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"S-so, Dr. Ikari?" Asuka asks, checking the rear view mirror to confirm that, yes, the Section 2 escort is right behind them, "Can I ask something?"

"Sure."

"Wh-what was it like, raising the Ree?"

"It was...an experience. The thing about the Ree is that all eight of them are highly intelligent and curious. So, what would normally end up being ways to occupy them would also end up being complex scientific experiments. Like the lever exercise."

"The...what?"

"It's a simple experiment," Yui says with a smile, "There's a lever on a desk. When you pull the lever, you receive a static shock. The experiment is a personality test, because it sees what stimulus a person responds to. I found that the Ree all had a strikingly different reaction to the experiment. But, they all had a similar reaction to me, which was to pull the lever at least a second time to check for the causation and correlation of the static shock."

Asuka pauses. She purses her lips.

"W-wouldn't it make more sense to not pull the lever a second time?"

Yui pauses, this time.

"I'm not sure what you mean, Asuka," she responds, and sips her coffee.

"B-but if you're going to get a shock, why would you pull the lever a s-second time?"

"To check for the connection between the lever and the shock, clearly," Yui responds, "Each of them had a different reaction, which did give some hint of how their personalities would develop. Nana kept pulling the lever even after I disconnected the power cord, and eventually wrenched it out of the socket. We didn't know how she was still getting shocked. May have been an AT Field. Kei started to disassemble the device, and I'm not sure what she was going to make but it's probably a good thing we stopped her."

"Um..."

"Kiko figured out a way to use the electricity to stimulate muscles and cause a human body to reflexively embrace something. Iti drew up a chart of the circuit with scribbled in suggestions to increase current. And Zyuu..."

She continues talking for a solid hour on variances, stimulus, coordination and repeat experiments. Conditions for the experiment. Repeat experiments. Variants of how many times a lever can be pulled. All the time she is talking, the same sequence of events keeps repeating in Asuka's head, that of Yui, her boss, her role model, repeatedly yanking on a lever which repeatedly, without fail, shocks her. And all her daughters lined up to take their turns with the shock stick.

All of it in scientific jargon. Correlation, causation, conditionals, experimental, observation and repetition, which all leads to one main conclusion.

"B-but you're being electrocuted," Asuka interjects, "Wouldn't common sense tell you to not pull a lever that is going to shock you?"

"...lost me again there, Asuka."

And once again, for the second time this trip, Asuka finds her assessment of Yui Ikari's sanity being adjusted downward.

NGE: Nobody Dies, Chapter 93