Chapter 19:
By Any Other Name

What I wouldn't have given to understand the girl staring back at me in the mirror. To understand both of what had come before, that I might understand what the future would hold. I couldn't help but feel that the person I'd become, the two parts that made the whole, was somehow worse than what composed it.

Rei Ikari wouldn't have had the courage, That Other Girl would have had self control. Misato wouldn't have gotten hurt, those other pilots would be alive, and the carrier wouldn't have been shot down. Right?

Maybe.

I frowned and straightened the red necktie that was part of my uniform. My yellow sweater-vest was… a comforting bit of familiarity, and I was glad to be wearing it again. It meant school again, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

At least they didn't know about the blood on my hands, couldn't see it.

I clenched my left hand into a fist and stepped away from the mirror. That wasn't a line of thought I needed to drag myself down yet again. It's not about the past, I'm fighting for the future, right? Those who can fight, securing a future paid for in blood.

So maybe I couldn't force myself down a different line of thought. But then, I wasn't wrong. Every war in human history was paid for with the blood of innocents. This war was to ensure that humanity was more than just history, it was for us to have a future, right?

Anyone who would try to stop that… they were on the wrong side of history.

"Lookin' sharp there kiddo."

I felt a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth and turned around to face Misato. "I try."

She was looking a lot better, the bandages had come off. The scars never would. She still had a cane, and a limp. How many people was I going to get almost killed?

Or kill, for that matter.

"Not going to wear the proper uniform then?"

I looked down at my canary yellow vest. "No, this is… special to me. If they don't like it, they can pilot the giant robot."

"Don't forget you're off the active roster right now, Rei."

"Oh, I couldn't forget that," I muttered back. My fist started to clench at my side.

She frowned, she'd noticed my body language, not that I'd been trying too hard to hide it. "Look, Rei-"

I shook my head and cut her off "I'm leaving, call me if you need me to kill something. I know, I know, I'm not allowed to pilot Evangelion right now, but I think we've established that I don't need one to get the job done, and that's what I'm useful for, right?"

I spun on my heel and stormed out of the apartment, my blood was boiling. This wasn't like me, it wasn't like her either, but I couldn't keep it in. I was irrationally angry, and I couldn't really, really convince myself she was wrong for keeping me out of the entry plug.

But I was hurt, so I wanted to hurt her back.

My right hand hurt, my nails had dug into my palm and drew blood. Was it Evangelion that had made me feel like this? Was it a result of my injuries? The replacement arm? Maybe it was because of whatever it was that made me into… whatever the hell I was now.

And for that matter, to hell with school. It might have been important, once upon a time, but now? What the hell was the point? I had already found my place in life, hadn't I? Point me and pull the trigger.

My shoes clicked against the pavement, I was walking fast, my adrenaline was pumping from my anger, fight or flight short circuited with no real outlet. I didn't have a destination, I wasn't paying attention to the direction, I was just moving, because that's what I could do.

XXX

The sun was beating down on the back of my neck and the humidity was uncomfortably high. The air tasted like, for lack of a better word, plants. By the time I'd calmed down and bothered to pay attention to my surroundings I'd found myself on the outskirts of the city, there were more trees than houses, more grass than sidewalks. It was as though civilization had abruptly ended, deciding that nature could keep this part of the land.

I'd run away, like he would have done. What that other girl had done, and what the me before I was me wanted to do, every day.

It was the first time I'd really gone into nature since I'd been here. It was pleasant, not necessarily calming but it helped to distance myself from my problems, at least for a little while.

But then, there was that part of me that wished, that knew, if Misato hadn't been with me, I'd have pointed the nose east after Alaska and not stopped till the tanks were dry in a misguided effort to resume a life that had never been mine. To reconnect with family and friends that had never been mine in the first place.

I knew they were alive. I could feel that, somehow. Her family, those people who she'd known, they weren't the type to go gentle into that good night.

There wasn't a place for me there, any more than there was a world in which I didn't have to fight. A world in which I truly fit in, or a world in which I got to have the happy lovers ending.

There were two people, really, who'd have fit the requirements for that, for me, and neither was within my grasp… not really.

Who would have thought a chance to start over as a teenager would be such a burden?

I blinked my eyes and was suddenly aware of just how quiet it had become. The cicadas had stopped, no birds chirping, just the sound of the wind in the trees-

Section Two wasn't following me. They were good, but there was always a tell, distant footsteps, muffled voices, something to indicate that I wasn't alone, something to make me feel secure.

And it was gone.

Had I ducked them completely? With the Americans and the Russians both following me, could I really have gotten away from them?

The first blow came from behind and I stumbled forward, the second blow had me face down on the ground in a cloud of dust, then there was a weight against my back, a hand on my head, and something sharp poking me in the neck.

"You're not very skilled outside of the cockpit are you? That's good to know. And here I was hoping you'd been taken out in that last fight, but taken out of active duty is good enough for my purposes," The voice was… familiar, not quite hateful, but dripping with fake sweetness. She was angry.

I winced at the poking in my neck. "So, what, are you just going to kill me then?" I asked. I caught sight of some of the woman's skin, a little darker than my own, something was familiar about it.

"No, I couldn't do that, little Ikari. There's something about you that just draws me to you. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I noticed it right after you killed all my men, right after… hmm, is she your lover I wonder? That Katsuragi," the woman continued. Rose, that's who it was, the woman who never gave me her real name, and seemed to know too much about me.

I spit into the dirt and tried to shake her off of me, until the tip of her knife pressed firmer against my skin, "As if I'd ever tell you. I don't know how you got off that carrier, but you should know that if you kill me, there won't be a place on this earth you can hide. You know that right?"

I felt her shift on me, and then heard her inhaling, smelling me? "Oh no, little Ikari. I have no reason, no need to kill you. Nerv is who I am after, and you're far too interesting for me to kill. I even respect you, you did what you had to do, to save the one you love. Right? I wouldn't do anything differently. No, child, you get to live, as long as you stay out of an Evangelion cockpit."

I felt the knife point pull away from my neck and I turned my head to try to get a look at her face, she shoved my face down into the dirt and I spit again, "You know if you let me go, even if I don't have Evangelion, you know I can still fight you. If you let me live here, you know I'll fight you again."

I felt her lips press into the back of my neck. "Little Ikari, if I kill you now, you won't have to live with what you've done." She laughed, "That doesn't mean I can't hurt you though."

I felt her weight pull off of me for an instant, then I heard a loud crackling sound and every muscle in my body locked up, my lungs started to burn for oxygen I couldn't take in… and then it all went dark.

XXX

I awoke to the sound of rustling leaves and a taste in my mouth not entirely unlike a handful of nine volt batteries mixed with airbag propellant. The back of my neck felt like I'd spent too long in the sun, and with skin like mine that could get a little intense.

She'd had a knife, but instead opted to knock me out with a stun gun. For better or worse, I knew what that felt like. It didn't feel like a trip to the spa.

There was, however, one thing I was absolutely certain of: that bitch was crazy.

The rustling of the leaves grew louder, so I figured it might be time to actually open my eyes and see what all the fuss was about. I cracked my eyes open hesitantly, unsure of, of all things, the light levels. Nothing makes a headache like the one I was becoming increasingly aware of better quite like opening your eyes into direct sunlight.

Not that I'd had to worry, six men were blocking most of the, much dimmer than I'd expected, sunlight. Not suits, and not quite plain clothes. They were dressed in the polo and cargo pants attire that screamed 'I'm military but I'm pretending I'm not' to anyone with eyes.

Two of them were crouched next to me, one of whom had a stick in his hands and looked like he'd been getting ready to poke me with it, the other four standing on perimeter.

I opened my eyes the rest of the way and opened my mouth with an annoyed grunt. "Yeah, I'm not dead. Feel like it though."

"-found her, yes. She's awake." I heard one of the guys standing on perimeter say into his radio. Accent was definitely American. Interesting.

"Could have used you guys a few hours ago..." I muttered under my breath and started to sit up. Stick-guy put his hand behind my back and helped me up, the other Crouching Nameless nodded to Stick, and stood up to walk away.

"You'll be alright. We weren't sure if we should move you, but ah, well you woke up well enough on our own," Stick guy said to me. He sounded American too.

"Is this a kidnapping? You're not Section Two, right?" I asked over the dull ringing in my ears. If I could go a day without getting the shit knocked out of me, I might just die of shock.

"Actually… no. We'll explain the rest of it later. For right now, we're… friends of a friend. It took us a while to track you down- I'll let Becket explain it when we meet up with him, we're extracting… right about now actually."

"Extracting? What the hell's going on?!" I yelled suddenly. I clenched my right hand into a fist, and everything in my soul was telling me to wind up for the knockout. All of that rage from before started boiling up again. Stop treating me like a child.

The other men glanced at me for a moment, but Stick-guy was the only one to actually respond to me. "Look, we'll explain it when we have the time. You're not the only one who had an interesting day today. There was an attack, and the city's being evacuated."

"An attack? An Angel?" I asked, I felt my fist relaxing. I needed medication, I shouldn't be this erratic-

"No… and yes. You'll see. We're leaving." He said, and gestured towards the sky.

I followed his hand and saw a helicopter coming in hot. It was bigger than the Huey I'd ridden on before, and it was flying way too fast to set down, not that there was a clearing big enough. I only had a few seconds to think about it before the helicopter was overhead and had pulled into a high G turn to spill off speed and altitude at the last moment.

The rotor wash nearly knocked me off my feet, they were definitely in a hurry. I couldn't help but wonder what would inspire such recklessness. But then, I was probably about to find out.