Neon Genesis Evangelion

My Own Personal Revolution

"I prayed heaven today
Would bring its hammer down on me
And pound you out of my head
I can't think with you in it

I dragged all that I owned
Down a dirt road to find you
My shoes worn out and used
They can't take me much farther

Something always takes the place
Of missing pieces
You can take and put together even though
You know there's something missing"
--Beck, Missing

"Gents." Kensuke gives us a quick nod at the door to the "Scud Bucket," local attraction for the hipster crowd of southern Tokyo and various art-types of campus. Scud Bucket, despite its unpretentious name, was loathe to show student shows mainly due to the dismal (read: none) revenue they generated for the gallery and generally because the student scene did not seem able to organize properly for such a place. Kensuke had finagled one night out of them with the promise of a large crowd and his talent.

They left Kensuke's promotion entirely to himself, not much of a feat given that his photography and videography had gained notoriety around the campus art-heads. The more jocular-types, or jock-ular types, were generally amused at the prospect of seeing "nekkidchix" as Jun was happy to elaborate from time to time to one of us or Kensuke himself. Yuki had apparently been sucked into Aida's whirlwind scheme though he was always quick to remind me of the "tastefulness" with which she would be displayed. The tastefulness with which she would be ogled was probably more questionable, but that's okay as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not worried about her being wooed; she's made it rather apparent on several "heated" occasions just what she thinks of me.

I turn back and see him chatting with animated glee across the local jazz band just thrust into the stereo. Around me, a confusing mix of high-art wannabe yuppies, liberal arts majors, and the occasional dumbfounded jock from Jun's recommendations walk through the door, showing off their semi-formal attire over Chardonnay and fresh, as fresh as France to Japan can be, brie.

Yuki's linked with me arm and arm, which surprises me a little I guess. She's not a terribly shy person I mean, it's just that I'm not sure I would brave the opening where I am plastered on the wall two meters by two meters in my birthday suit.

Yuki has dressed up which is a first for me, and as my sly comments in the hour before our arrival did imply, "she cleans up nice." Her dark dress looks like it was tailored to her slender body rather than grabbed on the cheap from a Harajuku basement thrift shop down the stairs from the third intersection on Kurika Dori. The way she swishes, stuck on my arm, makes me feel like the untalented, rigor mortis-stricken sidekick in some jellyfish tango. We both indulged in a little wine ourselves before showing up.

"Yuki!" a girl's voice calls and we turn in unison to see an uncomfortable-looking Touji and beaming Hikari, hand on his prosthetic and grasped so lovingly that most people here probably don't realize it's a titanium composite yet.

I'm glad she called out her name instead of mine—I'm not quite used to this gathering-in-a-public-place thing but no one seems to see me behind the sports jacket (another Kurika thrift shop find) and the stubble.

"Hikari!" Yuki bounds over, dragging me along for the ride. Touji and I nod at one another as we approach.

"Looking very handsome this evening, Shinji-kun," Hikari says, oncing me over and then giving an approving smile.

"I owe all the credit to my stylist," I say, shrugging at Yuki who giggles.

"You could learn a thing or two, Touji," she says at the poor boy, who I suddenly remember must suffer exponentially more when confronted with formal situation multiplied by the Horaki gold standard for good behavior.

Yuki smiles at our poor soul. "He looks quite nice. I think you managed to counter-balance his Jockitude, Hikari-chan."

"Little victories," she says with a sigh, but smiles at hapless Touji from the corner of her mouth.

"Let's give the girls a chance to catch up," I offer, and Touji nods gratefully, but not too gratefully, so that Hikari finally releases her deathgrip and submits to the latest gossip courteously of Yuki's sharp eyes and ears.

I clap him on the back as we walk away.

"Way to take one for the team, man," I say with a grin, and guide him over to the wine that Hikari has no doubt forbid.

"Kensuke owes me for tonight. It's just like high school all over again, only this time I actually have to listen to what she says."

Soft laughter matches mine and we turn to find Kazu slicing out a bit of the cheese for his plate.

"Where's your date tonight?" I ask him sheepishly.

"We'll she's not spread-eagled on the wall so…"

Touji and Kazu both share a guffaw at my expense.

"It's her body," I say with a shrug. "I'm just here for the booze."

"I heard that," Kensuke announces, swaggering up to join us.

And there were are, the only four members of SEELE, schmoozing it up at Kensuke's show with the student body and the rest of world around us, none of them the wiser.

Time since that hectic Saturday seems to have slipped away in a haze of good deeds and Asaren tuned towards shortcuts and inaudibility on campus. For such generic college architecture, there sure is a lot to learn and we spent the past two weeks pouring over the blueprints of every building and testing ourselves on mock-disaster sessions where someone suddenly is about to discover our good deed prematurely.

The emails have already begun to trickle in to the Seven-EyEd-Lie-sociEty running the gambit from help with homework to relationship advice, even a plea for revenge against a teacher's pet. We swore ourselves to secrecy, so the rumor mills shall never be spinning to the beat of our tongue, I'm sure much to Hikari's and Yuki's collective dismay if they ever knew of our unprecedented access.

As for Ayumi and Taro, I managed to record most of it for posterity's sake thanks to my cellphone quickdraw come Monday's class. The mission is considered a success on all fronts and they've been catapulted to stardom as the campus' newest (some say cutest) couple. Taro's unexpected romantics are a common late night tale amongst the females, dreaming of their own crushes proposing in such a dramatic fashion.

In fact, one might just say that things seemed to be going extraordinarily well for Shinji Ikari if you were not cognizant of two very crucial things: the funeral of Iyori Kurokawa the week previous and the flaming redheaded gaijin that just stepped through the front door in her evening gown, fourth year hanging off her arm like too much muscle on its best behavior.

Touji's bitching and moaning over Hikari falls to nothing as the three of them catch the twinge of dread that must tear across my face and turn their heads to Miss Soryu warmly chatting up the Scud Bucket's manager as if they've known each other since grade school.

Yes Shinji Ikari, for all they could critique of him, was never said to have it very easy in life.


Eleventh Revolution: I've had worse—but it involved dismembering.
It rained. The day they put Iyori into the earth, it rained all night, rained all day.

We came with a bouquet. Darkest darks, blackest blacks across our bodies. The plot was to the northeast, a four-hour train ride out of the city center. We said nothing to each other the whole way. Nothing was enough for us.

Through the windows, the gray city grows smaller, the streets empty, the building turn stubby, the lights go out on the insides, the color leaks away into the overcast sky until the gray has swallowed up the whole view. I will never forget this day.

How many things did I do wrong, how far off course did I have to go, to get here, to get to the place I don't belong. In Eva it would have been unthinkable—to do this to another person was not within my capacity, harming other people out of the question. I hid so much back then, trying as best I could not to cause others pain, doing my best to stay out of the way. It nearly destroyed me in the end.

The harder I tried not to tread on others, the more and more I crushed in on myself, squeezed inward till I nearly imploded. And my absence, for all its careful planning and sensitivity, still hurt others, because where they expected me, I was too timid to step forward.

In a way, I'd like to believe I'm undoing this with my proactive attitude, with the direction I'm driving SEELE. Like the touch of Touji's cold plastic hand on my shoulder, I feel the damage beginning to undo. Because there is no way to stay concealed forever, to avoid the pain of others at the cost of your own until… you die? I could have believed that once but now. No.

The answer is not the simplicity of the Hedgehog's dilemma Misato had once ascribed to me. And I think I owe the answer to only one person. As the rain beats on the steel of the JR Line, I imagine her face now, they way it used to be, the smile that flickered at me unexpectedly, the true being within the shell of pain, of fear, and abandonment. Asuka broke me once. She put me back together. Where I would be without her I cannot say.

But Iyori, poor Iyori was the undeserving participant in my headlong charge back to normality. My condition, my transformation, began at the hand of Asuka, but it certainly turned with the death of Iyori Kurokawa. Competition necessitates there be a loser, and there is no guarantee that everyone else in the world can be as well adjusted as you. Ironic I know, but it seems obvious to me now that in terms of security, self-confidence, and mental health in general, I was better off than Mr. Kurokawa. He lacked the drive pushing me through defeat, the confidence breaking past fear. He lacked, in some ways, everything I had.

I can imagine now, had the Seven-EyEd-Lie-sociEty started earlier, Kurokawa would have been the first among a group of unexpected participants, the members of the student body who, for all their strong and stable outward appearance, desperately reached out for SEELE to solve a searing chasm within their being. An inner division that no therapy would heal. And that is why I am responsible; like snapping the worn wood of an old Kendo sword, I broke someone riding that edge of impossible disrepair, broke him so totally there could be no recovery.

This is our stop. The cemetery is four blocks down the road. Yuki's hand finds mine as we depart and I open the umbrella for the two of thus. She holds the bouquet close to her breasts, careful to protect it from the drizzle.

I don't think we've ever been silent together for this long. But it feels right, and she knows I'll speak when I'm ready.

I remember the phone call from Touji as we traverse the four blocks, seeing his crumpled helpless body all over again, barely held together by the plugsuit, pulled from 03's wreckage. I remember Misato's chocked voice trying so hard to tell me who the fourth child was, trying so hard to tell me I did a good job. The horror and guilt, one singular rush from the pit of my stomach, a gag this time rather than a scream. The image of this mangled boy, just a few more months left before his graduation and the beginning of his life.

They don't know I'm coming, though I've imagined a variety of unseemly scenarios if they recognize me.

As we spot the corner of the cemetery, I consider how unusual it is to be having a Western-style funeral. It was the family's choice—Iyori left no will, not even a note to the family. Which was apparently one of the more upsetting parts of his unexpected passing. And the family opted for a western-style burial, complete with a priest. Apparently they were practicing Catholics, which made the element of suicide even worse. I have the strong suspicion, however, that Iyori, whoever he may have been, is not burning in hell. Hell and I never really believed in each other.

The service has already started by the time we arrive. We absorb into the surprisingly large throng of mourners: Iyori's got a crowd of some hundred people, the entire Kendo club included. When they get wind of my presence in the circle a few grimace and a few just cry harder. When Yuki reaches the front of the circle, she carefully lays the bouquet on the casket. It's closed because Iyori's been too damaged by the rushing commuter train. Instead a solemn photograph of him stands propped on the lid, his warm eyes staring back at all of us.

His family cries the hardest. I can easily make out the mother, clutching desperately to the arm of the husband, eyes open but unable to see beyond the grief, staring at the grass next to her son's plot. The stunned younger sister, transparent stains stretching off of beautiful silken cheeks, face contorted, brow flexing back and forth between perplexed, surprised, and devastated. She doesn't look to be out of high school and the way the sadness clings to her face seems inappropriate to me somehow, as if no one deserves to feel those things at that age.

I don't cry. I can't. All of the will to emotion leaves me, filling my self with a shuddering emptiness of feeling that I've never known before. A cruel sensation that this is intended, even inevitable sparks in my side, gouging its presence into my state of mind. Other than that hangs the lurid confidence that Iyori truly is dead, truly is laying somewhere behind the oak paneling before me and at the same time an infinite distance away, farther than I can ever imagine.

The service passes to the rhythm of the rain's steady hiss and the priest's lulling tones of passing beyond the physical barrier, recanting loved tales of kinship from friends, teachers, and family. It ends suddenly. We begin to walk away.

Over my shoulder I see Toshi, a younger Kendo member, slap the flowers off the lid of the casket. The crowd bubbles to give him space as he begins to stamp, his mouth open, raging, gasping, but betraying no sound, just hoarse breathing and the whimpering exhalation of his exertion. He stomps on the flowers, crushing them dead as the wood of the casket, the foot hammering down again and again, harder and harder, flatter and flatter. He stops when he is out of breath, panting over the crushed green plastic and flowers and another team member drags him away from the ruined thing. The crowd swells back into place, covering over the bouquet's cadaver in a swift motion. We can't see the casket anymore.

The silence holds for the ride back into Tokyo. The tracks clatter underneath us, their steady staccato mournful, constant.


"The kitchen sink is overflowing and the plumber has run out of wrenches," I whisper urgently.

"Wha…" Yuki turns to me, confusion filling up her face. She's forgotten the signal. Mother of God, it gets worse.

"The signal!" I hiss.

"Oh… Oh! Oho!" She glances towards the entrance. Towards the swiftly approaching campus scandal of mythical proportions. They will carve this weekend into stone tablets, recount it at all who would dare invite their girlfriend to attend an event with the ex and her new boyfriend having also RSVP'd. Not that Asuka and me count as exes but we have enough drama between us.

The bloody crumpled business card, stuffed in my modest closet and well hidden from any who would sort through my garments, flits through my mind. Just adding another reminder to the extremely confusing situation I've just put myself in. There's no way to get away in time. Because Hikari has spotted her, and god damn it, for all the girl's masterful sense of etiquette she cannot seem to understand that me and the redhead do not play nice together.

"Asuka!" she chirps from our side and rushes forward to hug her. Asuka smiles from ear to ear, embracing her and glaring at me with her good eye from over Hikari's shoulder. I see malice, pure and livid in that blue eye. Oh. Dear. God.

The two exchange pleasantries and Touji is reluctantly summoned from cheese table. He talks half-heartedly with the fourth year, apparently another rising star of the physical education program in Keio. Meanwhile I try and hustle Yuki deeper into the throngs of yuppies appreciating the nudes of our college's female menagerie.

"So she's…."

"—Yeah, that's her alright."

"Hmm," Yuki ponders to herself, thoughtfully.

"Look, just, just don't react to anything she says. That's the only way to win."

"Win?" she asks, turning to me as if I've suddenly switched topics.

"Of course. It's all a competition to her. She probably came here to start a fight. God knows she's done it to me enough times already," I mutter, recalling past fights. Brawls, really.

"Shinji!" She laughs at me. "You almost sound scared of her…" she teases.

If you hurt him, I'll kill you.

"Yeah… Something like that."

Kazu is approaching us swiftly from over my shoulder. "There's a back exit this way," he says, clapping me on the shoulder and gesturing towards the rear. I see genuine pity in his expression for the first time I can ever remember.

"No…" Yuki says before I can answer. "We are not going to leave before my boyfriend gets to see my pictures just because of some chick with anger management problems."

I resist the urge to laugh nervously. I'm in a genuine pickle now. No way out. Rock meet hard place. Shinji meet Rock.

"Are you sure?" Kazu asks, more to me than her.

I swallow. Bite the bullet. "Yeah. It's… cool."

It's the right decision. It has to be. If I run away from her now, she thinks she's won. So fuck it. I'll have a ball. I'll fucking enjoy myself. She can brood all she wants—as far as I'm concerned, I can't see the red hair in a sea of dark.

The strategy works. For a while.

Yuki and I circle the room slowly, admiring each of the girls, while she makes an occasional jibe to me about their nudity, just to make sure I'm paying attention. As we snake our way through the gallery, I slowly forget about Asuka's scowl, about the face that spoke of inevitable violence and so many other things.

Out of nowhere they materialize just as we reach the first of three in a series of Yuki's nudes. The timing, for all its immaculate poorness, must have been intentional on her part, as if she'd been waiting for us to get to this part of the gallery for all this time, and having arrived she shows up with her own boytoy.

Yuki, at least the black-and-white two meter by two meter one, stares at me, smiling just a little seductively. She's curled around her knees, breasts tucked behind the strong leg muscles, and her most intimate places concealed in a crest of shadow, no doubt through Kensuke's elaborately well-plotted lighting schemes.

Asuka yawns beside us. Her boyfriend is mute as a rock.

"She's not that pretty, is she?" we both hear her whisper to him, far too loudly to be accidentally.

Which is a total lie. Yuki looks gorgeous in the photo. And if Asuka didn't have cynicism down to such "T," she'd sound jealous. Inwardly I flinch. Outwardly I exchange an amused glance with Yuki, who much to my relief wears the same smile. She's getting a kick out of this. Wow, is that… even possible? Asuka, to the left of us, cannot see our little moment as her good eye is also on the left, and remains blissfully ignorant of our little joke on her.

The four of us move with the flow of the crowd, carrying us down to the next picture. Yuki poses again, her face just as inviting as before, now the gentle curve of one nipple sneaking free from two cupped hands.

Asuka snorts to herself a little chuckle. The boyfriend stays brick-like, staring up at Yuki's penetrating stare with dogged intensity.

I relax a little. But I know the next picture will be the true salvo.

In the third part of the triptych, Yuki is spread for all to see, a beautiful darkness curling up between the twist of her legs. She struts into the foreground, one foot about to plant, looking invincible and empowered in her eternal motion.

"What a little whore," Asuka says softly.

Her boyfriend barks a laugh.

Now!

"I'm sorry?" I ask genuinely, turning to face the two of them.

She whirls on me, like a scythe turning to cleave corn. Oh it's fucking on.

"Excuse me?" she plays, innocently.

Yuki puts a placating hand on my shoulder. I smile magnanimously and ignore the reassuring touch. Maintain control.

"Oh, I was just wondering who you were calling a whore." I practically shout the last part. A sudden hush falls over the room as people turn their heads to see who's having the intense conversation. "You know, because, I would be too embarrassed to say that about any of the girls in these photographs, seeing as I go to school with all of them, and all of them are attending the opening. So I was just wondering which one it was…" I say more softly.

Around the room, a few previously smiling couples are frowning, and I can tell the insult I've implied on Asuka's behalf has really struck home. Asuka bridles, white teeth bearing like fangs.

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" she growls.

Mr.-stack-of-bricks, who's a good six inches taller than me, takes a step towards me.

"Tell your girlfriend to back off before she gets in trouble," I say to Asuka, glancing at his dull, dumb stare.

The swing comes before Asuka can make her seething reply, the four-story pile of fuming testosterone lunging my way. It's clumsy from all the wine and I easily dodge out of the way of the fist aimed at my temple. I take the opening and drive my elbow into his solar plexus, knocking him onto me in one swift motion. I let him stay there and begin to drag his coughing, choking form to the front entrance, apologizing to the other gasping scensters as I pass.

"Sorry, my friend here has had a little too much to drink…" I offer, or some other variant, as I pass by the dumbstruck crowd.

Asuka, previously so stunned she's rooted in place behind me, suddenly remembers what's going on and rushes up to catch me. She grabs me with one vice-like hand, halting me.

"Where do you think you're taking him!" she shrieks, her voice a high-pitched whine in the otherwise nervous silence.

I glance her way and see (thankfully) that Kazu has held onto Yuki to keep her from following us.

"Oh, you're right… my mistake." I dump the dead weight, letting him slide off my shoulder eliciting a pained groan from him as he tumbles to the floor gracelessly. "You carry him," I offer and walk away before her gaping mouth can reply.

I approach the counter at the front, slapping down an ichiman yen note. "Sorry for the trouble, that's for if he throws up on anything before you get him outside. I think you might want to hurry." I hear gurgling sounds near the entrance followed by a sudden retching "wauuughh." I flinch at the noise. "Oops," I offer, to which the manager can only nod and sigh, retrieving my offered compensation.

Asuka has flies out of the entrance before I can reach Kensuke and begin apologize sincerely. She's left her date helpless on the floor, lying in his own digestive contents.

"It's okay man," Kensuke replies after my soft apologies as the murmuring calms down and people remember they're at an art show, not a prizefight. "He swung first."

"Yes. He did." I rub at the elbow. Yuki approaches with Kazu on her arm, bearing a disapproving frown. I find her gaze and put on my best chaste look.

"I know, I know, violence is not the answer…"

"Well as long as you know…" she intones, uncrossing her arms and pecking me on the cheek once.

Touji nudges me in the side. "That went pretty well, huh?" he says.

Hikari's paled face beside him, drained of all its blood and staring at me as if I have a tentacle growing out of my forehead seems to disagree.

"Yeah, not as bad as it could have been." I grin.


A/N: Quick update :D I don't have much to say about this one except that I hope I've kicked off the third arc in an exciting and enjoyable way. This chapter really could have been pure fun but I felt like I had to temper it with some real serious contemplation from Shinji. I mean he's not mentally invincible or anything. Iyori is a pain of guilt that will stay with him through a lot of the story I expect. Also, gotta love Asuka. When I originally wrote that scene, I kept trying to come up with some interjection for Shinji but everything I came up with got turned around on him by Asuka. I think he may have taken the only serious course of action that could possibly lead to victory on his part there. Heheh. Anyways, I hope Beck gives you the right idea of the tone I'm aiming for over these next five chaps. Looking forward to your patient and thoughtful reviews as always. Much love.