Effectively, Ikari realizes he can't control Rei in the usual manner, and it is clear she has a 'weakness' for Cirus, so he decides to target that relationship, using this 'meeting' to start it. At this point, Ayanami-sama remembers all too clearly her last visit to Ikari's office, and simply wants to be gone as soon as possible. Cirus, on the other hand, is always constraining himself from attacking Gendo, so is more than happy to face-off with the commander under an excusable pretense. Rei's shrinking back from Ikari only makes Cirus more eager to hurt the older man. Ikari isn't an idiot, as much as I hate him, so when writing the scene, I knew I had to make it a fairly even bout of ideas. Thus, Cirus gets a curve ball right off the bat. Ikari is trying to show Rei that her 'hero' (I'm not saying she would label Cirus as such, but the allegory gets the point across) is not as devoted, smart, or strong as she may think he is. He doesn't understand that it wouldn't bother Rei anyway, she can see the goodness in Cirus' heart, but the tactic is effective for building tension in the scene around Cirus. The only real blow he manages, and its effect is minor, is when he makes it clear that Cirus knows why Rei was created (by Gendo, anyway). This touches on Ayanami-sama's insecurity about her value in the world, and Cirus knows that. However, Rei surprises both with her interruption, stopping Ikari's flow of assaults. What follows is the first real confrontation between Cirus and Ikari.

Though it is very much Cirus' perspective, this is one of the aspects of him that is idential to mine, so this debate is tantamount to an argument between Gendo and I. My own thesis is presented by Cirus, the series' by Gendo. Yes, physically Rei was 'constructed' by Gendo for a specific purpose, but Man can not interfere in the destiny of souls outside his own, that's G'd's territory. Since we know Rei is truly living and feeling, a human being (despite Gendo's best efforts), then G'd clearly has His own plans for her, and simply let Gendo's selfish desires produce a beautiful new life, good out of evil, as only G'd can do. Cirus finishes with his own calm realization that Gendo is more to be pitied than hated for how foolish and limited his understanding of natural law is.

The following section, Rei making sure Cirus leaves, and their conversation, is one of the most heavily revised sections of Kenosis so far. Several of the lines were just awful as I read through them this most recent time, and I absolutely had to shift them. Very little of the dialogue was altered, but the lead-ins and -outs were altered quite a bit to make them flow better, with less glaring repetition of words. The scene itself establishes Rei's greater confidence, the closeness of their relationship, and Cirus' renewed devotion to her. Cirus' promise may seem foolish to the wise, but he intends it in the sense of 'even in death' he will always be at her side, if she desires it. Cirus isn't foolish enough to believe he can control all circumstances, but guarantees his best efforts for her sake. The section ends with a demonstration of how much Rei has come to appreciate Cirus, actually reaching out to hold his hand. Naturally, this shocks the poor boy, but the scene is too adorable in my own view. I just love it.

Next begins the section that gave the chapter its title. Someone doesn't like NERV, and is ready to teach it a lesson. I chose to start with Rei for the simple reason that she's why I started the fan-fic in the first place, is the focus of the real story, and I write for her any chance I can get. It also allowed me to show her remaining confusion and doubts about her nature and purpose. And then the power dies. Yes, I won't even try to pretend I wasn't inspired by the episode in the series where the power died because of some prevocateur (my money is on Kaji for that, personally). I just don't involve an Angel in this sequence. Following that episode's example, I jumped to each set of characters wherever they were the moment of the power going out, and turned each into a mini-thread for the chapter until they fit back together at the finish. Cirus' narrative line about SEELE causing the power-outage 'to see if it could handle emergencies' is simply the best excuse I could come up with. If I ever come up with something better, I'll probably edit this sentence to that effect.

If you're wondering how Ikari gets to the command center with no power... well... You got me. I say he has a private generator for just such an emergency so he can get to the command center, but, honestly, it's a hole in the scene. Regarding the story, I enjoyed contrasting Rei's focused, calm manner with Asuka and Shinji's fearful fleeing. She's just such a pleasure to write for... *contented sigh* Anyway, her finding Asuka and Shinji was a spur-of-the-moment idea when writing the scene, and I let it flow naturally to the point of Asuka dragging Shinji off in another direction, happy to leave Rei to her own fate. So villifying Asuka, though it may be in character, shows how little I like her. How characters treat Ayanami-sama is a good guage of how much I like them or consider them good in Kenosis. Yes, bias. I dare any reader to find a writer who lacks it for such things.

I have a certain perverse satisfaction out of Asuka walking right into a gun-barrel after turning on Rei, but I would never harm the poor girl irreparably, that's not my style. Instead, it was a perfect oppurtunity to show off Cirus' 'secret-agent' skills again. I wanted to keep the gun-fights very realistic in Kenosis, contrasting the absurd Angel/Eva battles to give a better anchor in the 'real world'. I felt the series did this the few times it had human/human violence, so I wanted to maintain that with powerful descriptions for gun-shots and the chaos of gun-fire. Honestly, if I was called on Asuka's denial of finding Rei as too heavy-handed, I wouldn't disagree, but, again, it seemed to fit her character. When writing this scene, I still wasn't sure how I wanted to rescue Rei (no, I never considered her actually getting hurt, if the reader is curious), so Asuka's denial very much affected where I would take the next few scenes. Also, I enjoyed using the sequence as an oppurtunity to show Cirus' darker side, his 'killer' aspect, as a real part of the story. He's much more predatory in this sequence than in the forest-scene earlier in the story. This shift in attitude seemed quite natural for his character as I'd designed it, and so his de facto leadership of Asuka and Shinji spawns more from their intimidated wariness than his actual desire to lead.