New Perspective Evangelion
Chapter 8: Behind the wall...
I don't own NGE, somebody else does
Stuff might be mentioned that's copyright
I don't own it either
It's just a bit of fun anyway.
I...I
"Oh hi there," a voice said beside me. "Motoko Hino, I guess we'll be lockermates huh?"
Up until I met Motoko, I'd been hating school. I'd only been on the grounds ten minutes, but I already hated it. I'd hated the uniform, how I was practically naked below the waistline. I'd hated how the staff looked at me as another piece of meat. I'd hated the grey concrete prison walls. I'd hated the heavy steel gate. I especially hated the ironwork arch, with the schools motto in kanji. I couldn't read it, but I didn't have to to know what it said.
Work sets you free, it had to be.
The school was a concentration camp. Concentrate on the teachers. Concentrate on schoolwork. Concentrate on homework. Concentrate on listening, on being a good school citizen, on becoming another good salaryman/O.L./housewife in the crowd. Concentrate on the rules or concentrate on your punishment. Concentrate on fitting in, on being everyone else. Concentrate on avoiding the Hyena's on this social serengeti.
Like every other school in human history.
My first meeting with Motoko, she seemed the traditional Japanese schoolgirl, a little shorter than myself, with short, straight mahogany hair held in check by a blue headband, and bright eyes that seemed to match. She definitely was no Hyena. Herself, Hikari and Asuka would be the bright spots of my day.
"Nagato Noriko, pleased to met you," I answered politely as I could. Well, I copied how she addressed me. The vagaries of Keigo that seemed to come so naturally to everyone else, served only to isolate me further.
"Oh, so you're foreign then" she chirped. "That's funny, you look native."
"Born here, raised another country," I smiled, a nervous flutter running up my back. Her eyes zoomed in, inspecting me like a scientist inspects an amoeba. It was really that obvious. I wasn't technically gaigokujin, but I was the nearest thing to it.
"Parent's work for the company?" she questioned.
"Company?"
"Nerfu," she mouthed with deliberate mysteriousness. Nerfu? I wondered. "Everyone's parents here work for them. It's the only reason anybody lives in this city anymore."
I wondered if maybe my own employment with the company was supposed to be a secret.
"So..."
"Well..." My legs crossed beneath me, and I suddenly felt horribly shy. There was no back up to rescue me, nobody to help me if I did the wrong thing. "Can keep you secret?"
"You're a pilot!" she gasped in some strange mix of a whisper and a shout, her face lighting up...more than it already had. I winced...somebody had to have heard that. "Well, it's hardly a secret," said Motoko, "Like I said, no transferee's come into this school anymore. Most people are just leaving since the attacks started."
"Oh,"
Why wouldn't my stuff fit in my locker?
"The girl who's old locker you're using, Yumi, left about three weeks ago after her house got squashed by the red one. Hey! Did she leave any of her idol pictures in there?"
Squashed? I was shunted aside, as the girl forced herself into my locker.
"What!", I blurted, pushing back. "It is empty,"
"Sorry," Motoko smiled again, apologetically, "But she had this real nice picture of Daisuke Mifune I've been wanting. I guess she took it with her,"
Her shoulders dropped with a disappointed sigh.
"Daisuke Mifune?" I questioned. Pop's Speed?
"Tch, look here," she swung her locker door open with a squeak.
Inside, it was plastered with glossy magazine cuttouts of a J-rock band, three girls, two guys and a ragged Mad-Max sense of style that looked like a bargain basement had met a lawnmower with an agenda. It was...cheesy, at best.
"That's the band name. I've been a fan since they're underground albums, not like those newbies who've just jumped on the bandwagon since Nightstrider Crash."
"Ah, cool," I nodded, post Second Impact popular culture not being my favourite subject. Big Ben chimed across the school's PA. I looked up at it for a moment, being reminded of my old secondary school's bell.
"Class 2-C?" Motoko asked.
"2-A," I was disappointed to have to say.
"The 'Father's-Only' class. Shame," Motoko shrugged. "I guessed you'll be with the other three then. See you tomorrow morning then Noriko...later "
Father's Only? I wasn't sure if I understood that right. She shut her locker door with a bang, gathered her things in a haphazard fashion, and smiled at me.
"Later," I copied.
Stuffing my own gear into my locker, I had to squash it to make it fit. My first opinion of Motoko was that she was nice, a pleasant person to be around. A bit excitable and extrovert, but without the acerbic aftertaste Asuka left sometimes. Not quite Genki, I think the word was, but not too far from it. Earnest and eager would be the best way to describe her. I wondered for a moment what sort of deeprooted psychological trauma she was hiding, this was still Neon Genesis Evangelion after all, before realising that there had to be some normal, ordinary people out there too.
I stuffed few textbooks, which I couldn't read anyway, into my locker, followed by the kitbag squeezed up on top of them. I fished my indoor shoes out from under that lot, then jammed my outdoor shoes in where the indoor ones had come out of, then slid my feet into the soft synthetic slipper.
Much better than the hard leather day shoes.
The door took a whallop to close again, and gave an ominous creak, threatening to burst like a bomb if anyone so much as breathed on it... gentle now, just tiptoe backward...
From my explosive locker, I could just hear Asuka chattering a few rows away. The school was downsizing, mixing half empty classes into one whole to save on teachers and electricity, and locker space. Which meant the organisation was getting a bit haphazard.
At least they gave me a map, with a nice helpful red line that led from the locker room, and out into another corridor.
The corridor that lead to Classroom 2-A was lined with empty, orphaned rooms. From them echoed the voices of a hundred teachers. Do it again, ten times, they said. What does the poet mean when he says this, they asked. How could you manage to burn that, they wondered.
I never did get the nack of cooking or home-economics. I never liked the whole housewife deal. I wanted to be like my father, an engineer, a master of applied science. He was a man who seemed to know everything, who could not just use everything from the basics of Kirchoff and Thevenin to Tanhauser and Hawking, but actually understand what he was doing and explain it to me. He always brought me in on his work, he hoped I...would...be...
I stopped...dead in the corridor. Standing rigid.
Where did that come from?
That mans face, that same man from the passport, smiling at me, beckoning me to the beige box workstation at his desk at home. And holding me against him as...
"Hey, Noriko,"
I shrieked, my heart clenching.
"What?" I stuttered.
"Did you get lost or something?" Asuka bit. "Honestly, can't you do anything without me being around?"
"I can!" I shot back "I was just..."
"Wondering where you where?" Sorhyu pushed,
"I was reminded of something is all...my old school." I tried to laugh it off, bat it away as nothing important.
"Where you crying?"
What? Something was tickling down my cheek.
"Pine disinfectant!" Yes, that would be a good explanation, "It's so strong in here, it's making my eyes water."
"Sure," Asuka pondered, inspecting me, wondering just what I was doing. "I mean, it really does burn the eyes out of your sockets, doesn't it?" she finished with her usual flourish. "Come on, I'll introduce you to Hikari,"
"Thanks," I smiled.
Asuka left, but I stood for a moment, gently brushing soft fingers against my check. Crying? A damp track running along my cheek. I..had...been crying. Why was I crying? They weren't my thoughts, they weren't my memories, he wasn't even my father for Christ sake's! He was her father, not mine. I'm not her, I am myself, I am I...
And I was quoting Rei to prove it...
A chill crawled up my back, the fingers of a draft creeping up my leg. I shook it off as best I could, but that mosquito still lingered in my ear, buzzing at me.
Then I followed Asuka to class.
Classroom 2-A was small, hot and crowded. It was also noisy, the burble of conversation reaching out through the corridor outside. I stepped inside, and silence fell, thirty-five pairs of eyes focusing in on me. Then, those whispers began, circling me like vultures...
"Look at her legs, she's so fit,"
"Did you see those pictures?"
"Oh, another one of them. My boyfriend barely wanted to talk to me since that other slut moved here."
"Look at that scar, I'll bet she has some weird tragic past, and she's lonely and looking for love in a foreign land,"
"Eh, Kyon, with Mecha Pilot's and Space Aliens, all we need are Time travellers, Espers and Sliders to have the full set...I'll bet the secret agency is behind it too"
I think I covered three of those... maybe four depending on how you stretched it.
"She looks Japanese you idiot. And didn't you say the same thing about Sorhyu and get beaten up?"
"Why...?"
"I'll bet they spread wide..."
What?
"You pervert!"
"I told you there was a new pilot."
"The brigade will investigate her!"
"I hope she doesn't squash anything..."
The brigade will get shot at... remember the last time?"
"Welcome to class 2-A young miss..."
It took a moment for me to realise that voice was talking to me, not about me. A pair of bright spectacles looked up at me, framed by efficient, pigtailed brown hair that radiated professional organisation.
"Nagato... Nagato Noriko, pleased to meet..."
"Horaki, Hikari Horaki," she smiled. "Asuka already told me you were coming. Welcome to Tokyo-3, Miss Nagato. Now, would you please let me show you to your seat,"
Hikari could've been a teacher, or an instructor, she had that same air of polite authority about her. At least that's what I thought until a large white folded paper dart drifted lazily past before crash landing.
"Hey!", her voice jumped an octave, her expression steeling into one of cast-iron purpose. "You're going to pick that up right now or you'll be on report for a week!"
A small looking, black haired boy who seemed a year younger than everyone else, shrunk back into his seat, three rows back.
"Oh, here goes Miss Bossy again. I wonder if she wears the trousers at home?"
"Hey, show some respect or you'll be on detention!"
"You're not the teacher y'know...just the teacher's pet,"
"Why you?...I can still put you on cleaning duty for a week,"
I watched for a second... tried to figure out how they managed to half a full blown argument while still appearing to use what I thought were polite forms of address, then realised that like Quantum physics, I'd never truly understand it, so it wasn't worth bothering over.
I just took my seat beside Asuka, who glanced up at me just long enough to tell me that so long as I knew anything about the Second Impact, I wouldn't have to worry about anything. I dug out the history book from my satchel, opened it, and was suddenly very worried indeed.
"See, it's all the same, all over the world," she said.
"Heh...yeah," I said nervously, grabbing the back of my head. "History not my subject. Prefer mathamatic or science."
"Maybe, but you'd have to be from another universe not to know about the Second Impact,"
Or maybe, an alternate version where all this is just a TV show. I knew the basics... that a meteor hit Antarctica...but the details? Who was the scientist who first detected it? Who fired first, India or Pakistan? Where was the Valentine treaty signed? Looked like I'd have to remember my old cogging skills then.
The classroom itself was small, hot and cramped. The morning sun burned through the windows, it's thirsty rays drawing rivers of sweat. The windows may have been open, but there was no breeze outside to speak of. Just hot, muggy Tokyo-3 air. The classroom door opened again, but no draft chased through it, only a sixty year old, balding man, with tanned skin drawn like leather over his bones. His bright white shirt hung loose from his spindly body.
"All rise!" Hikari ordered.
I nearly tripped and fell over, trying to keep up.
"Bow!"
Stumbled over as I tried to balance myself...
"Sit"
Then slipped and fell ungracefully back into my hard wooden chair. A few papers on the wall were tickled by a gentle draft.
"Good morning class, and today we'll be continuing with the socio-economic effects of Second Impact. All those who need to catch-up.." he stared right at me. "..are expected to do so in their own time,"
I wasn't sure what exactly he was saying... After a few sentences I gave up trying to translate everything he was saying. I could follow him okay... if I wanted too... but it just seemed like a waste of mental resources to follow his droning tones. Instead I did what everyone else seemed to be doing... I logged onto the schools shat network, and sat there impassively staring at the screen waiting for somebody to validate my existance with a message.
The dark haired girl reflected in the screen looked like she was about to fall asleep in her place. But, at least I could take comfort from the fact that I wasn't the only one.
"Schengen Zone... Lisbon Enabling Act... New European Federation..." the old man continued, "Brussels government...N-IRA...violence campaign..."
A few rows ahead and to the left of me, Rei Ayanami was watching...something outside. Shinji, a few desks behind myself, was watching Rei Ayanami. Asuka right beside me, was watching Shinji watch Rei, but only when she was sure nobody was watching her. Which had the effect of making it blindingly obvious to anybody who could've wanted to have been watching. Hikari watched Touji, Touji watched Hikari...but only when her back was turned. A darked haired girl with glasses was watching a short, slightly stocky girl with a Hello-Kitty on her satchel. The KGB was probably watching Kensuke Aida, who I felt was quietly watching me. The teacher was watching nobody, which was fine, considering nobody was watching him either.
And I sat there with my legs crossed, which was comfortable, watching the whole lot and wondering if I might have some excuse to get out of it. I was sure my training would provide a good excuse, or an Angel attack, or an early Third Impact. Either would do...
I was about ready to nod off when a message finally flashed up on my screen, in English as broken as my Japanese.
"Where you from?" it read.
"Europe," I sent back with equal abvruptness.
"Cool... You hav boyfrind."
I scowled.
"No,"
What followed was a torrent of requests, a blizzard of keystrokes around me, forwarded messages and pop-ups on my screen. Before I could figure one out, another would popup in it's place. Some where asking about me, about what Europe was like, and how 'available' I was. I sent back a simple, poorly constructed reply that said yes, I was a pilot, that Europe was nice...And that I was most emphatically not on the market.
I spent most of the morning lazily browsing the internet... which was both completely different, yet exactly the same as the one I knew. A little like the world after Second Impact compared to the world I remembered.
A little like being a teenage girl...compared to teenage boy. It was pretty much the same
Except for the drafty skirt...Or the oddly comfortable underwear...Or the irritating long hair tickling my shoulders...Or the ticklish breasts rubbing...or the monthly visitation, which still lingered in my belly... or the leering eyes and sinsister smiles that tracked me...
I pouted into my Laptop. The Minix Racoon on the desktop background stared back at me.
"One People, One government, One Europe....seperatist...Nazi... arrests...blue-shirt."
The Lunch-Bell rang.
At last, some food! Finally I could do something other than listen to a droning old man. Of everything so far...I hated school the most. Ghost memories I could handle, Gainax bounce I could tolerate... but sitting on a hard wooden chair for 4 hours of information emesis was soul crushing.
I bought a cheap bento from the school's canteen. It was cheap, it was cheerful... it was flavoured cardboard. I wasn't hungry anyway... I was never really hungry...except after training. While Asuka chased after Shinji for her own...homemade...bento...I chatted with Hikari. Not really about anything, just...chatted for chatting's sake.
About the weather... about school...about Tokyo-3... and a bit about who might've been dating who. Hikari was a very comfortable person to talk to. My Japanese stuttered, and my accent mangled it, but she didn't seem to mind.I felt at ease chatting with her in a way I hadn't yet with anyone else.
It was natural to sit there, on a low wall under the shade of an unused school building... even if the concrete was a bit gritty and made my butt itch. It was good to just chat. When she did come back, lunchbox underarm, even Asuka seemed more natural around Hikari, less guarded and more..normal.
It was nice.
Even if half the time they talked about girly things, or Hikari's sisters, or just how all three Eva pilots managed to have such large breasts.
"Do you rub them in the morning or take hormones or what?" Hikari enquired. "Noriko looks a year older than evyrone, and yourself Asuka, you're bigger than my sister. And that's not talking about Rei..."
And suddenly, I was back to being perfectly uncomfortable again. They felt huge to me, especially when the Gainax effect kicked in...but since I shared my 'three sizes' with Asuka... I didn't think I was, in the grand scheme of things... especially large. I'd known girls my age who were bigger than me... and they all seemed bigger when looking at them. Looking at my own... they never seemed near as big as they felt...
"Even Shinji is bigger than me..." she sighed, cupping herself despondantly.
And I suddenly giggled. The blushed, then gigled some more.
"Well, Noriko is a year older than everyone, so she doesn't count," said Asuka. "and I'm European, and we're naturally bigger," she boasted, her chest swlling with pride.
I suddenly felt very small... and it wasn't just because Asuka was talking for me
"But still, look at Ayanami... she has the body of an adult,"
I had looked at Rei Ayanami... I had looked at her in great detail, and there was only one thing I could say to that:
"Definitely..." with a knowledgeable nod.
"She's always been weird," blustered Asuka, "At NERV they're always doing tests on her too," he voice switched to a more mysterious tone... "maybe they've accelerated her growth or something... turned her into a freakazoid."
A fishtank full of clones count? I wondered.
"That's not very nice," Hikari frowned.
I looked up across the yard... maybe a hundred yards opr more, and locked eyes with Rei herself, staring dead back at me. A hundred ice tipped feet danced up the back of my spine. She was watching us. She knew we were talking about her.
What followed was a creeping, crawling quiet...
"Weird," I mumbled.
Or just Rei projecting her fey and otherworldy battle aura that all the fanboys knew and loved. I saw her look up for a moment, towards the school clock. Big ben chimed out across the schoolyard, and feeding time at the camp was over. The inmates marched back into the concrete building, through evil green doors.
They were accompanied by a short, fat woman, who was even older than my homeroom teacher. Classes split off into their rooms, but Class-2A had a different destination for the afternoon.
Gym Class.
A clutch of yellow notes had been jammed in my locker...some written in Japanese, a few titles in scratched English: To miss Nagato... with lovehearts. I squeaked.
"They do that to every new girl," Hikari told me, "They'll forget about you in a week,"
"Perverts," Sorhyu snorted. "I didn't even read any of them, just dump them in the bin"
"Nah...er..." what was i supposed to do with these? "Nani...er.." Language? Okay... I wanted to read these...out of curiosity...I wanted to know what they said. Well, I knew what they said... probably... but I wanted to see for sure. "They take effort write..em... I read,"
"I'm sorry, I don't understand," Hikari gave a consoling smile,
"They went to write and I go to read." I stated, a little abruptly. "Fair"
"It's you're virginity," Asuka warned,
"How?"
Sorhyu switched to English.
"Well, that's how they get their hooks into you... First you read. Then you swoon. You date a bit.. then you get laid." she said, the authority on the subject. "Then, you're a month late you get the news that your life is ruined, and you have to marry the potato that got you pregnant."
"But, they're just letters..." I deadpanned.
"Ummm..." Hikari nudged, "what's happening?"
"Noriko just wants to read the notes, maybe date a few, raise a family..."
Hikari giggled.
"I do not," I mumbled in a small voice.
"Geez, lighten up," Asuka sighed, folding her blouse.
I groaned.
She was standing almost naked beside me. Shrug. So was I. So was Hikari. So were twenty other girls. It was every adolescent boys fantasy, and I was suddenly completely unbothered by it. And that bothered me. I should've been uncomfortable, I should've been self conscious, I should've been hiding behind my locker door, or shielding myself with my towel.
But... I wasn't.
"That new stuff, it tastes like strawberry's"
"Magical Girl Gaerric Soldier is on again tonight,"
"He was horrible..."
"It always disappears up my..."
It was like a switch had gone off. Something had turned off my sexual self-conscious. A fuse had blown on overload. And it was something sudden... Just that morning I'd been caught in the bathroom by Misato, and been all blushes and stutters.
Now... they were just other girls. Nothing more.
What had happened? What had changed in my head? Was I still...attracted to girls then? Okay... maybe I was just getting used to it. I mean, I got used to seeing Asuka butt naked from my bedroll... I could be comfortable with people I knew...
But I didn't know anybody else here that well, besides Asuka.
I was being assimilated.
What's going on in my head?
And where are my goddamned leggings? I found the underwear, and the T-shirt, but no tracksuit leggings. Don't tell me I forgot those... Fuck... tip the whole sportsbag on the floor... they have to be in here somewhere! Bloomers, they called them... but there was nothing remotely bloomer-like in there. Just some one-size-fits-none sports underwear.
"Lost something?" Hikari enquired.
"Um... My...bloomers,"I flushed red, "I think forget to pack,"
"They're on the bench bench beside you Noriko," Hikari beamed.
Nothing but the sports-underwear.
"Uh..." I blinked owlishly. Maybe they were invisible somehow? I looked up, and at the other girls, none of them seemed to have any legging's either...
Asuka cringed. Hikari smiled. I frowned. They navy blue things weren't underwear, were they? They were the bloomers, weren't they?
"Summer wear," the class-rep told me.
And suddenly, I felt reassuringly self conscious all over again. I was so glad to be embarrassed that I wasn't even bothered as we walked out into the yard by the fact that my 'bloomers' covered less than my normal underwear.
Three hours of sprinting, skipping, jogging, jumping and pushups, left my muscles burning, my heart pounding, and my chest aching. But I'd loved every single minute of it. I'd loved the feeling of being so fit, so healthy. I'd loved being able to run without having a heart attack. I even liked it when some of the boys had started cheering, Transferee!... even if they were the minority between the Asuka and Rei fans.
My body was loose, flexible and fast.
"Because we're EVA Pilots," Asuka told me later. "We're better than normal children. Just watch Shinji run,"
He left Touji and Kensuke for dead off the line. Wow. Themselves, they were no slouches, setting a pace not far off the school's running team. Hikari too. It was strange, just about everyone in 2-A set times over a second faster than the other classes.
Well, they're all pilot candidates, it makes sense that they're the best and brightest doesn't it? I shrugged it off.
"I don't care," I said to her, "I feel good,"
I felt real good.
I hated school, but I loved Gym class. It was a weird duality. It meant I left the school in something that passed for a good mood. I was in such a good mood, it felt almost invincible, as if nothing could possibly ruin it. Not even the stray thought-echoes of a dead person.
The Gods took notice.
I...I
There is nothing that could sustain good mood better than the new laptop I'd ordered a few weeks previously. Especially since it had been paid for by someone else. I sat crossed-legged, hidden under my blankets, illuminated only by illicit images on the screen. Asuka was sleeping beside me, while I watched cam-corder video's of the EVA's in action, including footage of Unit-01's first battle. It was bad quality, with washing, blurred sound and a blocky, artifacted picture, but it was EVA-01 in all her berserker glory. That animalistic howl sent a hundred little legs running down my spine, and had a face-splitting grin on my lips. It awakened the fanboy deep within the female shell.
"How fucking cool,"
"Shut it," Asuka mumbled, ruffling her sheets with her feet.
The IBM remained oblivious to what it was showing, just sitting there dutifully. Right until the battery died. Well, I sighed, it lasted long enough. And I really needed to sleep anyway, the joys of being a schoolchild... The lid snicked shut, and I stashed the computer beside my school satchel. The horn of a locomotive moaned in the distance.
Asuka started snoring, and outside, I could hear Misato talking to someone.
"She is...weird, Ritsu'. There's something not right with her,"
Who?
"Just...something. I think there's more going on in her head than she's telling us."
Who's she? Asuka? Rei? Or maybe...She couldn't be talking about me, could she?
"Maybe." Misato said, "But it's a load of little things,"
A pause, and a sudden fear cramped in my gut.
"That box she got with her personal possessions? Three times, I put it in an obvious place, but she just hides it again each time,"
I'd seen what was in it. I didn't want to go through that again.
"Her file said she was taught Japanese by her parents, but she acted like she didn't know a word of it a month ago. And now, it's like she understands almost everything we tell her,"
I swallowed a building lump. Noriko knew Japanese? Well, it would make sense I suppose. But I definitely didn't. Total submersion in a language was the best way to learn, I was once told. And I still could barely speak the language. And I definitely couldn't read it...
"Yeah," a pause, "But that's just it Rits, I think she remembers more than she's admitting to herself. Believe me, I've been there myself,"...
I don't remember anything about Noriko, I wanted to yell out. Well, nothing beyond drifting fragments, and half remembered ideas... lying around like deleted data on an old harddisk.
"Hmmm," sighed Misato, walking towards her own room "...maybe I do see too much of myself in her."
I sat there, quietly listening, swallowing acid. Misato thought I was nuts.
"Yes, you were right Ritsuko," she sighed, "It was too early, I can see it now, but it's too late to change that. But I still say sending her away to be properly rehabilitated will only be counterproductive. "
Send...me...away? My blood ran cold.
"Fine... Give her a psych analysis with her next physical exam..." a pause..."After Unit 03's certification tests of course,"
So... they want to send me away. Why? Why me? Just when I thought I was finally getting comfortable they want to send me away. It seems like the whole purpose of this universe is to suddenly turn on you...just when you think you've dealt with it... and screw you up even more.
It wasn't fair...
I dropped back onto my bed, and curled up into myself. They can't send me away... not if I'm a good pilot. They can't spare good pilots. I'd show them I was a good pilot on Saturday, I'd have to show them.
At least my body was warm and comfortable. That was nice. I waited until I was sure everyone was sleeping, padded my way to the bathroom when I was certain there wasn't a sinner awake to catch me, and enjoyed some quick stress relief...
I...I
08/09/10 (Haha) Edited Asuka comment to Noriko about their fitness. Some typo fixes
-Dartz
