Upstaging the Rival

Shinji telephones to his father to talk about a parents meeting organized by his school. Gendo begins to complain, but the phone call is suddenly interrupted. Later, Asuka, Shinji and Rei are seen walking to Nerv HQ. Shinji must have told Asuka what had happened because they are talking about that. She dismisses the problem saying that Commander Ikari hang up for he was probably busy. When Shinji wonders whether he did something bad, she tells him to be a man and not to worry about small things.

Remember the “anti-Rei” mission Asuka began in episode 10? Her personal fight against the first children is bound to continue in several scenes of this episode. Note that initially, Asuka’s feelings toward Rei were different. When Rei turned down her friendship request, Asuka only said Rei was strange. She didn’t insult her, nor get angry. Rei’s reply only left her a bit perplexed. Now instead she clearly displays a dislike for her.

Arrived at the entrance of Nerv Headquarters, Shinji first, Rei after try to open the gate. When Rei fails, Asuka pushes her away, harshly telling her “What do you think you are doing?”. After multiple tries, Asuka loudly concludes that the gate must be broken.

After a second failed attempt to pass Nerv’s gates, Asuka wonders whether something may have happened in the Geo-Front. When Rei replies “It’s logical to think so.” Asuka doesn’t counter reply, but her pose says she isn’t pleased. She probably understood Rei’s statement in a negative way, something like “Stupid Asuka, it’s obvious there’s a problem”. It might be possible that Shinji notices the tension and tries to drive it away by proposing to contact the HQ. Both Asuka and Rei try, but fail. Asuka proposes to be the leader and, since no one objects, the Children begin to make their way to the Headquarters. Too bad she doesn’t know where to go, in more than one occasions it will be up to Rei to indicate the correct route.

When Asuka is not leading the group, for example while standing in corridors or crawling in air ducts, she physically draws a distance between Rei and Shinji. An example of this behaviour can be seen when Shinji is ordered to manually open a door. Shinji is on the right, Rei on the left and Asuka is between them. A similar pattern is drawn when the trio is stuck in front of the gate.

The pilots walk in the dark, apparently they got themselves lost. Shinji complains to Asuka, reminding her it’s already the fourth time she said she knew the right way. As she did earlier in the morning, Asuka tells him not to worry about small things. They would probably continue to quarrel, had Rei not interrupted them. Asuka addresses her impolitely i, but stops when she hears that Hyuga i passes above them, informing an Angel has been caught in sight.

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