Of Steel
Chapter 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Evangelion.
/\/\/\/\
She chalked her name on the board with wide, looping letters. She faced the class with a lopsided grin, friendly and eager and confident.
"Hi there," she said, giving her peers a short wave. "I'm Mana Kirishima. Pleased to meet all of you."
The students offered a polite reception. Some of the boys and some of the girls looked her over and whispered and grinned. Mana bore the scrutiny with an easy, unwavering smile.
The teacher leaned over his podium, idly scratching his chin. "Ms. Kirishima, I believe there's an empty seat in the second row by Mr. Ikari. Ikari! Raise your hand."
The Ikari boy startled and shot a hand up, correcting his posture in the process. He had given Mana a brief glance during her entrance and introduction then turned his sight out the window to his left. She was glad he wasn't drooling over her, but at the same time his disinterest was a shot at her vanity.
She took her seat amid the gentle buzz of excitement over a new transfer. She casually leaned towards the Ikari boy and stared at him, waiting for the tingly sensation of being watched to prick him. He glanced at her and she caught his eye with a smile. He blushed, and before he could turn away she slid across her desk towards him.
"Jeez," she said. "How am I supposed to focus on school? My first day here and they sit me next to the cutest guy in class."
He made a strangled coughing sound from his throat. One row behind him a crash of hands on a desk thundered through the room as a foreign girl with long red hair shot to her feet.
"If we can begin…" the teacher growled, daring his pupils to interrupt again. The foreign girl dropped back into her seat, glaring daggers, swords and spears at the boy.
Mana shrugged and turned to her desk's terminal. The day's lecture began, a droning hum that floated above her head. The same blather about meteors and humanity's perseverance and responsibility she heard before.
Several messages chirped at her from impatient classmates wanting to know the details of her life; where she went to school before (Matsushiro), what were her hobbies (music and movies), what her parents did (father is a public utility wage slave, no comment on mother), what were her measurements ("If you have to ask you'll never know") and if she wanted to join the struggling soccer club ("I'll get back to you"). Someone asked if she was a pilot ("Only in video games"). A few, two using caps lock, demanded to know if she was serious about the boy, Shinji Ikari.
Mana paused, glancing sidelong at him. He was still blushing, confused and upset. He was making a concerted effort not to look at her. Her hands fell back on the keyboard.
("As serious as he makes it")
A gentle classroom storm of keystrokes and murmurs followed, and Mana let herself be pleased with the result. She opened a link to Shinji, waiting for him to sign on and reply to a benign greeting. She felt his eyes dart to her, waited for him to overcome his hesitation, then heard him typing.
Welcome to Tokyo-3, he sent her.
Mana smiled at the safe confines of formality he decided to hide in. She thanked him with an openly vague inquiry as to what the city was best known for, gracefully ignoring the biomechanical elephant in the room.
He paused. Technological research, came his answer.
Mana kept smiling.
She aggressively pursued a conversation. She was the naïve transfer student, her language told him. She was the conspicuous outcast, alone in a sea of judgmental peers without any support or links. She was an unfamiliar face in an unfamiliar place.
("I'm just a little nervous about being new and alone. Do you know what that's like?")
Yes, came his reply.
They went back and forth as he did an admirable job of pretending to listen to the lecture. Mana didn't bother with such subterfuge. So he fumbled along trying to answer her questions and guide her on expected school protocol and general acclimation as best he could. He told her there were others better suited to the task but she was politely insistent in her confidence of his ability based on proximity. And he was nice enough to ignore class to talk to her.
("Could I eat lunch with you today? I still feel a little out of place.")
And there was a pause. It was long enough to make her worry she overstepped some unknown boundary with him.
Okay, he finally responded, and she let him hear a soft squeak of delight.
The school bell broke through the teacher's drone to end morning classes. He exited with a distracted farewell and left the students to their own devices during the lunch period.
The class moved in slow motion, mostly silent and vigilantly observant of what was about to happen. Mana felt their collective eyes on her, a sense of restrained outrage and scandal weighing the air. She was aware a boy behind them was using a handheld camera to film them. The foreign girl was purposefully glaring in another direction.
Mana checked her computer's messaging connection.
Oh, gee, she thought. Were we chatting on a public line? Oops.
Shinji rose from his desk and turned to her, straining under the entire class' scrutiny. He offered an unsure smile.
"Ah, hi," he said.
"Hi," Mana said, getting to her feet.
She gave him a proper once-over without appearing to. He was thin, there was no way around it, but he had long fingers and subtly wide shoulders that hinted at future height. His face had appealing curves, and his eyes were a very unusual deep shade of blue. The overall package passed inspection.
He was doing his best not to look at her directly, his eyes pulled away by the various onlookers. A good portion of the class was still closely monitoring their interaction without trying to appear like they were. The rest were unabashed in their voyeurism.
"I feel a little silly," she told him. "I went and had a whole conversation with you without letting you introduce yourself."
"I'm Shinji Ikari," he said with a voice showing no harm was done. "Pleased to meet you."
"Pleased to meet you, too, Mr. Shinji Ikari." She smiled at him, and he gave her an uncertain one back. Mana laughed once in self-admonishment. "And I, ah, I didn't mean to embarrass you earlier when I first sat down. It just sort of slipped out."
His face scrunched slightly in confusion, then went red as he remembered. "O-Oh, uh, it's okay. I mean, don't worry about it."
"Still cute."
Shinji cleared his throat and blindly grabbed for the bento in his desk. "So, uh, do you want to eat now?"
Mana treated him to a shining smile. "I'd love to."
It was nothing but another adventure, she told herself, like when she was a child.
/\/\/\/\
It was the second day she ate with Shinji that Mana was convinced his friends didn't like her. The first day they were guardedly polite at her intrusion, making sure to keep conversation as mild and bland as possible. She expected no less. People always seemed mindful to make an inoffensive first impression. She remained friendly and social, trying to let them know they didn't have to modulate their behavior on her account.
She dragged Shinji down to the cafeteria, employing his discretion to pick a decent meal. The room was mobbed with students but Mana led him through the crowd to the front with unnatural ease. She ordered what he recommended and they slipped back out to the door, where they ran into Shinji's friends.
"Oh," Toji said as she approached with Shinji, "you're eating with us again?"
"Yeah," Mana said before Shinji could react. "We had such a good time yesterday. But I don't want to step on any toes here," she placated.
"Oh, uh, of course not." Kensuke gave her a conciliatory smile. "I just thought, I don't know, you'd be more comfortable around girls."
Huh, she thought. I never knew guys could be so passive-aggressive.
"Eh," she shrugged. "I don't mind crashing the boy's club. Guys are easier to deal with."
"That's a fact," Toji said in a longsuffering manner. "Girls are all dramatic and can never just say what they mean. Uh, no offense."
Mana waved it off. "None taken. Girls can be dramatic." She glanced at Shinji. "But I at least try to say what I mean."
Toji and Kensuke attempted to squeeze through the mass of students to the lunch counter, failed, and resigned themselves to waiting in line. Kensuke spied Mana edging towards the door with Shinji.
"Keep us company?" he posed.
Shinji gave him a puzzled look, then glanced at Mana who gave him a disappointed half-shrug. "Sure?"
The line was backed up and moving slowly. Orders were shouted from the front. Toji groaned, openly lamenting how picked-over the fare would be once they arrived. Mana opened her sandwich and began eating.
Toji frowned at Mana, then sighed in resignation to cruel fate. "Damn. Why is it so packed today?"
"I know," Kensuke said. "It's not even bean paste Thursday."
"The bean paste is good around here?" Mana asked Shinji.
"I guess. I've never had it but everyone talks about it…"
"It's good compared to the other stuff we get," Toji offered. "That ain't saying much. Best of a bad situation."
They waited in line. Kensuke glanced at Mana, still nibbling her sandwich.
"I heard Daisuke Yamada asked you out," he said to her after a glance at Shinji.
"Hmm?" Mana scrunched her brow and tapped her index finger against her bottom lip. Her face cleared. "Oh, yeah. That guy with the spiky hair." She rolled her eyes in utter dismissal. "I turned him down. Not my type."
"He's pretty popular…"
"And an upperclassman."
"And a star on the soccer team."
"Like I said, not my type. He had this look, like it was an honor to even speak to him and I should thank him for the opportunity. Pfft. Forget that. He's not looking for a girlfriend; he's looking for a groupie."
"What is your type?" Toji wondered aloud in a slightly uneasy tone.
"Interested?"
"… You're not my type," he deadpanned.
"Ha!"Mana quirked a smile. "Hmm. My type? I don't know. Um, someone who's responsible?"
"Like someone who has a job?" Kensuke said with a wry grin.
"Mmm… yeah. Yeah. Someone who has a job is a good way to see if he's responsible." She chuckled. "Of course, we're all too young to have jobs."
Shinji looked uncomfortable. Toji shot him a humorless smile.
"I don't know. I hear NERV hires all sorts of people."
"NERV?" Mana repeated. "That huge company that lives in the ground?" She followed the boys' eyes to Shinji. "Do you have an afterschool job with them?"
"Ah, sort of—"
"Huh." She appraised him with new eyes. "Like, are you a gopher, or a courier or something like that? Ooh! I bet you're in PR. You're super polite."
Shinji sweated. "Um…"
"I guess piloting could conceivably fall under NERV's PR branch," Kensuke mused.
"Piloting?"
"Yeah. Piloting." Kensuke stared at her lack of comprehension and worked through a small bout of outraged confusion. "He's a pilot," he stated gently, like it was something you learned in preschool. "Of an Evangelion."
Mana spun on Shinji, almost losing her sandwich. "No way. How is that even—" She shook her head. "No way. That is like, totally the most… Seriously? No fooling?"
"… No fooling," he told her as he slumped a little.
She shook. "That is… awesome! Unbelievable! How did they… Oh, man, you have to tell me everything!"
"Huh," Toji muttered. "I thought everybody knew by now."
"Yeah," Kensuke said, eyeing Mana.
She peppered Shinji with questions and he relived his early days as a transfer student. His cringing hesitance did little to dampen her enthusiasm.
"… And those Soryu and Ayanami girls are pilots, too? Unbelievable."
"It does seem unreal sometimes," Toji said idly.
Mana ignored him without malice, entirely focused on Shinji.
The line began moving but Mana stayed in place, keeping Shinji with her, absorbed in her interrogation. Toji looked back over his shoulder. Mana was leaning close to Shinji, her eyes bright and shining. She was smiling, talking very fast as he struggled to keep pace.
"Is that what I'm like?" Kensuke whispered.
"No," Toji said. "Not like that."
/\/\/\/\
Ten minutes into sixth period the Angel alarm sounded.
Mana watched the class react as one. The teacher moved to the door and herded the students out in orderly chaos. They turned left down the hall to meet the rest of the school; Shinji, Asuka and Rei turned right and started running for the exit.
Mana peered back over the heads of her classmates and found the pilots sprinting away. She was prepped on evacuation protocol by the teachers when she enrolled and knew the routes to the shelters, but until now it was just an abstract policy of paranoia by the staff. She knew the city was periodically under siege but there were surprisingly few casualties so far.
Mana glanced around her. None of the other students were looking at the pilots. She pushed through the flow of traffic to the stairs and leaned over the railing.
"Ikari!" she called out down the hall after Shinji. He turned and she gave him a nervous smile. "Be careful!"
Shinji looked mystified. Behind him, frozen in mid-stride, Asuka glared with dangerous shock. The other students in the hall wore similar expressions. Asuka recovered first.
"Come on," she growled, pulling Shinji's arm.
He snapped back to reality and rushed away with her.
Mana watched him go, then slipped back into the mass of students. She tried to ignore the confused offense on their faces.
/\/\/\/\
Mana sat alone against the wall in evacuation shelter 17, watching the other students and teachers chat and mill around, seemingly oblivious to the death waiting for them outside. Groups of children played games and gossiped, some did homework or napped. The adults kept a lazy eye over the throng. A few yards away Aida and Suzuhara were sitting close together, staring at something on the small portable video camera.
Mana didn't mind being alone in a crowd. It was a chance to catch her breath between bouts of enforced interaction. She didn't hate her peers; it was just draining to be around them all day.
And this is only day two, she thought.
Her integration was going along smoother than she anticipated despite the heap of rumors she was responsible for. Once the novelty of her status as a transfer died off things would settle down. She found it slightly pitiful how much importance teenagers put on unimportant things.
But it wasn't all bad. She found someone willing to let her get close and ease her way into Tokyo-3. Someone of apparently great importance.
Be careful, she told Shinji. She wondered if she broke some kind of unspoken taboo, like telling an actor good luck before a performance. No one else expressed concern for the pilots and they all suffered varying degrees of shock at her own. Mana supposed in a world where death could claim them all without any warning at any time, drawing attention to reality was gently forbidden.
She rested her eyes and leaned back against the wall, trying to imagine what Shinji was doing at that moment. Was he in one of those robots, fending off extermination? Was he on standby after a false alarm? Was he already dead?
"Ms. Kirishima?"
Mana cracked an eye open and found Hikari Horaki standing before her wearing an uncertain smile.
"Class Rep," she said pleasantly. "Am I in trouble? Did I do something wrong?"
"Oh, no. Um…" Her freckles stood out as she blushed softly. "Would you like to sit with us?" She moved aside to display two girls on a mat several paces away. "We'd like you to."
Mana supposed a more direct interaction with Horaki could prove beneficial, both to her classroom existence and social survival.
She rose and stretched. "I'd appreciate it. It's kind of boring all by myself."
Hikari smiled brightly and led her to the mat. She sat and exchanged pleasantries with the other girls.
"Hello," one said, looking away. She adjusted a pair of thick glasses under a curtain of long, jet-black hair.
"Great," the other girl said, sporting short curly hair. "Now we have enough for Hearts."
"Ah," Mana said, turning to Hikari. "How wily of you. Luring me over here just so you could play a game."
"O-Of course not!" She blushed again and waved her hands in front of her. "I really did want to talk to you more! It wasn't because of any game!"
"Relax. I'm just pulling your leg." She patted the space beside her. "Let's play."
The cards were dealt. Mana performed with peaceful ineptitude, accepting a string of defeats without seeming to try for them. She was the new girl after all. She didn't want to burn any bridges with an easy victory. She learned being a teenager often meant tolerating boredom or embarrassment with a smile.
Mana laid a ten of diamonds on the floor. One of the girls broke hearts with a queen and Mana collected the pot.
"I'm pretty terrible at this," she said with a short laugh as she took in more points.
"It just takes practice," Hikari placated. She shot a dangerous look to her friends.
The girl with short hair scribbled down the scores from the latest round. Mana was a breath off one hundred. Hikari was next with thirty-six. She shuffled the deck and dealt the next hand.
"Is it always like this?" Mana asked Hikari, looking around.
"What do you mean?"
"Like… like it's a field trip or something." She saw Hikari's lack of understanding. "I mean the evacuation. There might be a battle going on outside, right?"
The other girls in the circle looked uncomfortable.
"… Yes, there might be a battle," Hikari said. "But we had evacuation drills for years. We're used to them. After awhile we figured there's nothing we can do, so we try to, to distract ourselves. It's not like we don't care about Asuka and Ikari and Ayanami," she said quickly, waving her hands before her. "We just have to… have faith in them."
"I guess it's tough for a transfer to understand," said the girl with long hair.
Mana smiled at the passive-aggression. "I guess so."
"… This is probably just a drill," Hikari said, sounding unsure. "It's been a while since we had one. Right?"
"I don't keep track," the shorthaired girl said. "All I know is we get to skip algebra today. Score."
"We'll just have to make it up tomorrow."
"But that's not until tomorrow. Learn to enjoy the moment, Hikari."
Mana broke one hundred on the next hand and they began a new game. She made sure to show improvement, though she still purposefully accepted last place without argument. She did feel a little guilty seeing how much Hikari fretted over her repeated losses. Mana kept an easy smile on her face, showing no harm was being done to her ego. The other two girls appeared not to care either way.
The shorthaired girl was in the middle of a story while they played, the latest worthwhile gossip from the year 2 student body.
"… So then Sakura was all like, 'At least I didn't grow my hair out and dye it red. It makes you look like a stuck-up wannabe,' to Miho, which was an indirect shot at Soryu. I mean, how dumb can you be? She'd eviscerate Sakura if she heard that."
"Just because she dyed her hair doesn't necessarily mean anything…"
"Of course it does. Miho's trying to get Jin's attention. He's in love with Soryu. Funny, he usually hates foreigners."
"I heard Soryu lives with Ikari," Mana jumped in, only to successfully slay the conversation's easy mood. "Is it true?"
"Uh, yeah," Hikari said. "She said it's for, um, tactical reasons. Since, you know, they both pilot."
"Oh. Do they get along?"
"Ah, well—"
"They're 2-A's 'marriage on the rocks'," the shorthaired girl told her. "Marital spats are daily, yet divorce seems out of the question. Well, who knows what married couples are really like behind closed doors?"
Hikari cleared her throat in warning.
"Oh, you know it's true, Hikari. For someone who constantly declares her hatred of him, Soryu sure does spend a lot of time around Ikari. And I mean, he cooks for her, cleans for her…" She chuckled. "He's her little house husband."
"Nothing wrong with that," Mana said. "I wouldn't mind coming home to something like that every day."
"… Do you really like Ikari?" the girl with glasses asked.
"May-chan!" Hikari scolded.
"It's okay," Mana said breezily. "I guess I haven't exactly been discreet." She shrugged. "I want to know more about him. He seems like a nice guy. But I, ah, I certainly don't want to break up a marriage. Or be a mistress."
The joke earned polite titters, which Mana counted as a victory in this crowd.
"Uh, l-let's deal the next round," Hikari said, sounding nervous. She collected the forgotten cards and began shuffling. "I think we pass left this time?"
"While I can't agree with your and Soryu's taste in men," the shorthaired girl went on, "don't go getting on her bad side. Hikari has a tough enough time, and she's her best friend."
"I'm sitting right here."
"Oh, relax. All I'm saying, Kirishima, is just be ready for a fight."
"Don't worry about me," Mana said with a grin. "I am a fighter."
/\/\/\/\
The pilots returned two days later. Rei entered first, crossing the room to her desk without a word. Asuka and Shinji came in next, she looking dangerously unpleasant, he looking tired and putout.
Mana let him be during morning classes, hesitant to bother him when he looked so weary. From what she gleaned over the last few days piloting one of those things was a very draining experience, physically and mentally. During her interrogation of him the other day he didn't seem too forthcoming with details. At first she thought it was simply due to some kind of enforced secrecy by his NERV masters but now she wondered if it was of his own volition.
The lunch period bell rang and Mana rose from her desk, waiting for Shinji to do the same. He was sitting back in his chair, looking like he was fending off sleep. He finally noticed her presence and sat up straight, preparing an apology.
"Welcome back," she told him.
He relaxed. He smiled at her. "Thanks."
She smiled back. She took a step closer and spoke for his ears only. "And… sorry. About how I acted the other day. I guess you don't really enjoy talking about it, huh?"
He was quiet for a time. "It's okay. You don't need to apologize." Shinji rose from his desk. "Want to get some lunch?"
She smiled again in pleasant surprise to his initiative. "Sounds good."
They walked out of the classroom together. Mana felt the eyes of the students on them again and did not entirely hate it. She bit her tongue against the questions she wanted to ask him and instead told him what he missed during his absence. It was pointless information but he listened attentively. They talked and ignored the rest of the world, and it was enough for her.
/\/\/\/\
Chapter 1 end
Author notes: Mana doesn't get a whole lot of love, does she? I'm very guilty of giving her the short end of the stick, so let's see how this pitiful attempt at penitence turns out.
Not much happened this time, but you know me: I use long setups to mask the underlying lack of originality in my fics. Did I write that out loud?
Next time: More stilted conversation from a non-canon character no one likes!
OMAKE inspired by Sideris
Ten minutes into sixth period the Angel alarm sounded.
The class reacted as one. They herded the pilots out of the room, kicking them down the hall into the arms of whatever form death took that week. Cruel nicknames and veiled threats followed them, warning of the price of failure.
The rest of the school checked into the party room, otherwise known as evacuation shelter 17. The teachers broke out booze and smokes, while students chose between the pool, table tennis, karaoke machines or snack bar. Hikari and her nameless friends sat together, weary and annoyed.
"What a hassle," she sighed. "My best friend's in another life-or-death struggle against giant hell monsters with the fate of mankind hanging in the balance. Well, time to break out the cards."