Sena — Ayanami

The second note came taped to the underside of her desk.

The servers screamed. Lights flickered. Unit 07 went still.

“The other girls,” Sena said, standing over her. “The ones in the dark tanks. They’re still alive.”

Hoshino’s smile returned, smaller and colder. “For now.” sena ayanami

Sena didn’t move. “The missing girls.”

The Academy had a basement, technically. A sub-level labeled “Maintenance” on every map. But Sena had never seen a janitor descend those stairs. She had never seen anyone enter at all. Three nights later, dressed in dark gym clothes with her hair pinned tight, Sena picked the lock on the basement door. It took her twelve seconds. The stairs went down farther than they should have—four flights, then five, the air growing cold and metallic. At the bottom, a single reinforced door with a retinal scanner.

Not even when she found the first note slipped under her pillow. The second note came taped to the underside of her desk

Unit 07 lunged. Sena blocked—left arm, redirected, side step—but the clone had already anticipated the redirection. A knee drove into Sena’s ribs. She gasped, stumbled, and in that microsecond of pain, saw the truth.

She had anticipated the scanner. She had not anticipated the voice behind it.

She had come here expecting to find monsters. She had found a mirror instead. The next morning, Sena Ayanami walked into the Academy’s main hall five minutes before the first bell. Her uniform was immaculate. Her hair was pinned. Her face was a doll’s face—still, perfect, unreadable. Unit 07 went still

Sena’s own proposal—on predictive pattern recognition in asymmetric combat scenarios—had been submitted the previous week. She was still waiting for a response.

It was only a second. But a second was an eternity for someone with Sena’s tactical cognition. She swept the clone’s legs, pinned her shoulders to the wet concrete, and brought her palm down on the data port at the base of the clone’s skull.

Hoshino was reaching for a panel on the wall. Sena didn’t bother running. She picked up a shard of glass and threw it with the same motion she’d practiced a thousand times for darts, for knives, for anything that flew.