"A gold-type blood pattern?"

"That's what it is, sir," Maya declared. "We've triple checked the information the Magi have collected, and that's the only thing we can categorize it as."

"But that's impossible," said Ikari. "We're not supposed to even recognize anything that isn't human, animal or Angel. Have you checked the equipment yet?"

"No, Commander," Akagi replied. "We were going to wait for your orders before going any further. In an hour, I can have a team put together and begin checking all hardware...a 20-square kilometer sweep will take a day or so."

Ikari grunted. "That may be our best move, especially if there's no apparent threat. I'm reluctant to send people out into the field unless there's reason to believe they'll return safely. What do the Magi say?"

"Er...yes." Maya picked through a pile of papers under an improperly- placed coffee cup. "We consulted the Magi twenty minutes ago. The results we got back were...'99, 63 1/2, and 96'. Do you know what that means?"

"I think I may. Contact Mr. Kaji immediately."

Somewhere on the other side of Tokyo-3, Katsuragi Misato sneezed.

Ikari pulled himself up to his full height and straightened his glasses on his nose. "Dr. Akagi, I leave these investigations in your hands. Contact me if anything of importance happens."

"Um..."

He had turned to go out, but Ikari held back to hear what Maya had to say. She went on, "It's kind of silly, really, but there was an unconfirmed rumor bopping around the field security units earlier."

"Yes?"

"It was, people were saying that Suzuhara-kun had regrown a couple of limbs."

"Would you stop sneezing already?" Urd growled at Touji. "It's bad enough that you're taking advantage of my generosity, now you're going to give me a cold. You do know, don't you, that goddesses CAN get colds? And it's not pretty, me sneezing and inadvertently setting off a chain of miraculous results that gives some guy in Mexico spontaneous hair regrowth on his ankles."

"So smite the dust mites or something," Touji retorted. "I can't help it. I'm..."

"TOUJI!"

The boy looked up and smiled at what he saw. It was the class rep, Horaki Hikari, running down the hospital hallway to him. She still had her backpack on, evidence that she had come straight from school. "Touji-kun, I can't believe it, I heard that Mari-chan was up and walking around, and you were too, and you can both go home today, and I couldn't believe it! How did it happen? It's a miracle!"

Urd shook her head as Touji beamed. "Well, yes, as a matter of fact, it IS a miracle."

"Well, what happened? Tell me!"

"It's like this. This is Urd, goddess of...what exactly were you goddess of, again?"

"Never mind," she grumbled. Yeesh, this is the best he could do for a girlfriend? She looks like that girl from Pokemon...no, worse fashion sense. Maybe he took pity on her and he's looking to score. "Doesn't matter. Anyway, she said she'd do anything if I would help her find her sister. So I told her, OK, give me and my sister our bodies back and we'll help her find whatsername."

"Skuld."

"Skuld. Right. So, now all we have to do is find this girl Skuld and we're done. Isn't that great?"

"Skuld...Touji-kun, there was a new transfer student in our class today with that name."

"What?" Urd roughly seized Hikari by the collar of her shirt and jerked her face-to-face. "She was at your middle school?"

"Eek! Put me down!"

Touji stepped forward, hoping to wedge himself between the two women and force them into some kind of peace; so he was right in position as Urd dropped Hikari like a lump of lead. Touji caught her in his arms. She didn't feel heavy in the least, even though his arm was still new. In fact, it was quite a pleasant feeling, holding a girl in that way.

Hikari was holding her breath and clutching her chest, shocked at her rough treatment by the goddess. Then she fell into Touji's arms. Relief from peril; it was a dream come true, a dream she didn't realize she had. Up against her back, his arms were warm and strong, so inviting, so comfortable. She didn't want to move from them. She was very scared. But, he was so close...

And then she didn't have to move. His lips were pressed against her own, and his chest was against her breasts. She could feel his heart beating, keeping pace with her own, like two quarterhorses in a race with no beginning and no end. He pulled away to catch his breath, and she slipped her arms around him and held him. Beneath her blush, she smiled. He smiled, too. Then he kissed her again, magically, adventurously. It was the greatest touch she had known in her life.

Off down the corridor, Urd was kicking anything that didn't move out of her way. Now a recliner bed, now a resident. "Dammit. Dammit. Dammit." Nurse. "Always the bridesmaid, and never the bride." Wall. Garbage can. "Dammit." Another resident.

In a few moments she had cut a swath of damage out of the hospital into the world around her. Sitting in the placid duck pond at the entrance, Urd regained her composure and began thinking. "Let's see," she mused aloud, "Skuld's at the local middle school. That Pocket Monster Suzuhara chose is too goody-goody to cut an important class, which means...which means it must be almost the end of the school day. If I hurry, I might be able to make before she's left..."

Her course of action decided, Urd followed her own impulses and improvised. She began by acquiring a means of transportation, one of the little white vans that were scattered around the hospital. After kicking the cardiac arrest patient on the gurney in the back end out she discovered that they were easy to drive. People must have sensed she was in a hurry, too, because they made all kinds of room for her through traffic as she blazed along, and when she had to stop and ask for directions, the woman and child she questioned were both very forthcoming with information.

So in less than five minutes, Urd was abandoning her borrowed vehicle all across the blacktopped area behind Tokyo Middle School. Following her arrival, the only sound of any importance to her, the only thing breaking the awe-struck silence, was the tolling of the three-o'clock bell. Urd smirked. She had made it.

The goddess dashed through the main gate and up the front steps of the building, surprising a few early-bird students on their way outside. In between the glass doors and down the hallway she went, following her own intuition to the door marked "Main Office". She threw it open and barged in without consideration to any but her own needs.

"Hey," she said to the first person she could lay hands upon (who happened to be the Minister of Education by a very unlikely chain of events), "where's the new student here?"

Urd was quickly passed down the chain of command to the level of the school's principal, who, in keeping with years of academic tradition and rigorous aloofness imposed by his position, adjusted his tie, straightened his glasses, and delivered the time-honored riposte, "Who?"

"Skuld," replied Urd, who was not one for verbal fencing.

The principal did the most intelligent thing he could have done under the circumstances of being questioned by Divine Authority on a subject he knew nothing about: he glanced over to the secretary for help. Uchiyamada Nanami was a hard-working wife of 37 years of age and 15 years' experience in the school. During that time, she had had to deal with everything from phone messages being misplaced to young girls crying over crisis pregnancies. Dealing with an irate goddess looking for a sibling was surprisingly close to her daily scope. In her most empathetic business tone, one carefully executed to attract the listener's attention without getting their ire, Uchiyamada-san spoke up. "I don't believe we have any new transfer students here, ma'am."

"Eh?"

Uchiyamada's approach had worked to a T. The woman was now looking at her, the school secretary, with a freshly-lobotomized expression. While she still held the upper hand, Uchiyamada swept on. "Who exactly were you looking for, ma'am?"

"Ah...ah...my, my sister." Urd gulped enough air to change the ambient pressure in the entire wing of the building. "I just heard from some girl a few minutes ago that my sister was in the middle school, and I came right over..."

Uchiyamada nodded smartly. "That's the answer, ma'am. This isn't the only middle school in Tokyo-3, there are actually three in the downtown area. I'm afraid that you've got the--"

Urd lit up like a gas jet with a blue battle aura. Her hair and robes began to levitate. She balled up her fists and let out a scream of rage and frustration, the likes of which none in the room had ever heard, and would ever hear again. Glass shattered. The building shuddered on its foundations.

Across Tokyo-3, Skuld was suffering from a sneezing fit.

"Are you all right, Skuld?" Ikari Shinji asked as they left the school building. "Do you want me to hold something for you for a moment?"

"Yeph," she replied as she felt in her purse for a tissue, "could you tage diff for me?" She let her backpack slip off her shoulder and into Shinji's hands.

In an unfortunate combination of events, a weak mortal suffered at the hands of a cautious goddess. In preparation for school, Skuld had stuffed her backpack with floppy disks, optical disks, a calculator, pens, pencils, all of her textbooks, a laptop computer, printer and a ream of paper. Shinji was wheezing and puffing after only two blocks' walk from school. "Let's get something to drink," he said, pointing to an outdoor cafe.

"All right," Skuld said, "but you know, you could've given me it back anytime."

Shinji shrugged. "I will, next time. But...well, we're outside and enjoying the weather, you know."

Skuld nodded enthusiastically. The pleasant sunny day, the blue sky flecked with occasional clouds, that they had enjoyed during lunch had been tempting them all afternoon. Incorporating the afternoon into their study plans was only natural.

"Lemonade," they said in unison to the waiter who took their order.

They were surrounded by the many sounds of downtown. Cars were driving to and fro at the T intersection near where they sat. Pedestrians crowded the sidewalks. Shinji pointed to a skyscraper across the street. "That's one of the buildings where we store the Evangelion's weapons, Skuld. I've been thinking, maybe we should start using hammers like you've got."

She laughed. "You could get a croquet team started. Hey, Shinji...do you ever just watch people?"

"Eh?"

"You know?" She leaned back in her chair and continued, "You just watch all the people go by, like they're all parts of one big machine that's called reality. And you play games with yourself, like you try to guess who they are, what they're doing, what brought them to be here."

Shinji shook his head. "I've never been one for human contact. I don't feel like part of the crowd, where I go. Even if I do go somewhere, it's never been...all right, it's ALMOST never been like I didn't have something to do or some reason to go.

"I like being here with you, Skuld, right here and right now. But most days, I'd go home straight from school. When I got home, I would do homework, or listen to music. Sometimes I'd play my cello if I was feeling good."

He smiled. "I don't mind this, really. It's just that I've never played games with people before."

"I didn't mean you should play games with me, Shinji," Skuld chided him. "I like that you're honest with me. I'm just curious to know you. I want to find out about who you are, and sitting here is just one more opportunity."

People of all kinds walked by, each with stories, each with voices. Some drove cars, some flew in the sky overhead. Shinji hadn't ever thought about how each one of them had years of living to look back on. Really, they were no different from himself. The realization was...was overwhelming. He couldn't give it a name.

"Opportunities..." he said softly. Skuld nodded at him encouragingly. "I never thought about it before. Every person's an opportunity, just like every day is an opportunity. You're right, Skuld. And to think I'd never even recognized an opportunity when I saw one..."

"Lemonade," said the waiter as he set one glass with two straws on the tabletop.

The couple were in such shock that he'd gone back inside by the time they were able to react again. Shinji looked at Skuld. Skuld looked at the glass, looked at Shinji, and looked back at the glass.

Opportunities, Shinji thought. Opportunities to know somebody...

He took a deep breath and gasped out, "Do you want to share?"

"Me?" Skuld asked.

"Uh, yes. You." As an afterthought, Shinji added, "The goddess sitting across from me."

"Oh. Me." Skuld stifled a giggle, and moved a little closer to the Lemonade of Imminent Peril. There were two straws in it. Two, definitely, not one. And only one glass. One glass of that sweetened lemon juice, with what looked like a sprig of mint floating atop the clear ice cubes. Cold, too; water was condensing on the outside of the glass.

She peeled her eyes off the glass and looked at him. Shinji took another deep breath, and jerked his chair closer to hers. She was still smiling nervously. They were directly opposite one another across the surface of the cup. Like two birds, perched above the edge of the ocean and ready to fly, they slowly hunched their shoulders and bent their necks, moving their mouths into proper position. As Shinji's lower lip touched the plastic edge of the straw, he shut his eyes tightly. Skuld followed him.

They sucked in in perfect unison, bringing the sensual delight of the sweet and sour lemonade across their tongues. Mixed with it came the sense of smell; and so the two were left with the odd effect of drinking one another. Skuld's playful kiss, only the night before, had been a spur-of-the-moment affirmation, a seal on a secret that had now grown to become trust. Gently, like the sprig of mint that was held by the lemonade's surface tension, Skuld and Shinji were coming to trust one another. It was a thing of beauty.

"Looks like Skuld and Shinji are coming to trust one another," Kensuke breathed. "It's a thing of beauty. "

"I'm not looking for your damn opinions, buster," snarled Asuka, "I'm paying you to get that girl's face on camera. I need a full-face shot to trace her identity with Interpol. Have you got the shot I want yet?"

Kensuke gritted his teeth. "Erg. I've got her profile, but just look how she's sitting over there." He pointed from their refuge behind a planter box across the street to where the couple sat at the cafe. Asuka winced at the sight. "She hasn't looked over this way once since we got into position. Maybe if we caused a distraction, she'd look over."

"A distraction?" Asuka raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Like what?"

Kensuke leaned back away from the camera's eyepiece to glance in her direction. "I dunno," he replied. "Anything to get her attention."

Aida Kensuke's problem, in that instant, was twofold. First, he was about 40 IQ points dumber than Sohryu Asuka Langley, who understood perfectly well what kinds of things "anything" entailed. Second, he was not motivated by irrational possessive rage to get creative. She spoke gently and calmly to mask the excitement in her voice. "Kensuke-kun, I want you to focus in on her face as steadily as you can, OK?"

"All right," Kensuke said. "There we go..."

She had seen the technique performed in a Germany versus England World Cup match a few years before. It was a direct penalty kick. A lone German boy had had the guts to stand in the middle of the human wall England had set up in anticipation. The strategy, obviously, was to duck out of the way at the last second and leave a hole in the wall. Tragically, when the official wasn't looking, one of England's team had taken advantage of a hole the lad had left unguarded.

So Asuka jammed her thumb up Kensuke's butt.

Kensuke's resulting screech, jump and grab produced just the distraction Asuka had been looking for. Skuld, Shinji, and in fact members of the public at large were shortly staring at the sight of a middle school student waiving several hundred yen in the face of a foreign girl who was paying attention only to the camera she was holding.

"Uh-oh!" Shinji gasped. "This isn't good. Kensuke plus Asuka equals someone getting beaten up."

Skuld nodded. "Sweetie, do you think you could get them to calm down?"

"Who, me?" "Yes...the mortal who finished off the lemonade."

"Oh. Uh..." Shinji glanced back across the street. "Well, I guess I could try."

In the air conditioning ducts inside the cafe proper, a nervous Ayanami Rei was making a telephone call. "I regret to say we have the 'S' word, Commander. She used the 'S' word. What should be done?" At his reply, she examined the duct around her. "I suppose I could. But I haven't eaten anything in several...oh, you meant that figuratively."