, vulnerable kid deep down. After getting together she shows him her kindest, nicest side constantly.
  • Berserk Button:
    • When Leliel almost killed Asuka, the calm and soft-spoken Shinji went berserker and tore one half of it in pieces, roaring the whole time and screaming at the Angel to give her back. Hurting her emotionally is also a very, very, very bad idea.
    • Hurt Shinji, upset him, or try to take him away from Asuka, and she will plot your demise and look for places to hide your corpse. And Rei will gladly help her.
    • Speaking of Rei: threaten Shinji and Asuka with deadly in front of her, and there will be nothing of you left after she is done with you.
      Rei: You... will not... harm them... I... will... not... permit... it!
    • Basically, the three main Pilots function as this for each other: harm any one of them in any way, and the other two will come down on you like the wrath of God.
      Rei: You will not touch them! Their bond is the most beautiful thing in this world! They love me and I them, and even I will not risk disrupting it! You will not 'love' them! You will do nothing that might disrupt it! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?
  • The Berserker:
    • Shinji and Asuka both went berserker fighting Leliel. That poor bastard got ripped from outside and within.
    • Rei also crossed the line or came dangerously close to it when she was fighting Zeruel, and the Angel threatened her friends.
  • Beta Couple: Touji and Hikari. Their relationship developed mainly in the chapters 6 and 7. Later, Rei and Kaworu becomes a second Beta Couple.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Most of the time, Shinji is pretty quiet and meek. However, when Leliel trapped Asuka inside itself, he forced his Eva into a berserk rage, roaring and tearing it to shreds. Before acting upon it, he could only stare at Leliel in a way that reminded Rei of Gendo—and how she prefers Shinji as his usually kind self instead of being like the Commander.
  • Beware the Quiet Ones: Rei is a calm, collected person. During the entire battle against Zeruel, she acts in a determined but non-aggressive fashion. However, when the kaiju tries to attack Shinji and Asuka, she goes full berserker on its posterior, completed with glowing red eyes and furious snarls and growls. She takes advantage of Zeruel's focus on Unit-03 to force it into 03's knife with a hosing of Pallet Rifle rounds, which ends once she runs out of ammo and Unit-01 runs out of power.
  • Big Bad: SEELE is a secret organization that intends to kill the entire human race and merge their souls into a single being. They caused Second Impact and spent the next few years bulding the Evas to prepare for the Angels that they knew were coming. They are literally the origin of all the trouble in the original story, and the all the pain and suffering the three heroes has endured can be traced back to them, including the deaths of Shinji and Asuka's mothers.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Asuka and Shinji's feelings for Rei are... complicated, but they are incredibly protective of her. Both of them have said that they care about her almost as much as they care about each other, and one of the fastest ways to piss them off is to hurt her.
  • Big Brother Mentor: Asuka—and Shinji—become this to Rei after the former realized the latter was being treated like a puppet by Gendo. Asuka convinced Rei to stop taking a medication regimen tailored to turn her into an emotionless doll, and she and Shinji helped Rei to move in a decent apartment and improve her social skills. Rei started to model her behaviour patterns after Asuka, and Asuka and Shinji became very protective of Rei.
  • Big Damn Heroes: In chapter 7 Rei is fighting Zeruel, alone. And losing badly. The Angel is about to atomize her when Shinji and Asuka come in riding Unit-03 and knock it to the ground before saying simultaneously: "Get away from my friend."
  • The Big Damn Kiss: In chapter 1 by Shinji and Asuka. After an awkward beginning, they suddenly become so engrossed in kissing each other they fail to notice where they're going. They trip, land on a beanbag and still manage not to break their lip lock. It takes several minutes before they can tear themselves away from each other.
  • Big Ego, Hidden Depths: Shinji used to think that Asuka was an arrogant, although intelligent and brave, girl. Then they had a heart-to-heart talk and he found out about her painful past, her deep traumas, her nightly nightmares, and her feelings of inadequacy, helplessness and loneliness.
  • Big Good: Rei grows into this position following Ritsuko's Heel–Face Turn, being the uniting force between the groups working against Gendo and SEELE.
  • Big "NO!": In chapter 4 Asuka shouts one when a classmate severely misunderstands Rei's words:
    Rei: Though I believe this bond predates that session. Ikari is the first person Pilot Soryu ever let inside her Entry Plug.
    Tanaka: [shocked] Is... is she talking about—
    Asuka: NO.
  • Birthday Episode: Chapter 9 has Asuka celebrating her fifteenth birthday. After her birthday party, Shinji and Asuka retire to their bedroom to have celebratory sex.
  • Bizarre Alien Senses: In chapter 7 Rei fights Zeruel. It is explored how she—a piece of an ancient alien goddess's soul, stuck inside the body of a clone human teenager—sees the world differently, how she senses everyone's AT Fields, their nature and their power, and during the battle she feels her Field and Zeruel's clashing.
  • Blackmail: As part of her campaign to convince Misato to let them sleep together—both literally and figuratively—Asuka informs Misato that Shinji will not cook until she sees reason.
    Misato: But it's Shin-chan's night to cook! [...] That's way better than even my best curry!
    Asuka: The last time you fed "your best curry" to Pen Pen, he spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling and barking. [...] You've cut off my supply of Shinji-cuddles at night. Until you see reason and let us sleep in one bed again, you can suffer deprivation too.
  • Blessed with Suck: Played for Laughs. Kensuke's newfound status as a Chick Magnet means that he's constantly out of money from taking so many girls out on dates. This dies down once he settles on just two girls.
  • Blood Knight: Asuka has been training to pilot a Humongous Mecha and fight alien monsters since she was a four-year-old child and found her mother's corpse hanging from a ceiling. Fighting is her whole life and she genuinely likes it. Her self-image is so tied to being a Pilot that when Gendo fires her and Shinji, she very nearly collapses right away.
  • Blood Lust: Asuka is real enthusiastic about shedding the enemy’s blood when she fights. She was practically giddy when she slashed and stabbed Bardiel.
  • Bonding over Missing Parents: In Chapter 1. Shinji mentions that his father abandoned him right after his mother's death... and Asuka mutters that the same thing happened to her.
  • Book Ends: Early in chapter 1, when Shinji tells Asuka he thinks he really likes her, Asuka asks him "Do you mean it?" Near the end of chapter 11, after Kaworu reveals to Shinji his true nature as the Seventeeth Angel, Shinji likewise asks Kaworu if he meant it when he said he loved him. In both cases, the answer was "yes".
  • Break the Cutie: When Shinji and Asuka open up to each other, Shinji tells how he got abandoned by his father after his mother's death, with no explanation or apology, grew up with no friends, has nightmares about it the whole time... and finds out that Asuka understands him too much well. They get together and his life is apparently and finally getting better... and then an Angel hijacks an Eva with one of his friends inside, Hikari gets absorbed into her robot, he and Asuka get fired...
  • Break the Haughty: Although the premise of the story is "Shinji and Asuka's ruined First Kiss was Asuka's turning point which led to her breakdown. What if they would have gotten it right?" Asuka still is put through a breaking. She gets swallowed by an Angel, her best friend gets absorbed by her giant robot and she gets fired by Gendo. The last was a potentially devastating blow since her self-worth is completely tied to being a pilot. She was hanging by a thread afterwards, and Shinji was the only thing that helped her to cope with the situation in lieu of falling apart and crumbling down.
  • Brick Joke:
    • In an early chapter Asuka tells Rei: "If and when you ever show them off to someone who is not the Third Child, wear something better than those panties, because that is the most boring underwear I have ever seen". Several posts later, she shows her new panties to Kensuke to determine if her new underwear is or is not boring. When Asuka asks Rei why Kensuke was passed out in the hall and what she did, Rei replies with, "What you told me."
    • In an early chapter, Asuka tells Rei she'd have better chances to defeat an Angel by making out with it than to beat Asuka's synch score. And then Rei gets Ship Tease with Kaworu...
    • In an early chapter Rei tells Asuka "I am not 'fucking with you', Pilot Soryu. That is Ikari-kun's job." In chapter 8, Asuka mutters "Fuck... Shinji?" ...and Rei, despite being heavily drugged, makes the same joke.
    • After Misato and Kaji having sex keeps them up at night, Asuka mentioned that she and Shinji would have to get Misato back once her birthday hit (Misato had forbidden them from having sex until then). Right before they go to bed on the night of her birthday, she says "Now… It has been a month. Let's cost Misato some sleep."
  • Bring My Brown Pants: In chapter 8, Ritsuko pisses herself in terror when Unit-00 goes berserker and tries to kill her yet again. She only learns this after she comes to.
  • Bring My Red Jacket: Red-suited Asuka's fights are bloody, and she usually gets hurt or worse. When Leliel swallowed her giant robot whole, she ripped it apart from within, and her mecha came out covered in Angel blood. When the pilots fought Bardiel, she got the worst injuries and she felt the pain of getting her arm ripped off when Unit-02's arm was jettisoned.
  • Broken Ace: Asuka—the best pilot in the team as well as a certified genius and a gorgeous, hot-blooded, brave girl—was already pretty broken before the beginning of the history, and she was heading towards a full breaking. Part of the premise of this story is altering the event where her downward spiral began (her and Shinji's ruined First Kiss) and seeing if she can avoid becoming a fully broken ace. So far, her self-esteem has suffered a few severe blows but she has managed to hold herself together.
  • Broken Bird: In chapter 1 Shinji and Asuka open up and talk about their pasts (their mothers' demises, their fathers' abandonment, their lack of friends, their feelings of insolation and loneliness, their self-worth and trust issues...) and realize that they were more alike than they thought:
    Asuka: What Sensei?
    Shinji: The one my father abandoned me with after my mother died in an accident with the Eva! Not that you'd understand that.
    Asuka: Me too. [...] My mother... There was an accident with Unit-02... She... died, eventually. My father... didn't mourn very long. [...] So yes, Third Child, I know exactly what that felt like!
    Shinji: [...] Your father abandoned you after your mother was gone.
    Asuka: You have nightmares all the time about it. The memory keeps coming after you when you try to sleep.
    Shinji: [nods] It's hard to sleep. You feel lonely and cold at night, because no one ever held you after that.
    Asuka: You never had many friends before you came here. No on ever wanted to just talk to you for you.
    Shinji: Your father never explained or apologized for why he just left you.
    Asuka: No one even tried to understand your pain. No one cared.
    Shinji: You miss her every day, but don't even have any pictures, barely any memories. No one tells you about her.
    Asuka: And there was never any point in talking about it to anyone, because there was no one in the world who could understand what being an Evangelion Pilot was like.
    Shinji/Asuka: (in unison) You're just like me.
  • Broken Hero: When Shinji and Asuka got together and befriended Rei, the Children became a bit happier due to their stronger emotional bonds. They're still traumatized teenagers, but they smile more often and they're actually hopeful about their future. And they've become better warriors, too.
  • Broken Pedestal: Maya idolizes Ritsuko to the point of having a crush on her. However, Ritsuko sees herself as an idiot who makes awful decisions in order to try to seduce an asshole who does not care about her, and she is afraid that she will become this to Maya if her assistant realizes how horrible she really is. In chapter 8, Ritsuko explicitly thinks that she is not who Maya believes she is. Maya is reasonably horrified when Ritsuko finally shares her sins to her, but calms down and asks Ritsuko what the two of them can do right now to subvert Third Impact, to Ritsuko's astonishiment.
  • Broken Record: In chapter 9, Hikari explains what listening to Shinji and Asuka's thoughts when she was mind-linked with them was like: it felt like the words Love Lust Joy Happiness Trust Comfort Love Lust Joy Happiness Trust Comfort repeating over and over.
  • Bruiser with a Soft Center: Touji. Asuka initially dismissed him as a dumb jock and struggled to see what Hikari saw in him, but her opinion of him softens a great deal after seeing how devastated he is when Hikari gets trapped in Unit-03's core.
  • Buffy Speak: Touji is guilty of this. In chapter 8 he tries to talk about his friend and Asuka behaving as a couple:
    "You two. It's too weird, watching you and the Red De—... er, Soryu-san be all... couple-y."
  • Bullying a Dragon: In chapter 6, Gendo berates Rei for not obeying him and threatens her with "consequences" should she fail in following and executing his orders and only his orders to the letter. Keeping in mind that he knows she is a Physical God capable of liquefying him with a mere thought and protected with an impenetrable barrier, he should think twice before threatening her, especially since she has begun disobeying his orders, overtly and covertly.
    • It's not just with Rei either. Gendo has made it a hobby to torment, abuse, ignore, insult, and mistreat his best Child Soldiers who are the only viable pilots for the 50 foot mecha absolutely mission critical for his "Scenario." As if that wasn't bad enough, he also callously mistreats his staff, who are the only means by which he can keep a leash on said pilots. He has yet to realize how wrong he is in thinking that he has them all completely under his thumb and can get away with it.
  • Call to Agriculture: Kaji gardens and grows watermelons because he wants to make something he likes before dying since he thinks the world is ending. In chapter 8, Misato (the last to learn of Kaji's secret aside of Rei) brings the pilots down to his watermelon patch, and the kids spend some time gardening and weeding (with some goofing around to be expected from some high-school students).
  • Calling the Old Man Out: In Chapter 10, Asuka chews out Yui during a cross-synch test for abandoning Shinji and being compliant with SEELE, though the two of them do manage to reach something of an understanding by the end of their discussion.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Subverted. In the prologue Misato thinks Shinji is incapable of confessing his feelings to Asuka and she tries to encourage him to admit them to her. Shinji answers with the usual excuses: he does not think that Asuka loves him back, he likes things the way they are right now... but in reality, they had gotten together several weeks earlier and were keeping their relationship secret. Before that, though, they had been unable to spit it out: Shinji did not believe that Asuka liked him, Asuka was too proud to admit that she had fallen for him, and both were frightened of rejection.
    • Played straight with Lilith. She was in love with Adam before they became the carriers for the souls of the FAR and never admitted her feelings. Her desire to be with him was the reason why both of them ended up on the same planet.
  • Canon Immigrant:
    • Chihiro Tanaka, a character originally created in Once More with Feeling is Shinji, Asuka and Rei's classmate and makes several appearances where she tries woo Shinji and pry him away from Asuka and Rei... with no success whatsoever.
    • Rei Quatre is a character from the Evangelion -ANIMA-. Here, Rei IV was created by Gendo as a contingency in case Rei III would turn against him, which is exactly what happens due to Rei Deux's feelings for Shinji and Asuka being carried over to Rei III.
  • Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: Gendo thinks his son and Asuka's relationship consists of Shinji being infatuated with her and dependent on her despite her abusing him and detesting him. He is very wrong. They used to fight and need each other simultaneously, but they got over the "can't live with them" part when he was not paying attention.
  • Captain Obvious: Rei is naturally blunt, but in chapter 8 she makes very obvious statements because she's recovering from a drug overdose and it's messing with her mind:
    Rei: (staring at a watermelon) This melon... is very green. Green.
  • The Casanova: Subverted. Due to a misunderstanding, all Shinji's female classmates convinced themselves that he is some sort of stud and is in a three-way relationship with Asuka and Rei (ironically they are accidentally not so off the mark: Shinji and Asuka are dating secretly; and Rei is in love with both, but she does not want to disrupt their relationship), so they start to lust after him and chase him, much to his chagrin (he only wants Asuka) and Asuka's wrath, who complains that they think he is "Shinji the Casanova" when he is hers.
    • Played straight with Kensuke, thanks to some clever social engineering that Rei provided for his benefit. That said, once the girls do take notice, he carries the reputation forward all by himself, until he settles down into a polyamorous relationship.
  • Cerebus Rollercoaster: This story's mood and tone shift constantly due to the author's desire to blend W.A.F.F. with the darkness of canon, and the length of the chapters. In a single episode you can go from wacky teenager antics to mecha action to a character considering committing suicide to two children in love snuggling up on their bed.
  • Character Development:
    • Asuka's plan in chapter 8 was meant to mess with Misato's mind and show subtly that they had matured since they were together: Asuka can now control her temper, both teens care about each other and are comfortable with their bodies and with sexuality to the point they can have fun with some fantasy—or make fun of each other's personality traits—without ruining their real relationship...
    • Shinji starts to become more assertive, from responding positively to Asuka's teasing to convincing her to be honest with Misato about Rei being overdosed, and later about the two of them holding each other at night to only stave off their nightmares.
    • Asuka becomes more open to others, especially to Shinji. She also drops all hostility with Rei after learning about what "Wondergirl's" life as the Commander's "favorite" is really like; eventually, Asuka starts seeing Rei as a trusted friend.
  • Chastity Couple: Invoked. Ritsuko deliberately wanted to take things slowly with Maya since she had just come out of an emotionally abusive relationship with Gendo.
    They hadn't slept together, kissed, or even so much as held hands, but she already felt a dozen times closer and happier being with Maya than she had in years pursuing Gendo. She felt positively giddy at times. Maya wanted her just for being her. Maya wanted to hold her, say her name softly, and wake up next to her. Without either of them saying three little words, without a kiss or anything, they were... a couple.
    • Although, after that, and as Ritsuko slowly becomes more and more comfortable with their relationship, they start kissing and eventually perform the deed at Ritsuko's apartment.
  • Chekhov's Gun: When Asuka fights the Thirteenth Angel she sees that Bardiel has grown an S2 Organ in Unit 03's body when it infected the Humongous Mecha. She and Shinji defeat Bardiel by cracking the Organ, avoiding destroying the Unit. Later they have to help Rei to fight Zeruel but they can not use their own giant robots, so that they hijack the intact Unit-03. During the battle it runs out of power... but since it has a S2 Organ, it can keep moving.
  • Chick Magnet: Kensuke, after Rei invokes Magnetic Girlfriend. Asuka and Shinji have a hard time grasping how this happened.
    Asuka: Kensuke Aida has two girlfriends. And it’s their idea. And he’s cancelling on a bunch more girls for them. I want off this planet, Shinji. It’s clearly gone nuts.
  • Child Soldiers: Shinji, Asuka, Rei, Hikari, Kaworu—fourteen-year-old kids drafted to pilot war mechs and fight a war against giant alien monsters. Asuka and Rei have been training her whole lives for it, and the former is especially devoted to it. Often they talk about how broken they are due to being someone else's tools. When Misato expresses horror at the idea of Asuka and Shinji in a sexual relationship, they essentially retort that if they're old enough to go to war and die for her and all of humankind, they're old enough for that as well.
    Asuka: I just... I knew she'd react like this. Treating us like we're kids who can't be allowed to do 'adult' things like this, and then shove us back into the Entry Plug the next day.
  • Childhood Friend Romance: Sayaka and Kyoko had been best friends ever since they were little, and they've been engaged in a Secret Relationship for several years. Their reason for pursuing Shinji, and later Kensuke, is to find The Beard who can cover for them.
  • Chucking Chalk: Hikari does this to Touji in class in chapter 4.5 to stop his masculine posturing dead in its tracks.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Shinji and Asuka got together but they are keeping it a secret. She is extremely possessive and protective of Shinji because "You're cute, you like me, you're a fantastic kisser, and you understand what it's like [to be me]". Coincidentally, all their female classmates have all of sudden convinced themselves that he is a Casanova and a god of sex and are trying to hook up with him, and their behaviour is an endless source of frustration and rage to Asuka because she can not claim him publicly or just kill her rivals (someone might notice).
    • Ironically Rei does not provoke Asuka's jealousy — after a while — however, she is also extremely close to Shinji because Rei respects their bond and she has even helped to drive Shinji's would-be suitors away.
  • Clueless Chick-Magnet: Asuka liked Shinji, Rei cared for Shinji, and all of his female classmates had a huge crush on Shinji... and Shinji was completely clueless about all of it. He never even noticed. It changes throughout the story, though. He accidentally got a hint Asuka was throwing at him and they got together... which eventually led to Rei spending more time with them and all of their classmates deciding to chase him actively, much to his shock and disbelief.
  • Companion Cube: Asuka treats her Unit-02 as if it was alive and talks to it. After discovering that their robots ARE alive and their mothers' souls are locked within them, Asuka realizes that is the reason her synch rose and her robot went berserker when she talked to it. From that point onward Shinji and Asuka start to talk to their robots more often.
  • Conveniently an Orphan: Shinji and Asuka are both orphans (dead mothers, abandoned by fathers). So is Rei. And Hikari who also becomes a Pilot. And all of their classmates. Eventually Shinji and Asuka start to suspect it is indeed very convenient that all pilots are half-orphans whose surviving parental figure works for NERV. When they compare notes on their mothers' deaths and after Hikari tells them she felt her mother inside her robot, they realize what has happened to their mothers and that NERV is behind their deaths.
  • Converse with the Unconscious: In chapter 2, Shinji talks to Asuka while she is unconscious to tell her she makes him happy and he will never leave her.
    • Later, in Chapter 11, Asuka begs a hospitalized Shinji to wake up before talking to Kaworu.
  • Coy, Girlish Flirt Pose: When some of the girls in Class 2-A start trying to talk to Shinji, one of them pulls this pose on him.
  • Cool Big Sis: Misato tries acting like this to her wards, taking care of them, trying to protect them and even encouraging Shinji to confess his feelings to Asuka.
  • Cooldown Hug: As their relationship develops and strengthens, Shinji, Asuka, and Rei start to do this for each other when one of them is upset.
    • In chapter 7, Rei — who was upset after being forced to not see Shinji and Asuka for two days — hugged Shinji and then Asuka, giving her an additional hug on Shinji's behalf. The three of them felt comforted and calmer for it.
      "And she could be wrong. What if Hikari's dead and it's my fault for screwing up? I get my best friend killed, I get fired from the job I've had my whole life, I get replaced by a program, I'm fucking useless..." Asuka pinched her eyes shut and fought down tears.
      She nearly gasped as she felt Rei put her arms around her. "I am happy to see you, Asuka. I missed my friends. You are not useless. You have saved me from drugged stupor. You fought superbly and defeated the Angel even though you had only one arm left. You saved many lives by stopping it so quickly."
      "But we failed Hikari! I failed my best friend! And now I’m not even a Pilot anymore! What good am I?" Asuka nearly wailed.
      Rei released the hug and stepped back. Asuka suddenly missed it. The embrace had been comforting somehow.
  • Cordon Bleugh Chef: As with her canon self, Misato likes mixing foods that should not be mixed. In chapter 8 Asuka tells the last time Misato fed her "best curry" to Pen Pen, the penguin spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling and barking.
  • Covert Pervert: After hooking up with Shinji and especially after Their First Time, Asuka becomes sex-crazed and gets frustrated if she hasn't sex with Shinji in the past day... but in public, she still pretends she is not interested in sex so that nobody suspects they are together. When someone figures out they are together and finds out what kind of thoughts she has, they are shocked because they did not think she could be so lewd.
    Asuka: (thinking) I... may owe Misato an apology. I had no idea it felt this good. I might be a bigger perv than she is.
  • Crazy Enough to Work: In chapter 7 Rei was fighting Zeruel alone because Shinji and Asuka got fired. Despite her most valiant efforts Zeruel was trouncing her. Shinji and Asuka could not seem to help her because they were out of the Geofront, and even if they made it they could not use their giant robots (Rei was piloting Unit 01 and Zeruel had butchered Unit 00 and 02). Then to Asuka's hope, her "sweet baka" Shinji got an idea: driving to NERV HQ as fast as possible and hijacking Unit-03, an Evangelion that neither had ever so much as TOUCHED before that day and could still be contaminated by an Angel, hoping that maybe Hikari — who was stuck inside — would help them to move it around given her connection to both.
  • Crazy Jealous Guy: Although he has not got many chances to show it In-Universe, Word of God has confirmed that Shinji is very possessive and jealous, and if someone tried to hit on Asuka, he would not put up with it silently.
    That.... would not likely end well. Shinji doesn't show it as much, but he's as strongly possessive of Asuka as she is of him. Rei gets a pass due to being so close to both of them, but a stranger, an outsider, trying to make moves on his Asuka? Oh, that would not be good.
  • Creative Sterility: Kaworu is very good when it comes to playing music, but he can't write his own or even rearrange an existing song; he isn't capable of the inspiration to create. As a workaround for this, Shinji suggests that Kaworu compile and arrange a mixtape for Rei as a Christmas present.
  • Creepy Monotone: Rei's monotone voice is the result of being drugged to the gills on tranquilizers and mood suppressors. When she starts talking like this again after a long stretch of being more emotionally demonstrative than usual, Shinji and Asuka immediately realize that something is very wrong.
  • Crossover: Downplayed with Kensuke's two girlfriends being in-name-only references to Kyouko and Sayaka from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, although they indicated to share elements of their looks and background.
  • Crush Blush: Shinji and Asuka often blush when talking to each other. In chapters 3 and 4 Shinji blushes brightly and frequently when Misato teases him about what he felt for Asuka and encourages him to confess.
  • Cuddle Bug:
    • Rei loves hugs, although she's far more likely to ask for them then to give them. While Asuka and Shinji are always happy to oblige, Asuka was only a bit annoyed when she came into their room to ask for one at six-thirty in the morning, since Rei is still experiencing nervousness and fear for the first time.
    • Asuka loves to cuddle with Shinji—it's one of her favorite activities. Even after Leliel, they spend just as many nights snuggling as they do having sex.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: After Shinji and Asuka's full graduation to Battle Couple some of their battles have been quite... one-sided. When they fought Leliel, the battle was over as soon as they went berserker. Shinji shattered its shadow into pieces, and Asuka ripped its body open from within.
  • Curse Cut Short: Combined with Foreign Cuss Word at the end of chapter 6. Asuka has just won a battle and she is surrounded by a squad of armed guards who inform her that Commander Ikari has ordered her arrest and confinement. In reaction she exclaimed “EURE MÜTTER-" (meaning "You mother-") before cutting to another scene.
  • Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon:
    • In chapter 4 Asuka is trying to prevent a classmate from finding out that Shinji and she got together, so that she denies that he has had sex with her. When their classmate tries to placate her by saying "Of course! He'd never do anything indecent with you!" Asuka gets pissed off and retorts that he would do anything he could with her all night long and she'd make him beg for more...
      (long, awkward pause)
      Asuka: That didn't just happen and none of you remember anything. Or I will scoop out your brains and make a pie, understood?
    • She later promises Kensuke that if he makes Sakura and Miki unhappy, "Rei and I will feed you your own arms and legs."
    • When Takamori is hitting on Shinji and inadvertently making him feel bad about himself in the process, Asuka internally vows to eat her eyes in retaliation. However, she doesn't have to pursue it any further, because a moment later Rei gets all necessary revenge, by starting her withdrawal symptoms with a series of projectile vomits all over Takamori.
  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: In chapter 11, Misato is astounded by the fact that Ritsuko's LCL healing tank (the same one she regularly uses on Rei) can have the pilots battle-ready again only two days after they were injured in a mass shooting (actually an assassination attempt by SEELE), and marvels at the possibility of how many lives this technology could save if it were publicly released. Ritsuko painfully reminds her that Commander Ikari has no interest in doing any such thing (with the unstated implication that he plans to end the world via Third Impact and so doesn't care about anyone outside of his plan).

    D-F 
  • Dead Guy Junior: After Shinji admits how easily he could turn out like his father in the event that Asuka winds up killed or comatose, Asuka made him promise that — in the event that she couldn't be with him — he should marry Rei instead and name a daughter after her. He made her give the same promise (although he pointed out that adoption would probably be required under those circumstances).
  • Dead Man Writing: Subverted when Shinji discovers that his mother made a collection of videos and letters to explain to him what she had done and why, for him to be given as he grew up, but his father destroyed them all instead.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Everyone gets a few licks here and there, but highest marks have to go to off-her-sedatives Rei and her comments on her friends' clandestine affairs.
    Rei Ayanami: I am not 'fucking with you', Pilot Soryu. That is Ikari-kun's job.
  • Death Glare:
    • In chapter 4 Asuka gives Shinji "a glare that should have set his shirt on fire" after learning that he touched Rei's chest accidentally.
    • In chapter 6, Asuka rescues Shinji from their female classmates. Afterwards Asuka and her classmates exchanged death glares:
      Asuka hung behind to give Tanaka and the other girls a death glare, which they returned.
    • In chapter 7 when Gendo fires the Pilots, Asuka — whose self-worth depended hugely on being a Pilot — almost collapses on the spot. Shinji, who is used to being insulted by his father but could not stand to see Asuka hurt, aims a glare at Gendo that could melt titanium; Gendo doesn't blink, but Fuyutsuki does.
  • Death Seeker: Rei lives in permanent pain due to her soul being split in three pieces. She also knows that she is a clone and could be replaced if she died. She collaborated with Gendo because she hoped she could die and finally rest in peace if he carried out his plan. However, as her bond with Shinji and Asuka grows stronger and sturdier, she starts enjoying living and hanging out with other people, and stops wishing for the release of oblivion that would erase her friends and their love.
  • Declaration of Protection: Following the battle against Leliel in Chapter 3, Rei voices to Asuka her decision to protect her in battle. This surprises Asuka, since at this point in time they are not friends.
    "He [Shinji] has protected me many times. I have protected him. He has protected you. Next time, will it be you for me, or me for you?" Rei stood up and walked to the door.
    Asuka was stunned. "You... we don't exactly get along, Wondergirl. You'd still do that? Risk your life for me?"
    Rei paused at the door and nodded over her shoulder. "Yes. Ikari-kun says this is important, and ... I trust him when he says that. And... you are important to him. His happiness is important to me. So I will protect you as well. I will see you at school tomorrow. Goodnight."
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: All Shinji's female classmates are convinced that he has "tamed" the "Red Demon" (hot-blooded, fiery redhead Asuka) and the "Ice Queen" (collected, emotionless bluenette Rei) and they are sharing him because one single woman can not handle him. Ironically they are not so far from the truth. Shinji has "defrosted" Asuka and both have "defrosted" Rei (although nobody is having a threesome... sorry, "Israfel Special"). After kissing — and Shinji realizing Asuka had been dropping hints on him — they got together and Asuka started being warmer, kinder and more affectionate to him. Then they started to spend more time with Rei, and the three of them bonded.
    • The story starts out when Misato takes Shinji aside to give him tips to "defrosting" Asuka... not knowing he already managed that.
  • Defusing the Tyke-Bomb:
    • When Shinji and Asuka realize that Gendo has raised Rei as his obedient puppet who is ready to die on his command, they decide to befriend her and cut her strings because they really hate Gendo and they really care about Rei.
    • Shinji and Asuka to each other. After realizing they are traumatized orphans and child soldiers during their mutual love confession, they start to lean on each other, improving their mental stability.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: In chapter 9, Ritsuko is very nervous after having a romantic dream about her co-worker, and as she tries to calm down, she tells herself that she's a "rational woman of science and rationality".
  • Determinator: Rei. Asuka compares her with a Terminator because she never stops. Her finest showing in the battle against Zeruel is actually an example of her Character Development, where she fights her hardest to defend her friends rather than lack of regard for her own life, never gives up and thanks to her resolute attitude, she manages to kill it in spite of horrible odds.
  • Devoted to You: Shinji tells Asuka several times she's all he wants.
  • Didn't Think This Through:
    • After Shinji and Asuka's synch rates climb rapidly as a result of their new relationship (which brings both of them a lot more emotional stability), Ritsuko orders that Rei spend more time with them — constantly together except when going to sleep, in fact — in case she can experience the same effect. Since Rei has always been an obedient puppet, Ritsuko is just thinking in terms of the numbers. However, this naturally leads to Shinji and Asuka discovering Rei's plethora of emotion-suppressing medications (prescribed by Ritsuko to keep her pliant and submissive), and sets them up to become her trusted friends — which means they're successful in persuading Rei to stop taking the drugs (and Rei is easily smart enough to realise that she should conceal that from Ritsuko, too).
    • More generally, NERV is putting Hormone Addled Teenagers through training where their progress is measured by their ability to be in sync with someone else, then sending them to battle giant monsters together and narrowly escape death, before going home to the same apartment — and NERV expects them not to become physically intimate.
  • Did You Just Have Sex?: In chapter 5 Rei manages to piece together that Shinji and Asuka were just having sex in a supply closet based on how they smelled, their lack of tension, and the fact that they arrived back at the classroom at the same time even though they left separately. By extension, she's able to figure out that they've been in a Secret Relationship for the past few months (something that nobody else noticed) even though she had less than a month of experience with recognizing social cues.
    Rei: Observation: Ikari-kun and Pilot Soryu have returned to the classroom smelling alike and of each other, their tension is gone. Conclusion: they have just engaged in some activity together in a confined space that satisfied both of them. Second Conclusion: They utilized the school cleaning supply closet to engage in... sexual intercourse?
  • Did You Think I Can't Feel?: After Shinji and Asuka talk her into ditching her emotion-numbing medication, Rei often wonders angrily why the Commander did this to her. When he is lecturing her after the battle against Bardiel, reminding her that she must obey any and all his orders and only his orders to the letter or there will be "consequences" she keeps a cool mask while burning with resentment, thinking she had always been loyal and he had used her like a puppet, and telling herself she will not allow him to hurt her friends.
    • Rei eventually tells Ritsuko that, despite having good reason, she does not hate Ritsuko for what she's done to her. Ritsuko is alarmed, as the drug regimen she has prescribed for Rei shouldn't even permit her enough emotional depth to consider hating anyone; the explanation Rei offers is that she can always feel; but normally, she does not care.
  • Disappeared Dad: In chapter 1, Shinji tells Asuka his father ditched him after his mother's death and he barely saw Gendo during the next ten years. Asuka mentions that her own father did not mourn her mother very long; Shinji guesses that her father also abandoned her after her mother was gone, and he never explained why or apologized to her for it.
  • Disowned Parent: Done by Asuka in chapter 9 when she revised her will and next of kin stuff, and she cut her father and her step-mother out of her will, declaring "Screw my father and that woman, Shinji gets everything". From that point on, she doesn't regard her parents as family.
  • Distinction Without a Difference: Asuka sarcastically tells Misato over the phone that she'll do her best to fight Shinji's Don Juan-like charms and keep him from ravishing her. When Shinji questions her on it, she claims that she considers him more of a Casanova type and that she'd be ravishing him.
  • Distracted by the Sexy:
    • In chapter 3, Asuka and Shinji are pretending to have a fight. However, Asuka is wearing nothing but a towel and Shinji is so busy ogling her bare legs that he is barely paying attention to what she is saying.
    • Exploited by Rei; anything at all that reminds Kaworu of her attractiveness helps to distract him from the Call to destroy the world.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Rei begging Ritsuko to drug her again so that she can hide her soul pains from Gendo is reminiscent of a junkie going through withdrawal. The author confirms that this was deliberate.
  • Don't Make Me Destroy You: When Rei brings Kaworu home, she instructs him NOT to touch anything because she's yearning for an excuse to obliterate him.
    Rei: This is my residence. Do not touch anything. My instincts are already demanding your destruction for the invasion, even requested.
    Kaworu: (smiling) I will try not to force you to destroy me.
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Rei pities Ritsuko because she's Gendo's easily-controlled tool. Ritsuko is aware of it and hates Rei's compassion.
  • Double Entendre:
    • In chapter 4 Rei shares details of past battles with a classmate... but it sounds like she is implying that Shinji was having sex with both Asuka and her.
    • Later in that chapter Asuka is complaining about Rei's double entendres... and finds out that Rei has no idea what those are, so that she has to explain the concept:
      Asuka: And damn near everything out of your mouth was a huge double entendre!
      Rei: What is a 'double-entendre'?
      Asuka: You... what? You really... Are you screwing with me, First?"''
      Rei: I am not screwing with you, Pilot Soryu.
      Asuka: A double entendre is when you say something superficially ordinary with deliberate sexual double meaning. When you started telling Tanaka about 'Ikari-kun was the first one in Soryu's Entry Plug', she's going to think you're making a joke about us having sex! And 'he burst into my core' and 'I would like to do it again' makes it sound like baka-Shinji's doing you too!
    • When Asuka wakes up in medical, with Shinji at her bedside, she has to stay in character as 'hating' him, so she demands to know what he's making for her dinner.
      Asuka: I'm really 'hungry'.
    • When Misato comes across Kaji's secret vegetable garden, he takes the chance to flirt.
    Kaji: You've penetrated my deepest secret, Katsuragi. I am laid bare before you.
    Misato: That comes later.
  • Double Meaning: Shinji and Asuka make liberal use of this when concealing their relationship; it's easier than total fabrication, and can be more fun.
    Hikari: You know, Asuka, you could be nicer to Ikari-kun. He makes your lunch for you every day, and you hardly even say thank you.
    Asuka: He understands what I meant. I thank him after dinner at home.

    Misato: Anyhow, I probably won't get home until after midnight, so try not to fight with Asuka too much. Get to bed on time to get a good night's sleep. You all have that Synch Test tomorrow afternoon.
    Shinji: Um, right, Misato-san. We'll be alright. We just finished up our homework, so we'll get to bed early, both of us.

    Misato: But you don't want her to know you like her? I can tell you do.
    Shinji: I... I like things the way they are right now.
  • Dramatic Ellipsis: Used any time any characters interact. All characters do it, all the time. Even when texting or chatting online.
  • Dramatic Irony:
    • Everything involving Gendo's plans. Everyone thinks that he's holding all the cards, when in reality, he lost the second that Asuka convinced Rei to stop taking her medication. (Granted, he has still dealt a few devastating blows against Shinji and Asuka, such as firing them after Bardiel.)
    • Asuka's line to Rei when the latter admits that she's still keeping secrets from them.
      Asuka: Rei, unless you’re about to reveal you’re the Devil himself and about to open the gates of Hell next month, I think we’ll forgive you.
    • Asuka hesitates for a moment before discussing NERV business around Touji, who isn't technically cleared to know everything, but she ultimately decides that he'll find things out anyway, since his best friend and girlfriend are both Pilots, and, "It wasn't like the Angels had human spies." This is immediately after Kaworu, the Seventeeth Angel in human form, has joined them at the table.
  • Driven to Suicide:
    • In chapter 8, Ritsuko is so depressed over having committed uncountable sins for the love of a man who doesn't care about her that she starts drinking wine by the bottle while strung out on painkillers. And then she attempts to take more painkillers on top of that.
      'You’re halfway into your fourth bottle of wine and trying to take more pills. You’re a goddam doctor, Ritsuko. Are we still going to pretend you don’t remember what happens when you mix sedatives and alcohol at this dosage? Are we still pretending this isn’t a half-assed suicide attempt?'
    • Kaworu also becomes suicidal after being Mind Raped by Arael, as shown by his comments while watching reruns of M*A*S*H.
      The humor appeals to me, and I like the opening song. It feels more fitting to me right now than 'Ode To Joy'.
  • Drives Like Crazy: In chapter 7, Asuka learns why Misato drives like crazy. It is because Kaji taught her. He shattered the limit speed, threw the car into precisely calculated and highly risky drifts and drove on the train tracks.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: After her talk with Rei in chapter 8, Ritsuko spends the whole night drinking wine and crying. Word of God had only intended for wine to be involved, but the painkillers that she was given following her latest injury took the scene to a grimmer premise of a "half-assed suicide attempt".
  • Dying Alone: In chapter 2, Asuka gets trapped inside Leliel — whose body is a whole alternate dimension of blank nothingness — and she thinks she is going to die alone. The thought terrifies her.
  • Dynamic Entry: Performed by Shinji and Asuka in chapter 7. Zeruel has destroyed the Evas, has crushed Unit-01/Rei and has reached Nerv's command centre. It is about to blast Rei when Unit-03, piloted by Shinji and Asuka, slam into it from behind, knocking it to the ground.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Kaworu was supposed to come along after the defeat of the Sixteenth Angel. Here he arrives at NERV shortly after the defeat of the Fourteenth.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Although Shinji and Asuka hook up at the beginning of the story, and their relationship gives them an emotional anchor to cling to when things got too tough, the story makes clear that a happy ending will require struggle. And it was made clear as soon as Leliel absorbed Asuka in lieu of Shinji in the next chapter. Moreover, now they have a deep bond with Rei and have a better relationship with their friends, they have to protect more people.
  • Easily Forgiven: Asuka believes that this has happened with Rei choosing to see the similarities between herself and Ritsuko instead of hating her.
  • Eating the Eye Candy:
    • Since they got together, Shinji ogles Asuka even more often and longer than usual. Asuka notices and enjoys it, but has to hide it in public.
    • In chapter 3, she is berating him while wearing a towel... and only a towel. Shinji has trouble listening to anything she is saying.
      "I'm sorry," his mouth said on autopilot. A small part of his brain was concentrating on not dropping the hot pot on his feet, because most of it was trying not to drool helplessly over the way Asuka's long, smooth legs disappeared up under the hem of the towel, mixed in with memories of last night that said sight triggered. Stopping in the middle of things to take a shower had been Asuka's idea. It had been a good one; she'd suggested there was a way to save water... Wow...
      Um. She was still pointing at him and yelling. "You always apologize right away, but do you actually feel sorry?!"
      "Um." Nope, brain still off.
    • In chapter 9, Ritsuko is conducting an experiment in a pool of LCL and needs Maya's help. Ritsuko's labcoat-plus-swimsuit outfit is famous from the first episode of the series, but Maya's never seen it before now; she winds up gawking at Ritsuko. The narration has to repeat the words "she forced her eyes up" multiple times before she can actually get her eyes off Ritsuko's cleavage.
  • Elegant Classical Musician: As in canon, Shinji is a skilled cello player, and he is later joined by Asuka (Violin), Rei (Viola), and Kaworu (Violin). Shinji even writes a concerto for Asuka's birthday and performs it alongside Rei and Kaworu. And yes, he does get other uses out of his "musician's hands".
  • Emotionless Girl: Deconstructed. When Shinji and Asuka visit Rei's apartment, Asuka discovers that Rei is emotionless because she has been taking industrial-sized doses of emotion-suppressing chemicals prescribed by Ritsuko. Aghast, she tries to convince Rei to stop taking them and worries that NERV would also do this to Shinji and herself.
  • Endearingly Dorky: Maya is a lovely, nice, clumsy young woman with a tendency to embarrass herself when she talks to her not-so-secret crush. Said crush thinks that she's "adorkable".
  • Enemy Mine: Shinji's female classmates have a crush on him and team up to keep Asuka away him as each one of them try to ask him out. However Rei does not care for them trying to flirt with Shinji so that Rei teams up with Asuka to keep them away Shinji (and in the process they become good friends).
  • Energy Weapon: In episode 7 Rei fights Zeruel. The Robeast started out the battle shooting a laser beam at Rei, but she dodged it quickly. During the battle she constantly dodged its energy blasts, since when she tried to block them, it almost vaporized her.
    The Angel’s eyes flashed again and Rei threw herself to the side. The beam missed her by bare meters and vaporized another building behind her with a cross-shaped blast.
  • Entertainingly Wrong: When Gendo fired Shinji and Asuka he was not concerned, because he thought the Dummy Plugs would be an adequate substitute; and besides, neither Shinji nor Asuka would leave or refuse to pilot again because Shinji yearned for his approval and attention and Asuka's self-image was utterly tied to being a pilot. Oh, and he also thought Shinji's feelings towards Asuka were unrequited infatuation. Ordinarily, this would be correct—this was indeed the status of things in the canon timeline and a reasonable assumption of how things could have gone. However: the dummy plugs were NOT a good enough substitute; Shinji and Asuka's relationship was of the Belligerent Sexual Tension nature, and it had been resolved unbeknownst to him, so neither of them cared for or depended on his approval anymore. Cue freaking I-eat-Evas-for-breakfast Zeruel, easily destroying the Evas piloted by Dummy Plugs, nearly killing Rei, storming the Geofront and very nearly killing everyone because Gendo had been idiotic and suicidal enough to fire his best pilots!
  • Everyone Can See It:
    • Subverted. Shinji and Asuka used to be unable to see it, but in the beginning of the fic they at last realized each other's feelings. However they are keeping their relationship secret out of fear to be separated, so that they pretend they are still stuck in that phase, and everyone believe they can not see it despite of it being obvious.
      • Misato particularly thinks it is painfully obvious but they are oblivious and she must help them to realize it.
    • Played straight with Touji/Hikari. Asuka lampshades the absurdity of it and Shinji points out what they were doing the same thing.
      Asuka told him about Hikari’s raging crush on Touji. She’d been only slightly surprised when Shinji mentioned Touji’s matching infatuation with the petite Class Rep that he thought no one knew about. Asuka had laughed at the foolishness of the two of them liking each other but failing to see it was mutual, just dancing around each other for months… until Shinji had given her a smirk and a stare.
  • Evil Sounds Raspy: Asuka describes Keel Lorenz's voice as sounding like "dead leaves scratching and rattling around a graveyard."
  • Evil vs. Evil: NERV and SEELE, two factions with their own agendas for Third Impact and Human Instrumentality vs the Angels, a group of seemingly Always Chaotic Evil Eldritch Abomination aliens.
  • Exact Words: Shinji and Asuka use a lot of double wording to hide their relationship from everybody. Their guardian Misato calls and Shinji tells "We'll get to bed early, both of us", omitting the "together in the same bed" bit. People observes that Shinji's piloting skills are improving and Asuka tells that is due to "how much of she has rubbed off on him" omitting that all of her has rubbed off on him several times.
    Shinji: Well, it's about what I would have said anyway, before, and it's still true, so I'm not lying or anything...
    Asuka: Heh. Technically correct, the best kind of correct.
    • Ritsuko, needing to recover from a series of injuries, is planning on using the same LCL-boosted healing regimen she's run on the Pilots before; since she's the only one who knows how the process works, Commander Ikari has classified it and ordered Ritsuko not to use it on herself. Her solution? Get Maya to use it on her. Both Ritsuko and Maya, though, know that this is still a violation of the order.
  • Expendable Clone: Subverted. At the beginning Rei saw herself as expendable and replaceable since she was a clone. When she told Asuka she would die if she was ordered to, her fellow pilot was horrified. However Rei befriends Shinji and Asuka and as her bond with them gets stronger, she stops thinking of herself as dispensable.
  • Eye Beams: Zeruel's optical beams are extremely powerful. He used them to pierce nearly all defensive layers of the cast's underground base and nearly vaporizes Rei with them.
  • Face Palm: In chapter 4 Shinji does a double facepalm after Asuka all but blows their cover (they were trying to keep their relationship secret and she pretty much shouted at a classmate that they were having sex).
  • Failed Attempt at Drama: Kaworu would like to wax poetic over Rei, but Angels don't have the proper capacity for creation.
    YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL IN REST. IT WAS QUITE PEACEFUL TO WATCH. YOUR FRACTURED SPLENDOR IS... IS...
    I AM BAD AT SIMILES.
  • Family of Choice: When Shinji feels that he has "tainted blood" due to the revelation that he comes from a family of apocalypse cultists, Asuka and Misato are quick to remind him who his real family is.
    Misato: Your family is right here, Shinji.
    • Shinji had brought it up earlier with Asuka during their first real date after they were fired, but Asuka said that using the term "family" probably wouldn't be appropriate for the two of them when you consider what they get up to every night.
  • Fan Art: Many fans have done pictures and even banners. Their art may be found in the Sufficient Velocity thread.
  • Fate Worse than Death: After finding out Rei was emotionless because she was being ordered to take drugs in order to render her obedient, compliant and emotionless, Asuka declares she would rather die than be turned into a puppet:
    Asuka: Don't... don't let that happen to me, Shinji. Don't let them do that to me. Or you. I'd rather die.
  • Female Gaze: Asuka often finds herself looking Shinji over, especially his backside (and declaring him yummy).
  • Fiery Redhead: Asuka. Although her behaviour towards Shinji becomes softer after getting together, she is still pretty belligerent and explosive to other people, especially if they are trying to steal her boyfriend or interfering with their relationship.
  • Finger-Tenting: Gendo uses this pose in chapter 8 as he is pondering over the last developments (Shinji accidentally extracting someone who had been absorbed into an Evangelion) and their implications.
    Gendo just tightened his lips and jerked a sharp nod. He returned to his desk and pulled up a report on the repair estimates for Unit-01, his hands assuming their standard position folded under his nose as he stared at the screen, but Fuyutsuki could tell he was not seeing the words at all.
  • Finishing Each Other's Sentences: During the conversation after their First Kiss, Shinji and Asuka realise that they can speak full sentences on each other's behalf, leading to the conclusion that lays the foundation of their relationship.
    Shinji: Your father abandoned you after your mother was gone.
    Asuka: You have nightmares all the time about it. The memory keeps coming after you when you try to sleep.
    Shinji: It's hard to sleep. You feel lonely and cold at night, because no one ever held you after that.
    Asuka: You never had many friends before you came here. No one ever wanted to just talk to you for you.
    Shinji: Your father never explained or apologized for why he just left you.
    Asuka: No one even tried to understand your pain. No one cared.
    Shinji: You miss her every day, but don't even have any pictures, barely any memories. No one tells you about her.
    Asuka: And there was never any point in talking about it to anyone, because there was no one in the world who could understand what being an Evangelion Pilot was like.
    Both: You're just like me.
  • First-Episode Twist: After Misato spends a long time giving Shinji tips to win Asuka over, the final scenes of the prologue reveal that Shinji and Asuka are already together.
  • First Kiss:
    • Shinji and Asuka's first kiss happened in chapter 1. Unlike what happened in canon, where their kiss went awry due to a lack of communication and understanding between both, Shinji accidentally put his hands on Asuka's hips which led to their kissing intensifying, and a Relationship Upgrade after a much needed heart-to-heart talk.
    • Rei's first kiss was with Kensuke, back before she realized the implications of kissing people.
    • Kaworu's first kiss was with Rei during the Christmas party under the mistletoe (Rei stated it was meant to be platonic).
  • First Time Feeling: After having discovered that Rei's medication regimen is full of dissociative, emotionally suppressing, and worse drugs, Asuka adamantly tells Rei to drop it entirely, despite the ensuing withdrawal symptoms. Not only can Asuka relate (having been on such drugs in the past), but she's particularly triggered by the knowledge that NERV is willing to turn its own Pilots into 'emotionless dolls'. Rei undergoes a rather intense period of time where she tries to deal with intense withdrawal (while trying to hide it) and feeling significant emotion for the first time.
  • Fix Fic: This story fixes Shinji and Asuka's relationship with a generous injection of waffiness.
  • Flat "What":
    • In chapter 4 Asuka uttered one after finding out that Shinji had accidentally touched Rei's breasts once.
      Asuka narrowed her eyes. "Yes, that was a sudden, convenient little 'accident' you had out there. What was Wondergirl about to say? You touched her somewhere?"
      "Umm..."
      "He touched my right breast," Rei calmly supplied.
      Asuka stared at her, mouth gaping. "What." She shook her head. "Explain, rapidly."
    • In chapter 8 Asuka starts explaining Shinji her plan to simultaneously tell Misato that they are together and have her accepting that they are also sleeping together.
      Shinji: “Ok, so what’s our first plan?”
      Asuka: “Strip chess.”
      Shinji: “What.”
    • And then, when we get into the latter phase of the plan involving Shinji and Asuka acting as each other, Misato lays out three of these in a row.
    • Rei gets this reaction from Asuka by telling her that she plans to spend Christmas either making out with Kaworu, or killing him.
      Asuka stared blankly at her friend. "Wat."
      Rei stared back at her just as blankly.
      "No, seriously: Wat," Asuka repeated.
  • Footsie Under the Table: A rare heartwarming variant of the trope: Asuka is struggling to stay calm and maintain a poker face during a NERV debriefing after her synch rate spiked to nearly 100% during a synch test when she made contact with her mother in Unit-02's core. Unable to openly comfort her, Shinji instead calms her nerves by brushing his foot against her leg.
  • Forceful Kiss: At the end of chapter 8, when Touji spotted Hikari, he immediately grabbed her and planted a kiss on her lips.
    Hikari had just enough time to spread her arms and gain a dazzling smile before Touji almost crashed into her embrace and began desperately kissing her. "ToujMMPH!"
  • Foreign Cuss Word: Asuka tends to spout German swearwords when she gets excited or angry. In chapter 6, she was unfairly detained and put in solitary confinement. Asuka expressed her displeasure about that punishment very, very loudly:
    "Verfluchtes Arschloch! Kommandant Ikari ist eine Idiot! Ich werde mit meiner EVA auf seinem Haus herumtanzen! Zum Teufel mit euch allen!"translation
  • Foreign-Language Tirade:
    • Asuka launched into a very loud and angry rant in her native German when Gendo got her and Shinji detained and jailed after fighting Bardiel:
      "Verfluchtes Arschloch! Kommandant Ikari ist eine Idiot! Ich werde mit meiner EVA auf seinem Haus herumtanzen! Zum Teufel mit euch allen! Lasst mich los, ihr verdammter abschaum! Lasst mich los oder ich reiß eure Arme ab! Wisst ihr nicht wer ich bin?! Ihr seid Idioten! Ihr seid ALLE Idioten! Und Kommandant Ikari! SIE SIND DER GRÖßTE IDIOT!"translation
    • Later she yelled loudly in German when Zeruel maimed her Unit 02:
      "Du Arschloch! Sie Ente verdammte Scheiße Esser! Ich bring dich um!translation No one hurts my Unit-02! Cut his heart out, Rei! Kill him!"
  • Foreshadowing: Early on in chapter 5, Asuka playfully teases Rei by claiming that she would have a better chance defeating an angel by making out with one than fighting it in her Eva. Five chapters later, she hooks up with Kaworu.
  • Forgiveness: Rei was willing to forgive Ritsuko for constantly drugging her and nearly killing her with an overdose, despite the fact that everyone (including Ritsuko herself) didn't think she deserved it.
  • Freudian Excuse: Chapter 8 examines how Gendo does everything he does because he is a broken man, utterly afraid of other people and completely obsessed with getting his deceased wife back.
  • Freudian Slip: In chapter 2, Asuka and Hikari are talking:
    Asuka waved her concern away. "It's fine, he's gone and forgotten. Tomorrow I won't even remember his name. So much for him being a 'dashing older student' like you said. He was just a selfish jerk out for a cheap feel, not anything like a real good man, like Kaji-san or S—" Asuka suddenly coughed violently and covered her mouth. 'Crap! You idiot! That was close!'
    "Or who?" Hikari asked.
    "Ssssssschelbert-san. Guy I knew in Berlin. Nice guy, very... er... tall. You don't know him."

    G-I 
  • Gaslighting: Asuka comes up with a Zany Scheme involving Strip Chess and role-reversal to bewilder Misato so thoroughly that she doesn't have the mental fortitude to make a big deal of the fact her two wards are sleeping together. It ultimately fails — insofar as Misato still loses her temper when she finds out, but the four-days-long parade shows her that the Pilots have gained enough maturity to at least warrant hearing them out about a certain other matter.
  • General Failure: Commander Gendo Ikari. He devised a real dumb strategy to fight Bardiel, in order to preserve Unit-01; and when his pilots had to change the plan and adapt to survive and win, he got in their way nonstop, distracting them, berating them and issuing stupid commands. Then, when Shinji, Asuka and Rei managed to destroy the enemy and rescue the pilot with no casualties, he got so angry at them for not winning how he wanted that he had Shinji and Asuka — his best pilots — detained and ultimately fired and lectured Rei for "insubordination".
  • Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: During Rei's activation test, Maya slaps Ritsuko to force her to react and run away when Unit-00 goes berserker.
  • Giant Equals Invincible: Regular army forces do nothing against Evas or Angels. During the battle against Leliel, land troops surround the Angel to let NERV apply pressure. One of the Bridge Bunnies asks if they are useful and Misato notes disdainfully that Leliel is intimidated by their presence not at all.
  • Girlish Pigtails:
    • Hikari wears this hairstyle. Touji calls her the "pigtailed dictator".
    • Asuka always wears twin pigtails, too.
  • Girl on Girl Is Hot: Kensuke was noted to be smiling when his two girlfriends started kissing at Asuka's birthday party.
  • Give Me a Sword: During the battle against Bardiel, Asuka lost one arm of her Humongous Mecha and her Progressive Knife, so that Shinji handed over his own knife to her.
    He wordlessly deployed his own Progressive Knife and tossed it to her without looking. She caught it one-handed without removing her eyes from the Angel. "Ready, Second Child?"
  • Giving Someone the Pointer Finger:
    • In the start of chapter 3 Asuka points her finger at Shinji when she accuses him of getting the water too hot.
      "HOTTTTTTTTTT!" The aggrieved shout from the bathroom startled the two inhabitants of the dining area. A rapid stomping of feet heralded the door to the bathroom being flung open by an upset redhead clad only in a pair of towels wrapped tightly around her hair and torso. She leveled an accusing finger at Shinji. "That bath was too HOT!"
    • And in chapter 4 Asuka points her forefinger at Rei as she argues about Rei's unintended double entendres.
      She stepped closer to Rei and swung her finger up to point right in Rei's face.
  • Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex: Sparks Shinji and Asuka's Relationship Upgrade after the battle against Leliel. Asuka nearly died inside the Angel, lonely and afraid, and she decides that she doesn't want to lose the opportunity before she risks her life again.
    Asuka: "I don't care about protection, not right now. I could have died in there, more alone than anyone has ever been. You're already closer to me than anyone else has ever been. I want every bond between us we can have. You gave me strength in there. I want you, Shinji. All of you. Tonight." She brought her hand up to stroke his face. "We're alive, together, and... in love. I love you, Shinji. I want to be yours."
  • A Glass in the Hand: Misato crushes an empty beer can after she finds out SEELE caused her father's death.
  • Go Mad from the Isolation: After the fight with Bardiel, Gendo had Shinji and Asuka detained for insubordination. Asuka was thrown alone in a cell and left in full darkness. She was starting to panic as the forced isolation set in... then she heard Shinji knocking a familiar beat against the wall in the cell next to hers. The sound immediately pulled her out of her downward spiral and Shinji and Asuka used knocks on the wall to communicate with each other during their detention. It helped them to go through several days of isolation.
  • Gone Horribly Right: Basically Misato's reaction when faced with the reveal that not only did Asuka and Shinji get together like she'd been encouraging them to do for months, they progressed so far into the relationship that for all intents and purposes they were already married.
  • Got Me Doing It: In chapter 2, Misato calls her apartment to tell Shinji and Asuka she'll be home late and to get to bed on time for their Synch Test tomorrow afternoon. Shinji replies, "We'll get to bed early, both of us", omitting the "together in the same bed" bit, which causes Asuka to burst out laughing at the audacity of Shinji sneaking a joke like that past Misato. In the Synch Test the next day, when Shinji ties with Asuka in synch rate score, Asuka claims this is a result of her "fine example of how to be a superior Eva Pilot" and says, "You should be honored how much of me has rubbed off on you, Third Child!" She then quickly shuts her comms off and stifles a giggle once she realises what she's just said:
    Asuka: (thinking) Oh Gott, now baka-Shinji's got me doing it too! 'How much of me has rubbed off on him?' Hahahahaha! How about 'all of me, several times!'?
  • Grand Romantic Gesture: To celebrate Asuka's 15th birthday, Shinji composed a string trio concerto and performed it alongside Rei and Kaworu. To say she liked it would be a massive understatement.
  • Grand Theft Prototype: When Rei was fighting Zeruel with no support and losing badly, Shinji and Asuka wanted to help her but their own Evas were damaged beyond use. Then Shinji has an idea: he and Asuka hijack Unit-03, achieving dual-synch and betting on Asuka's friendship with the trapped Hikari in order to operate the unfamiliar Eva.
  • Gratuitous German: Asuka, of course, falls back on her mother tongue occasionally, especially when she is angry. When Zeruel maimed her Unit 02, she shouted: "Du Arschloch! Sie Ente verdammte Scheiße Esser! Ich bring dich um!"translation
    • Kaworu, having "grown up" in Germany, occasionally does this. At one point he even claims he was doing so when he accidentally brings up classified terms.
    • Shinji also starts speaking German as time goes on, due to Asuka tutoring him. He was even planning to speak nothing but German during her birthday party; though notably, Asuka shot that idea down because she figured that almost everyone else present would have trouble understanding.
  • Gratuitous Japanese: Some bits here and there (mainly Asuka calling Shinji "baka" or some honorifics), but its use in this story, being set in Japan, is not too jarring.
  • Gratuitous Spanish: In chapter 8, Misato says: "I want a watermelon daiquiri and air conditioning, pronto." It's possible she picked up some Spanish from her military service in South America during the post-Impact Wars.
  • Green-Eyed Epiphany: Inverted. Rei finds out why Ritsuko hates her when she realizes the scientist loves Gendo and is jealous of her, since she is "Gendo's favorite".
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Asuka is very possessive of Shinji. She constantly states that he is hers and she is not sharing him or giving him up for nothing. Coincidentally all her female classmates have crushes on him and have simultaneously decided trying to seduce him, and their attempts to flirt with and hit on him drive her homicidally mad.
  • Grew a Spine: Shinji, with the help of Asuka's influence, and not punished by the plot a la canon NGE. Fully demonstrated in the fight with Bardiel, where he and Asuka convince Rei to disobey Gendo and attempt to rescue Hikari.
    • And thanks to Shinji and Asuka's influence, Rei develops one as well... covertly, so as not to cue Gendo in to the fact.
  • Happily Failed Suicide: Ritsuko attempted suicide via a painkiller and alcohol overdose after realizing that Gendo would never love her. In a moment of clarity she calls Rei for help, who helps her down the (long and hard) path of redemption for her part in trying to cause Third Impact. On the plus side, she's now in an emotionally fulfilling relationship with Maya and is mending her friendship with Misato.
    • Technically, Shinji only contemplated killing himself by throwing himself off the cliff he was on after running away from NERV, but the fact remains he considered it, didn't go through with it, and now is now far happier than he has ever been with Asuka.
  • Hates Being Alone: Asuka, obviously. The difference here is that she's actually explicit about showing it to Shinji (and eventually to Rei) after they become a couple. Unlike in canon, she isn't alone anymore thanks to having Shinji, and she is extremely protective of that as a result.
    • When Gendo has Shinji and Asuka detained for insubordination after the fight with Bardiel, Asuka is starting to panic as the forced isolation sets in... until she hears Shinji knocking a familiar beat against the wall in the cell next to hers. It immediately pulls her out of the spiral and helps her get through the whole thing.
  • Hate Sink: Gendo is just as loathed, in and out of universe, in the fanfic as he is in official cannon.
  • Headphones Equal Isolation: Shinji used his headphones the whole time to block reality and run from it, but after getting together with Asuka, he hardly touches them. The first line in the prologue mentions briefly that Shinji's SDAT is sitting on his desk, gathering dust. The last line (after the reveal that Shinji and Asuka are a couple) points out his tape player has been gathering dust because it has not been touched in two months, since "retreat and escape from the world were no longer needed."
    In the room across the hall, an old SDAT tape player sat on the desk in a beam of moonlight, gathering dust. It hadn't been touched in two months; retreat and escape from the world were no longer needed.
  • Head-Turning Beauty: Asuka used to evoke this reaction from Shinji's male schoolmates. During a talk Shinji mentions that she was "miss incredibly-hot-exotic-foreign-transfer-student", and she had packs of boys drooling after her.
  • Healing Vat: After fighting Zeruel Rei spends an entire week in a transparent tank full of LCL, healing her body. Ritsuko spends that time observing her and resenting that she was forced to resort to old-fashioned bandages and band-aids whereas Rei had preferential treatment.
    • Gendo has the tank and its means of use classified so that no one but Ritsuko knows about it or can operate it. After Ritsuko's injuries make it necessary to use the tank herself, she defies his orders and shows Maya how it works.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • Ritsuko, once she realizes that all of her hatred for Rei is misplaced and that her love for Gendo is completely unrequited.
    • Kaworu, while never truly antagonistic, nevertheless turns away from attempting to merge with Adam out of his desire for humanity to thrive because their ways of connecting to one another are too beautiful to be destroyed - and he wants to experience those for himself.
  • He Knows Too Much: Rei wanted to tell Shinji and Asuka everything about her origins and NERV and SEELE's real goals, but Kaworu warned her that SEELE would kill them all if they found out that they knew too much. Later subverted. Once SEELE begins trying to kill the pilots anyway, Rei and Kaworu agree that there is no longer any reason to hold back information.
  • He Will Come For Me: In chapter 3, when Asuka is trapped within Leliel's Sea of Dirac, she keeps herself sane by reassuring herself that Shinji will do everything in his power to save her, because that's what she'd do in his place.
  • Held Gaze: In chapter 1 Shinji and Asuka gaze straight at each other eyes deeply as they talk about their pasts. They can not break contact eye as they open up and realize how alike they are.
  • Hell Has New Management: Touji jokes this is why Asuka didn't die at Leliel's hand, because the devil would be scared of her dying and taking over hell.
  • Heroic BSoD: Asuka got one in episode 7 when Gendo fired her in the wake of the battle against Bardiel, which in her mind meant that she was useless since she had lost the only thing made her special and worthy of something. She collapsed, and Shinji had to catch her before she hit the ground and carry her out. Later, she told him that she was hanging on by a thread, and she was coping only because he was there for her.
  • Heroic Safe Mode: Asuka goes into a cooled-fury version of this in the immediate aftermath of SEELE's assassination attempt on the Pilots in Chapter 11.
  • Heroic Self-Deprecation: Much like in canon, Shinji has incredibly low self-esteem, although he gets better as the story progresses thanks to his relationship with Asuka. At one point, one of the girls sniffing after Shinji tries to flirt with him by calling him a hero, and it visibly makes him incredibly uncomfortable.
  • High-School Sweethearts: After their First Kiss, Shinji and Asuka had a long, civil talk where they open up to each other and realized they were the same. They got together, but they tried to keep their relationship secret out of fear to be separated. When an adult found out about their relationship and objected, they firmly declared this was NOT a middle-school crush and they did not plan breaking up... ever.
  • Hint Dropping: After kissing for first time Asuka asks Shinji why he had never responded any of her advances favourably if he liked her. Dismayed, she learns that Shinji never realized that she was dropping hints in the first place.
    • In chapter 1:
      Asuka: "Wait, if you feel like that about me, why didn't you ever respond any of the other times I tried to flirt with you? I've been trying to get you to do something for weeks!"
      Shinji: "Wait, other times? What other times?"
      Asuka: "When a girl walks up to you in a bikini and starts using her chest as a physics demo, she's trying to get your attention!"
      Shinji: "Oh."
    • And in chapter 2:
      She'd finally gotten that dense, oblivious, blind baka to finally notice the fact she'd been trying to get him to react to her hints that she... kind of thought he was cute.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Ritsuko orders Shinji and Asuka spending more time with Rei, hoping that they help Rei to raise her synch scores. However, the result is that Shinji and Asuka are learning things about Rei that neither Ritsuko nor Gendo want them knowing. Even worse, they have helped to Rei to become self-reliant and have bonded with her, and now she questions Gendo's will, trusts Shinji and Asuka more than she trusts him, and is willing to disobey his orders.
  • Holding Hands: After their First Kiss Shinji and Asuka like holding hands constantly. Unfortunately, since they are forced to hide their relationship, they can not make it publicly.
    So she restricted herself to merely holding his hand on a couple of the narrower side streets during their walk to school. She told herself it was because he'd asked for it. It totally wasn't because his hand felt warm and made her feel the same, or because the handclasp made her skin tingle at the point of contact. Totally not. It must have been his feet that slowed their walk as they approached the point where more public streets would require them to let go again.
  • Hope Is Scary: Discussed by Shinji with Kaji in chapter 11:
    Shinji: "Kaji-san, I’m… scared. I’ve… I’ve never wanted a future like this before. I never cared if I lived to next year or even next month. But now… now I want a future like that so bad it hurts. Just… years. Years and years with Asuka. But… SEELE, and one more Angel… and all of it depends on me not screwing up and keeping my father from using Unit-01 to end the world…I’m so afraid I’ll mess up."
  • Hopeless Suitor:
    • Chihiro and all remaining Shinji's female classmates chase after him obstinately. They have absolutely no hope, though. He is already in a relationship with Asuka, and even if Asuka was out of the picture, they would have to deal with Rei. When Shinji and Asuka finally come clean about their relationship, Asuka declares that "contest" was over before it began. After their declaration, some few girls seemed to be unwilling to give up, but most of them seemed to accept they had no hope.
    • In a way, Rei to both Shinji and Asuka. She fell for them, but they are in a fully committed relationship and are not looking for an additional romantic partner, even if they love her. And she does not want to disrupt their bond, either.
  • Hope Spot:
    • After getting together Shinji and Asuka's lives had gotten better: they were happier and more stable, they had kicked an Eldritch Abomination's posterior together, they were helping Rei to get in touch with her humanity and developing a strong bond with their teammate, their best friends were getting together... and then the Bardiel incident happened. Hikari got trapped inside Unit-03, and they got fired.
    • The whole fight against Zeruel was a sucession of Hope Spots. Several times, Rei was apparently getting the upper hand or gaining an advantage or rising after getting stomped flat... right before getting pummelled by Zeruel again. And then Shinji and Asuka came along piloting Unit-03, saved Rei and started to beat Zeruel up... and then they ran out of power.
  • Hot-Blooded: Asuka is brave, passionate and hot-headed. When she fights alien monstrosities, when she scares other girls away from Shinji, when she encourages her boyfriend and her friends, when she argues with her commanding officers... she oozes passion and fierceness.
  • House Husband: Shinji is the one who handles all of the household chores in Misato's apartment, while his guardian Misato and his roommate (and secret girlfriend) Asuka do nothing (except praising his cooking skills and cleaning sometimes). So what happens when Shinji and Asuka decide to mess with Misato's head? Asuka wears an apron, cooks and insists she does all cooking, shopping, keeing the apartment clean and handling the laundry. Misato is so confused she barely can say anything other than "What" over and over again.
  • How We Got Here: Much of the opening act is spent chronicling the time before and after the two month period referenced in the page quote. This ends in Chapter 5, where the story has caught back up and moves forward.
  • Humanoid Abomination:
    • Rei looks human, but she's a piece of the soul of an old alien goddess stuck inside Yui Ikari's cloned body. She's constantly hurt and aching due to this.
    • When Rei meets Kaworu, he makes her upset and unsettled because she can feel that although he seems human, in reality he's something very different.
  • Humongous Mecha: The part-mechanical, part-biological Evangelion. Throughout the story, Shinji and Asuka start to realize that they are not merely robots, and figure out some of their secrets (such like their mothers being stuck inside their Cores).
  • Hyper-Awareness: Rei is the first person to put together that her co-workers are behaving differently, and rapidly comes to the conclusion they are dating. Accidental (and later not-so-accidental) Trolling ensues.
  • Hypocritical Heartwarming: When Shinji loses a Strip Chess match against Pen Pen (long story) and becomes its butler for one month, Asuka wins him back because she will not put up with him slaving at the whims of a bird. When Misato asks if she is fine with Shinji slaving at her whims, she replies that is how it works.
    Asuka: "Baka Shinji's mine, not some cheeky penguin's servant! I will not see him forced to slave at the whims of a bird!"
    Misato: "But you're just fine with him slaving at your whims?"
    Asuka: "Well, duh. That's the way things are supposed to go. He's mine. He belongs to me."
  • Hypocritical Humor: While talking about their best friends Asuka laughed because Touji and Hikari were completely oblivious to each other's obvious feelings... and then she stopped laughing when Shinji made her realizing that they had done the same thing:
    Asuka told him about Hikari’s raging crush on Touji. She’d been only slightly surprised when Shinji mentioned Touji’s matching infatuation with the petite Class Rep that he thought no one knew about. Asuka had laughed at the foolishness of the two of them liking each other but failing to see it was mutual, just dancing around each other for months… until Shinji had given her a smirk and a stare.
  • I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: Asuka thinks she is worthless and no one would ever love her, so she can not believe Shinji, someone who is just like her, loves her back.
  • Icy Blue Eyes: Asuka has very piercing "crystal blue eyes", according to Rei, which stare through you.
  • I Know You Know I Know: In chapter 8, Kihl informs Gendo that they will send him the Fifth Child. Gendo knows the Fifth Child will surely be a spy. Kihl knows that Gendo will regard him suspiciously. And Gendo knows that Kihl knows that. And Kihl knows that Gendo knows that Kihl knows that.
    Gendo: 'Fifth Child? So soon after we 'found' the Fourth? Kihl has to know I will regard anyone they send as a spy. And he knows I know that.'
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: In chapter 8, Rei gets doped to the gills due to Ritsuko's "medication" and is completely emotionless, unresponsive and unfeeling. Shinji and Asuka spend a good while trying to draw her out. When Rei finally—and laboriously—shows some emotion, Asuka asks her if she is still in there. When she says "yes", both teenagers feel relieved.
    Asuka:: "Wondergirl, are you still in there?"
  • I Lied: After kissing Shinji, Asuka confessed that she wanted kiss him because she liked him. When he complains that wasn't what she said, she replied: "I lied.":
    Shinji: "You just said you wanted to kiss me because you were bored!"
    Asuka:: "I lied."
  • I Miss Mom: When Shinji and Asuka open up to each other after their first kiss, they talk about their mothers' deaths and how much they miss them. Several months later, when they deduce that Yui and Kyoko are inside their giant robots, Asuka is thrilled and eager to get into her Eva and try to talk to her mother.
  • I Need a Freaking Drink:
    • Strypgia said that Ritsuko would need a whole bottle of vodka after seeing both Units 01 and 02 awakening and going berserker, given the implications of the fact.
    • In chapter 8, Asuka and Shinji carry out a plan to let Misato know they are together and get her to accept they are also sleeping together and they will not stop. Every step of that plan (involving Strip Chess, foot massages, and Shinji and Asuka swapping roles) invariably gets Misato craving for alcohol. Plenty of it. She starts off just wanting beer, but by the end of the week, she's casting longing glances toward a bottle of "Snake-Killer Sake."
      'I need a beer, right away...' Misato stumbled her way back to the kitchen.
      "Hey, Misato! We saved the world yesterday! Can we have a raise in our allowance?" Asuka called after her.
      'A lot of beer...'
    • Misato has this happen quite often, actually.
      My apartment is surrounded by snipers, my boss is plotting to end the world, so are his bosses, and I have no idea when the next giant monster from space is going to attack. I think it's beer-o'clock.
    • Played for Drama when Misato really wants to get drunk, but decides she shouldn't, after the team is attacked by snipers and Shinji is hospitalised. So, Rei passes her a can of UCC-brand coffee instead. She still really wants a beer.
    • Kaji mumbles that he too wants a drink after learning of Rei and Kaworu's true natures.
  • I Will Find You: In chapter 10 Asuka promises to find Shinji if Gendo forcibly separates them for his insubordination, even saying she'll hijack Unit-02 to do so if she has to.
  • If Only You Knew: This comes up a few times in the story. One example is Played for Drama in chapter 7, after Asuka abruptly leaves the dining table to lie down in her bedroom, due to being severely traumatized from the aftermath of the battle against Bardiel (she and Shinji were fired as pilots for disobeying orders, and on top of that, she'd just learned Hikari had been absorbed into Unit-03's core). Shinji watches her leave long enough for Misato to notice:
    Misato: You're going to have to tell her you like her one of these days, Shin-chan. She could use the pick-me-up right now, I think.
    Shinji: (thinking) You have no idea, Misato-san, and right now I almost wish you did.
  • If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Asuka sends a text to Kaworu where she threatens to feed him to Unit-02 if he ever mistreats Rei when she gives her blessing for their relationship in chapter 11. It also doubles as Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?, since this was right after she had found out about his true nature.
  • If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: A non-villainous version, but otherwise played straight by Misato when calling Asuka's bluff on her relationship with Shinji.note 
    Misato: My my, Asuka. Who knew you'd be knocked head over heels for 'that baka Shinji'. It's so romantic! Let me see you plant a nice juicy kiss on your sweetie's lips. Go ahead.
  • Immortality Immorality: This is what caused the fall of the First Ancestral Race in the backstory.
    ...having been all but immortal from birth, never knowing vulnerability, far too many of them never developed notions of empathy or restraint, or found them far too late.
  • In Spite of a Nail: Rei still sacrifices herself for the sake of a loved one to defeat Armisael. Strypgia said that this done to draw a contrast with everyone's motivations at that point in canon.
    By having that one event turn out the same, but for entirely different reasons, the whys would be underlined, and the consequences even more so.
  • In Love with Your Carnage: In chapter 8, Ritsuko remembers the sight of Unit-01 howling like a blood-thirsty demon as its enemy was being ripped apart by its and Unit-02's combined efforts and she wonders inwardly: "That is your precious Yui there, Gendo, howling blood and madness like something from the depths of Hell! Is that what you want back?" The answer is a clear and definite yes, that is what Gendo wants.
  • Insecure Love Interest:
    • Shinji thought he wasn't good enough for Asuka before and after hooking up with her. However, Asuka disagrees and she always replies he's the only man good enough for her.
    • A part of Ritsuko really doesn't think she deserves Maya, due to the myriad sins of her past.
  • Intimate Telecommunications: Ritsuko and Maya combine this with Mundane Utility by taking advantage of their sysop access to the MAGI to leave flirty messages for each other in the changelog.
  • I Think You Broke Him: Stated by Asuka to Shinji, but it was actually Rei who reduced Kaworu to babbling by giving him intimate photos of herself.
  • It's Personal:
    • Misato wants to destroy the Angels because she blames them for her father's death. Later extends to Gendo once she learns that he knew what would happen to the Katsuragi Expedition and signed off on it anyway.
    • Shinji's relationship with his father is initially just generalized discontent. Then he learns about how Gendo had been treating Rei, his supposed favorite. Then Gendo starts including Asuka in his cruel manipulations. And then Shinji discovers that Gendo destroyed all of the material Yui wanted left for Shinji to explain how the Contact Experiment was done to fulfill her hopes for his future. Shinji has a lot of reasons to hate Gendo.
    • Asuka starts regarding Gendo this way after he fires both her and Shinji as Eva pilots for countermanding his orders and neutralizing Bardiel with almost no collateral damage—even successfully recovering the entry plug—all because it endangered Unit-01.
    • Ritsuko initially hates Rei for being Gendo's favorite. Later transfers this feeling to Gendo once she is forced to realize that Rei is being abused just as thoroughly as herself, with no desire for Gendo's affections.
  • I "Uh" You, Too: During a pillow talk scene, Misato and Kaji are fed up with denying their feelings and pretending their relationship is only "friends with benefits"... but they are too frightened to spit it out, so they struggle to find a way to tell "I still love you" without actually saying the words:
    Misato: "I want 'us' again. I don't know if I can... say it, yet, but... I want 'us'. [...] If Shinji and Asuka can figure this out, how to get past the walls between them... we can too,"
    Kaji: "I'd... like that, [...] Us. Katsuragi...I..."
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
    • Rei falls in love with both Shinji and Asuka, but she renounces trying to have a relationship with them because she does not want to interfere with their love bond:
      "I... love you both," the blunette said softly. She raised her eyes with a noticeable struggle. "Shinji, you showed me care and compassion when no one else ever had, not even the Commander. Asuka, you helped free me from the drugs that clouded my mind when you had no reason to do anything but dislike me. And you both came for me and saved me in this battle. I... I look at you and I know I love you both."
      "Rei, we..." Shinji trailed off. What could he say? He looked over at Asuka. She shrugged too, at an equal loss.
      Rei waved her hands defensively at their shocked expressions. "No! I do not want to intrude! I... I will never try to... intersplice myself in your bond! It is too beautiful to disrupt! But... I wanted you both to know. I understand what this feeling is now. It is love. I will protect that feeling, and you. I will not allow any harm to come to you or your bond if I can ever do anything about it."
    • Subverted with their female classmates. They have guessed what something is happening between them and Asuka has kind of claimed Shinji, but they will not stop trying to flirt with him.
  • Idiot Crows: In chapter 4 Shinji, Asuka and Rei are talking to a classmate. Rei is describing old battles, accidentally making it to sound like what Shinji is having sex with them, and Asuka is trying to explain what Rei really means as denying that she and Shinji are having sex... but then their classmate tries to placate her by telling Shinji would obviously never do anything with her, Asuka explodes and nearly blows their cover... and Shinji can hear a crow passing overhead and cawing repeatedly.
    Tanaka:"Is... is she talking about-"
    Asuka(shouting and blushing):"NO,"
    Tanaka:"Um...right. Nothing improper! Perish the thought! Ikari-kun is a perfectly responsible young man! He'd never do anything indecent with you!"
    Asuka(bristling):"What do you mean he wouldn't do anything with me?! I'm the most beautiful girl he knows! He'd do anything he could with me, all night long, and beg for more!"
    The only sound in their corner of the schoolyard was the gentle click of Rei's chopsticks against the bottom of her bento and the 'caw, caw' of a lone crow passing overhead. Shinji buried his face in his hands.
  • If It's You, It's Okay:
    • Although Rei likes men and she cares about Shinji, she eventually also falls in love with Asuka due to the strong and enduring bond the three of them shape.
    • It was a "blink and you'll miss it" moment, but a scene hints Asuka's feelings towards Rei have become almost as strong as her love towards Shinji. Asuka tells: "I don't need anyone else but him, not even... Kaji." Strypgia brought her little hesitation to attention, hinting she was about to say a different name.
  • Ignored Epiphany:
    • In chapter 7, Shinji manages getting Hikari out of Unit 03 where she was absorbed. Gendo could have realized that maybe it meant Yui could come out, but she chose not to, therefore he should stop his little "I'll get the whole mankind killed in order to save my wife" scheme. But instead, he chose to focus on the fact that it is possible for a soul come out of an Eva.
    • In chapter 8, Rei shows many signs that she isn't interested in Gendo and she doesn't even like him. Still, Ritsuko refused to realize the implications, and kept drugging Rei because she thought that "the doll" was "competition."
  • The "I Love You" Stigma: When Shinji and Asuka argue with Misato about their relationship, both of them point out neither of them is the kind of people would say "I love you" to anyone easily.
    "So yes, we're not going to stop being Pilots. Not when we finally know where our mothers are. But... don't try to separate us. We've earned this. You know what I was like. You think I'd say 'I love you' to anyone easily?"
  • I'm Having Soul Pains: Rei suffers this constantly due to only having a piece of Lilith's soul. It's part of the reason why she started off as a Death Seeker. Although she eventually finds something that can counteract the pain... hugs!
  • Imaginary Love Triangle: Ritsuko loves Gendo and believes that Rei is a threat to her "relationship" with him. In reality Rei is not in love with Gendo but with Shinji and Asuka or romantically drawn to him, and Gendo regards Rei as his daughter... and Ritsuko as an useful pawn.
  • In Medias Res: The prologue starts out the story in the middle, featuring Shinji and Asuka hiding their relationship and happening a short while after the battle against Leliel. The next chapters start out a while before that, telling how they got to that point and what happened afterwards.
  • Inconvenient Attraction: A variation. Kaworu doesn't actually love Rei (being a child of Adam makes that an alien concept to him). But his human body lusts after her, especially when she's angry, which just makes her even angrier.
    Kaworu: The Lilim parts of my mind are… making suggestions' for things they want to do with you! You are unfortunately very attractive!
    • He does start to feel genuine love towards her due to becoming more in tune with his human emotions and she reciprocates, which in itself is inconvenient since he's a risk to the human race merely by existing (on top of them having to keep up the appearance of being on opposite sides of the Ancient Conspiracy).
  • Inferiority Superiority Complex: In the first chapter Shinji realizes Asuka's pride is nothing but a front and she is a lonely, hurt child, just like him.
  • Inner Monologue: Asuka often talks with herself in this story due to her insecurities, fears and doubts tearing her apart. Frequently a side of herself starts to have doubts and another side retorts "Oh, just shut up!" or "Get a grip, Soryu!"
    • In chapter 2, after spending the whole night with Shinji for first time she has a very long monologue:
      'Alright, Soryu, quit dodging the issue. Yeah, losing purity points was fun and you can't wait to do it again, but that's not why you're hiding in the bathroom, afraid to look him in the eye right now, is it? He... said things last night. Made promises. He just did it again. That stupid, clumsy, dense baka... likes you. And you like him. He understands what it feels like. He's just like you. You're not alone. And he wants to stay with you.' "Which is Gott damn terrifying..." she whispered out loud.
      [...]
      Everything she could want. Pity she had
      no freaking idea what to do next. 'Okay, Soryu, you wanted to catch this tiger. Now you've got him. So now what? I didn't exactly have a plan for part two! Now I'm hiding in the bathroom because I'm afraid the minute we look at each other we're both going to go redder than my hair, Misato's going to figure it out, and make me go move in with Wondergirl. Then Shinji will realize he can do better than the nasty, useless pretend-Pilot I am and find someone else because every good thing in my life goes away and nobody wants me and...
    • In chapter 8 Shinji and Asuka have deduced that their mothers are stuck inside their Evas and Asuka is on the verge of freaking out and she has to remind herself mentally to keep calm:
      'Nonononononono I want Mama now now now now n- Stop. Get a grip, Soryu, before your actual grip crushes your boyfriend's ribs.'
  • Innocent Blue Eyes: Shinji has—quoting Rei—"deep blue eyes". Shinji himself is pretty innocent and naive (at the beginning), lining him up for this trope.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: Due to her upbringing Rei is completely clueless social-wise and she has no idea why people—like Shinji—freaks out when she walks naked or flashes her underwear. When they argued the subject Asuka could not tell whether Rei was innocent or trollish until she realized Rei was indeed oblivious. Then Asuka explained Rei why people had those reactions when she flashed them... And Rei started doing it on purpose.
  • Innocent Innuendo:
    • In chapter 6 Rei shares details of past battles with a classmate... but she accidentally phrases it in such a way it sounds as if she is describing the pilots' sex life:
      "Since after the Fifth Angel, when he forced open my armor with his blade and burst into my Entry Plug. No one else had ever gotten to my core with such need. He was urgent and forceful. It... made me smile." The faintest hints of such an expression appeared on Rei's lips. "I would like to do it again. Maybe more than once."
    • She does this again in chapter 9 when talking about practicing for a concert:
      "Prepare your instrument, Nagisa. It is time to perform. Show me what you can do."
    • This conversation between Shinji and Kaworu. They're talking about playing music
      Kaworu: “Thank you, Shinji-kun. That was… most pleasant.”
      Shinji: “Y-you’re welcome, Kaworu-kun. I’ve n-never done that with anyone before but Asuka.”
      Kaworu: “That was better than I’d hoped. I would like to do this with you more often.”
      Shinji: “I… I th-think Asuka would say that’s her job. She might get upset at you trying to take that from her.”
      Kaworu: “Maybe we could do it while she watches? Give her a chance to rest between rounds?”
      Shinji: “What about me?”
      Kaworu: “You don’t need to rest, Shinji-kun! You have amazing stamina for this!”
    • And later, this particular gem:
      Shinji: “Um… you really should um… handle that by yourself, Kaworu-kun,” Shinji said. “Just… get a grip on yourself-”
      Kaworu: “I don’t know what to do with it! It won’t go away! Please help me, Shinji-kun! You know what to do, right?”
      Shinji: “Ah… Kaworu-kun, this… can’t be the first time you’ve um… had this problem?”
      Kaworu: “It’s not! But… It’s never been this… um… difficult!”
      Shinji: “Why?”
      Kaworu: “N-no reason! I just… had trouble sleeping! Yes! That is why!” He looked back at Shinji. “Please, lend me a hand, Shinji-kun!”
      • All the meanwhile, Asuka was literally rolling over the floor, laughing.
  • Instantly Proven Wrong: Misato tries to deny that there's anything happening between her and Kaji, and a moment later the phone rings, with him leaving a message to arrange a date.
    "Yo, Katsuragi!" Kaji's voice rang out, perfectly clear to everyone in the dining room. "I found a bar that serves a decent drink! How about tonight? See you!" Beeeeeep.
  • Insult of Endearment: Before getting together Asuka called Shinji "idiot". After getting together she calls him "her idiot". Since they are hiding her relationship, she uses it as an insult in public and as an endearing pet name in private.
    Shinji: You know I'm your baka.
    • Rei started off calling Kaworu "Rainbow Trout" or "stupid fish" due to how alien he looked in her Aura Vision. It eventually becomes affectionate once she admits that she actually wants to be friends with him (she had previously avoided doing so since she knew that she'd eventually have to kill him). She even lampshades it when it makes the change from being an insult to a nickname.
  • Interrupted Intimacy: In chapter 7, Shinji and Asuka enter Misato's apartment, talking about having a shower and intercourse right away when Kaji walks into them. Oops.
  • Intertwined Fingers: Shinji and Asuka linked hands and interwined their fingers as they explained their relationship to Misato:
    Together they brought their hands between them up from below the level of the table and let them rest on the table. Asuka's left hand was on top of Shinji's right, fingers interlaced in a tight grasp.
  • Irony:
    • Asuka and Shinji got together due to miscommunication, the very same thing that kept them from getting together in canon.
    • Misato had been a Shipper on Deck for Shinji and Asuka since day one, but they viewed her as the greatest threat to their relationship.
    • Part of the reason that Rei starts off so hostile to Kaworu is due to their opposing natures from being the hosts of Lilith and Adam's souls. A flashback later on reveals that the entire reason both Adam and Lilith ended up on Earth is because Lilith was in love with Adam and subconsciously followed him.

    J-L 

  • Jerkass Has a Point: Like the old saying says, "even a broken clock is right twice a day," meaning it is literally impossible to be wrong about everything 100% of the time, even if one tries. The forums point out that Gendo's decision to put Ritsuko "on the back burner" when she's injurede during Zeruel's attack, and the mandatory quarantine on Hikari are both practically, strategically, and tactically correct, the cold, cruel, and callous method by which he does it is very quickly eroding what little loyalty of his staff and pilots have. Of, course, he doesn't care expecting his scenario to bear fruit long before anyone can retaliate against his abuses.
  • Joke and Receive: Touji called Shinji and Asuka newlyweds when they were having a (staged) fight. A while later they confessed publicly that they had been secretly dating for several months before kissing in front of all their classmates, and the shocked Touji muttered that he thought he was joking when he told they looked a married couple:
    Touji: I thought I was joking about the 'married couple' thing.
  • "Jump Off a Bridge" Rebuttal: While with a recovering Rei in ther nurse's office, Asuka comments that she doesn't think Rei would actually kill herself on Commander Ikari's orders of her own free will, assuming the drug regimen given to the First Child would have made her complacent enough to obey such an order. When Rei immediately responds that she would in fact do it if the Commander had ordered her to, Asuka is horrified that she's being serious.
  • Keeping Secrets Sucks: Rei really wants to tell Asuka and Shinji about her true nature and everything else she knows involving SEELE and NERV, but Kaworu pointed out that they would be killed for knowing too much if she did. This leads her to take out her frustration on him because he's the only one she can talk to about it.
    Rei: She is crying and hurt and upset and I don’t know what to do and yet she still tries to make me feel better and I just had to leave her and run away because if I don’t she’ll ask why I can’t say anything or she’ll get hurt and aaaaRRRGH!
  • Kick the Dog:
    • Gendo pulls a double-whammy with Bardiel, when he orders the pilots to destroy Unit-03 with no care for the well-fare of Hikari. When they instead manage to successfully retrieve the plug and destroy the Angel anyways, he has Shinji and Asuka thrown into confinement and fired purely out of spite for being disobeyed.
    • Ritsuko in chapter 8 as she tries desperately to convince herself that Gendo cares about her even as he treats her like crap. During an Angel attack she gets hurt and hospitalized; when she wakes up and hears Gendo has not visited even once she gets angry. When she realizes Gendo spent hours checking if Rei and Unit 01 were fine and later he even visited a wounded pilot she got angrier. When he called she was hopeful... and then he asked if she could return to her post right away, and she got furious. It only gets worse from that point on.
  • Kid Hero: Shinji, Asuka, Rei and Hikari are fifteen-year-old giant mecha pilots and soldiers.
  • The Kid with the Remote Control: After finding out about each other's past Shinji and Asuka often argue it can not be a coincidence that the only people capable to pilot an Evangelion are mind-broken orphan kids whose mothers died while testing the Evas. After Hikari gets selected as pilot their doubts increase and finally they figure out the truth: they can control their robots because their mothers are stuck inside.
  • Kissing Discretion Shot: Rei and Kaworu's First Kiss played out this way during New Year's.note  The two of them lean towards each other and the scene ends with the words "Midnight struck", though it's clear that the kiss actually happens.
  • Knew It All Along: When Misato and Kaji discover that Ritsuko and Maya are a couple, Kaji smugly claims that he saw their relationship coming a mile off as he'd seen the way Maya looks at Ritsuko. The only reason he hadn't bet on it happening sooner was that he was fairly sure that Ritsuko was sleeping with Gendo, due to data he had on their respective movements.
  • Knight of Cerebus: Once again, Bardiel fills this role. The story's tone takes a much more serious and drama-focused weight during and after the battle, with Hikari left disembodied inside Unit-03, as well as Shinji and Asuka being thrown into solitary confinement.
  • Kryptonite Ring: Asuka keeps three anti-AT-Field bullets from a would-be assassin's weapon, with Kaworu's approval, so that if the worst happens, Rei won't have to kill him personally.
  • Lack of Empathy: Gendo, to even higher levels than shown in the series proper. He's downright angry when the pilots opt to try and successfully save their friend from Bardiel, purely because it wasn't what they were ordered to do — and also because it increased the risk to Unit-01.
  • Lap Pillow:
    • In chapter 8, Asuka rests her head on Shinji's lap as she complains about them being forced to sleep in separate beds, and Shinji strokes through her hair as he reassures her.
      Shinji looked down at his girlfriend's face, her head pillowed in his lap. "Hmm? Usually you really like this." His hands kept stroking through her hair.
    • During the reveal of their relationship to Misato, she actually landed in his lap because she was laughing so hard she fell over, but neither of them minds, Shinji just goes straight to stroking her hair.
  • Latex Space Suit: Shinji, Asuka and Rei wore plugsuits, tight suits made to improve their synch with their giant robots. Shinji and Asuka got quite sick of them when they were detained since they spent two whole days wearing their liquid-drenched, sweaty plugsuits. When Gendo fired them he sent them off without even giving them time to change clothes, and they spent the whole way back to Misato's apartment wondering what to do with the suits they were not supposed to bring out of the base, or where to store them.
  • Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone: Everyone quickly leaves after Asuka's birthday party is over since they're fully aware of what Shinji and Asuka are planning to do when they go to bed.
  • Leg Focus:
    • At the beginning of chapter 3, Shinji sees Asuka wearing nothing but a Modesty Towel. He tries very hard to not drool over her naked legs.
      A small part of his brain was concentrating on not dropping the hot pot on his feet, because most of it was trying not to drool helplessly over the way Asuka's long, smooth legs disappeared up under the hem of the towel, mixed in with memories of last night that said sight triggered.
    • Later in the story Rei Ayanami falls for both her fellow pilots and she also notes Asuka has beautiful legs:
      Shinji's deep blue eyes... Asuka's crystal blue ones... her long red hair... his sensitive hands... her long legs, his compassion, her fire, her heat...'
  • Lethal Chef: Misato's cook is... dangerous. In chapter 8, Asuka accuses her from almost poisoning Pen-Pen:
    Misato:"But it's Shin-chan's night to cook! [...] That's way better than even my best curry!"
    Asuka: "The last time you fed 'your best curry' to Pen-Pen, he spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling and barking."
  • Let Us Never Speak of This Again: In chapter 8 Misato brings up an old incident from her and Ritsuko's college days where both women were severely intoxicated and got amorous with one another. Ritsuko cuts her off, reminding her they were not supposed to speak of it again.
    Misato: Take her out for drinks next time instead of me and Kaji? [...] It's not like you've never kissed a girl before. Or done even m—
    Ritsuko: And you promised that we'd never speak of it again, and that it was only because we were both hammered out of our minds and hadn't had a guy in months.
  • Let's Wait a While: Shinji and Asuka have a conversation shortly after hooking up, and he tells her that, even if the HAD enjoyed kissing and groping, they did not need to have sex right away because he also enjoyed talking with her, and he wants all of her, so he is okay with waiting. It doesn't last, given that a near-death experience shortly afterward leads them to have Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex.
  • Lighter and Softer: To the canon history. The story changes a specific event, and as a result Shinji and Asuka lean on each other as they endure trauma after trauma, rather than isolating from each other, breaking down and imploding.
  • Like an Old Married Couple: In chapter 5, Shinji and Asuka stage a fight during lunch break so that nobody suspects they are together. However, they are not very good actors, and rather than a fight between two friends that do not get along well, it seems like an argument between two persons who have been married for years. When Touji says so, they blush profusely and shout in unison "It's not like that!" Of course, their synchronised reply only reinforces the effect.
    Touji:“Oi, oi, what’s this? A quarrel between husband and wife?”
  • Little "No":
    • Shinji utters one when he wrongly thinks that Asuka has changed her mind on getting together, before she can explain that was not what she meant.
      Shinji's face fell. "No..." he said, his voice hollow.
    • When Kaji catches Shinji and Asuka about to have sex, he tries to talk them into stopping. Asuka's answer is a final, inexorable "No."
  • Living Emotional Crutch:
    • Shinji, to Asuka. To a lesser extent, Asuka is one to Shinji as well. Misato tries to use this as an argument for why a relationship is dangerous, as their combat effectiveness would be hampered if one of them was hurt, but Shinji reasonably points out that that will remain true with or without them sharing a bed, and their close relationship has actually greatly improved their performance. (Since they both have lost their mothers, and their fathers are absent at best or sometimes abusive, they were never going to be very emotionally healthy.)
    • Over time, Shinji and Asuka become this to Rei. Once they help her to wean off the emotional suppressants that NERV gave her.
    • All three of them become an anchor and support to Kaworu, helping him to withstand the Call of Adam. (And canon shows that he very much needs that help.)
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Rei wanted to reveal to Shinji and Asuka all NERV's dark secrets, but she kept her mouth shut because she feared that SEELE would find out and kill them. Nonetheless, she explained to them why she was keeping things from them, and Shinji and Asuka understood her reasons.
  • Loners Are Freaks: During their post-First Kiss conversation Shinji and Asuka dejectedly tell each other they were always alone after their mothers' deaths and their fathers' abandonment. They had no friends because no one wanted to talk to them, no one even tried to understand their pain or cared... and no one could in fact understand. Until they opened up to each other.
  • Lost Him in a Card Game: In chapter 8 Shinji loses a Strip Chess match against Pen Pen and becomes his "butler" for a month (long—and hilarious—story). Asuka wanted to win Shinji back, so she and the penguin played another Strip Chess match. If she won, she would have Shinji back and he would be her cabaña boy for one week; if Pen Pen won, Shinji would be his butler for one month AND she would do all Shinji's chores. Pen Pen lost the match and Shinji. It's all an act, designed to mess with Misato's head and shake up her preconceived ideas about them, before they break the news that they're lovers.
  • Love at First Punch: When Kaworu implied that he was going to disturb Shinji and Asuka's bond, Rei beat him up and threatened him. He is completely awed by how beautiful she looks when she's angry.
  • Love Confession: After the prologue showed Shinji and Asuka keeping a Secret Relationship, chapter 1 narrated how it came to pass: Shinji accidentally placed his hands on Asuka's waist during their First Kiss, and that action turned the moment into The Big Damn Kiss. Right after Shinji blurted his feelings out... and Asuka said she liked him back and had been actually trying to get his attention for weeks. They later officially swap "I love you"s to each other right before Their First Time.
  • Love Epiphany: Shinji and Asuka fully acknowledged their feelings and realized each other's when they kissed in chapter 1. Rei realized that she loved them both when fighting Zeruel.
  • Love Hurts:
    • Gendo is a bastard because he had always been frightened of other people. Yui was the only person he ever opened up to. When he lost her he became a broken, pathetic shell of a man, too afraid to love and relate to other people and utterly obsessed with saving her. All of it is explored in chapter 8.
    • When Shinji and Asuka got together they were happy because they were not alone anymore... so that when one of them was in danger or they were forcibly separated, they were terrified of being alone again.
    • Shinji and Asuka helped Rei to stop being a puppet and connect with other people. She bonded with them to the point she loves them both and it hurts her being unable to be with them because they don't love her that way and she does not want to disrupt their bond either.
    • Shinji and Asuka helped Touji and Hikari to get together. When Hikari got absorbed into Unit 03, Touji spent several days depressed, lonely, afraid and worried, not knowing what had happened to her.
  • Love Interest:
    • Shinji and Asuka are each other's love interest.
    • Touji is Hikari's and vice versa.
    • Misato and Kaji to each other's.
    • Yui is Gendo's, Gendo is Ritsuko's and Ritsuko is Maya's.
  • Lovely Angels: Asuka and Rei. When they start to spend time together their bond grows and they learn to fight together more effectively. Also, Asuka and Hikari. When they fought Zeruel, Hikari was stuck inside Unit 03, and Shinji used her bond with Hikari to move it around and fight.
  • Love Makes You Dumb: Ritsuko is a very smart and resourceful scientist... but she has fallen for Gendo and has deluded herself into thinking Gendo does or will love her back... even though he always treats her like crap at best, a useful but disposable and ultimately replaceable pawn, and he has provided her with plenty of evidence that the only woman he will ever love is his deceased wife. Still she repeatedly tells herself: "He will love me. He must! He needs me!" She eventually can't ignore the evidence any more, and attempts suicide.
  • Love Makes You Evil:
    • It's pointed out several times in story and -out of story by the author- that Gendo does what he does (which includes treating his children and subordinates like crap, using child soldiers and treating them like replaceable and expendable troops, using suppressant drugs to turn Rei into an obedient, mindless puppet, firing Shinji and Asuka -his best pilots- for a so-called insubordination and plotting the end of the world) because in his mind nothing -NOTHING!- is so important like his wife and he will do everything and anything to save her.
    • Ritsuko finally confesses to Maya that she made a lot of evil things because she loved Gendo.
  • Love-Obstructing Parents: Played with. Misato had no problem with the idea of Shinji and Asuka being in a relationship (in fact the fic was originally a oneshot of her giving Shinji advice) but after she finds out that they had a Secret Relationship she puts her foot down on them sleeping in the same bed (which is the one thing that they really need). And she's hates the fact that it makes her the bad guy.
  • Love Revelation Epiphany: Subverted. Misato thinks that Shinji and Asuka are oblivious to each other's feelings and in the Prologue she tries to make Shinji realizing Asuka loves him. Ironically they had gotten together several weeks ago and had kept their relationship a secret.
  • Love Triangle: Asuka and Shinji liked each other, and Rei liked Shinji. At the beginning Asuka was jealous but she got over it when she and Rei became friends. However, as the bonds between the three pilots became stronger, Rei fell for both. Yet she will do nothing because she does not want to disrupt their relationship.
  • Loving a Shadow:
    • Asuka had a crush on her guardian Kaji because she longed for being acknowledged and treated as an adult and he was the only decent father figure she had known. After hooking up with Shinji and realizing Kaji was infatuated with Misato, she dropped her crush right away.
    • Ritsuko was in love with Gendo, but she did not know his true colors at all.
    • At the same time, she thinks Maya's crush on her is idol worship because Maya does not know her real self.
  • Luminescent Blush: After getting together, Shinji and Asuka blush often when they are together or someone drops hints about their feelings.
    • In chapter 3, Asuka flushes while thinking of what her and Shinji did the last night right after getting together. Later Shinji becomes red after slipping that thinking about Asuka kept him awake at night.
    • In chapter 4, Misato teases Shinji about his feelings towards Asuka. Shinji flushed incandescently.
      Misato laughed again. "Yes, we'll be back in time for that. Going to make a feast for your sweetie, hmm?"
      "Misato..." he whined, blushing. 'My sweetie, my girlfriend, my lover oh holy crap oh gods she loves me she loves me she loves me!' He blushed harder.
      Misato, fortunately, misinterpreted his nearly incandescent flush.

    M-O 

  • Magnetic Girlfriend:
    • Girls suddenly find Shinji a lot more attractive once he and Asuka open up to each other. Of course, since they're trying to keep their relationship a secret, Asuka can't do anything but glare menacingly and curse under her breath while other girls try to steal her man.
    • Rei actually invokes this by pretending to be going out with Kensuke in order to get him a real girlfriend. It works.
  • Making Love in All the Wrong Places:
    • In the start of chapter 5 Shinji and Asuka have sex on a chair in the living room of Misato's apartment.
    • Later in that chapter they are so desperate for a little private fun together after four days of forced abstinence (due to their guardian being home and sober at the night and their teammate following them everywhere) that they have sex in the school's cleaning supply closet.
    • And in chapter 8, Ritsuko wanted Gendo taking her on his office's desk.
  • Male Gaze: Shinji had a hard time NOT gawking openly at Asuka's body. After getting together it is even harder for him. He stares at her the whole time but he still tries to be discreet about it since they are trying to keep a Secret Relationship.
    • In chapter 3 Asuka is (pretending) lecturing him about the water being too hot, but Shinji is barely keeping track of the conversation since he is too busy staring at her bare legs.
      A small part of his brain was concentrating on not dropping the hot pot on his feet, because most of it was trying not to drool helplessly over the way Asuka's long, smooth legs disappeared up under the hem of the towel, mixed in with memories of last night that said sight triggered.
  • Malicious Misnaming: Asuka frequently refers to Gendo and Ritsuko as "Commander Asshole" and "Doctor Bitchface" behind their backs due to their mistreatment of Rei and, in Gendo's case, Shinji as well.
  • Mama Bear:
    • In chapter 3, Asuka had been trapped into Leliel. Shinji thought he wanted to save her not matter what, even if he had to unleash his Evangelion's power. Mama Yui heard and answered his plea. Meanwhile Asuka thought she wanted to live and be with Shinji and asked her mother to help her. Mama Kyoko heard and answered her plea. And all of sudden Leliel was being ripped apart by two blood-thirsty berserker mothers trapped into giant robots.
    • In the same chapter, Misato slapped Ritsuko to the ground when she declared Asuka to be expendable.
      That's one of my kids, you heartless bitch!
  • Manipulative Bastard: Gendo is a manipulative bastard, but he isn't as good at it as he'd like to believe. When the Children refused to follow his orders against Bardiel, he reprimanded Rei severely and fired Shinji and Asuka, thinking that, in the event that he needed them back, he knew what buttons to press: Rei was brainwashed to obey him, Asuka needed to be an Eva pilot to validate her own existence, and Shinji craved his approval and would never want to be apart from Asuka. Usually he'd be right, but they had changed when he wasn't paying attention, and those emotional levers wouldn't work.
  • Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Asuka is brash, tomboyish and loud. Shinji is soft-spoken, meek, girly and their apartment's House Husband.
  • The Masochism Tango: Ritsuko has convinced herself that her relationship with Gendo is good and he actually cares about her even though Gendo ALWAYS treats her like a pawn and he constantly shows nothing is as important as Yui to him. Chapter 8 provides a good example of this: Ritsuko got hurt during a battle and was taken to med bay. Gendo never went to see her. He spent hours making sure Rei and Unit-01 were fine and he came to see one of the pilots, but he did not spend a second waiting at Ritsuko's side. Ritsuko was aware of this and suitably angry. Still, when he called her to see if she was okay, she felt happier, thinking he cared... until he asked if she could start to work again.
  • Mass "Oh, Crap!": When they watch Zeruel defeating Rei and crushing the two drone-controlled Evas single-handedly and easily, everyone shows this reaction.
  • The Matchmaker: In chapter 8, Shinji and Asuka decide to help Rei find someone.
  • Matchmaker Crush: Inverted. Both Shinji and Asuka had a crush on Rei but they weren't willing to share, so they decide to look for someone who is good enough for her.
  • Meaningful Echo: During the battle against Zeruel, Rei shouted "You... will not... harm them... I... will... not... permit... it!" while defending Asuka and Shinji. She shouts the exact same thing when protecting Kaworu from Armisael. In both cases, this happened soon after she realized she was in love with the person she was defending.
  • Mecha Show: Being a fanfic from a Super Robot Genre show, it has plenty of sci-fi technology including the Humongous Mecha.
  • Meet the In-Laws: It's mentioned in the passing in Chapter 9 that Hikari was finally introducing Touji to her family. She probably would have done it sooner but she had been under quarantine ever since Shinji and Asuka got her out of Unit-03.
    • In a slightly less conventional example, Asuka and Shinji both meet each other's mothers during a cross-synch test in Chapter 10. Despite Kyoko's mental instability, and Asuka viciously calling out Yui for all the crap she put Shinji through, it all goes rather well.
  • The Men in Black: NERV's Section 2 agents. Asuka calls them "Gendo's private Gestapo". After the battle against Bardiel, they arrested Shinji and Asuka per orders of the Commander, and after the battle against Zeruel they dragged both teens to meet Gendo. In no instance were they remotely kind, warm or agreeable.
  • Mildly Military: NERV's formality varies depending on the character. Gendo fired his best pilots only because they did not follow orders, even though they won the battle and he had no replacements. Misato is pretty informal, moreso at home, but she puts her foot down when she thinks it is warranted: she was okay with two of her Pilots dating each other because she thought it was cute, but she was against them sleeping together, and brought up chain-of-command concerns when her wards argued the matter with her.
  • Milking the Giant Cow: Downplayed examples. In chapter 8, while having lunch with his friends, Touji is so frustated with being not allowed seeing his girlfriend while she spends time in the hospital that he stretched his hands out and "nervously grasped at nothing". Before, Misato does much the same while discussing Shinji and Asuka's relationship with Kaji, though she uses her still bandaged hand for it.
  • Mind Rape: Both Rei and Kaworu end up getting attacked by Arael and are subjected to their worst fears (Rei being rejected by Asuka and Shinji for her angelic nature, and Kaworu giving into his instincts and causing The End of the World as We Know It). Rei takes it so hard that she begs Ritsuko to drug away the pain afterwards despite her history with being drugged. Fortunately, there are no long-term effects, thanks to the emotional support from their friends.
  • Mind Screw: When Asuka got trapped into the Sea of Dirac, she got a very weird hallucination where she was in a train car and a child version of her talked about "the self inside of the self" and asked what she was afraid of and whether she was valued. Asuka later described that episode in these terms, minus the revelation about loving Shinji since that was something she didn't want on a NERV report: "I... it was like I had eaten too much spicy food and fallen asleep reading Sartre or something. Just a weird conversation with myself about... the self, and loneliness. It didn't make much sense."
  • Missing Mom:
    • After their First Kiss, Shinji tells Asuka his mother died in an Eva-related accident when he was four years old. Astonished, Asuka reveals her mother died in an accident with an Eva Unit when she was four, too.
    • Later, Rei reveals to them that she grew up without a mother.
    • Hikari's mother is also missing. After Hikari tells them about what happened to her inside Unit-03, Asuka comes to the conclusion that Hikari's mother is inside 03's core...and later, that her and Shinji's mothers are both in their Evangelions.
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Shinji was abandoned by his father Gendo when he was four, Asuka was also abandoned by her father when she was four and then trained to be a Child Soldier, they have been used like disposable and replaceable weapons for Gendo and then fired when he thought he had a replacement who would not disobey their orders, and in chapter 7 they found that their mothers' deaths were not "accidents"... In summary, they are turning on NERV.
  • The Mistress: As they opened up to each other and talked about their pasts in chapter 1, Asuka told Shinji her father did not mourn her late mother long, hinting he cheated on her with the nurse who was supposed to take care of her.
  • Mixtape of Love: Kaworu gives Rei a mixtape as a Christmas present. He wanted to make something for her, but his Adamite nature means that he has Creative Sterility. Shinji's suggestion of a mixtape proved to be a good workaround.
    Kaworu: Take… existing songs… I can do that. I can do that! That's it! That's it! I can do that! Thank you, Shinji-kun! Thank you!
  • Moment Killer: In a scene, Shinji and Asuka are about to have a shower together and have "fun" at the same time when Kaji shows up all of sudden, ruining their plans.
  • Moment of Lucidity: After Rei is given a drug overdose that forces her back into being cold and emotionless, she manages to crack a single joke to show Asuka and Shinji that the Rei they have come to know and befriend isn't completely gone.
    Asuka: Rei, you're going to be alright. We'll get you back to your apartment and... fuck... [...] Shinji?
    Rei: Fucking... Ikari... kun... is... your... job.
  • Mood Whiplash: During one scene in Chapter 9, Rei and Kaworu are having an argument regarding Rei's inability to tell Shinji and Asuka certain secrets. It's played seriously, up until it turns out Kaworu has a boner.
    • In chapter 10, a light-hearted discussion of Rei's friendship with Kaworu is interrupted when Rei suddenly collapses, while Kaji catches a SEELE spy who has apparently sabotaged the Dummy Plug Plant.
    • In chapter 9, Ritsuko and Misato go out drinking with Kaji and Maya. Misato and Kaji have started dating again which causes some good matured ribbing from Ritsuko, aimed at Misato. When Maya leaves to go to the bathroom Misato notices tell tale signs that someone has been "Drilling her like the West Texas" and correctly assumes she and Ritsuko are now an item. She then tries to return Ritsuko's teasing... only for Ritsuko to have a borderline panic attack at Misato figuring it out, genuinely terrified that Gendo might find out and hurt Maya, leading to her practically begging Misato not to tell anyone.
  • Morality Chain: Rei is the one thing keeping Kaworu from giving into his Angelic instincts and becoming Tabris. When she dies in a Heroic Sacrifice against Armisael, it's only thanks to a combination of his knowledge that she usually gets better in other timelines and a well timed pep talk from Mrs. Horaki that keeps him from trying to start Third Impact right then and there.
  • Motherly Scientist: Subverted with Ritsuko. She looks nice at the beginning. However she doesn't care for Rei, mistreats her and regards her as a doll and a tool at best, or a creepy abomination at worst.
  • Mugging the Monster: When Asuka joined Shinji's class, a horde of boys chased her. When she said she wanted to date nobody, two boys refused to accept her answer and tried to get hard. It turned out that fragile, little girl punched hard.
    Shinji: "How come I'm the one with the pack after them? You were ten times as popular as I was, a week after you arrived, miss incredibly-hot-exotic-foreign-transfer-student. I know Touji and Kensuke were making crazy amounts of cash selling beauty shots of you almost right away. Why haven't I had to chase away a pack of boys drooling after you?"
    Asuka: "Because I already had them properly terrified and respectful after I mashed the first two flat when they tried to ask me out the week I got here and refused to take 'no' for an answer, [...] Putting a couple of them on the ground with a few punches when they got rough taught the others to keep off."
  • Mundane Utility: Ritsuko and Maya use their sysop access to the MAGI computer to flirt by leaving messages for each other in the change log. Admittedly, they also use it to plot how to take down Gendo's scenario, but that doesn't change the fact that they're using the most advanced computer ever built for the purpose of phone sex.
  • My Eyes Are Up Here: In chapter 4 Shinji was sitting down when he realized someone was looming over him. He looked up to find a pretty big bossom. Quickly he looked further up to meet that girl's face.
    • At one point, Maya gets a view of Ritsuko in a swimsuit. She attempts several times to look up, only to fail each time, and only snaps out of if when Ritsuko clears her throat.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • After the end of Chapter 2, Strypgia uses a Misato voice to promise "fanservice~!" after giving a preview of the next chapter.
    • Shinji realising Asuka was in love with him, Rei being friendlier and getting along better with Asuka, and Kaworu being introduced as a transfer student at the Children's school are all elements the fic shares in common with the TV series' original proposal.
    • Chapter 3's bus scene is reminiscent of a similar scene from the Asuka ending in the Evangelion visual novel Girlfriend of Steel.
    • When Shinji attacks Leliel's AT-Field to force it to release Asuka, he screams, "GIVE! HER! BACK!"
    • Shinji, Asuka, Rei & Kaworu's formation of a string quartet is a clear reference to the Framing Device of Evangelion: Death.
    • In chapter 12.4, when Asuka confides in Misato about her ongoing feelings of insecurity, she utters both Shinji's classic English dub line from End of Evangelion's hospital scene ("I'm so fucked up") as well as her own Japanese script line from the film's ending ("I feel sick").
    • The existence of a forth, evil Rei... Now where we've heard that one before?
  • Negative Space Wedgie: In chapter 3, the pilots fight Leliel, a being that is apparently a floating, black-and-white-striped sphere. It turns out that the sphere is a shadow, and its "shadow" is Leliel's real body: an impossibly thin body that stores a whole alternate dimension of blank nothingness. Asuka falls inside it and spends twelve hours trapped inside Leliel as the alien monster tries to mind-rape her. She gets saved when her mecha goes berserker at the same time that Shinji's.
  • Never My Fault: Gendo blamed Shinji, Asuka and Rei for disobeying his orders when they fought Bardiel. Never mind his strategy was dumb and nearly got them killed. Never mind they HAD to disobey his commands in order to adapt and survive the enemy attack. Never mind they won, destroying Bardiel, rescuing the pilot and recovering the Unit hijacked by the enemy by ignoring his interfering commands. He blamed them for "insubordination" and "endangering all humanity", he punished Shinji and Asuka and reprimanded Rei.
  • New Transfer Student: At the end of Chapter 8, Kaworu Nagisa is transferred to Shinji's school. Rei sensed he wasn't human and took a dislike to him right away. For his part, Kaworu found her fascinating... and scary. Very fascinating and very, very scary.
  • New Year's Kiss: The characters end up kissing at midnight on New Year's Eve, with it even being Rei and Kaworu's first unambiguously romantic kiss (Rei claimed that their Under the Mistletoe moment on Christmas was meant to be platonic).
    Shinji: So at midnight, we kiss?
    Asuka: The tradition is you do at the stroke of midnight what you want to be doing all through the New Year. So, you and I will be lip-locked.
  • Nice Guy: Shinji always tries to be kind and polite. He even felt guilty after turning Chihiro and the other girls down so publicly, because he thought maybe he'd been too harsh than he'd meant to.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Bardiel grew a S2 organ into Unit 03 when it hijacked the giant mecha. Thanks to that, NERV got an Eva would not run out of power, which saved Shinji and Asuka when they used Unit 03 to fight Zeruel and they ran out of external power.
    • Arael's Mind Rape of Rei is no less brutal than the one he gave Asuka in canon, but as a result Rei is able to access the memories of Lilith and she learns the truth about her, Adam and the First Ancestral Race. She also uses this connection with Lilith to regain her memories of Kaworu after she dies and is freshly cloned without them.
  • The Nicknamer: Asuka gives most of the people she knows nicknames that range from affectionate to downright hostile depending on how she feels about them. She's so well known for this that when Gendo questions Rei on why she called Kaworu a "stupid fish", she's able to claim that Asuka came up with the name and he instantly believes her.
  • Nightmare Sequence: In chapter 8, Asuka has a nightmare in which she and Shinji were fighting Israfel again, and Shinji dies. Meanwhile Shinji has another nightmare where he sees Asuka sinking again in the volcano's magma, he jumps in to rescue her, and he misses. The nightmares aren't shown, but rather shared between the two Pilots as they try to get some sleep in each other's arms.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: When Rei finally hits her Rage Breaking Point over Kaworu's presence, she seizes a tree branch and gives him what the watching Section 2 team leader describes as "one of the most thorough beatings I've ever seen from a woman," while yelling for him to, "DIE, STUPID FISH!"
    Team leader: He managed to get her to stop hitting him after the second branch broke on his head.
  • No Medication for Me: The only reason Rei was taking "a giant cocktail of sedatives, dissociatives, mood suppressors, and hormonal contraceptives" was because it made it easier for Gendo to control her. Horrified that this is what NERV is doing to their Pilots, Asuka pretty much begs Rei to stop taking it when she finds out (Asuka had previously been put on Benzodiazepine by her step-mother for similar reasons). Rei ends up going through several months of various withdrawal symptoms, but slowly starts experiencing emotions as she detoxes and recovers with their help. She also had the good sense to research what to do to ease the symptoms, stealing counteragents from Doctor Akagi to reduce the nastier side effects. She even exploits LCL exposure during Synch Tests to help her cut her doses faster.
  • Noodle Incident: In chapter 4, Asuka says to Rei she reacted so strongly when she found out Rei was being ordered taking emotion-suppressants drugs because her step-mother tried something like that when she was younger, but she did not explain what her step-mother had tried to do.
  • Nosebleed: Mentioned by Shinji when Asuka sneaks into his room:
    "Once upon a time, you sneaking into my room at night in just a shirt and underwear would have made me pass out from either terror or lustful nosebleeds."
  • No Sense of Personal Space:
    • Asuka. Even before getting together with Shinji she used to invade other people's personal space aggressively and spontaneously, specially if she was interested in them.
    • All Shinji's female classmates with a crush on him tend to get closer than Shinji would like. Specially Chihiro Tanaka, who does not seem to get the "personal space" concept. In chapter 6 she gets Asuka mad when she gets way too close to Shinji.
      Her beloved baka was under siege by at least half a dozen of the usual Harpies, led by that bitch Tanaka. Shinji sat nervously with his back to the fence, surrounded by pretty young girls. Geek-Stooge sat next to him, staring just as nervously at the surrounding ring of girls. Luckily for him, they were ignoring him in favor of staring hungrily at Shinji. Shinji had less than a meter of space around him. Tanaka herself was leaning way into Shinji's personal space, reaching a hand out to touch his face oh no we are not having that!
  • No Social Skills:
    • When they open up in chapter 1, Shinji and Asuka remark that neither of them has social skills due to their childhood trauma and growing up with no friends. Asuka realizes that is part of the reason that Shinji never got her hints.
    • When the three pilots are ordered to spend time together, Asuka and Shinji find out that Rei is weirder and socially-unaware than previously thought: she does not understand the concepts of modesty or shame, does not know what a Double Entendre is, does not know any thing about relationships between boys and girls... and she has never known her mother. Oh, and NERV is drugging her. Rei's social awkwardness is what leads Shinji and Asuka to suspect that NERV is up to something real bad.
  • No Sympathy: Ritsuko has zero sympathy or compassion for the pilots and their plight. In chapter 6 she shows she doesn't care at all for their reactions to a possibly upsetting situation:
    Ritsuko coolly went back to her typing. "We need Children like this, in order for us all to survive. They'll deal with it or they won't."
    Misato half-glared at her. "Your compassion is heartwarming, Doctor! I'm the one who has to tell them about this!"
  • Not Helping Your Case: Every time Asuka tries to convince Misato that she and Shinji are mature enough to be sleeping with each other, she ends up saying something sexual (usually about the wonderful things Shinji can do with his hands).
  • Not His Sled: It is foreshadowed repeatedly that the pilot of Unit-03 will not be Toji this time around. Confirmed when it is revealed that Hikari Horaki has been selected as the Fourth Child.
  • "Not So Different" Remark:
    • At the beginning of the story, Shinji and Asuka realize they are alike. Since that point, when they are trying to understand each other, each one of them thinks "He/she is just like me. How would I feel in that situation?"
    • When Asuka fell into Leliel's otherdimensional trap, Shinji acted incredibly cool and unemotional as she was missing. Misato and Rei are both struck by how much he resembles his father, with Rei not liking it.
    • In chapter 7, Kaji is arguing with Shinji and Asuka. During that discussion, Shinji looked so cold and his stare so harsh and firm that Kaji could not help but think of how much Shinji resembled his father.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: After getting together Shinji and Asuka start to figure out several secrets of Nerv by comparing their pasts and their experiences piloting their Evangelions, but since they realize they are not supposed to know about them and they are trying to keep their relationship under wraps, they pretend they are clueless and oblivious to not draw unwanted attention to themselves.
  • Oblivious to Hints: After kissing for first time, Asuka asks Shinji why he had never responded any of her advances favorably if he liked her. Dismayed, she learns that Shinji wasn't dismissing her; he was merely completely oblivious to her hints. In chapter 2:
    She'd finally gotten that dense, oblivious, blind baka to finally notice the fact she'd been trying to get him to react to her hints that she... kind of thought he was cute.
  • Oblivious to Love: Subverted. In the prologue, Misato thinks Shinji and Asuka are still oblivious to each other's feelings and she tries to encourage Shinji to win Asuka over... not knowing they got together two months ago. The first chapter narrates how they accidentally noticed each other's feelings after dancing around each other for months without realizing the obvious, and both got shocked reactions.
  • Off with His Head!: In chapter 7, Zeruel beheads Unit 00 with a single blow of its arm-whips. This indirectly inflicts head-splitting pain upon Rei, who was operating Unit-01 at that time.
  • Official Couple: Shinji and Asuka.
  • Official Kiss: In chapter 1, Shinji and Asuka kiss. After, they have a long talk where they open up to each other and become a couple.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • In chapter 4, Shinji thinks for a second that Misato knows what he and Asuka have been doing behind her back, and he has this reaction.
      Shinji: 'Oh shit, she knows she knows she knows...'
    • In chapter 5, both Shinji and Asuka have that reaction when Rei tells them she knows that they are together and are having sex.
    • In chapter 7, Asuka is telling Shinji everything what she wants him doing to her as they are walking into their home... and then they run into Kaji, who is shocked. Asuka's reaction was:
      Asuka:“Oh… scheiße…”
    • She said the same thing earlier in that chapter when she and Shinji woke up in her bed with someone's footsteps coming toward them. But it was just Rei getting scared and needing a hug.
    • In that same chapter, the entire Nerv staff wear Oh, Crap! expressions when they deploy the dummy plugs against Zeruel... and Zeruel demolishes them easily.
    • In chapter 10, Shinji and Asuka both have this reaction, and with very good reason: turns out their Secret Relationship... isn't a secret from Gendo.
      Shinji: "He knows. About us."
      Asuka: “Oh… Scheiße…”
  • Old Flame: Misato and Kaji are this to each other. In chapter 8, Misato gets tired of dancing around the issue (partly thanks to learning that Shinji and Asuka are together and stable), and tells Kaji she wants them to get together again.
  • One-Man Army: While Asuka is trying to cheer Shinji up, she reminds him that they are possibly the more dangerous persons in the planet and they could take on anything and anyone.
  • One-Steve Limit: Averted. Asuka's mother and one of Kensuke's girlfriends are both named Kyoko.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
    • In chapter 4, when Shinji learns his father took Rei in after abandoning him, he is so furious and betrayed that Asuka is left shocked that her boyfriend could actually hold so much anger:
      Asuka blinked in surprise. Shinji was… furious. She'd never seen him this angry. The usual calm expression he gave the world, or the warm and loving one he showed her when they were alone was gone. His face was twisted in a violent combination of anger, pain, and betrayal. She'd seen the Third Child without his clothes a lot in the last two weeks, but she'd never seen Shinji this naked.
    • On their first day of special training, Rei is taken aback by Asuka's horrified reaction to the former's regimen of drugs, including her impassioned plea to stop taking them. This moves Rei to take Asuka seriously, even to the point of disobeying Commander Ikari and Doctor Akagi by proxy.
    • After defeating Zeruel, Asuka and Shinji purposefully throw several of these at Misato in a way that doesn't fully register until Asuka and Shinji finally reveal that they're together. For example, Asuka is willing to play a strip chess match against Pen-Pen to win Shinji back. The narration points out that Asuka's A-10 headset is off of her head and in the clothes pile by the chessboard, yet Asuka is more focused on getting Shinji back than keeping the physical symbol of her pride as an Eva Pilot.
    • In chapter 8, Rei is undergoing a memory scan. It is a long, tedious process, but Rei never complains, gets bored or tired. So that when she actually displays resignation and impatience, Ritsuko—who oversees the scan—becomes startled and wonders if the emotion suppressants they give Rei are no longer working.
      Ritsuko flicked another momentary glance at the First Child. That reply had been... no, that couldn't have been resignation. Rei didn't get bored.
    • Everyone also has a hard time processing the fact that Rei got angry at Kaworu (who she just met), let alone the fact that she's angry at all.
    • The reason that Rei even considered to stop taking her meds was the fact that Asuka pleaded her to stop.
      The Second Child had never said "please" to her before, never asked her anything in a tone of voice this naked.
  • Open Relationship Failure: Defied. Shinji, Asuka, and Rei all have heavy Threesome Subtext between them, but both Shinji and Asuka shoot down the possibility of a polyamorous relationship because neither thinks that they're emotionally healthy enough to handle it. Rei also shoots it down, but her reasons are more along the lines of not wanting to interfere with Shinji and Asuka's preexisting romance.
  • Ordered Apology: Gendo fired Shinji and Asuka for so-called insubordination, and alleged the dummy plug automatic system would suffice to control their war mechas. However, the drones failed and Shinji and Asuka came along to save everybody. SEELE ordered Gendo reinstating them in service and apologizing. And Gendo did so... using the most token, most backhanded, most insincere apology in existence.
  • Orphan's Ordeal: After kissing for the first time, Shinji and Asuka open up to each other and find out their childhoods were very similar: their mothers died, their fathers left them with no explanation or apology, they had nightmares the whole time about it, and they were always alone because no one cared about them or tried to understand their pain.
  • Out of Continues: Like in canon, Rei's Body Backup Drive is taken out of comission, leaving her like this. Although unlike in canon, this time it is SEELE's rather Ritsuko's doing. Despite this, Rei Trois still comes into being after Rei Deux sacrifices herself against Armisael (though until Rei reveals herself, Rei Trois is treated as an amnesiac Rei Deux by everyone except Kaworu), and a Wham Shot is the existence of Rei Quatre.

    P-R 
  • Pals with Jesus: Rei and Kaworu are the closest thing to gods that exist within the setting due to them having the souls of Lilith and Adam, though their friends are unaware of their "divinity". While Asuka and Shinji are both taken aback by this revelation, it doesn't really affect their friendship in any way.
  • Parental Abandonment: After their First Kiss, Shinji blurts out accidentally he was abandoned by his father when he was a little kid after his mother's death. Amazed, Asuka muses that is exactly what happened to her. Both teenagers talk about how they never got an apology or explanation from their fathers, how they still miss their mothers and have nightmares about their deaths... and start bonding thanks to their shared griefs.
  • Parental Favoritism: Subverted. Rei is Gendo's favorite (of course, Rei is really only nominally so by virtue of being the keystone to his plans, as well as her resemblance to Yui). However, Asuka realizes that it does not amount to being valued as a person since Gendo still treats Rei like crap. Finding out what Rei's life is like—the bizarre lack of knowledge of social norms, her one-note wardrobe, her dilapidated apartment, the prescription of sedatives, her willingness to die on the Commander's orders—helps Asuka to get over her jealousy.
    Asuka didn't say anything for a minute. "She's the Commander's pet, his favorite," she said in a low voice. "Not you, his own son. Not me, the top scorer. Her. She's the one he likes. And they've got her taking so many tranquilizers and dissociatives I'm amazed she was even able to get angry enough to slap you. That amount of drugs has to be making her nearly a robot. That's the kind of cocktail you give to someone you want to keep totally pliable, unargumentative, too doped up to care about anything... someone you want to make into a doll." Asuka shuddered. "If they can do that to the Pilot they like, what do they think of us?"
  • Parental Hypocrisy: Subverted. When Misato forbids Shinji and Asuka from sleeping together Asuka tries to argue Misato is a hypocrite. It doesn't work.
    Misato: "Most of your life"? Asuka, you're fourteen! You two can't be doing this!
    Asuka: You'd have done the same at our age!
    Misato: At your age plus a year I was catatonic from watching Second Impact at Ground Zero! You are still a child!
  • Parental Obliviousness: Shinji and Asuka got together and after a short while started sleeping together... and Misato kept thinking they were stuck on the Belligerent Sexual Tension phase. When they finally came clean about their relationship several months later, Misato thought they were pulling a prank on her because she did not believe they could get together without her noticing anything (to be fair, they deceived nearly everybody).
  • Parental Substitute: Misato is this to Shinji and Asuka. She takes care after them and even tries to encourage them to get together... having no idea that they hooked up with each other when she was not looking.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Shinji, Asuka and Rei are capable of massive property damage or even ending humanity. And Rei does not a giant robot, when she can turn humans into LCL after re-establishing her connection to Lilith.
  • Pervert Revenge Mode:
    • In Chapter 4, Touji asks Shinji how he has managed getting so many girls after him and starts moaning he wants one of those hot babes notice his well-muscled body. Hikari hurls a piece of chalk at his forehead and yells at him.
      "C'mon, Shin-man, you've gotta tell us what you're doin' different, so we can get in on it! I could finally get one of these hot babes to notice my studly, well-muscled bod—OW!" Touji's paean to his handsome form was cut off by the impact of a well-aimed piece of chalk to the middle of his forehead.
      "Sit DOWN, Suzuhara!" Hikari roared at him. "And shut up!"
    • Surprisingly averted with Asuka in that same chapter. When she found out about Shinji accidentally seeing Rei naked and touching her right breast she was pissed off... but since it was an accident, she did not hold it against him; and Rei's behavior becomes the focus of Asuka's growing incredulity.
    • After Kaworu gets unwillingly turned on by her yelling at him, Rei assaults him with a tree branch.
      Rei: DIE, STUPID FISH!
  • Perverted Sniffing: Asuka confesses to Shinji that prior to the two of them hooking up, she had stolen one of Shinji's sleep-shirts for this purpose. She later ends up using it as a security blanket of sorts after a particularly bad nightmare (Misato was forcing the two of them to sleep in seperate beds at the time, so she couldn't hug Shinji for comfort).
  • Pet the Dog: The closest Gendo ever gets to acting like a decent human being is actively explaining the rationale, when asked by Shinji and Asuka, for his decisions concerning Hikari's quarantine and assigning both Shinji and Asuka, as a pair, to Unit-03, rather than simply going "I'm the boss, you will do as I say, or else" as he usually does.
  • Pitbull Dates Puppy: Shinji's female schoolmates don't understand why he is infatuated with Asuka because they think that she's a brutish tsundere and he's a timid wallflower.
  • The Plan: When Rei was fighting Zeruel all alone because Asuka and he got fired, and she was losing badly, Shinji came up with a plan to help her: return to the Geofront and hijack a spare Eva Unit, reasoning that Asuka and himself would be able to move it together. Was it a good plan? Yes, it was.
  • Plagued by Nightmares: Shinji and Asuka had nightmares constantly about their mothers dying and their fathers abandoning them afterwards. Sleeping together effectively banishes those nightmares, allowing them to sleep more peacefully than ever before.
    Asuka (talking about both) You have nightmares all the time about it. The memory keeps coming after you when you try to sleep.
  • Playful Cat Smile: Asuka displays a very playful, smug and self-satisfied grin of this nature after being kissed by Shinji in front of all their classmates in chapter 8.
  • Polyamory: Thanks to Rei's social engineering, Kensuke ends up in a relationship with two girls.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Discussed. During their heart-to-heart talk, Shinji and Asuka realize that they had been distressed and upset for months because they were unable to spit their feelings out clearly: Asuka was unable to say out loud she liked Shinji, so she dropped subtle hints, Shinji never got them, she thought that he was unininterested rather oblivious because he never said he liked her, she got mad, Shinji believed she hated him because he drove her mad...
  • The Pornomancer:
    • Shinji Ikari's reputation at school. Due to some unfortunate unintentional innuendo from Rei, the rumour mill is running the belief that Shinji is sleeping with both Asuka and Rei, and is so good at it that Asuka is unwilling to get upset that Rei's getting in on it too, just that Rei failed to keep it a secret.
    • To a lesser extent, but also in universe: Kensuke. Rei has been using him to experiment with things such as hugging (Rei has had a severe lack of hugs in her life). However, due to more cases of suggestive phrasing in public, the rumour mill believes that Kensuke has to be particularly skilled at something in the bedroom, for Rei to turn to Kensuke for 'something that only he can provide'. This reputation, however, is being set up by Rei intentionally to puff up Kensuke's social standing.
  • Power Echoes: When Rei faced Kaworu and taped into her hidden power, her voice reverberated.
  • Power Floats: Downplayed. When Rei is arguing with Kaworu, she taps her power subconsciously, and her clothes ruffle despite the lack of wind.
  • Power Glows: When Kaworu gets Rei angry, her eyes glow red.
  • Power Makes Your Voice Deep: When Rei uses her hidden power, her voice becomes throatier and deeper, and she actually growls.
  • The Power of Friendship: The only reason Shinji and Asuka were able to perform a joint synchronization with Unit-03 was because they were friends with Hikari, who had been absorbed during the previous angel attack. Said friendship also managed to get her out of the Eva when the battle was over.
    • In a more mundane example, Rei found in her research that emotional support from friends and family is highly important when dealing with the psychological withdrawal symptoms of the drugs that Doctor Akagi had put her on. And since the only "family" she has is Gendo (the same person who had Ritsuko give her the drugs in the first place), she understandably asks Shinji and Asuka for help instead. Her second detox would be more accurately qualified as The Power of Love.
  • The Power of Hate: In chapter 11, Asuka uses her hatred of SEELE to keep herself from suffering an emotional breakdown after Shinji is nearly killed defending her from assassins.
    If I don't stay angry, you're going to get 'screaming black depression Asuka' instead, because the man I love more than air is lying in a hospital bed with a goddamn bullet hole in him, and I do not want to start thinking about how close he came to dying again, so... Angry. I want their heads, Misato. No, fuck that. I want to know where they live, so I can take Unit-02 and go dance the Schuhplattler on their damn houses!
  • The Power of Love:
    • Asuka and Shinji's love for each other is also the only reason why they manage to stay sane. And their love for Rei (regardless of what type of love it was) gave her support during her second detox.
    • Kaworu had found that feelings like love and lust are the strongest mental buffers against the Call (his subconscious desire to cause Third Impact), so situations where Rei returns his affections (like giving him a "platonic" kiss on Christmas or asking him out on a date) can drown it out entirely.
  • The Power of Lust: Kaworu notes that strong emotions help him drown out The Call (his subconsious desire to cause Third Impact). Given that his physical body is that of a teenage boy, the most reliable method early on is his lust for Rei (before being replaced by The Power of Love).
  • Power of Trust: Asuka, Shinji, and Rei trust each other implicitly. This is best seen in chapter 11, when Rei has to let Asuka protect Kaworu while she goes to protect Shinji (as it would be suspicious if she was alone with Kaworu). To recap, she leaves her boyfriend alone with a girl who was raised to kill him from the time she was four, armed with a weapon that was specifically designed to do exactly that, and Rei doesn't doubt for a second that she will do everything in her power to keep him safe.
    Now that she had a moment to think, it mildly amazed Rei that her first action so soon after seeing her boyfriend shot again was to rush off and trust his protection to another. Then again, Asuka was showing her just as much trust, and they both had complete confidence in that.
  • Power-Strain Blackout: Rei suffers one in the middle of chapter 11 after using her AT-Field to take out SEELE's assassins after their attempts on the Pilots' lives.
  • Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: In chapter 7, Rei is fighting Zeruel all alone. It is about to kill her when Shinji and Asuka show up riding Unit 03. Before start kicking its rear they say in unison:
    Shinji and Asuka: "Get away from my friend."
  • Precision F-Strike: In chapter 3 Misato demands to know what is being kept from her about the nature of the Evas. Ritsuko tells she gave her all information regarding Eva. Misato's retort is accurate and precise:
    Misato:"Bullshit! You're lying!"
  • Pre-Climax Climax: In chapter 3 Shinji and Asuka made love for first since Asuka did not wanted to have any regrets in the next battle.
  • Professionals Do It on Desks: In chapter 8, Ritsuko is fed up with being ignored by Gendo, so that she storms inside his office, pounces on his desk and demands being taken right there. So Gendo did.
    She'd gone to his office, stormed inside like a force of nature, and all but pounced on him at his desk. He'd finally acquiesced to her very plain desire and taken her, right there in his office. Again.
  • Prohibited Hero Saves the Day: After Gendo fired them, Shinji and Asuka end up coming to Rei's rescue during the fight against Zeruel by hijacking Unit-03 (which hand been in storage ever since Hikari got absorbed). Though in a subversion, Rei was ultimately the one to deal the finishing blow.
  • The Promise:
    • After getting together Shinji promises Asuka:
      "As long as you'll have me, I promise, [...] Together, forever and always."
    • And in return Asuka promised:
      "Until the end of the world, you and me, against Angels and anything else that tries to hurt us."
  • Properly Paranoid: Ritsuko thinks that Unit-00 went berserker because it hated her and was trying to kill her. Later on, Rei confirms that the soul inside Unit-00 does hold great animosity toward Ritsuko and her mother.
  • Psychic Link: Rei's link with Lilith is a major plot point, having unlocked access to the latter's memories as a member of the FAR civilization when she was Mind Raped by Arael. After Rei III is informed of this, she realizes that the reverse must also apply, and is able to regain all her lost memories from between Rei II's last memory backup and her Heroic Sacrifice.
    Rei: I remembered being her? Let us see if she remembers being me.
  • Psychotic Smirk: After firing Shinji and Asuka for "insubordination", Gendo's face displays a very disturbing smirk while he tells his Sub-commander that should he need them again, he can easily manipulate them into coming back.
    Gendo finally turned to give his Sub-Commander a razor-thin smile. "Really, Professor, they are not that hard to manipulate. Despite their ability to Pilot the most potent weapons humanity has ever built, the Children have no real power here."
  • Punched Across the Room: When Kaworu hints that he might interfere with Shinji and Asuka's relationship, Rei slaps him so hard that he goes flying several feet and crashes into a tree trunk.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: When Zeruel is about to strike Asuka and Shinji, Rei... goes nuts:
    Rei: You... will not... harm them... I... will... not... permit... it!
  • Punished for Sympathy: Shinji and Asuka are fired and thrown out. The reason? Bardiel had hijacked the Humongous Mecha that one of their friends was piloting. They were ordered to disregard the pilot and destroy the enemy. They refused to abandon their friend and managed to save the pilot and destroy the enemy. Still Gendo was so furious with them for not following his orders that he declared he had no use for unreliable pilots and fired them.
  • Puppeteer Parasite: Bardiel took over Unit-03's body. A fortunate side-effect of this was Unit-03 growing a S2 organ, which helped Shinji and Asuka to survive the next battle.
  • Raging Stiffie: In chapter 9, Rei gets into an up-close argument with Kawuro, who grows visibly flustered and sweaty as she scolds him. This just frustrates Rei even more, and she demands an explanation for why he is looking distracted. Kawuro merely meekly pleads with her not to look down. But she does.
    Kaworu: I can't stop it! It's a rather intense feedback loop. The Lilim parts of my mind are... making suggestions for things they want to do with you! You are unfortunately very attractive!
  • Rapid-Fire "No!": It happens several times, often done by Asuka:
    • In chapter 2 after getting together, Asuka wonders for an instant if Shinji will not abandon her eventually how everyone do. Panicked, she replies herself:
      "No! [...] No no no!"
    • In chapter 8, when Asuka realizes her mother is inside her giant robot Asuka says mentally a long string of noes as she tries not losing it:
      'No no no no do not start losing it, Soryu...
    • And then she lets out another when she is losing it:
      'Nonononononono I want Mama now now now now n— Stop.'
    • Shinji has one of his own in Chapter 10 when Gendo threatens to have him and Asuka separated permanently if he disobeys orders again.
      'No no no no no no! Don't take her away don't take her away no no no!'
    • Asuka has one more of her own at the end of chapter 10 after witnessing Unit-00's self-destruction.
      "No. No. No. No. No. No," Asuka chanted. She bit down on her lip until she tasted blood. She was not going to cry. She was not going to cry because Rei was not dead. NO!
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In the chapter where he and Asuka go public with their relationship, Shinji gets fed up with classmate Chihiro Tanaka treating him as a prize to be won and dissing Asuka and Rei as trying to seduce him. And he makes sure that Tanaka hears about it in a speech that has even Asuka taken aback:
    Chihiro: You and Ayanami have been all over him for weeks, Soryu! This is totally unfair!
    Asuka: This contest was over before it began, Tanaka, [...] You were never good enough for him. He's saved this city even more times than I have. He deserves someone who doesn't just want him as a prize like you do.
    Chihiro: "And you'll be any better? You've treated him like your private pet, butler, and chew toy since the day you got here! You foreign bitch, I-"
    Shinji: "Asuka has been my wingmate, partner, and friend since the day we met. We killed an Angel together within two hours of meeting each other. I know she's not just trying to 'bag an Evangelion Pilot' because she's one too. And there is no one here who is braver, smarter, or hotter than her, Tanaka-san. And if you'd ever asked me about it at any time in the last three months, I'd have told you so, instead of just ignoring anything I said when I tried to be polite about telling you I wasn't looking for anyone to 'walk home with' or 'go shopping downtown with'. And if you ever call her that again I will not try to stop her at all when she rips your eyes out."
  • Recruit Teenagers with Attitude: Shinji, Asuka, Rei and Hikari are fifteen-year-old mecha pilots. Asuka often complains that everybody demand that they act like mature adults when they are on duty... and at the same time Misato will not let Shinji and her sleep together because they are just teenagers.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning:
    • When Zeruel is about to striking Shinji and Asuka, Rei's eyes start glowing red. That -together with her growling- was the first sign that she was going berserker. Zeruel got his posterior handed to him by Rei herself shortly after.
    • Kaworu's eyes start glowing red at the end of chapter 10 after he is devastated by Rei's Heroic Sacrifice and is in danger of succumbing to his Call.
  • Red Is Heroic: Asuka pilots a red Humongous Mecha, her suit is red and she always wears her iconic red hair clips.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Asuka and Rei. The differences between both become less extreme after Rei stops taking emotion-suppressor meds, but Asuka is still hot-blooded and impetuous and Rei is still quiet and calm. During the story their friendship develops and they become a very close-knit combat unit together with Shinji.
  • Reformed, but Rejected: After finding out about her Heel–Face Turn and that Rei had personally forgiven her, Asuka refuses to let go of her grudge towards Ritsuko. Then again, Ritsuko wasn't expecting to be forgiven that easily either.
    Asuka: I'm still not happy with her. I don't care how guilty she feels now. She's going to need a miracle to get on my good side again. She hurt you, Rei, and you know how I feel about people who hurt the ones I... care about.
  • Reincarnation Romance: Rei and Kaworu are this due to a fan omake that detailed Lilith and Adam as being literal Star-Crossed Lovers becoming Ascended Fanon. Though this is merely by technicality, since Kaworu fell in love with Rei before he had any knowledge of Adam and Lilith's relationship.
  • Relationship Reveal: In the beginning Misato teases Shinji about his relationship with Asuka, and the audience are led to believe both teenagers remain in the "we like each other but are completely oblivious to each other's feelings so we fight and argue instead of dating" phase... until it is revealed that they got together a while ago and they have been keeping their relationship secret.
  • Relationship Upgrade:
    • Shinji and Asuka became a couple in chapter 1 which happens two months before the prologue. During their First Kiss, Shinji accidentally places his hands on Asuka's hips, which leads her to think he is reciprocating and intensify the kiss. In turn, Shinji realizes she is kissing him because she wants to and kisses her back. After breaking their kiss they talk about their feelings, realize each other's feelings and get together.
    • In chapter 8, Misato is fed up with lying to herself and pretend she and Kaji have a "friends with benefits" relationship despite of her never getting over him. After pillow talk, they agree to get together again.
  • Resist the Beast: Kaworu is constantly tormented by The Call to fulfill his secret mission and start Third Impact. He resists it to the best of his ability but constantly worries about it overtaking him. His lust for Rei, and later his love for her, prove most effective in helping suppress his dark desires.
  • Right Place, Right Time, Wrong Reason: Asuka is shocked and confused when Shinji confesses to her that he didn't actively decide to hold her in response to her Test Kiss, only grabbing onto her to stay upright because he was about to collapse from lack of oxygen. Fortunately for Shinji, Asuka is far too deeply in love with him by this point to actually take offense to this, and she even admits her pride prevented her from openly admitting her attraction to him beforehand.
  • Right Through the Wall:
    • In chapter 9, Asuka and Shinji could here Misato and Kaji having sex despite Misato trying to be quiet. Made especially frustrating for Asuka since Misato had forbid her and Shinji from having sex until she turns fifteen.
      Asuka: We are so getting her back once we hit my birthday.''
    • Asuka and Shinji also took this into account back when they were keeping their relationship a secret, only having sex when Misato was either out of the house or had gotten drunk before going to sleep.
  • The Rival: Since they met Asuka always regarded Shinji as her rival, a challenge to beat, the one could best her. After getting together their rivalry becomes more friendly, but she still encourages him to push himself so that she keeps feeling challenged and driven to improve her piloting and fighting skills.
  • Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Several times. If you capture one of the pilots, his/her friends will not leave you alone until you die.
    • When Leliel swallowed Asuka whole and imprisoned her inside its body Shinji went berserker and tore the Angel into pieces, the whole time roaring: "GIVE HER BACK!"
    • Bardiel hijacked the Eva Hikari was piloting, locking her inside the giant robot. Shinji, Asuka and Rei managed to get her out of it; then Shinji and Asuka beat it up and Asuka stabbed it over and again until it died.
  • Robeast: The Angels, giant alien monsters with Eldritch Abomination traits. Due to the changes in the relationships between the three pilots, the battles are very different from canon.
  • Romantic False Lead: Subverted. When Kaji babysits Shinji and Asuka for several days, Shinji feels jealous because his grilfriend's former crush will be taking care of them, but Asuka reassures him that even though she still finds Kaji yummy she has gotten over it.
  • Romantic Runner-Up:
    • As far as it is known, Chihiro Tanaka is not a bad girl — albeit persistent and meddlesome — but Shinji loves Asuka despite of all her flaws.
    • Rei is Shinji and Asuka's friend, they would do anything for her and they would never hurt her. But when she confesses she loves them both, they are too committed to each other to consider a three-ways relationship (not that she would interfere anyway).
  • Running Gag: In chapter 4 Asuka tells Shinji: "Pervert. I could hear you thinking it. You are not getting an 'Israfel Special' with me and her!" From that point forward the "Israfel Special" expression (Shinji having a threesome with Asuka and Rei) becomes a running joke between both (and among the readers).

    S-U 
  • Sacred First Kiss: Discussed. A random occurrence turns Asuka and Shinji's canonical Awkward Kiss into The Big Damn Kiss, which leads to their first Relationship Upgrade. In chapter 5, they discuss what could have happened if Shinji had not accidentally placed his hands on Asuka's waist; and both agree that their First Kiss would have been ruined, leaving them angry, upset and feeling worse than usual. While surprised that their newfound understanding of each other was based on yet another misunderstanding, Asuka doesn't hold it against Shinji at all, considering all the good that resulted from it.
  • Sarcastic Confession:
    • Before going out Misato asks Shinji and Asuka if they will be alright by themselves. Asuka replies: "Please, Misato. I can handle baka-Shinji. Somehow, I will control myself against his suave, Don Juan-like charms and not let him ravish me. [...] He and I will eat dinner, wash, and I'll send him right to bed." Meaning her bed.
    • Rei says in front of Hikari and Touji that Shinji and Asuka are fucking like rabbits in such a way that everybody dismisses it as a joke:
      Asuka rolled her eyes at him. "You're our friends and need our support right now, and this is serious NERV business. Shinji and I are more than mature enough to stop fussing and focus when it's important."
      Behind them, Rei quietly said, "Mature? As soon as no one's looking they're constantly making out, really. They're like bonobos on Spring Break. Nothing but 'whumpa, whumpa, whumpa' all the time." There was no change in her usual perfectly deadpan tone.
      Shinji and Asuka froze. 'Oh holy shit! Rei, what happened to keeping that secret?!' Shinji thought frantically. Touji and Hikari gaped in shock for a moment before exploding into laughter.
  • Say My Name: In chapter 3 Shinji screams Asuka's name several times when he sees her sinking into the Sea of Dirac, and Asuka screams his as asking help.
  • Screw Destiny: When Rei faces Kaworu, she wants to destroy him because the spawn of Adam and the children of Lilith cannot coexist, ergo he's a threat to her offspring (and, particularly, her loved ones). However, Kaworu insists that they don't have to be enemies and he chooses his own fate.
    Rei: (growling) You will not harm them, Adam-spawn! This world is mine! I will protect my children! They will live!
    Kaworu: You don't need to do that.
    Rei: (snarling) Why not? You and I cannot coexist, Child of the White Moon! For all the other lies SEELE has told, they told the truth about that! I know what compels you! You cannot resist the Call to seek your origin! You will inevitably try to unite with Adam and fulfill the drive you cannot deny! And I will not allow you to overwrite all life on this world!
    Kaworu: I am not your enemy, First Child.
    Rei: You have no choice! I know how strong the Call is!
    Kaworu: I am the Angel of Free Will. There is always a choice. And I choose my fate, not the old men of SEELE, whatever they may think. They cannot control me, not like that.
  • Secret Relationship:
    • Shinji and Asuka got together after their First Kiss but they kept it secret because they were frightened that their guardian would try to stop them or force one of them to move out.
      Asuka: "I get impatient, you know that. I want my warm baka-Shinji. It's a good think you always get up before anyone else, too. We don't want to get caught, do we?"
      Shinji: "I still feel a little bad hiding us from everyone, Asuka. We can't even go out on a weekend on a normal date or anything, and I'd really like to do that."
      Asuka: "I know. But if Misato found out, she'd make us stop doing this. 'We're too young!' or some other excuse, like we're not soldiers who could die any day."
    • Once they get together, Ritsuko and Maya also have to keep their relationship a secret since Gendo would probably have them killed if he found out.
  • Secret Secret-Keeper:
    • Rei figured out that Shinji and Asuka were engaged in a Secret Relationship, but she kept it to herself for a while since she understood their motives to hide it from everyone.
    • Due to his habit of taking pictures of girls, Kensuke had actually been aware of Kyoko and Sayaka's Secret Relationship for about a year before hooking up with them. He didn't tell anybody beause he knew that it would ruin their reputation and they'd have to break up.
  • Self-Harm: After Rei dies, Kaworu burns himself with hot water in NERV's showers at least partly to distract himself from the Call.
  • Serenade Your Lover: Shinji plays his cello regularly for Asuka (including in the afterglow), but for her birthday, he composes and plays an entire concerto for her.
  • She Is Not My Girlfriend: Asuka constantly denied that Shinji was her boyfriend before getting together. Ironically, she hates having to put up this act all the time in order to keep her relationship secret after she and Shinji became a couple.
    • In chapter 5 Touji called them "husband and wife". Cue red faces and denial in unison.
    • Rei tries to claim that Kaworu isn't her boyfriend in chapter 11, but Asuka manages to get her to admit her feelings over the course of a single conversation.
      Asuka: Boy, those reflexes you learned off me are a bitch.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Shinji and Asuka are teen kids being forced to wage a war against Eldritch Abominations. The constant battles and hardships were wearing down their precarious mental stability, but after getting together they lean on each other to try to overcome the pain and have something stable to cling to.
  • Shipper on Deck
    • Misato, naturally, and even Kaji. The hilarious part is how Shinji and Asuka are now acting as they used to and leaving them to just assume that the pilots are still deep in the Belligerent Sexual Tension phase, when they are in fact very together.
    • Rei turns this up to eleven. To her, Shinji and Asuka's romance is the single most beautiful thing in the world, and she would do anything to make sure that they can be happy together. Merely implying that you might be a threat to that is a Berserk Button for her (as Kaworu quickly found out).
    • At Asuka's birthday party, she and Shinji discuss the idea of hooking Rei up with Kaworu. They both think he would be good for her, but they just want to make sure that he isn't secretly a SEELE spy first.
  • Shipper with an Agenda: Asuka and Shinji hooked up Touji and Hikari to keep them from noticing their Secret Relationship.
  • Ship Sinking: Shinji and Asuka have both said that while they do love Rei, they're too committed to each other to include her in a threesome relationship. However, Rei has since kissed each of them at least once, they've both developed an attraction to her and they've started affectionately calling her "Our Rei".
  • Ship Tease: In the prologue Misato teases Shinji about being always cooking for Asuka and hints she shouts at him because she wants him paying attention to her. Shortly after it is shown that Shinji and Asuka are already a couple, but Misato does not know.
  • Shout-Out: Moved to its own subpage.
  • Show Within a Show: in chapter 8 Shinji and Asuka watch a show -based on an Adeptus Evangelion campaign the author takes part in-. Asuka describes it like this:
    "You wanna plop down and watch another episode with me, Misato? Shinji and I have been watching it lately. It's like someone heard about NERV, took a lot of drugs, and then tried to make it a comedy-drama-angst-romance with an ensemble cast of traumatized lunatics. It's a cheesy giant robot show, but a lot of fun. Everyone in it is pretty hot, too. Especially that Akram guy. Yow."
  • Shower of Angst: Shinji and Asuka in chapter 7. After spending two days locked and insolated, without being allowed washing the LCL off their bodies or changing clothes, and being dragged out of their cells only to get fired, they return to their home feeling confused, hurt, miserable and dirty. So that they decide to have a shower together to clean their bodies and lift their spirits. During the shower they mostly held each other while they washed, looking for reassurance and affection.
  • Shower of Love: Subverted in chapter 7. Shinji and Asuka were about to have sex in the shower when Kaji walked in on them.
  • Sincerity Mode: To her own surprise, Asuka finds herself falling into this more and more when she encourages Shinji to keep up with her in Synch Tests and begs Rei not to be ready to die on Commander Ikari's command. Asuka realizes that much like how Shinji is trying to keep up as a better Eva Pilot with her, she is trying to keep up with Shinji as a better person.
    Asuka sat back, blinking. Did… did I just say all that out loud? And mean it? Damn it, Shinji, look at what you're doing to me. You're making me into a Gott damn hero like you just to keep up. All for one and one for all. "We’re just like each other…" she muttered aloud.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Asuka fell in love with Shinji because he was nice, good-natured, and he occasionally might be brave, determined and selfless:
    She could admit it now, in a slightly more self-conscious part of her mind. He was kind of cute. He was polite and self-effacing to the point it could drive her nuts, but he was also kind, gentle, and could be stupidly brave to almost ridiculous lengths when protecting others. He dove into a volcano without a second's thought to save me. No one's ever done anything even close to that for me. He was an elite Eva Pilot, like her, a 'prime catch' as some of the other girls at school had quietly mentioned. He sometimes showed a spark of energy and anger when she'd pushed at him that secretly thrilled her, the way he would react to her, pushing to match her, making her push just as hard to stay ahead of him. He made her feel alive. He was... a good guy. He'd renewed his promise this morning, when he must have thought she was asleep. He wasn't just saying things for her to hear. He meant it. And now he wanted to be with her.
  • Single Malt Vision: In chapter 8, Ritsuko is so plastered after drinking wine heavily than she sees three wine bottles instead of two. Unusually, the trope is very much Played for Drama here, as it's used to show just how badly she's dealing with recent events.
    It was also very cold, lonely, and empty, save for a cat, two empty bottles of wine, and a crying woman.
    'Well... mmaybbe threeee bottles. Cann't tell, they whon stip movin'
  • Sinister Geometry: In chapter 2, Leliel, the Shadow Angel appears. At the beginning it looks like a white-and-black striped sphere. However its real body is a huge, expanding, two-dimensional shadow.
  • Sins of Our Fathers: Defied. Asuka and Misato makes it clear they don't blame or resent Shinji for any for his father's actions or the actions of his family for their part in causing Second Impact. Asuka especially will have none of his "tainted blood" nonsense.
    Asuka: Your father is an asshole who treated you like trash. Screw him. And... I don't care about anything your mother or grandfather or aunts and uncles or whatever have done. You're you. You're the brave, caring, sweet baka I fell in love with.
  • Skyward Scream: In chapter 3, when Shinji decided that he would rescue Asuka, not matter what, his Evangelion Unit-01 threw back its head and roared.
  • Sleep Cute: In chapter 8, Asuka couldn't sleep due to her nightmares. So she went to Shinji's room and they slept together, snuggling up under the blankets.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: This story explores what could have happened changing a single event of the Eva canon. The result so far is a more idealistic story where the main characters learn to communicate and face their troubles together rather being unable to understand each other and falling apart due to loneliness, lack of communication and hurt.
  • Slumber Party: After Rei is moved to the apartment next to Misato's, she occasionally stays the night or vice versa. However, the two times that are actually shown are very much Played for Drama. She ends up staying with Asuka and Shinji after Ritsuko gives her an overdose of emotional suppressants, and Asuka stays the night with her when Rei finally reveals her true nature (plus Asuka didn't want to be alone due to Shinji having nearly been killed in an assassination attempt).
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Chihiro Tanaka believes she is the smartest and most beautiful girl in the school, ergo she will win Shinji's affection, and will not lose to Asuka or Rei -whom she looks down on and frequently puts down-. In reality she is not the best at nothing and there is no chance that she will take Shinji away Asuka or he would choose her rather Rei.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: Mrs Horaki has very little in the way of characterization and only appears in a few scenes, but she was single handedly responsible for keeping Kaworu from crossing the Despair Event Horizon and causing The End of the World as We Know It after Rei's Heroic Sacrifice.
  • So Proud of You: Subverted. Shinji sought his father’s approval and praise for a long while, and when Gendo congratulated him for his part in defeating Sahaquiel he felt happy… but after hearing how his father had treated Rei he decides he was a fool for desiring his approval and being happy of having it earned that time.
  • Socially Awkward Hero: Given their lack of people skills, going to school and talking to other kids is harder for Shinji, Asuka and Rei than fighting massive aliens. In chapter 8 Shinji says he is more afraid of going to his classmates and coming clean about his and Asuka's relationship than of fighting Sachiel.
  • Something Only They Would Say: Rei reveals to Kaworu that she's regained her memories of him with five little words, "You... are... a... stupid fish."
  • Sour Outside, Sad Inside: After their First Kiss Shinji and Asuka have a long talk and Shinji discovers Asuka may look harsh and hard-headed but inwardly she is just so sad, pained and fragile as him.
  • Spit Take:
    • In chapter 4 Asuka does this when Rei tells that she already has a bond with Shinji.
    • Misato sees Maya caressing Ritsuko's hand and discovers that "151-proof rum and Kahlua is not nearly as pleasant when you snort an entire mouthful of it out your nose."
  • The Spock: Rei always tries to be logical and rational. Her mindset is: logic makes things clearer and simpler. And thanks to that mindset she starts to break Gendo's control over her. She was being ordered to take a bunch of pills whose purpose was to turn her into an emotionless doll. Asuka and Shinji warned her that her medication regimen was hazardous to her health. She researched, and her research proved Asuka was right. Ergo, Rei stopped taking her medication.
    Logic had always come easily to Rei. It made things simple, clear. Something she liked, since her thoughts often felt... muddied, slowed, unclear.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: Adam and Lilith, in both a figurative and literal sense.
  • The Stations of the Canon: At the beginning the story seems following the main events normally, but soon it is obvious that Asuka and Shinji getting together is changing the timeline radically and profoundly: Unit 02 gets absorbed by Leliel instead of Unit 01, Hikari becomes the Fourth Child, Rei defeats Zeruel, Shinji does not get absorbed into Unit 01, Kaworu shows up before Arael... and all of it makes sense!
  • Stepford Smiler: For all his cheerful serenity, this is the case with Kaworu. He's nearly always smiling, but Rei notices shadows in his expressions. This is because he has a lot weighing down on him.
  • Stress Vomit: Subverted. During a scene, several classmates were trying to flirt with Shinji. Their actions were getting Shinji upset, Asuka jealous and homicidal and Rei displeased. So Rei pretended she was distressed and sick and vomited on one of the girls, stopping their onslaught and giving the three of them an excuse to leave quickly.
    • Actually, Rei was sick from withdrawal; she just decided since she was about to throw up anyway, she might as well shut up the girl who was hurting Shinji and Asuka at the same time.
  • Stupid Evil: Granted, only the horribly traumatized teenagers who are the main characters can pilot the Eva that are mankind's last, best hope for survival, never mind victory, against the Angels. Can you then tell us why it's such a good idea to go and traumatize them further at every possible opportunity, kicking them when they're down, both figuratively and literally, and doing everything possible to break their will and spirit so they will eventually fail in their assigned task of being pilots? As opposed to doing everything possible to make them comforttable and content so they not only want to keep fighting, but actually fight well?
    Gendo temples his hands in a way that hides the lower half of his face, especially his mouth, and smirks.
  • Stupid Sexy Flanders: Rei becomes extremely close with Shinji and Asuka to the point she confesses she loves both. However, while Shinji and Asuka love her, it's not in that way, and they don't believe they can handle a threesome. Still, Asuka can't help thinking about it...
    Asuka: Stupid sexy Rei...
  • Suggestive Collision: In chapter 4 Rei makes an indiscreet, offhand comment about Shinji touching her in a weird place, prompting Asuka to ask what happened. Rei explained that Shinji went to her apartment and accidentally fell on top of her, touching her right breast. Asuka was not happy about it, but she let it go because it was an accident.
  • Surrounded by Idiots: During Unit-00's activation test, Ritsuko thinks everyone but her is stupid.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: In chapter 8 Ritsuko decides to up Rei's drug dose because she does not want Rei developing emotions and getting rebellious thoughts. Then she repeats herself that is her only reason, and most definitely she is not doing it because she is afraid that Rei will take Gendo's attention away from her.
    'I don't want to have to factor that into the healing process or the brain scans. I'll leave that until they're done. But I definitely need to up her dose. Can't have Rei waking up one day and deciding she wants to start doing her own thinking. Little dolls don't need to think.'
    She carefully didn't think about little dolls taking a certain Commander's attention away from her. That had nothing to do with it at all. She was no petty, insecure woman scrabbling for any advantage to get ahead, no.
  • Take a Third Option: Due to her growing bond with Asuka and Shinji Rei considers neither Gendo's way nor SEELE's way are aceptable anymore, and she will find another way to protect her friends:
    Decision firmed in her chest. Her friends. Their love. The possibility of her own one day... They had to be protected. Rei no longer wanted to see a world where any of those things could not exist. The Commander's Scenario for Instrumentality was no longer acceptable. Nor was SEELE's. There had to be another way. And Rei would fight for that path, the path that ensured her friends would live to be happy.
  • Take That!:
    • Chapter 6 devoted a loooong paragraph to explain exactly why Gendo's strategy used to fight Bardiel in canon was stupid:
    Shinji gripped the controls harder. He didn't like this. They wouldn't give him any information about what they were about to face, and worse, he couldn't even see his friends. His father had ordered them to deploy in a line, not across the axis of advance, but parallel to it, ensuring that they'd meet the enemy one by one instead of together. They were out there in front of him, somewhere, hidden from his sight behind the small hills and ridges of the area, but in such a way that none of them could cover the others until they'd fallen back from where they were located now. For all the cover and supporting fire he could offer, Shinji might as well have been back in Tokyo-3. He knew he was no general, but it made no sense to him. He really wished Misato was in command. Asuka was at the front of the line, in the position of maximum danger, and he couldn't even see her, much less support and protect her in a fight.
    • In "The Laserdisc Chronicles", the A&T cast watch the original series, and describe that "alternate universe" as a horrible world, horrified by how badly things go.
  • Taking You with Me: Invoked. In chapter 7 Zeruel is ignoring, destroying and obliterating all Nerv's defenses and the Evas seem useless against him. It has already invaded the Geofront and Misato is running out of options. She remembers there were self-destruct charges placed throughout the Geofront for the ultimate contingency and she orders them armed; she also gets ready to call in a nuclear strike on her own location in case nothing else can stop Zeruel.
  • Talking in Bed: Shinji and Asuka do this a lot after starting sleeping together. Subjects include what might have happened if their First Kiss would have gone wrong, or Gendo's abhorrent treatment of Rei.
  • Talking to Themself: The morning after getting together, Asuka's side that is full of doubts, insecurities and self-hatred questioned how long Shinji would stay with her before realizing she was useless and pitiful and abandoning her how everyone did. She replied that he promised he likes her and will stay with her.
  • A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Asuka feels no remorse for depriving Misato of Shinji's cooking, since Misato has deprived her of Shinji's cuddles.
  • Tears of Joy:
    • In chapter 4 Shinji cried with happiness several times because he and Asuka were together and they had made love.
    • Rei also cries after getting a hug from Shinji and Asuka in chapter 8. She even describes it as "the closest thing she had ever experienced to a moment of perfect happiness." In chapter 10, Kaworu likewise weeps with joy after Shinji hugs him at Rei's request.
    • Asuka started openly weeping while Shinji plays the concerto that he composed for her birthday.
    • Shinji and Asuka both cried with joy during Their First Time. While Shinji eventually stopped, Asuka kept doing so, before, during, and after, every time they had sex. Every. Single. Time. When Shinji got understandably worried, and lovingly confronts her, Asuka lampshades the trope.
  • Technical Virgin: The story alludes to Asuka and Shinji having "done just about everything two teenagers could do without risking a surprise nine months later" after their Relationship Upgrade. And it was bloody fantastic. It doesn't last very long.
  • Techno Babble: Lampshaded by Shinji in chapter 3:
    Doctor Akagi was deep into some lecture about the Angel. Shinji tried to listen, hoping she'd offer something to give him hope, but the advanced mathematical diagrams and jargon-laden explanation went mostly past him. The Angel was three nanometers thick? Inverted AT-Field? Imaginary space? The floating sphere was its five-dimensional shadow? What the Hell was a 'Sea of Dirac'? He shook his head.
  • Tell Me About My Father: After kissing for first time Shinji and Asuka open up and argue that nobody ever talked to them about their deceased mothers, not matter how many times they asked.
  • Tempting Fate: Tired of putting up with their "insubordination" Gendo fires Shinji and Asuka, his two best pilots, saying the dummy plugs will be adequate substitutes. When Fuyutsuki questions his good judgement Gendo reiterates the dummy plugs will suffice and there is nothing to be concerned about. Cue Zeruel coming along thirty-six hours later, tearing apart the drone-controlled Evas easily, and Shinji and Asuka having to perform a last-minute appearance to save Rei.
  • Test Kiss: This story's point of divergence from canon is Asuka and Shinji's Test Kiss. Asuka talks Shinji into kissing, and during the kiss he realizes it is a hint of her feelings and kisses her back.
  • Thanks for the Mammary: In chapter 4 Rei mentions that Shinji had felt her "softest part" earlier. When Asuka demands knowing what she was talking about, Rei explains Shinji had accidentally fallen on top of her when she was naked, and his hand grasped her right breast. She added it was not an unpleasant sensation. Cue Shinji hunching and Asuka directing a Death Glare at him.
  • That Didn't Happen: Subverted in chapter 2. After kissing the night before, Asuka tells Shinji they need to stop. Shinji is crestfallen, believing she has changed her mind about getting together, but she tells him that was not what she was getting at; she meant they have to stop when other people are around.
  • That Was Not a Dream: After their First Kiss and sleeping together for first time Shinji and Asuka wake up the next morning, and each one thinks: "Oh, gods, that wasn't a dream?"
  • Their First Time:
    • After getting together Shinji and Asuka spent a while trying to define the limits of their Secret Relationship. During a talk Shinji told Asuka that, even if making out was nice, he was willing to take it slow because their relationship was special and he did not want to screw it up. Later, after nearly getting killed by Leliel, Asuka says Shinji that she wants to bond with him completely because they might get killed at any time and she does not want to have any regrets. So that they do.
    • Kensuke, Kyoko, and Sayaka's first time was during a camping trip, about a week before Asuka's birthday party. The events surrounding it were covered in the second KSK omake.
  • Thinking Out Loud:
    • In chapter 2, Asuka is pondering her and Shinji's new relationship. At one point she thinks outloud that having someone wanting to be with her is frightening.
      'Alright, Soryu, quit dodging the issue. Yeah, losing purity points was fun and you can't wait to do it again, but that's not why you're hiding in the bathroom, afraid to look him in the eye right now, is it? He... said things last night. Made promises. He just did it again. That stupid, clumsy, dense baka... likes you. And you like him. He understands what it feels like. He's just like you. You're not alone. And he wants to stay with you.' "Which is Gott damn terrifying..." she whispered out loud.
    • In chapter 6 Shinji and Asuka are detained and kept in cells for two days for "insubordination". While Asuka is locked and insolated she yells very loudly what she thinks about Gendo Ikari, his orders, and getting arrested in spite of rescuing an endangered pilot, killing the enemy without destroying the hijacked Unit and winning the battle.
  • Threesome Subtext: Shinji and Asuka are a couple and they're ridiculously devoted to each other... but Rei is very close to them. Extremely close. They spend most of their free time together, she's confessed that she loves them both, they go berserk if someone hurts her... However, they both state they just wouldn't be comfortable entering a threesome relationship with her, and have lately been toying with the idea of setting her up with Kaworu.
  • Three-Way Sex: Discussed. After Rei has been ordered to spend some more time with Shinji and Asuka (who, unbenknownst to anyone else at that point, are now an item). Asuka firmly vetoes the idea while Shinji protests that it genuinely hadn't occurred to him. Then we find out that Rei wouldn't say no if they offered either... Asuka's Unusual Euphemism for it, "The Israfel Special", went on to become a minor meme on the forums where A&T is posted.
  • Time Skip: A minor in chapter 5. The last segment happens several weeks after the former.
  • Title Drop: Asuka does a title drop in chapter 8 when she decides to trust Misato with an important secret the three main characters have been keeping:
    "I have your attention? Good." Asuka worked her jaw. "You wanted us to prove we're mature and can be trusted with handling adult matters? Well here it is. I didn't want this. But on the advice and trust of my beloved baka, I'm willing to trust you not to take this to NERV."
  • Token Heroic Orc: Kaworu is the only adamite angel who is firmly on the side of humanity, the others all being rampaging beasts whose actions would indirectly wipe out humanity if left unchecked. Even Asuka, who by her own admission was raised for the sole purpose of killing angels, continues to view him as a friend when Rei reveals his true nature.
    Rei, I've spent nearly my whole life training for one thing: How to kill Angels in Unit-02. There's one Angel left. But... Kaworu is not just some giant monster trying to smash Tokyo-3 and end the world. He's a person... our friend. He's fought beside us for months, and you're saying he'd rather die than do what he's 'meant' to do. And today I literally just watched him take a bullet for my Shinji. That kind of counts for a bit. You vouch for him and... love him. Well, that seals it. We're saving him too.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Gendo actually fires his two best Pilots for going against orders and pulling off a total victory anyway, thinking the new Dummy Plug system will suffice despite never being combat-tested. Even better, the timing of this means that Zeruel, the Angel of Might shows up soon afterwards... meaning Gendo's suicidal overconfidence kicked in at the worst possible time.
  • Took a Level in Badass: The pilots in general, but special mention goes to Rei who went from being the least effective (albeit most reliable) pilot to giving a good showing against Zeruel.
  • Took a Level in Cheerfulness:
    • Shinji and Asuka became happier and less gloomy after getting together. Shinji even stopped needing his headphones to escape from reality because he was glad and at peace.
    • Rei stopped taking her feeling-numbing medication on Asuka's advice. Afterwards she started bonding with her fellow pilots and she also became happier and smiling more often (covertly so that she did not clue Gendo or Ritsuko in on her changes).
  • Took a Level in Idealism:
    • After getting together Shinji and Asuka gradually become more optimistic and less depressed since they know now they are not alone and they are loved.
    • As Rei gets closer to her fellow pilots her outlook changes radically. Before she wished for the peace of oblivion and thought Instrumentality was the only way to achieve it. Now she refuses allowing her friends' bond dissapear and is determined to find another way.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: After she and Shinji get together, Asuka starts being nicer and kinder to Shinji and Rei because she knows she is not alone anymore and she does not need to push people away. Unfortunately she cannot display it openly out of fear of being separated from Shinji in the event that someone finds out that they have become a couple.
  • Tranquil Fury: In chapter 8, Ritsuko notes during a test that Shinji looks calm and talk softly, but he is downright furious. She thinks that it's very enervating.
  • Trash of the Titans:
    • In the prologue Shinji thinks of how untidy Misato is and he remembers when he moved in her home and he found garbage literally everywhere:
      She shook the empty can at him for a second before arcing it over her shoulder into the recycling bin without even a look.
      Shinji sighed. At least he'd managed to train her that much. When he'd first moved in, he'd spent hours cleaning and collecting the cans that had been haphazardly piled and dumped all over the apartment, including some in places that just made him shake his head in confusion. In the shower, on top of the TV, all over the balcony... in the linen closet?
    • Rei's apartment is a real mess littered with garbage. When Shinji and Asuka visit her home, Shinji notices the same dirty bandages and trash that he saw when he visited several months before were still piled in one corner.
  • Trauma Button:
    • Do NOT show dissociative drugs to Asuka, especially not a freaking cocktail of them!
    • Do NOT harm, or threaten to harm, women whom Shinji treasures.
    • Doing either will leave both in a withering heap terrified in a corner... and send their Evas into a berzerker-frenzy against you... oh look, Gendo's smirking again.
  • True Companions: Hoping getting her sync rates up, Gendo commands Rei spending more time with Shinji and Asuka. As a result of it, their bonds strengthened and they became true friends and siblings-in-arms. Hurt one of them and the remainder two will ensure that you REGRET it. Bardiel and Zeruel learnt this the hard way.
  • True Love is Exceptional: In the first chapter, Asuka stated that she wasn't supposed to fall for a boy like Shinji:
    "I don't know! I just keep thinking about it! I'm not supposed to be attracted to boys like you! I'm supposed to want a real man like Kaji! I'm not supposed to be wondering what it would feel like to kiss you, to have your arms around me! It's not supposed to feel this good to do it! It's not supposed to feel so good to be lying here with you! I shouldn't want this to never end..." Her outburst ran down into confusion. "Why is it you?"
  • Tsundere: Asuka becomes a sweet type after fully committing herself to her relationship with Shinji, frequently fending off would-be suitors with a healthy amount of threatening gazes and verbal attacks.
    • And in later chapters, Rei of all girls became a harsh type towards Kaworu. This is partly because she's biologically compelled to feel oppressed by his very existence, but as the author has pointed out, the closest thing she has to an example of normal teenager behaviour is Asuka.
  • Two Girls and a Guy: Shinji, Asuka, and Rei manages to mark themselves as this more than their canon counterparts ever did.
  • Two Girls to a Team: Inverted. Swapping out Touji for Hikari means Shinji and Kaworu are the two boys teamed with three girls.
  • Tyke-Bomb:
    • When Shinji and Asuka start spending time with Rei, they realize many alarming facts about her which explain her weirdness: she doesn't remember her mother, she was taken in and raised by Gendo, she has no friends or life outside of NERV, she's being forced to take drugs which keep her unemotional and submissive, she's been trained to be completely and unwaveringly loyal to Commander Ikari, obeying his orders to the letter and without hesitation, she would kill herself if she was ordered to do so... They are so horrified that they help her to cut her puppet strings.
      Rei: I thought you disliked me, because I was a 'doll'.
      Asuka: Well... yeah. I did. But it's a lot harder to blame you for acting that way now that I know you're drugged like this. That's why I reacted so strongly... my step-mother tried something like that with pills when I was younger. I know what it's like. It's not like I think you would kill yourself or something just because Commander Ikari ordered you to or such.
      Rei: If I was ordered to do so, I would.
      Asuka: What?! Are you crazy? Why?
      Rei: He has raised me for years. He cares for me. If he gave that order, I would trust he had a necessary reason for it... He is all I have.
    • Asuka gets even angrier when she realizes that NERV tried to do the exact same thing to her, raising her since she was three to be a good, obedient little soldier.
  • The Unapologetic: Gendo does not make a habit of apologizing... ever. He fires his two best pilots for "insubordination" when following orders would have got them hurt or killed, stating that he would replace them with the more reliable and more efficient dummy plug system. In the next battle Zeruel easily destroyed the dummy plugs and it would have killed everyone if Shinji and Asuka had not returned of their own volition. Did Gendo rue his words, think he was wrong and apologize? Not at all. When he next calls them into his office, he makes it abundantly clear that he is only commending and rehiring them because he has been ordered to, and expresses no regret whatever for his actions.
  • Unbroken Vigil:
    • In chapter 3, after retrieving Asuka from the Sea of Dirac, Shinji and Rei stood by her bedside in the hospital room until she regained consciousness.
    • In chapter 8 when Ritsuko comes around after getting hurt Maya is by her side. She had spent hours waiting for her waking up.
      Maya: I... I don't know, Akagi-sempai. I... I left Central Dogma as soon as the combat alert was over and came straight here. I... um... [...] I... haven't left your side since then. That was... um... last night. Afternoon... er...
      Ritsuko:(thinking) ...you haven't left my side since the end of the fight, and I woke up with you asleep on my leg and holding my hand.
  • Uncanny Valley: Discussed In-Universe. When Ritsuko ups Rei's emotion-dampener medication in chapter 8, Rei crosses the limit between "emotionless girl" and "creepy person who doesn't seem quite human":
    If Doctor Akagi had been watching, she might have noticed the careful rigidity that Rei held her face to melt swiftly into a far more eerie stillness.
  • Uncanny Valley Girl: Rei was this due to being induced by scarily large doses of various tranquilisers to make her more compliant, and after she stops taking the pills Rei slowly begins to show a normal range of human emotion.
  • Underestimating Badassery: Gendo thinks that his pilots are easily manipulable tools with no real power -so that he fires Shinji and Asuka without second thoughts-. Yet those kids were helping Rei to become her own person (without his knowledge), were slowly discovering the secret of the Evas together (again, without his knowledge), and when the dummy plug system failed they returned on their own and defeated the enemy.
  • Undying Loyalty: In chapter 2 as Asuka sleeps, Shinji swears he will be hers always and forever (although, it turns out, he only thought Asuka was asleep, and she heard the whole thing). Throughout the story he sticks by her through thick and thin, and insists he will go wherever she goes.
  • The Un Favourite: Shinji to Gendo. After finding out that his father raised Rei after abandoning him, Shinji got furious, wondering why he was not good enough and why his father dumped him and then took another child in.
    Shinji: He raised her. He's 'all she has'? He... he... [...] How could he?! [...] Once a year! Once a year I'd see him at mother's grave. He'd barely say three sentences to me! I ran away once, and he just had the police take me back to my sensei. He didn't even call. I spent half my childhood wondering what I'd done that made him just dump me at the train station and walk away, just seeing his back retreating over and over again in every fucking nightmare! Why wasn't I good enough? [...] And then he turns around and raises Ayanami?! Why?! Why did he abandon me and take her?!
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: Before the two of them got together there was so much sexual tension between Shinji and Asuka... Shinji was very smitten over Asuka and she was the subject of more than a few of his fantasies, and Asuka could not figure out why Shinji was on her mind so much. In the first chapter (which happens chronologically several weeks before the prologue) they finally realize each other's feelings, and when Asuka asked Shinji why he never reacted to her hints if he wanted her so much he answered he had not noticed she was dropping hints... she pointed out—among other things—she groped herself in front of him.
  • Unusual Euphemism: A bunch of them:
    • Asuka tells Shinji that he is not getting an "Israfel Special" with Rei and her (meaning a threesome). Quickly the "Israfel Special" expression becomes a Running Gag.
    • Later in chapter 5 Shinji considers that he and Asuka are pretty vocal when "entangling their AT-Fields".
    • During that scene, Asuka tells him "Now get your 'Positron Rifle' into 'firing position', quickly." as an euphemism for sex.
  • Unwanted Harem: Shinji's all female classmates (Chiriko, Megumi...) are chasing after him. However he only wants Asuka. Unfortunately he and Asuka can not tell they are together (since Nerv could try to separate them), so that Shinji resorts to run away from those girls as Asuka and Rei team up to scare his would-be suitors and drive them away.
    • Ironically, Rei is the only member of Shinji's unwanted harem that Shinji and Asuka would be willing to accept, but she will not try to seduce either of them precisely because she loves them both and she refuses to disrupt their bond.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Shinji and Asuka figuring out that they're unwitting pawns is an important subplot. When they open up to each other and start talking about their childhoods and their piloting experiences, they figure out that Gendo and SEELE are keeping things from them and realize that they're being used to further some kind of sinister scheme.

    V-Z 
  • Vagueness Is Coming: Kaworu's statement of "All this has happened before, all of this will happen again," could indicate that he knows he's in an alternate timeline that diverged from the original. It's later revealed that he has vague memories of different versions of himself from multiple timelines.
  • Violently Protective Girlfriend:
    • Asuka really hates when someone hurts Shinji. It enrages her more than anything. And she is short-tempered as it is! In chapter 4 a classmate was hitting on Shinji and inadvertently making him feeling bad. As a result Asuka was having a nuclear meltdown and plotting ways to kill her:
      But from someone like Takamori, it was just a reminder of how he didn't feel worthy of the title most of the time. 'Fricking skank is trying to worm her way in to grab a piece of my Shinji, and making him feel like crap doing it. I will eat your eyes, bitch! How dare you hurt him!' She couldn't restrain herself anymore. Watching one of these slags make Shinji's smile crumble enraged her in a way she'd never felt before. Time to do something, anything to make her leave him alone. She frantically tried to come up with a good excuse to interrupt. Her first preference, stabbing Takamori in the neck with her pen, was right out. 'No, can't stab her brains out... beside, strangling her with my bare hands is so much more personal and intimate...'
    • Rei takes this even further after hooking up with Kaworu. When he ends up getting shot in a SEELE assassination attempt, she uses her AT field to tear them limb from limb and leaves the rest of their bodies in such a mangled mess that one NERV trooper comments that it looks like they were "hit by a train".
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: One of the side effects of Rei going off the wide variety of drugs that Gendo and Ritsuko had prescribed her was severe nausea, resulting in a few incidents of having to throw up. One incident had her puking all over one of her classmates, to Asuka's delight, as the victim was one of the girls who kept trying to steal Shinji from her.
  • Wacky Marriage Proposal: During a moment of Anger Born of Worry in Chapter 11 following SEELE's assassination attempt on the Pilots, Misato accidentally proposes to Kaji. She doesn't even realize what she's done until he says "yes".
  • We Used to Be Friends: Misato and Ritsuko were friends, but due to Ritsuko's behavior they're falling apart. In chapter 8, Misato wonders if Ritsuko is still her friend.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Subverted. For a long while Shinji strove to earn his father's approval. Throughout the story he stops caring thanks to his stronger bonds with Asuka and Rei -and realizing how his father treats the latter-. However Gendo still thinks his son is desperate for his approval and attention and he can use that desire to manipulate him.
  • Wham Line:
    • In chapter 6, Shinji and Asuka ask who the Fourth Child is:
      Hikari:It's me.
    • At the very end of that chapter:
      Gendo (to Shinji and Asuka):As of this moment, you are no longer Evangelion Pilots. Leave.
    • After closing the chapter the author asked:
      I promised you a Wham Line, kids. How's that one?
    • In chapter 8, another major divergence occurs when SEELE decides to play their hand early:
      Kihl: We will send you the Fifth Child.
    • In chapter 9, there's a pretty big reveal about Kaworu:
      Kaworu: (to Rei) I have met Shinji Ikari before. Loved him. I think. I have seen myself die a hundred times, usually by his hand. I think.
    • Chapter 10 drops this bombshell while Gendo is disciplining Shinji:
      Gendo: Then you will do as you are ordered. Or I will separate you and the Second Child permanently.
    • Chapter 10 again:
      Kawamura: Commander Ikari has already had his toys taken away...
    • The very last line of chapter 11.
      Rei IV: I will obey your orders.
  • What Does She See in Him?: In chapter 4 Asuka thinks this of her friend Hikari after Touji has been acting like a perverted idiot:
    Asuka:' Jock-Stooge, sharp as a brick as always. I have no idea what you see in him, Hikari.'
  • What If?: What if Shinji would have kissed Asuka back when she kissed him? The answer is: Shinji and Asuka getting together, getting very close to Rei, and a bunch of other changes.
  • What Would X Do?: In chapter 11, when Rei reveals her and Kaworu's true natures to Asuka, she is so taken aback by the scale of this revelation that she instinctively reaches out to Shinji for support, only to panic when she remembers he's still in the hospital following SEELE's assassination attempt on the Pilots. She calms down by reminding herself of how Shinji would have reacted in her situation:
    Asuka (thinking): He wouldn't care Kaworu's an Angel. He wouldn't care Rei's a clone. He'd just... accept them. Just like he accepted me at my bitchiest, and loved me anyway. Can I do any less? Right.
  • When She Smiles: After their Big Damn Kiss and heart-to-heart where they really connect, Asuka gives Shinji "a real, stunning smile" before restarting the Big Damn Kiss. Also, when Asuka sees Shinji acting gloomy, moody or depressed she encourages him to smile because she thinks his smile is beautiful.
    • In chapter 3:
      Once they were almost alone on the bus, Asuka felt safe to talk to him, and rested her head on her arms on the back of Shinji's seat. Shinji was staring out the window, a faintly sad look on his face. She poked him in the back of the head. "Why the glum look, Shinji?"
      Shinji blinked and snapped out of his distracted fugue. "Uh? Oh, it's nothing."
      She poked him again. "Bullshit. Talk, Third. I like it when you smile too."
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: On top of her pediophobia from canon, Asuka suffers from pharmacophobia (a fear of medication) due to her step-mother drugging her with emotional suppressants when she was younger. She almost had a panic attack when she discovered that Rei had been placed on similar drugs.
  • Wicked Stepmother: Asuka's stepmother had an affair with Asuka's father when Asuka's mother Kyoko was still alive, and married him as soon as Kyoko was dead and buried. Obviously, Asuka and she did not get along well, so the woman tried to use drugs on her stepchild to turn her into a placid, obedient daughter. Bonus points for actually having a Red-Headed Stepchild.
  • Will They or Won't They?: Subverted. Shinji and Asuka are together but their relationship is secret, and Misato and everyone else wonder if they will get together.
  • Witch with a Capital "B": Subverted. Asuka often calls Ritsuko a witch whenever the latter does something to anger her (usually involved Rei), but this is actually short for witch doctor. She has on several occasions called her a bitch during the same conversations anyways.
  • With Due Respect: Vice Commander Fuyutsuki asks Commander Ikari if it was really a good idea firing their two best pilots after a successful mission only because they disobeyed his orders. Gendo dismissively blows his concerns off, but it turns out that they were well-founded.
  • Worth Living For:
    • When he starts dating Asuka Shinji realizes she is his reason to keep living and fighting, even if he hates fighting.
    • Before bonding with Shinji and Asuka, Rei wished to die and rest in peace. After befriending them she decided that she had something to fight for.
  • Worthy Opponent: Asuka regards Shinji as hers: he is nearly as good as her, and he can challenge her in the battlefield, forcing her to improve her piloting and fighting skills and perform better. After getting together she looks forward to make him fight hard to keep up with her, and when he feels glum because he seems unable to match her, she cheers him up and encourages him to keep chasing her.
  • Wrong-Name Outburst: In Chapter 8, Ritsuko gets irritated after Gendo murmurs Yui's name while having sex with her.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Shinji and Asuka both give this to each other often, and both give it to Rei at various points. Shinji, in particular, continually reassures Asuka of this to help assuage her fairly massive insecurity and self-image issues. Comes to a head when Gendo fires both Shinji and Asuka for defying orders in the Bardiel fight, thinking the Dummy Plug system will suffice as a replacement, at which point the effects of Shinji's ongoing use of this trope become apparent to both of them, and Shinji has his biggest challenge in pulling off this trope yet.
  • You Are Not Alone:
    • In chapter 1, after having a long talk, Asuka and Shinji realize they are not alone, since they are alike. They are overjoyed.
    • In chapter 4 Asuka declares this triumphantly to Rei:
      Asuka:"Well… yeah. I did. But it's a lot harder to blame you for acting that way now that I know you're drugged like this. That's why I reacted so strongly… my step-mother tried something like that with pills when I was younger. I know what it's like. It's not like I think you would kill yourself or something just because Commander Ikari ordered you to or such."
      Rei:"If I was ordered to do so, I would."
      Asuka:"What?! Are you crazy? Why?"
      Rei:"He has raised me for years. He cares for me. If he gave that order, I would trust he had a necessary reason for it. [...] …He is all I have."
      Asuka:"Jesus fuck, Wondergirl! Don't ever do that! Kill yourself just because you were told to?! I mean… Gott! Never! We're soldiers, yeah, and we could die anytime, but never just on someone's say-so! Make it for a reason worth it! Look at baka-Shinji! He didn't jump into a volcano because someone ordered him to! He did it against orders, because he thought I was worth risking his life for!" 'And don't you ever risk yourself like that again, you stupid, brave idiot of mine. I love you so Gottdamn much. My damn martyr baka-Shinji…' "He'd do the same for you, just like he said, and… and so would I! Commander Ikari's not 'all you have'! You're not alone! You, and me, and Shinji, we all look out for each other because there's no one else who can in a battle!"
    • Later in that chapter Asuka tells Shinji she is not alone anymore thanks to him:
      Asuka:"Would you want to be like Wondergirl? If your father had raised you, you might have ended up like her: a drugged robot ready to die when he orders you to. I… If you had acted l like that, if you'd been raised that way, do you think Misato would have taken you in, that you'd be living here, that we'd… be together? If you acted like her, I'd never have kissed you, and we wouldn't be lying in bed like this right now." She pulled his head down to hers for a kiss. "I like you the way you are, my baka. You're just like me. You can understand me and my pains because you suffered them too. I'm glad you're here and the man you are, Shinji. I was as alone as you, before. And if you weren't here, I still would be."
  • You're Not My Father: Done indirectly by Asuka in chapter 9 when she revised her will and next of kin stuff, and she cut her father and her step-mother out of her will, declaring "Screw my father and that woman, Shinji gets everything". From that point on, she doesn't regard her parents as family.
  • You Didn't Ask: The reason why Rei never told Asuka that she spoke German.
  • You Didn't See That: Shinji, Asuka and Rei are talking with a classmate. When their classmate asks if Rei is implying Asuka and Shinji have had sex, Asuka denies it. Trying to placate her, the girl says that Shinji would obviously never do anything indecent with Asuka. Infuriated, Asuka replies that Shinji would do anything he could with her, all night long, and beg for more. Then she pauses and mutters:
    "That didn't just happen and none of you remember anything. Or I will scoop out your brains and make a pie, understood?"
  • You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Rei is deeply unimpressed to find that her passionate tirade is (involuntarily) arousing Kaworu, and quotes this trope verbatim.
    "I have slapped you, yelled at you, and I threaten to kill you in practically every conversation we have ever had, and this turns you on?" Rei’s eyes started to glow. “You… stupid fish! This is just making me angrier!"

    They both jumped and Rei’s eyes darted downward again. "...oh come on!"
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Shinji and Asukatogether with Rei — have won victory after victory against giant alien monsters. Still, when they disobeyed a direct order Commander Ikari fired them even though they had won, stating that he had no need of insubordinate pilots now that he had the dummy plug system.
  • You Need to Get Laid:
    • Chapter 4 begins the morning after Shinji and Asuka made love for the first time. Rather than moping and feeling sorry as usual, Shinji cried with joy, hummed and danced. Misato noted that he seemed feeling unusually good.
    • Subverted later on as Shinji and Asuka merely pretend to be at odds so that no one suspects them of being in a Secret Relationship. However, after storming off to ahem...cool down in a supply closet, their demeanor changes such that even Rei notices and is able to piece together that the two of them are, in fact, together.
  • You Shall Not Pass!: Triumphantly declared by Rei towards Zeruel. Due to a monumental moment of stupidity on Gendo's part (he had fired Shinji and Asuka because they had won a battle by ignoring his orders) she is forced to fight it alone. Despite the massive power difference she makes her best to hold it back, and refuses to lie down, even though Zeruel was trashing her. Then Shinji and Asuka hijacked an Eva and came along to help her. Zeruel attacked them... And Rei went berserker and killed it.
  • You Won't Feel a Thing!: Ritsuko said this to Rei before giving her an increased dosage of her emotional suppressants, not knowing that Rei was clean at the time, resulting in an overdose.
  • Zany Scheme: Asuka's scheme to talk Misato into letting Shinji and her sleep together involved Strip Chess matches, foot massages and inversed role-playing.
  • Zeerust: In chapter 8 Shinji and Asuka are watching laserdiscs. Laserdiscs. In 2015. Justified when the writer points out that technological development in the original proper series never went past The '90s: Rei uses a bulky cell phone, Shinji a walkman, and the children play a Sega console.


Shinji: "As long as you'll have me, I promise. Together, forever and always."
Asuka: "Until the end of the world, you and me, against Angels and anything else that tries to hurt us."

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