The Hakone region of Japan. Miles upon miles of green. Forests,
planted and ancient, mark the landscape. And at the center, where
the town of Hakone once stood, there is the city of Tokyo-3. Metal
and concrete. Window and solar collector. The roots of the Fortress
City run even deeper, into the earth itself, stopping just above the
mantle.
Man made lakes surround the city, as do mountains, more ancient than
mankind. The contrasts work in synergy- the nature provides not just
a pleasant view and a reason for tourists to visit, but also a buffer
zone for the military, when a designated [ANGEL] threat approaches.
Nature to protect mankind. Mountains created from the earth sitting
beside lakes created by man.
The entire area is a study in contrast.
Another contrast would be the Evangelion itself. Standing over
sixty meters tall, a purple giant, lined with green and white, its
shape is masculine in appearance, if lanky.
In contrast, the screaming coming from the speakers around its neck
seems to be that of a little girl. High pitched, loud, containing
terror that is most likely accompanied by the pilot wetting their
pants. And as it runs towards the mountains, arms pumping, legs a
blur, the doppler effect resolves to reveal what the pilot is
screaming.
“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck”
And as the Evangelion passes, close on its heels, the spiked end of
a dark red leg similar to a crab's slams into the ground. The leg
itself is more massive than the Evangelion, in both height and mass.
The shriek that fills the air, belonging to the creature that owns
said leg, is of a deeper pitch than that of the Evangelion's pilot.
Again, a study of contrasts. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
-
-
Chapter 2:
The Fortress City
-
-
Two weeks earlier.
-
-
“Ready to go?”
Shrugging on his sweatshirt, which has been cleaned in the three
hours he was in the infirmary following his trouncing of the Fourth
Angel, as they called the thing...Iblis...Shinji slides on his
sneakers and looks up. Nodding to his mother, he shrugs on his
backpack and follows her out of the white, sterile room, into the
metal hallway.
“So, I'm staying with you and Dad?”
“That's the idea,” Yui says, clicking off her PDA and giving her
son a smile, “With me, your father, and Rei.”
A cocked eyebrow. A stare.
“Yes?” Yui asks.
“That...uh...girl?”
“Who saved your life, who saved Miss Horaki's life, and got you to
NERV,” she responds, “Yes. She's your adopted sister. Now, you
have a busy day tomorrow, so you need your rest. You're starting at
the Tokyo-3 Municipal high school, and after that I need you to come
down to NERV and see Director Langley about your detail.”
Shinji's expression doesn't change. On one hand, he likes the
prospect of living with his mother again, even if he hasn't done that
in ten years. He's ambivalent about living with his father, however.
As much as Gendo Ikari is his father, during any family events he
gives the distinct impression that he has something better to do.
But, when 'something better to do' translates to 'build building
sized giant robots', he can't really blame him.
Still. He's reasonably sure that the girl unnerves him, and
considering that she lives with his parents when he doesn't...
Rubbing the back of his head, following his into the lift, he
decides not to bring it up. As much as the girl...weirds him
out...well, she's got to be normal when they get back home.
Perfectly normal. Probably boring.
A snort, and his adjust to the darkness. Wait. No. Not darkness.
Rubbing his face, Shinji turns over to the clock, and realizes that
the clock in this room, his bedroom in his parents' apartment, is on
the other side than it was in his aunt and uncle's house. Sighing,
he turns to the clock, rolling over, and places it down on its front.
That, however, does nothing to deal with the red glow that permeates
the bedroom. Looking up, finds the source seems to be the air
conditioning duct above his bed, two points of red bathing the room
in light.
No, wait.
There are other light sources. He sees another coming from another
duct and why does this bedroom have three ventilation ducts and
one, apparently, from the foot of his bed. Mouthing the words, he
sits up, and the room plunges back into darkness. Looking around,
slowly, eyes adjusting to the darkness, he sees nothing out of the
ordinary. Maybe it's stress.
He lies back down, closing his eyes. And the room once more is
bathed in red.
The sun rises over Tokyo-3.
Clad in her pajamas and white, blue striped bathrobe, Yui Ikari
looks over the city, tablet computer in one hand and cup of coffee in
the other. Leaning against the railing, the fresh morning air crisp
on the balcony of her apartment, she allows herself a small smile as
the alarms cut the air and the ground shakes. Anyone unfamiliar with
the Fortress City may panic. She will have to explain to her son,
after all, what the shaking is, if not let him see for himself.
The first spires begin rising, almost in time with her sipping her
coffee. Bathed in the golden light of dawn, the skyscrapers rise,
released from their berths underneath the city, sliding into their
places on the Tokyo-3 skyline. Silhouettes against gold, the towers
and spires rise as the solar collection pylons turn into place,
catching the Sun's rays on the perimeter of the great city.
Smiling to herself, she watches for a moment longer, before turning
back to her PDA, a cross section of Iblis on it.
Work calls, once again. And a new day dawns on Tokyo-3.
…
[IBLIS] is dead.
I know.
[IBLIS] is dead. I must repeat this so you are aware of
this. [IBLIS] is dead.
Brother, I know. I felt his passing.
Good. The death of [IBLIS] should be felt by you. You are
responsible.
I am curious how, brother.
It was you who suggested that [IBLIS] proceed. [IBLIS] was not
supposed to be first.
It was [IBLIS] who chose to proceed. All I did was convince the
others to wait. Now we know what the Lilim are capable of. We will
be better prepared.
At the cost of one of our own. That is not acceptable. The
Lilim are legion. We are not.
The more we know of their capabilities, the better
prepared we are. The more they react, the sooner [FATHER] comes
within our grasp.
A prize which [IBLIS] is no longer capable of grasping. You
sacrificed one of our own for this.
You are correct. But it was necessary. This conversation ends.
Yes. This is not over, [RAMIEL].
I imagine not.
Tapping his fingers on the desk, he finds that no matter how much he
fidgits, he doesn't attract the attention or scolding of the teacher.
Instead, the old man at the head of the room continues relaying
stories of life prior to Second Impact. More importantly, his
life. At least his aunt and uncle didn't go on and on and on and on
like this guy does.
Another glance around the room. A mousy girl is listening to the
teacher, occasionally shooting glances to Shinji, and to a boy in a
tracksuit sleeping, his head lolling back. He sees several girls
with their desks close together, pretending to take notes while
checking their phones. Rei is sitting at a window several rows back,
her hands folded in front of her face, occasionally turning her gaze
on another girl, a black haired, shorter girl who Shinji notices is
staring at him.
Much in the same way a bespectacled kid is staring at him. He hopes
that's not lust. He prays that's not lust. Which is when his screen
beeps.
Looking down at it, he sees a chat window open, twenty odd names
attached to it. Probably the whole class. All it has is a single
line of text:
MechaMechaKen: Are you the pilot, yes/no?
He turns around, looks at Rei. She smiles, nodding. Tilting his
head, he shakes his head. She nods. He shakes his head again. She
nods, again. Tapping her keyboard, another message comes up on his
screen.
TEHREI: They know about me.
He blinks.
Shinji: What.
TEHREI: Open secret. They know I'm a pilot, they know Little
Mommy built the giant robot, they know you're her son.
Shinji: I thought that was supposed to be a secret.
TEHREI: :V.
He sighs. The chat window with the glasses wearing kid beeps again.
The same message, repeated.
MechaMechaKen: Are you the pilot, yes/no?
He shrugs. Nepotism has to earn him some leeway.
Shinji: Yes.
Which is when the entire room erupts into screams and questions.
Class degraded into questions shouted at him from other students.
How big was the robot? What was the power source? How does it feel
to kick the ass of Gamerra? Was there a guy in an elaborate puppet
costume inside the Angel? All of those, he honestly answered, that
he had no fricken clue.
The lunch bell rang soon after, and that gave him a welcome
reprieve. He wasn't hungry, and may want to ask Mom about that, so
instead he decided wander. The back door of the lunch room opens up
to the dirt field which must double as a sports field, and hands in
the pockets of his navy slacks, the navy blazer of the school uniform
itchy against his neck, Shinji exits and begins walking across the
field.
“Hey! New kid!”
He turns, slowly. The guy in the tracksuit, who somehow manages to
get around the whole school uniform thing. Looking up, Shinji
realizes he comes up, roughly, to the guy's chin. He really needs to
see if Mom can engineer a growth spurt in him with her science
powers. With the guy is the kid with glasses who got him to blow his
cover.
The glasses wearing kid looks like he either wants to interview him,
jump him, or rub up against him. He's not sure which disturbs him
more.
“Uh...yeah?” he asks.
“We had ta find ya,” the tall kid says, his accent confirming
him being from Osaka, “We have a few questions for ya.”
The glasses wearing kid smiles. Really widely. Shinji fights down
a shudder, and wonders if he has bodyguards, just in case the kid
tries to give him a bad touch.
“Suzuhara, I said find him, not corner him!”
The tall kid winces at the voice. He steps aside, scratching the
back of his head, and the girl who was at the head of the class steps
up. A little shorter than him, brown hair that's tied back into a
ponytail, in the plaid skirt and blouse of the school uniform with a
badge on her jacket marking her as class representative. She has
freckles, and is a little pale, but not as much as, say, Rei. More
importantly, she's looking him up and down. Analyzing him.
“You're Shinji Ikari?” she asks, “You're the new pilot?”
He nods, shifting from side to side, back and forth on his feet. He
might need an escape route.
“Um...yeah,” he says, and coughs, clearing his throat, “And
you're...”
“Hikari,” she says, “This is, um...this is Touji,” she
elbows the tall kid, who waves with an uneasy smile, “And Kensuke.”
She glares at the glasses kid. He straightens up, tries to hide his
smile.
She clears her throat, taps her foot.
“You, uh,” she says, and coughs, “You're the pilot?”
“Yes,” he says.
“And, you were outside when the Angel attacked?”
“Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, I...uh...got rescued by Rei.”
“And you saved a girl,” Hikari adds, “About...ten years old?
Dark hair? This tall?”
She holds her hand up, around her stomach. A jumble of memories
from the day before. The girl who pulled him along, who he saw
running through a pair of metal doors when Rei carried him off.
“Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, I did. Is she okay?”
She nods. A small, nervous smile crosses her face.
“Yeah,” she says, “Yes. That was Nozomi, my little sister.
She showed up at one of the other shelters and we found her last
night. She's fine.”
Which is when she grabs the lapels of his jacket, pulls him forward,
and mashes her lips against his.
“Rei went on ahead. She wanted to head straight to NERV and check
up on her Evangelion. Rei's usually very eager to pilot, and if she
didn't have the accident with Unit-00's startup, she would have
fought the Angel.”
Tapping her tablet as she sips her coffee, Yui glances over it and
across the cafe table at Shinji, who sits ramrod straight with a
smile on his face that can best be described as 'goofy'.
“And Section 2 does have you under surveillance,” she says,
“Lots of surveillance. So, I know you met Ms. Horaki today. And
Mr. Suzuhara and Mr. Aida. Good work.”
He sputters. She smiles, as the waitress comes by, the young woman
smiling at Shinji and placing the two plates in front of them. A
salad, she places in front of Yui, and a sandwich in front of Shinji.
“Uh...”
“Section 2 keeps full surveillance on all the pilots and essential
staff,” Yui explains, “So, we saw Hikari kiss you.
Understandable, too. You did save her sister's life, and Hikari's
never been good at being subtle.”
Shinji blinks, staringat his mother. Several questions go through
his mind. Many of them sarcastic. He shelves them, for now.
“You know her?”
“She's a good friend of Rei's,” Yui says, “Several of the
girls in the class are, actually. Most of them are curious about you
because Rei's talked about you, a lot.”
“Really.”
“Yes,” Yui continues, shrugging, “She knows a lot about you.
Remember, Rei's your adopted sister. Just because you've been living
with your aunt and uncle doesn't mean that we never talk about you.”
“And yet, this is the first time I met my adopted sister.”
Yui sighs, nodding.
“Why?”
“It's a very, very long story,” she says with a shrug, “Look,
it's not that we didn't want to, it's just that...well, it's
complicated.”
She taps her fingers on the table.
“Very complicated.”
White gloves on the railing, he stares at the beast in its cage.
Letting his grip slack, he leans, resting his forearms on the cool
metal, feeling it through his black jacket and red sweater, staring
at the monster as the technicians work to replace the armor around
its chest. He doesn't turn as the door to the catwalk opens and the
footsteps approach. He knows who it is, of course. He recognizes
the speed, the sound, the rhythm of the walk.
“Professor,” Gendo Ikari says.
“Ikari,” Kozou Fuyutsuki says, the white haired man pressing the
can of coffee into Ikari's hand, “No need to be all festive. It
seems we're finally off to a good start.”
The Supreme Commander of NERV snorts, running a gloved hand over his
beard and standing, still staring at the giant. Adjusting his amber
glasses, he pops the top of his coffee and sips, the demonic mask of
the purple mecha still and unexpressive.
“We are,” he says, “But I still don't like it. We could have
kept it in shutdown if Unit-00 didn't have the accident.”
“At least we got Shinji here.”
“Yui and I were going to visit in two weeks.”
“Not the same,” Kozou responds, shrugging, “When do we make
overtures to the Old Men about Unit-02?”
“When the Fifth Angel's dealt with,” Gendo responds, “I'm not
looking forward to it.”
“Because Sohryu would come with Unit-02.”
Gendo nods, sipping his coffee.
“Yui does not play well with others.”
“She does with Akagi.”
“Because Ritsuko Akagi is not her mother,” Gendo responds,
shaking his head, “Honestly, Kozou, if what happened with Naoko
didn't happen, there was a non-zero chance Yui would have strangled
her with her own pearls.”
The other thing Mom had to do when they were at lunch is give him
his own, NERV-issued PDA. For all he can question their motives of
shoving him in a giant robot and fighting monsters, the tablet
computer is pretty sweet. Tapping the screen, the red fig
leaf gives way to a screen with icons.
“Okay...GPS...map...cool. Music? Huh, cool,” he says,
smirking, “They put all my music on it. Nice.”
He walks through the doorway, following the path laid out on the map
program, red lights on the floor glowing as he walks over them. The
sound goes from a steady thump to a hollow clang, and he looks down
to see the floor now a lattice of metal over a yellow lake. Looking
up, he turns and looks over the catwalk, and stares at the hangar
walls.
Hanging on the wall are objects that resemble people, but are twice
as tall. Their 'skin' is metal, shining under the overhead lights,
their arms and legs ending in narrow spikes. Their chests each have
a single, glowing white circle at the center, white light running
along the seems of their armor, and up the lines of the frozen,
featureless heads.
“Those are FRAMEs,” a voice says, “Free Roaming Automated
Mechanical Exoskeletons. They're an extension of aerial drone
technology controlled by the MAGI, and are used when an Angel attacks
for recon and precision attacks.”
He turns. Smiling, the woman in front of him lightly waves. She's
shorter than him, dark hair cut short, and a face which reminds him
of his Mom.
“You're Shinji?” she asks, “I'm Maya Ibuki. I work with your
mother in Project E.”
He nods.
“Oh,” he says, “Uh. Hi.”
Holding her tablet against her chest, Maya nods to the restrained
mechas.
“We're rebuilding three of them that were destroyed by Iblis,”
she says, “Whenever an Eva is deployed, we try to have it deployed
with a backup of conventional forces. The FRAMEs are usually what
you'd be fighting alongside, so we keep the risk low.”
“Low,” Shinji repeats.
“An Evangelion is the safest place to be when an Angel attacks.”
“Giant fighting robot. Safe,” he says, and raises an eyebrow,
“Right.”
“Anyway, where are you going?”
Chipper. That's probably the word Shinji would use to describe this
woman. Her smile, her light, happy voice, her continuing to ask
questions despite him being sarcastic. He thinks that Miss Ibuki
would not be completely out of place with a bushy tail and buck
teeth.
He blinks, realizing she did, in fact, ask him a question.
“Some guy named Langley.”
She nods.
“That's Director Langley,” Maya says, “He's in charge of
Section 2, which is your security detail. Just keep going straight,
and he's at the end of the hallway. I'll send down Mari.”
She waves, and walks past him, out of the hangar. Shrugging, Shinji
keeps walking, glancing around and attempting to keep up the careful
sheen of indifference he has worked so hard to cultivate. The
catwalk becomes a white hallway, doors with names on them lining it,
and a small door at the end. Clicking off the PDA, the screen going
black, Shinji walks down to the door and squints.
He can't read the writing on the door, for starters. But, Miss
Ibuki said it would be on the end of the hallway, and hence, he
reaches out and taps the button next to it. It buzzes.
“Ja? Herein?”
The voice comes from the speaker next to the door. He isn't sure
what it meant or who said it, but the door slides open anyway. He's
guessing it meant, 'Come in.'
The
office in front of him is orderly. That would be an understatement,
though. It is not just orderly, but thrives on order. Reports,
signed and stamped, are arranged and stacked without a single paper
peaking out of the pile. Books are arranged on the bookshelf behind
the desk by name and by size order. There is a cup on the desk with
pens, and markers, and a white board on the wall which has names and
times in two languages, and both in perfect handwriting.
The
man at the desk is around his father's age. His hair is mostly white
and gray, with some brown in it, a trim gray and brown beard adorning
his face. He is in a beige NERV uniform, his jacket open to the
white turtleneck underneath, a holster hanging on the hook behind
him.
“Hello,”
Shinji says, glancing from the gun to the man, “I'm...uh...I'm
Shinji Ikari.”
The
man looks up. Brown eyes blink and stare at him. Sighing, he
reaches for his phone and taps a button on it, a loud beep filling
the room.
“Mari?”
he asks, “Konnten Sie kommen hier unten?”
Shinji
stands ramrod straight, hands behind him. The man, on the other
hand, has gone back to filling out the reports, signing one from the
stack to his right and placing it atop the stack to his left. He
gestures to a seat in front of him, and Shinji sits, obediently.
“Uh...”
“Sprechen.
Langsamare.”
“Sorry.
Dad's japanese is really, really bad.”
Shinji
looks to his side. Adjusting her glasses, lolling back and forth on
her white sneakers, there is now a girl with dark brown hair tied
into two pigtails. She is definitely younger than him, shorter than
him, dressed in the white and green school uniform the middle
schoolers are cursed to wear. She is smiling, the smile of a girl
amused by other people's problems, as the man says something to the
girl.
“Ja,
Papa,” she says, and turns back to Shinji, “Aaaanyway, I'm Mari
Illustrious
Langley, and this is my dad, Director Pieter Langley. And who're
you?”
“Shinji
Ikari.”
The
girl claps her hands together and squeals.
Shinji blinks. He's reasonably sure people aren't supposed to make
sounds that high pitched.
“You're
the new pilot!” she says, jumping up and down, her pigtails bobbing
in time, “Ohmigod! It's so cool
to meet you! I'm one of the backup candidates myself, meaning when I
turn 16 I might get a chance to pilot an Evangelion but I keep
destroying my Eva in the virtual reality sims they have me practice
on but anyway
it's so great to meet you!”
She
breathes, taking a deep breath.
“So,”
she says, slower, “What can we do for you?”
The
light burns red from on high, and they watch, sitting atop the trees
to see. They have moved lightward along the upcurve, following,
hunting. The one in lead, a head taller than the others, makes a
sound, pointing with a thick tendril from its back. A smaller one,
still growing, face still fluid and soft, disappears into the thick
green vines, rustling along the leaves as the old one rests on legs
covered in cracked white plate.
There
is a rustling. There is a shout. There is a crack.
The
young one returns, pushing aside leaves, pulling behind it a thing
which resembles a black and red mushroom, but with tendrils trailing
behind it, like a jellyfish. The old one makes another sound, and
the ones behind it make the same sound, only higher pitch, pulling
the young one with them, chittering and grunting to it, as they walk
along treetops.
And
the light burns red from on high.
And
Rei opens her eyes, a bubble escaping her mouth in the LCL, blinking.
She shakes her head, listening to Akagi as she comments on
fluctuations in her synch score, but how she is still within normal
range. A flicker on the screen, and she picks up a camera feed of
Shinji walking towards Mom's office.
“Rei,
we're going to hold the Unit-00 activation test in four days. Okay?”
Rei
nods, smiling. And the lights go dark as the LCL drains from the
test plug.
Swinging
his bookbag over his shoulder, Shinji exits the elevator, the metal
walls giving way to Tokyo-3. The sky is red and gold, and Shinji
realizes the sun is setting. Sighing, he looks up and sees the
apartment building his parents and the weird blue haired girl lives,
and where he lives as well, and begins walking towards it. Another
night, another fitful sleep, another
“Heee~ey.”
He
jumps, turns, and Rei smiles, teeth showing. Many teeth. Shark-like
should be a description of demeanor, not dentistry, he reminds
himself. He smiles back, nervously, as she shrugs on her backpack
over her uniform blazer and begins walking, Shinji taking the hint
and walking next to her.
“Sooo~oo
I know that you're not all warm and fuzzy and stuff with me 'cause
you think I took your place as the child of the family, excising you
from the warm and womb like home and out into the cold, dark,
dangerous world. And stuff.”
What
did she just say, he asks himself. Should he understand what she
said? Does he want to understand what she said? Then, it
hits him, if ever so slightly.
“So,
were you the reason I was sent away?”
“Kinda
sorta not,” Rei says, walking next to him as they make their way
down the empty sidewalk, “Sorta. Kinda. Maybe.”
He
says nothing. On one hand, it would justify him hating her. But on
the other hand, a part of him is thinking Good on her, she had to
deal with Mom being Mom and Dad being whatever the Hell he does.
It's not like Mom and Dad abandoned him on a street corner or a train
station, they sent him to live with Mom's brother and sister in law.
He had a perfectly normal childhood.
“Sooo
anyway,” Rei continues, “Hikari's one of my bestest best friends,
so I gotta remind you that I think she likes you 'cause you saved her
little sister, and if you hurt her feelings, I gotta hurt you. But
not really, 'cause I don't think you would, and Mom talks about how
nice you are.”
Rei
smiles, showing teeth once again.
“'Kay?”
He
nods, slowly. He would shrug, go silent, and walk away, but he's
getting the feeling that turning his back on this girl would be a
very bad idea. So would exposing his throat.
“So
anyways,” she says, lightly skipping next to him as they pass a
convenience store, “You're a hero. Everyone kinda knows Nozomi,
an' now her whole class has heard about you and a lot of the girls
her age think of you as a hero and maybesorta have crushes on you but
that's because you're all heroic and stuff.”
“I
didn't save her,” he cuts in, “You did. You saved both of
us!”
“Well
kinda, but if she was standing where she was and wasn't running with
you she could've gotten hurt and stuff. So yeah, you saved her, I
saved you. Circle of life, kinda like how everything runs on lion
poop and stuff.”
He
blinks. That made sense. Somehow. But he's not sure how.
“So...”
“So
you shouldn't be mopey just 'cause you have to pilot the giant
robot,” she continues, “'Cause that's not the only reason you got
brought here, and Lil'Mommy's happier now that you're here, too. And
besides which,” she smiles, flashing red eyes, “In another week,
Unit-00 will be all fixed up, and you'll get to be my sidekick!”
“Sidekick.”
“Yep!”
Rei shouts, punching the air, “We're gonna be awesome!
We're gonna kill Angels and save the world! For GREAT JUSTICE!”
“Well,
I do think it's a good idea to have Shinji live with you and Gendo.
I'm of two minds about having him live with Rei.”
Pieter
does not look up. He can tell the sound of sneakers compared to the
sound of shoes or heels, and there's only one person in this job who
a) visits him, and b) wears sneakers. Which would have to be the
person at his office door. Yui smirks as he finally does look up,
then turns back to the reports in front of him.
“Mari
came by?” Yui asks, effortlessly switching to German.
“I
can understand Japanese fine. My speaking sucks.”
He
signs a report as Yui rolls her eys.
“I
still say you and Akagi need to write a program for the MAGI that
hooks up to my brain and makes me completely fluent.”
“We
could,” Yui says, leaning on the door, “But if we do, it'll
probably cost you something else, like your ability to clog dance.”
“You
monsters.”
Yui
snorts, and walks over, leaning on his desk.
“If
you're done being stereotypically German, Pieter, what's your
concern?”
“That
Rei's going to make him her sidekick,” Pieter responds, putting
down his pen and looking up at her, “I've watched the tapes.
Shinji's a fine pilot. He has a good head on his shoulders. Him
growing up where he did probably helped with that. But putting him
in the same home as Rei is going to expose him, a lot, to Rei. And
he's already slipped that he's a pilot to the school.”
“Half
the students guessed that already and Rei egged him on.”
“My
point exactly,” he responds, “If he's around Rei all the time,
he's going to find out things which are going to mess with his head.
Some distance is probably a good idea.”
She
shakes her head, folding her arms. He raises his eyebrows, and
sighs. That's probably a no-no with her, he realizes. He probably-
“Did
you just suggest that I kick out my own son?”
“No,”
he says, holding up a hand, avoiding eye contact, “No. No no no.
No. Yui, what I'm suggesting is not leaving him alone with Rei the
entire time. You and Gendo work long hours. This is going to get
worse now that the Angels are actually here. They need some
sort of supervision. That's all I'm saying.”
His
phone, the receipts that were in his pocket, and his MP3 player are
on the desk. His laptop is next to it, charging. And the clock
reads almost 11:00. Kicking off his socks, Shinji climbs onto the
bed, rolling onto his back and folding his hands on his chest.
Slowly, his eyes close and he begins to drift off into sleep.
Which,
naturally, is when the phone rings.
Groaning,
he rolls over, slapping at the night table and grabbing his phone.
Staring at the number on it, he flips it open, rolling onto his back
and bringing it up to his ear.
“'Ello?”
Silence
on the other end. A cough, light, on the other end.
“Um...hello?”
A
pause. A shuffling on the other end.
“I'm...um...I'm
not waking you, am I?”
It's
definitely a girl on the other end, he realizes. A very, very
nervous girl. Blinking, Shinji sits up, scratching the back of his
head, the sleepiness receding and giving way to what is, honestly,
curiosity.
“Uh,
no,” he says, “No, you're-”
“Oh
FUCK! Scheisse! Oh god oh god oh god-”
There
is a sound from the phone he cannot readily identify. Of swearing,
something banging, and the firing off of some sort of gas, followed
by more swearing, in both a language he recognizes and others he does
not. Heavy breathing from the other line as Shinji taps his finger
on his bare knee, before the girl clears her throat again.
“Right.
Um...well, if...uh...if a woman with a german accent calls and
sounds...um...angry, you didn't hear someone almost set the kitchen
on fire. Understood?”
“Deal.”
“...thank
you.”
The
other end goes silent for a few moments. The girl, again, clears her
throat, coughing over the sounds of metal falling on metal. Perhaps
burnt pots being dropped into a sink.
“Um
anyway,” she says, “I uh I well I um well I saw the video
of you in the Evangelion and I um sort of wanted to say that I was
really really impressed.”
A
sound of something hitting wood. Possibly a knife, some soft
muttering and static from the other line, like hair against the
receiver.
“I
um I know it might be late but...well, I just wanted to say that.
And oh scheisse got to go bye.”
The
line disconnects. Shinji stares at the phone, closes it slowly, and
lies back down.
The
phone rests back on the cradle next to the sink as the door opens,
and blue eyes dart from the cutting board to the entrance to the
white tiled kitchen, as she dumps the cut carrots into the pot,
placing it on the stove as blue flame licks the bottom. The burnt
pans are soaking in the sink, flecks of black on top of the suds.
Water boils in short order, the carrots joined by potatoes and other
vegetables, and she perks her ears at the sound of a bag dropping by
the floor.
“S-sorry
if it's late,” she says, “I” She sucks her teeth. “I was a
little busy.”
The
girl turns to the entrance of the kitchen. The woman standing in the
entrance is a mirror of her. Same face, but older, lines around her
eyes but not her mouth. Red hair hastily curled running past her
shoulders, a heavy black overcoat over her red sweater and black
skirt. In contrast, the girl is more relaxed, in a sweatshirt and
sweatpants, but at the same time less so. Her hands fidget as she
locks eyes with the woman, a nervous smile on her face, her red hair
frizzy and messy.
The
girl shifts back and forth on her feet, quickly averting her gaze,
the older woman's blue eyes still staring at her. Before they close,
and she nods, rubbing her temples.
“That's
fine, Asuka,” she says, “I need to wash up, anyway.”
“I
already m-made the bath for you.”
The
older woman smiles, faintly, only a small upturn of the line of her
mouth.
“Thank
you, then,” she says, shrugging off her coat, walking to the
kitchen table and draping it on a chair, “How long until dinner?”
Asuka
glances at the boiling pot, and darts to the refrigerator on the
other side of the sink, taking out a package of meat, half glancing
at the black spot over the stove and hoping she doesn't notice.
“Um...half
an hour?”
She
turns, and finds the woman in front of her. She is her height, as
tall as her, but still towers over her. Asuka averts her eyes once
again, and closes her eyes when she feels her lips on the top of her
head.
“I
don't know what I'd do without you, Liebchen,” she says, patting
her shoulder, “Tell me if anyone calls, okay?”
“Okay,
Mother.”
And
Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu leaves the kitchen. Asuka glances at the
phone, then back at the cooking dinner. And silently, turns back to
her work.
And
between, in the world between the white and the black, she watches,
watches the strands as they dance and twine together. Walking along
the black and white sea, away from Him, she watches the world,
watches them as it begins to play out. Watches as the Children begin
their dance as they have before, till the bitter, bitter end.
Until
only one is left standing.
Until
the world is once more ash and flame.
And
she sighs, and continues, in the world between white and black, as
the strands of their fates begin to twist and intertwine. She
continues, humming to herself, always in the background, always
unseen but still known.
Walking
in the shadows of their dreams.
End
Chapter 2
planted and ancient, mark the landscape. And at the center, where
the town of Hakone once stood, there is the city of Tokyo-3. Metal
and concrete. Window and solar collector. The roots of the Fortress
City run even deeper, into the earth itself, stopping just above the
mantle.
Man made lakes surround the city, as do mountains, more ancient than
mankind. The contrasts work in synergy- the nature provides not just
a pleasant view and a reason for tourists to visit, but also a buffer
zone for the military, when a designated [ANGEL] threat approaches.
Nature to protect mankind. Mountains created from the earth sitting
beside lakes created by man.
The entire area is a study in contrast.
Another contrast would be the Evangelion itself. Standing over
sixty meters tall, a purple giant, lined with green and white, its
shape is masculine in appearance, if lanky.
In contrast, the screaming coming from the speakers around its neck
seems to be that of a little girl. High pitched, loud, containing
terror that is most likely accompanied by the pilot wetting their
pants. And as it runs towards the mountains, arms pumping, legs a
blur, the doppler effect resolves to reveal what the pilot is
screaming.
“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck”
And as the Evangelion passes, close on its heels, the spiked end of
a dark red leg similar to a crab's slams into the ground. The leg
itself is more massive than the Evangelion, in both height and mass.
The shriek that fills the air, belonging to the creature that owns
said leg, is of a deeper pitch than that of the Evangelion's pilot.
Again, a study of contrasts. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
-
-
Chapter 2:
The Fortress City
-
-
Two weeks earlier.
-
-
“Ready to go?”
Shrugging on his sweatshirt, which has been cleaned in the three
hours he was in the infirmary following his trouncing of the Fourth
Angel, as they called the thing...Iblis...Shinji slides on his
sneakers and looks up. Nodding to his mother, he shrugs on his
backpack and follows her out of the white, sterile room, into the
metal hallway.
“So, I'm staying with you and Dad?”
“That's the idea,” Yui says, clicking off her PDA and giving her
son a smile, “With me, your father, and Rei.”
A cocked eyebrow. A stare.
“Yes?” Yui asks.
“That...uh...girl?”
“Who saved your life, who saved Miss Horaki's life, and got you to
NERV,” she responds, “Yes. She's your adopted sister. Now, you
have a busy day tomorrow, so you need your rest. You're starting at
the Tokyo-3 Municipal high school, and after that I need you to come
down to NERV and see Director Langley about your detail.”
Shinji's expression doesn't change. On one hand, he likes the
prospect of living with his mother again, even if he hasn't done that
in ten years. He's ambivalent about living with his father, however.
As much as Gendo Ikari is his father, during any family events he
gives the distinct impression that he has something better to do.
But, when 'something better to do' translates to 'build building
sized giant robots', he can't really blame him.
Still. He's reasonably sure that the girl unnerves him, and
considering that she lives with his parents when he doesn't...
Rubbing the back of his head, following his into the lift, he
decides not to bring it up. As much as the girl...weirds him
out...well, she's got to be normal when they get back home.
Perfectly normal. Probably boring.
A snort, and his adjust to the darkness. Wait. No. Not darkness.
Rubbing his face, Shinji turns over to the clock, and realizes that
the clock in this room, his bedroom in his parents' apartment, is on
the other side than it was in his aunt and uncle's house. Sighing,
he turns to the clock, rolling over, and places it down on its front.
That, however, does nothing to deal with the red glow that permeates
the bedroom. Looking up, finds the source seems to be the air
conditioning duct above his bed, two points of red bathing the room
in light.
No, wait.
There are other light sources. He sees another coming from another
duct and why does this bedroom have three ventilation ducts and
one, apparently, from the foot of his bed. Mouthing the words, he
sits up, and the room plunges back into darkness. Looking around,
slowly, eyes adjusting to the darkness, he sees nothing out of the
ordinary. Maybe it's stress.
He lies back down, closing his eyes. And the room once more is
bathed in red.
The sun rises over Tokyo-3.
Clad in her pajamas and white, blue striped bathrobe, Yui Ikari
looks over the city, tablet computer in one hand and cup of coffee in
the other. Leaning against the railing, the fresh morning air crisp
on the balcony of her apartment, she allows herself a small smile as
the alarms cut the air and the ground shakes. Anyone unfamiliar with
the Fortress City may panic. She will have to explain to her son,
after all, what the shaking is, if not let him see for himself.
The first spires begin rising, almost in time with her sipping her
coffee. Bathed in the golden light of dawn, the skyscrapers rise,
released from their berths underneath the city, sliding into their
places on the Tokyo-3 skyline. Silhouettes against gold, the towers
and spires rise as the solar collection pylons turn into place,
catching the Sun's rays on the perimeter of the great city.
Smiling to herself, she watches for a moment longer, before turning
back to her PDA, a cross section of Iblis on it.
Work calls, once again. And a new day dawns on Tokyo-3.
…
[IBLIS] is dead.
I know.
[IBLIS] is dead. I must repeat this so you are aware of
this. [IBLIS] is dead.
Brother, I know. I felt his passing.
Good. The death of [IBLIS] should be felt by you. You are
responsible.
I am curious how, brother.
It was you who suggested that [IBLIS] proceed. [IBLIS] was not
supposed to be first.
It was [IBLIS] who chose to proceed. All I did was convince the
others to wait. Now we know what the Lilim are capable of. We will
be better prepared.
At the cost of one of our own. That is not acceptable. The
Lilim are legion. We are not.
The more we know of their capabilities, the better
prepared we are. The more they react, the sooner [FATHER] comes
within our grasp.
A prize which [IBLIS] is no longer capable of grasping. You
sacrificed one of our own for this.
You are correct. But it was necessary. This conversation ends.
Yes. This is not over, [RAMIEL].
I imagine not.
Tapping his fingers on the desk, he finds that no matter how much he
fidgits, he doesn't attract the attention or scolding of the teacher.
Instead, the old man at the head of the room continues relaying
stories of life prior to Second Impact. More importantly, his
life. At least his aunt and uncle didn't go on and on and on and on
like this guy does.
Another glance around the room. A mousy girl is listening to the
teacher, occasionally shooting glances to Shinji, and to a boy in a
tracksuit sleeping, his head lolling back. He sees several girls
with their desks close together, pretending to take notes while
checking their phones. Rei is sitting at a window several rows back,
her hands folded in front of her face, occasionally turning her gaze
on another girl, a black haired, shorter girl who Shinji notices is
staring at him.
Much in the same way a bespectacled kid is staring at him. He hopes
that's not lust. He prays that's not lust. Which is when his screen
beeps.
Looking down at it, he sees a chat window open, twenty odd names
attached to it. Probably the whole class. All it has is a single
line of text:
MechaMechaKen: Are you the pilot, yes/no?
He turns around, looks at Rei. She smiles, nodding. Tilting his
head, he shakes his head. She nods. He shakes his head again. She
nods, again. Tapping her keyboard, another message comes up on his
screen.
TEHREI: They know about me.
He blinks.
Shinji: What.
TEHREI: Open secret. They know I'm a pilot, they know Little
Mommy built the giant robot, they know you're her son.
Shinji: I thought that was supposed to be a secret.
TEHREI: :V.
He sighs. The chat window with the glasses wearing kid beeps again.
The same message, repeated.
MechaMechaKen: Are you the pilot, yes/no?
He shrugs. Nepotism has to earn him some leeway.
Shinji: Yes.
Which is when the entire room erupts into screams and questions.
Class degraded into questions shouted at him from other students.
How big was the robot? What was the power source? How does it feel
to kick the ass of Gamerra? Was there a guy in an elaborate puppet
costume inside the Angel? All of those, he honestly answered, that
he had no fricken clue.
The lunch bell rang soon after, and that gave him a welcome
reprieve. He wasn't hungry, and may want to ask Mom about that, so
instead he decided wander. The back door of the lunch room opens up
to the dirt field which must double as a sports field, and hands in
the pockets of his navy slacks, the navy blazer of the school uniform
itchy against his neck, Shinji exits and begins walking across the
field.
“Hey! New kid!”
He turns, slowly. The guy in the tracksuit, who somehow manages to
get around the whole school uniform thing. Looking up, Shinji
realizes he comes up, roughly, to the guy's chin. He really needs to
see if Mom can engineer a growth spurt in him with her science
powers. With the guy is the kid with glasses who got him to blow his
cover.
The glasses wearing kid looks like he either wants to interview him,
jump him, or rub up against him. He's not sure which disturbs him
more.
“Uh...yeah?” he asks.
“We had ta find ya,” the tall kid says, his accent confirming
him being from Osaka, “We have a few questions for ya.”
The glasses wearing kid smiles. Really widely. Shinji fights down
a shudder, and wonders if he has bodyguards, just in case the kid
tries to give him a bad touch.
“Suzuhara, I said find him, not corner him!”
The tall kid winces at the voice. He steps aside, scratching the
back of his head, and the girl who was at the head of the class steps
up. A little shorter than him, brown hair that's tied back into a
ponytail, in the plaid skirt and blouse of the school uniform with a
badge on her jacket marking her as class representative. She has
freckles, and is a little pale, but not as much as, say, Rei. More
importantly, she's looking him up and down. Analyzing him.
“You're Shinji Ikari?” she asks, “You're the new pilot?”
He nods, shifting from side to side, back and forth on his feet. He
might need an escape route.
“Um...yeah,” he says, and coughs, clearing his throat, “And
you're...”
“Hikari,” she says, “This is, um...this is Touji,” she
elbows the tall kid, who waves with an uneasy smile, “And Kensuke.”
She glares at the glasses kid. He straightens up, tries to hide his
smile.
She clears her throat, taps her foot.
“You, uh,” she says, and coughs, “You're the pilot?”
“Yes,” he says.
“And, you were outside when the Angel attacked?”
“Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, I...uh...got rescued by Rei.”
“And you saved a girl,” Hikari adds, “About...ten years old?
Dark hair? This tall?”
She holds her hand up, around her stomach. A jumble of memories
from the day before. The girl who pulled him along, who he saw
running through a pair of metal doors when Rei carried him off.
“Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, I did. Is she okay?”
She nods. A small, nervous smile crosses her face.
“Yeah,” she says, “Yes. That was Nozomi, my little sister.
She showed up at one of the other shelters and we found her last
night. She's fine.”
Which is when she grabs the lapels of his jacket, pulls him forward,
and mashes her lips against his.
“Rei went on ahead. She wanted to head straight to NERV and check
up on her Evangelion. Rei's usually very eager to pilot, and if she
didn't have the accident with Unit-00's startup, she would have
fought the Angel.”
Tapping her tablet as she sips her coffee, Yui glances over it and
across the cafe table at Shinji, who sits ramrod straight with a
smile on his face that can best be described as 'goofy'.
“And Section 2 does have you under surveillance,” she says,
“Lots of surveillance. So, I know you met Ms. Horaki today. And
Mr. Suzuhara and Mr. Aida. Good work.”
He sputters. She smiles, as the waitress comes by, the young woman
smiling at Shinji and placing the two plates in front of them. A
salad, she places in front of Yui, and a sandwich in front of Shinji.
“Uh...”
“Section 2 keeps full surveillance on all the pilots and essential
staff,” Yui explains, “So, we saw Hikari kiss you.
Understandable, too. You did save her sister's life, and Hikari's
never been good at being subtle.”
Shinji blinks, staringat his mother. Several questions go through
his mind. Many of them sarcastic. He shelves them, for now.
“You know her?”
“She's a good friend of Rei's,” Yui says, “Several of the
girls in the class are, actually. Most of them are curious about you
because Rei's talked about you, a lot.”
“Really.”
“Yes,” Yui continues, shrugging, “She knows a lot about you.
Remember, Rei's your adopted sister. Just because you've been living
with your aunt and uncle doesn't mean that we never talk about you.”
“And yet, this is the first time I met my adopted sister.”
Yui sighs, nodding.
“Why?”
“It's a very, very long story,” she says with a shrug, “Look,
it's not that we didn't want to, it's just that...well, it's
complicated.”
She taps her fingers on the table.
“Very complicated.”
White gloves on the railing, he stares at the beast in its cage.
Letting his grip slack, he leans, resting his forearms on the cool
metal, feeling it through his black jacket and red sweater, staring
at the monster as the technicians work to replace the armor around
its chest. He doesn't turn as the door to the catwalk opens and the
footsteps approach. He knows who it is, of course. He recognizes
the speed, the sound, the rhythm of the walk.
“Professor,” Gendo Ikari says.
“Ikari,” Kozou Fuyutsuki says, the white haired man pressing the
can of coffee into Ikari's hand, “No need to be all festive. It
seems we're finally off to a good start.”
The Supreme Commander of NERV snorts, running a gloved hand over his
beard and standing, still staring at the giant. Adjusting his amber
glasses, he pops the top of his coffee and sips, the demonic mask of
the purple mecha still and unexpressive.
“We are,” he says, “But I still don't like it. We could have
kept it in shutdown if Unit-00 didn't have the accident.”
“At least we got Shinji here.”
“Yui and I were going to visit in two weeks.”
“Not the same,” Kozou responds, shrugging, “When do we make
overtures to the Old Men about Unit-02?”
“When the Fifth Angel's dealt with,” Gendo responds, “I'm not
looking forward to it.”
“Because Sohryu would come with Unit-02.”
Gendo nods, sipping his coffee.
“Yui does not play well with others.”
“She does with Akagi.”
“Because Ritsuko Akagi is not her mother,” Gendo responds,
shaking his head, “Honestly, Kozou, if what happened with Naoko
didn't happen, there was a non-zero chance Yui would have strangled
her with her own pearls.”
The other thing Mom had to do when they were at lunch is give him
his own, NERV-issued PDA. For all he can question their motives of
shoving him in a giant robot and fighting monsters, the tablet
computer is pretty sweet. Tapping the screen, the red fig
leaf gives way to a screen with icons.
“Okay...GPS...map...cool. Music? Huh, cool,” he says,
smirking, “They put all my music on it. Nice.”
He walks through the doorway, following the path laid out on the map
program, red lights on the floor glowing as he walks over them. The
sound goes from a steady thump to a hollow clang, and he looks down
to see the floor now a lattice of metal over a yellow lake. Looking
up, he turns and looks over the catwalk, and stares at the hangar
walls.
Hanging on the wall are objects that resemble people, but are twice
as tall. Their 'skin' is metal, shining under the overhead lights,
their arms and legs ending in narrow spikes. Their chests each have
a single, glowing white circle at the center, white light running
along the seems of their armor, and up the lines of the frozen,
featureless heads.
“Those are FRAMEs,” a voice says, “Free Roaming Automated
Mechanical Exoskeletons. They're an extension of aerial drone
technology controlled by the MAGI, and are used when an Angel attacks
for recon and precision attacks.”
He turns. Smiling, the woman in front of him lightly waves. She's
shorter than him, dark hair cut short, and a face which reminds him
of his Mom.
“You're Shinji?” she asks, “I'm Maya Ibuki. I work with your
mother in Project E.”
He nods.
“Oh,” he says, “Uh. Hi.”
Holding her tablet against her chest, Maya nods to the restrained
mechas.
“We're rebuilding three of them that were destroyed by Iblis,”
she says, “Whenever an Eva is deployed, we try to have it deployed
with a backup of conventional forces. The FRAMEs are usually what
you'd be fighting alongside, so we keep the risk low.”
“Low,” Shinji repeats.
“An Evangelion is the safest place to be when an Angel attacks.”
“Giant fighting robot. Safe,” he says, and raises an eyebrow,
“Right.”
“Anyway, where are you going?”
Chipper. That's probably the word Shinji would use to describe this
woman. Her smile, her light, happy voice, her continuing to ask
questions despite him being sarcastic. He thinks that Miss Ibuki
would not be completely out of place with a bushy tail and buck
teeth.
He blinks, realizing she did, in fact, ask him a question.
“Some guy named Langley.”
She nods.
“That's Director Langley,” Maya says, “He's in charge of
Section 2, which is your security detail. Just keep going straight,
and he's at the end of the hallway. I'll send down Mari.”
She waves, and walks past him, out of the hangar. Shrugging, Shinji
keeps walking, glancing around and attempting to keep up the careful
sheen of indifference he has worked so hard to cultivate. The
catwalk becomes a white hallway, doors with names on them lining it,
and a small door at the end. Clicking off the PDA, the screen going
black, Shinji walks down to the door and squints.
He can't read the writing on the door, for starters. But, Miss
Ibuki said it would be on the end of the hallway, and hence, he
reaches out and taps the button next to it. It buzzes.
“Ja? Herein?”
The voice comes from the speaker next to the door. He isn't sure
what it meant or who said it, but the door slides open anyway. He's
guessing it meant, 'Come in.'
The
office in front of him is orderly. That would be an understatement,
though. It is not just orderly, but thrives on order. Reports,
signed and stamped, are arranged and stacked without a single paper
peaking out of the pile. Books are arranged on the bookshelf behind
the desk by name and by size order. There is a cup on the desk with
pens, and markers, and a white board on the wall which has names and
times in two languages, and both in perfect handwriting.
The
man at the desk is around his father's age. His hair is mostly white
and gray, with some brown in it, a trim gray and brown beard adorning
his face. He is in a beige NERV uniform, his jacket open to the
white turtleneck underneath, a holster hanging on the hook behind
him.
“Hello,”
Shinji says, glancing from the gun to the man, “I'm...uh...I'm
Shinji Ikari.”
The
man looks up. Brown eyes blink and stare at him. Sighing, he
reaches for his phone and taps a button on it, a loud beep filling
the room.
“Mari?”
he asks, “Konnten Sie kommen hier unten?”
Shinji
stands ramrod straight, hands behind him. The man, on the other
hand, has gone back to filling out the reports, signing one from the
stack to his right and placing it atop the stack to his left. He
gestures to a seat in front of him, and Shinji sits, obediently.
“Uh...”
“Sprechen.
Langsamare.”
“Sorry.
Dad's japanese is really, really bad.”
Shinji
looks to his side. Adjusting her glasses, lolling back and forth on
her white sneakers, there is now a girl with dark brown hair tied
into two pigtails. She is definitely younger than him, shorter than
him, dressed in the white and green school uniform the middle
schoolers are cursed to wear. She is smiling, the smile of a girl
amused by other people's problems, as the man says something to the
girl.
“Ja,
Papa,” she says, and turns back to Shinji, “Aaaanyway, I'm Mari
Illustrious
Langley, and this is my dad, Director Pieter Langley. And who're
you?”
“Shinji
Ikari.”
The
girl claps her hands together and squeals.
Shinji blinks. He's reasonably sure people aren't supposed to make
sounds that high pitched.
“You're
the new pilot!” she says, jumping up and down, her pigtails bobbing
in time, “Ohmigod! It's so cool
to meet you! I'm one of the backup candidates myself, meaning when I
turn 16 I might get a chance to pilot an Evangelion but I keep
destroying my Eva in the virtual reality sims they have me practice
on but anyway
it's so great to meet you!”
She
breathes, taking a deep breath.
“So,”
she says, slower, “What can we do for you?”
The
light burns red from on high, and they watch, sitting atop the trees
to see. They have moved lightward along the upcurve, following,
hunting. The one in lead, a head taller than the others, makes a
sound, pointing with a thick tendril from its back. A smaller one,
still growing, face still fluid and soft, disappears into the thick
green vines, rustling along the leaves as the old one rests on legs
covered in cracked white plate.
There
is a rustling. There is a shout. There is a crack.
The
young one returns, pushing aside leaves, pulling behind it a thing
which resembles a black and red mushroom, but with tendrils trailing
behind it, like a jellyfish. The old one makes another sound, and
the ones behind it make the same sound, only higher pitch, pulling
the young one with them, chittering and grunting to it, as they walk
along treetops.
And
the light burns red from on high.
And
Rei opens her eyes, a bubble escaping her mouth in the LCL, blinking.
She shakes her head, listening to Akagi as she comments on
fluctuations in her synch score, but how she is still within normal
range. A flicker on the screen, and she picks up a camera feed of
Shinji walking towards Mom's office.
“Rei,
we're going to hold the Unit-00 activation test in four days. Okay?”
Rei
nods, smiling. And the lights go dark as the LCL drains from the
test plug.
Swinging
his bookbag over his shoulder, Shinji exits the elevator, the metal
walls giving way to Tokyo-3. The sky is red and gold, and Shinji
realizes the sun is setting. Sighing, he looks up and sees the
apartment building his parents and the weird blue haired girl lives,
and where he lives as well, and begins walking towards it. Another
night, another fitful sleep, another
“Heee~ey.”
He
jumps, turns, and Rei smiles, teeth showing. Many teeth. Shark-like
should be a description of demeanor, not dentistry, he reminds
himself. He smiles back, nervously, as she shrugs on her backpack
over her uniform blazer and begins walking, Shinji taking the hint
and walking next to her.
“Sooo~oo
I know that you're not all warm and fuzzy and stuff with me 'cause
you think I took your place as the child of the family, excising you
from the warm and womb like home and out into the cold, dark,
dangerous world. And stuff.”
What
did she just say, he asks himself. Should he understand what she
said? Does he want to understand what she said? Then, it
hits him, if ever so slightly.
“So,
were you the reason I was sent away?”
“Kinda
sorta not,” Rei says, walking next to him as they make their way
down the empty sidewalk, “Sorta. Kinda. Maybe.”
He
says nothing. On one hand, it would justify him hating her. But on
the other hand, a part of him is thinking Good on her, she had to
deal with Mom being Mom and Dad being whatever the Hell he does.
It's not like Mom and Dad abandoned him on a street corner or a train
station, they sent him to live with Mom's brother and sister in law.
He had a perfectly normal childhood.
“Sooo
anyway,” Rei continues, “Hikari's one of my bestest best friends,
so I gotta remind you that I think she likes you 'cause you saved her
little sister, and if you hurt her feelings, I gotta hurt you. But
not really, 'cause I don't think you would, and Mom talks about how
nice you are.”
Rei
smiles, showing teeth once again.
“'Kay?”
He
nods, slowly. He would shrug, go silent, and walk away, but he's
getting the feeling that turning his back on this girl would be a
very bad idea. So would exposing his throat.
“So
anyways,” she says, lightly skipping next to him as they pass a
convenience store, “You're a hero. Everyone kinda knows Nozomi,
an' now her whole class has heard about you and a lot of the girls
her age think of you as a hero and maybesorta have crushes on you but
that's because you're all heroic and stuff.”
“I
didn't save her,” he cuts in, “You did. You saved both of
us!”
“Well
kinda, but if she was standing where she was and wasn't running with
you she could've gotten hurt and stuff. So yeah, you saved her, I
saved you. Circle of life, kinda like how everything runs on lion
poop and stuff.”
He
blinks. That made sense. Somehow. But he's not sure how.
“So...”
“So
you shouldn't be mopey just 'cause you have to pilot the giant
robot,” she continues, “'Cause that's not the only reason you got
brought here, and Lil'Mommy's happier now that you're here, too. And
besides which,” she smiles, flashing red eyes, “In another week,
Unit-00 will be all fixed up, and you'll get to be my sidekick!”
“Sidekick.”
“Yep!”
Rei shouts, punching the air, “We're gonna be awesome!
We're gonna kill Angels and save the world! For GREAT JUSTICE!”
“Well,
I do think it's a good idea to have Shinji live with you and Gendo.
I'm of two minds about having him live with Rei.”
Pieter
does not look up. He can tell the sound of sneakers compared to the
sound of shoes or heels, and there's only one person in this job who
a) visits him, and b) wears sneakers. Which would have to be the
person at his office door. Yui smirks as he finally does look up,
then turns back to the reports in front of him.
“Mari
came by?” Yui asks, effortlessly switching to German.
“I
can understand Japanese fine. My speaking sucks.”
He
signs a report as Yui rolls her eys.
“I
still say you and Akagi need to write a program for the MAGI that
hooks up to my brain and makes me completely fluent.”
“We
could,” Yui says, leaning on the door, “But if we do, it'll
probably cost you something else, like your ability to clog dance.”
“You
monsters.”
Yui
snorts, and walks over, leaning on his desk.
“If
you're done being stereotypically German, Pieter, what's your
concern?”
“That
Rei's going to make him her sidekick,” Pieter responds, putting
down his pen and looking up at her, “I've watched the tapes.
Shinji's a fine pilot. He has a good head on his shoulders. Him
growing up where he did probably helped with that. But putting him
in the same home as Rei is going to expose him, a lot, to Rei. And
he's already slipped that he's a pilot to the school.”
“Half
the students guessed that already and Rei egged him on.”
“My
point exactly,” he responds, “If he's around Rei all the time,
he's going to find out things which are going to mess with his head.
Some distance is probably a good idea.”
She
shakes her head, folding her arms. He raises his eyebrows, and
sighs. That's probably a no-no with her, he realizes. He probably-
“Did
you just suggest that I kick out my own son?”
“No,”
he says, holding up a hand, avoiding eye contact, “No. No no no.
No. Yui, what I'm suggesting is not leaving him alone with Rei the
entire time. You and Gendo work long hours. This is going to get
worse now that the Angels are actually here. They need some
sort of supervision. That's all I'm saying.”
His
phone, the receipts that were in his pocket, and his MP3 player are
on the desk. His laptop is next to it, charging. And the clock
reads almost 11:00. Kicking off his socks, Shinji climbs onto the
bed, rolling onto his back and folding his hands on his chest.
Slowly, his eyes close and he begins to drift off into sleep.
Which,
naturally, is when the phone rings.
Groaning,
he rolls over, slapping at the night table and grabbing his phone.
Staring at the number on it, he flips it open, rolling onto his back
and bringing it up to his ear.
“'Ello?”
Silence
on the other end. A cough, light, on the other end.
“Um...hello?”
A
pause. A shuffling on the other end.
“I'm...um...I'm
not waking you, am I?”
It's
definitely a girl on the other end, he realizes. A very, very
nervous girl. Blinking, Shinji sits up, scratching the back of his
head, the sleepiness receding and giving way to what is, honestly,
curiosity.
“Uh,
no,” he says, “No, you're-”
“Oh
FUCK! Scheisse! Oh god oh god oh god-”
There
is a sound from the phone he cannot readily identify. Of swearing,
something banging, and the firing off of some sort of gas, followed
by more swearing, in both a language he recognizes and others he does
not. Heavy breathing from the other line as Shinji taps his finger
on his bare knee, before the girl clears her throat again.
“Right.
Um...well, if...uh...if a woman with a german accent calls and
sounds...um...angry, you didn't hear someone almost set the kitchen
on fire. Understood?”
“Deal.”
“...thank
you.”
The
other end goes silent for a few moments. The girl, again, clears her
throat, coughing over the sounds of metal falling on metal. Perhaps
burnt pots being dropped into a sink.
“Um
anyway,” she says, “I uh I well I um well I saw the video
of you in the Evangelion and I um sort of wanted to say that I was
really really impressed.”
A
sound of something hitting wood. Possibly a knife, some soft
muttering and static from the other line, like hair against the
receiver.
“I
um I know it might be late but...well, I just wanted to say that.
And oh scheisse got to go bye.”
The
line disconnects. Shinji stares at the phone, closes it slowly, and
lies back down.
The
phone rests back on the cradle next to the sink as the door opens,
and blue eyes dart from the cutting board to the entrance to the
white tiled kitchen, as she dumps the cut carrots into the pot,
placing it on the stove as blue flame licks the bottom. The burnt
pans are soaking in the sink, flecks of black on top of the suds.
Water boils in short order, the carrots joined by potatoes and other
vegetables, and she perks her ears at the sound of a bag dropping by
the floor.
“S-sorry
if it's late,” she says, “I” She sucks her teeth. “I was a
little busy.”
The
girl turns to the entrance of the kitchen. The woman standing in the
entrance is a mirror of her. Same face, but older, lines around her
eyes but not her mouth. Red hair hastily curled running past her
shoulders, a heavy black overcoat over her red sweater and black
skirt. In contrast, the girl is more relaxed, in a sweatshirt and
sweatpants, but at the same time less so. Her hands fidget as she
locks eyes with the woman, a nervous smile on her face, her red hair
frizzy and messy.
The
girl shifts back and forth on her feet, quickly averting her gaze,
the older woman's blue eyes still staring at her. Before they close,
and she nods, rubbing her temples.
“That's
fine, Asuka,” she says, “I need to wash up, anyway.”
“I
already m-made the bath for you.”
The
older woman smiles, faintly, only a small upturn of the line of her
mouth.
“Thank
you, then,” she says, shrugging off her coat, walking to the
kitchen table and draping it on a chair, “How long until dinner?”
Asuka
glances at the boiling pot, and darts to the refrigerator on the
other side of the sink, taking out a package of meat, half glancing
at the black spot over the stove and hoping she doesn't notice.
“Um...half
an hour?”
She
turns, and finds the woman in front of her. She is her height, as
tall as her, but still towers over her. Asuka averts her eyes once
again, and closes her eyes when she feels her lips on the top of her
head.
“I
don't know what I'd do without you, Liebchen,” she says, patting
her shoulder, “Tell me if anyone calls, okay?”
“Okay,
Mother.”
And
Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu leaves the kitchen. Asuka glances at the
phone, then back at the cooking dinner. And silently, turns back to
her work.
And
between, in the world between the white and the black, she watches,
watches the strands as they dance and twine together. Walking along
the black and white sea, away from Him, she watches the world,
watches them as it begins to play out. Watches as the Children begin
their dance as they have before, till the bitter, bitter end.
Until
only one is left standing.
Until
the world is once more ash and flame.
And
she sighs, and continues, in the world between white and black, as
the strands of their fates begin to twist and intertwine. She
continues, humming to herself, always in the background, always
unseen but still known.
Walking
in the shadows of their dreams.
End
Chapter 2