The walk through the ruins to the canal and into the camp was tense. They all seemed to expect her to burst into flames or something. She was glad to disappoint them, as the slightest deviation in her behavior would have probably resulted in death.
Coming up to the canal, and the single bridge over it, Asuka was still wondering where that camp was when she began to see tarps, and then people. It was no wonder she hadn't spied them from the ridge; she could barely see them walking up. They had disguised everything brilliantly.
As they stepped over the bridge, a fat man with nasty scars on his face crossed, and sized up Asuka. "Is this what we were waiting for?" he snapped.
"This is her. Took out the armor, too. Teacher'll want to have a word about that," a woman said.
"You're saying this little girl took out the 89 all by her lonesome?"
"She had some help…blue haired pipsqueak. We're still looking for her," one of Asuka's guards said. Scars nodded, walked up to Asuka, and without breaking stride, punched her hard in the stomach.
She whooped, doubling over and collapsing to the ground, actually carried backward by the momentum of the powerful strike. Scars sniffed. "Seems human to me. Being that she is flesh and blood, explain to me why we are short the IFV."
"Uze drove it into a structure, got it stuck. They popped the hatches to try and get at her, and she dropped some grenades in. The steering column, instrument panels…all of it is shot to hell. I mean, we could try to drive it…"
Scar nudged Asuka's head with his toe as she coughed, trying to calm her shuddering diaphragm. "What's the point? We don't have parts, were lucky to get it down here. Those idiots…I told them a hundred times, I'll say it again, you button up, you don't open the hatches for anyone! That's what the foot support is for. And who said anything about driving into buildings?"
"I guess Uze thought…"
"Uze wasn't a thinker. You told Uze what to do, and he would do it. Half you pukes don't realize that…there are people in this outfit who do the thinking. If they tell you to do something, shut up and do it to the letter." He regarded Asuka one last time, and shook his head. "A whole IFV…absa-frigging-ridiculous. Get Cherry Bomb here out of my sight."
"We need a truck to take her to see the Big Man," someone said.
"Whatever. Take Kuzo's truck."
Rough hands grabbed Asuka and hauled. As she was pulled to her feet, she saw that Mohawk was still staring at her. Scars leaned over the smaller man, and asked in a deprecating tone of mock-respect, "So, Tea-Leaves…seeing as we've stopped our convoys and all camp activity for a week waiting for you to net this fish, are we little folk allowed to once again start doing what it is we are supposed to do?" Mohawk gave him a sidelong gaze, and then flicked his fingers in a dismissive gesture. "Oh, thank you," Scars said, bowing low and extending his arms. He turned, and began shouting at a group of men and women staring at the scene. Activity suddenly burst from the seams, and Asuka heard engines revving up. Eight-ton trucks, covered with gray tarps to blend them into the structures around them, were being started and readied.
They had kept them silent this entire time…just because of her? Her guards began to propel her forward. She tried to crane her head around to study Mohawk, or Tea-Leaves as he was called, but her raised arms prevented her from seeing behind. She tried, instead, to take stock of what she saw. Crates, equipment, all the necessary ingredients for running an army. They were all being gathered, assembled, and organized here. Myoji was in the way, probably to the SDF base. She wondered if it might not be better to try and escape now to warn those behind. The Teacher could wait; this looked dangerous.
It was then it registered to her what Scars had said. 'Take Kuzo's truck.' That implied immediacy. She felt a dull panic in her chest, realizing that if she didn't escape now, she would be on her way elsewhere very quickly. She hadn't anticipated that. She was trying to figure what to do when one of the guards said "That one, there."
He pointed to an ordinary and unadorned truck, save for a skull that had been lashed to the hood like a grotesque ornament. Nothing else on the vehicle was done up or tricked out in any way. No war paint, no decals, no little doodads. Just that human skull…somehow that made it worse in Asuka's mind. It emphasized it.
"Oh, don't mind Paz," one of the guards said, circling to the driver's side and patting the skull affectionately. "He watches the road for us, don't you, Paz? Let's me get some sleep when I drive." Evidently, something about that was hysterical, because the driver began giggling on an almost obscene way. No one else did, though, but no one seemed surprised or bothered by it. Asuka couldn't tell if it was deliberately intended to unnerve her, or this was what went for normal behavior around here.
She was lifted into the rear bed, and made to sit next to the driver's cabin. A large man sat roughly on her legs, and laid his rifle on his lap with the barrel pointed at her. Tea-Leaves sat next to them, reclining against the sidewall and crossing his arms. She swallowed, as the truck started, and said as casually as she could, "So, where's the Teacher?"
"Shut up," a woman said, hopping in the back of the flatbed as the truck began to pull forward.
"Don't be that way, Suki. She's just trying to make small-talk," the truck's passenger said, sticking his head through the rear window.
She glared at him, but seemed to relent. Fixing Asuka with an ugly look, she said, "We're going north, now. Might not make it before dark. Not supposed to drive at night, but you got Tea-Leaves attention." She jerked her chin at the reposing man. "That means you got the Teacher's attention, so the sooner you meet, the better. You'd better hope that your stunt got you respect."
"Careful," the man sitting on Asuka's legs said, "Last person the Teacher respected is hanging over the doorway. Well…parts of him are."
Tea-Leaves smiled, murmured something to himself, and said nothing more.
Asuka actually slept on the drive north, despite the numbness of her arms, and the pain of having someone weighing down her legs. Despite the fear of what waited at the end. She had fitful dreams, of talking skulls and burning cities. She dreamed that the Figment was stitching a collar into her neck, the entire time saying, "Good dogs get treats, bad dogs are put down. Good dogs get treats, bad dogs are put down…" The vehicle slowed, thankfully pulling Asuka bake into wakefulness. Her arms ached, and she shifted groggily.
"Stop," the man on top of her said, giving her a pointed look.
"My arms hurt," she explained.
"Let 'em hurt," he murmured, looking over the truck's roof. Asuka craned her head, and saw that they were in the midst of a cluster of buildings. It looked like it used to be a factory, possibly an auto-assembly plant. There were people everywhere, busy and focused. The sky was turning purple, but it seemed like their work wasn't going to wind down anytime soon. The truck pulled to a stop in front of the larger of the warehouses, and all began exiting the vehicle. Her own guard stepped off of her, pulled her up, and pointed to the edge of the flatbed. Awkwardly, she hopped down, and was pushed towards the massive open doors.
Something was draped over the entrance, and it took her a moment to realize it was a human skin. Before she could ponder the implications of that, she was prodded along into the building. She was being led over a factory floor, now, one that had been converted into a barracks. People watched as she was pushed by, all with a detached curiosity that glazed over the face. Up stairs she went, over a catwalk, to what must have been the overseer's office. It was suspended over the floor, and it's windows had been boarded over. Two massive men stopped the procession.
"Who's this?" one said in a resounding basso voice.
"This is the one that's been giving us headaches, according to Tea-Leaves," one of her escorts said. The man looked at her, and nodded to the other guard. He stuck his head into the office, and said, "Take her in and then stay. When he's done with her, you'll get out of here." They pushed her past the door guards and into the office. It was so dim that she hadn't the time to adjust her vision, and tripped over something. She fell heavily to the floor, and when she tried to get up, more hands grabbed her, forcing her into a kneeling position before retreating. The door closed, and she was in the room, seemingly alone.
She tried to stretch or shift her arms, but she had no luck. She shook her head, looking into the gloom. She could make out a silhouette framed by an orange glow, realized that someone wearing a robe was sitting in front of her. She smelled burning wax, and decided the glow was from a candle. Lights flickered on of their own accord, filling the space with orange light.
"I've been hearing things," a slow and husky voice murmured. It was creaky, muffled, and tired, but very male. "Something about a red-haired foreigner cutting up the faithful. Impressive things. Just had to meet her for myself." Asuka tried to gauge the tone, and shrugged.
"So…" she mumbled. "You're the Teacher."
"That's the rumor," came the wan reply. He said nothing for a moment, seemingly engrossed in whatever was in front of him. "You…have caused some trouble for me. If my right hand is to be believed," the Teacher drawled, "You've killed eighteen people…stopped one of my armored vehicles…stalled the whole advance south, really. That gets some…attention. Gets my eye on it, you know." He stood, still robed…but he was big. Very big. He turned to face her, and she almost scoffed. His face was covered in a wrought iron mask, flat but with a crude carving over it depicting a snarling demon. His eyes glittered in the dark holes of its eyes, malignant and curious.
"It's all a bit theatrical," Asuka murmured.
"The mask? Of course. It's the spectacle of it. You come all this way, and what do you expect to see? Oz, the great and terrible? Hiding behind the curtain?" The masked head shook slowly. "No. You expect to see a monster, something big and fierce. You want to see a troll in his lair, frightening the villagers. It's easier to give people what they want. They respect that."
She studied him, and he studied her back. "Why do they call you the Teacher? Did you pick that for yourself?" Asuka asked.
"It just kind of happened." He made a brushing gesture with his hands. They were massive, and the fingers were square-tipped. "I started talking some sense, you see, and people just sort of…listened. Being seven-foot-tall kind of helped with that. You know the Americans, with George Washington and all that? They said he was always the tallest in the room, so he was bound to be in charge of something."
"Is that what you are? George Washington?" She smirked. "Are we going to sit and talk American history, you and me?"
"We could discuss Turkic history, if you prefer. Or perhaps an assessment of South African platinum production post-Second Impact. Would that please you?" Asuka said nothing, and the Teacher made a slow, almost threatening grasping motion to the east. "It's always important…to see what's going on outside in the world. Beyond the borders. Make sense of these things, what have you, isn't that right, Asuka?"
She felt a thrill when he said her name, but she fought it down. She had been traveling for my months, and Shinji had been talking about her the entire way. It was probable that this man knew who she was. It didn't change the feeling of illness that welled up when he said it, though.
"You should know, foreigner. How was Germany when you left it? Nice and pleasing, I warrant?" That made her more uncomfortable, but he continued on without giving her a moment to reorient. "The point being that if one is to suffer the indignity of existence, one should try and understand it. Simply because this is a flawed state of being is no reason not to better oneself."
There was so much wrong with that statement, that Asuka didn't even know where to begin. "For a cult leader, you're sort of worldly," she murmured. "More like a Bond villain, I should think."
"Just because I have faith…doesn't mean I should be blind to the world."
"And what do you have faith in, exactly?"
"That this…all…a mistake. Easy enough, if you think about it." He had shrugged out of the robes, and Asuka could now see that he was more than tall, that his largeness was not restricted to what he wore. He was massively built, and moved with a distressing ease. Flowed, really. His skin had been marked in tattoos, prayers in Kanji and Romanji script, in a variety of languages. "Human history, all of it, has pointed to this inevitable, black-and-white choice…existence, or destruction. If the Second Impact had not happened, how long do you think we would have had until we eliminated ourselves? Assume that you and all of your fellows successfully destroyed the threat of the Angels, what next?" Asuka stared at him, stunned. Nana…Nana was one thing, guessing that Asuka had been a Pilot. Hearing this man say that was even more unnerving than him knowing her name.
"We had the Evas, the ultimate weapons. But more than that…we had the N2 devices. Non-nuclear explosive devices with a magnitude of a fusion bomb. No radiation. How long before we started to use those? How long before we wiped ourselves off this rock?" He shook his head. He got close to her and leaned over, and she almost gagged on the overpowering scent of incense.
"We were part of a super-organism, in the sea. A single human, a single human being that would survive until the heat death of the universe, maybe even into the birth of the next one.
"And look at this…we returned to what? A world in ruins. Is this how we were meant to live? Scrabbling for the sustenance our individual, meaningless points of so-called life need in order to continue? This is a regression, to have come back to this pitiless world. A devolution. As one whole…we didn't need God to sustain us anymore, we had become God. And now we're lost in the woods again."
It was surreal, listening to him. How did this drive people to kill themselves with bombs, to attack innocent and unarmed people? It didn't fit. What's more, there was hypocrisy to it. He lamented the inevitable destruction of mankind, but he was doing his damnedest to bring it about!
"This…is nonsensical," she grated, "It's absurd! You talk about saving humanity, but you're responsible for hundreds of deaths! Why not kill yourself, then? Why this whole mission to the masses?"
"The mission to the masses is the point. People return every day, every year, and it's not stopping. The super-organism will die…there won't be the critical mass needed to sustain it. And still…more leave it, lulled by the siren song of individuality. A false beacon. It's not enough to simply put oneself back into the Sea. All of it. All of it has to be torn down, returned to ash. The gate has already been opened, the only direction we have left to go…is the Sea. That's all."
"You're assuming that. What happens if you're wrong?"
"If I'm wrong, I'm wrong." It was a frank answer, and something about it scared her. "I've never let a little thing like that stop me, before. Events are proceeding at pace as it is. This will all be finished in a half a year at the most."
"You have an endgame, then," Asuka said.
"Of course, but you don't need to know about that. It's irrelevant to your position in the world. The only thing that matters to you is where you go when you leave this room." One massive hand reached out and cupped Asuka's face. She resisted the urge to pull away from it. It was like the Figment, attempting to caress her cheek. A friendly, loving gesture that seemed…threatening.
"I'm willing to overlook our initial meetings in order to offer you a position in my host. To lead us south, and finish this work. When I say it will be done soon, I'm not bragging and you know that. There are things at work, things that will be done that will tip this whole play to my designs. You have the choice of assisting it…or impeding it, and failing anyways. What's your choice?"
Asuka swallowed, and kept her mouth shut. She had nothing to say. The Teacher snuffled, nodded, and stood. He whistled behind his mask, and Asuka heard the door open. Three guards entered the room.
"Where to, Teacher?" one of the newcomers said.
"The hole," he said. "She's been given a choice, and she needs to think about it. I want her to sit alone for a good long spell…She might be a coworker in the future, though, so be nice."
"If she's says no, Teacher?" one of them asked.
He shrugged. "She has a brilliant shade of red, does she not? A scalp for the post, probably." He nodded. "Yes. Let her think about it, though. She's a smart girl…I'm sure she'll come around." He waved them away. Hands came under her arms, and she was dragged from the presence.
The hole, appropriately, was the lowest point underneath the factory warehouse. No natural light pierced down here, and no artificial light for that matter, save for loosely connected wires of strung bulbs glowing faintly. The trip to the hole became surreal, and dizzying, as darkness seemed to swallow her and her guards, retreating only to vomit them back into dim awareness once more. They pushed into a room, at the back of which was what appeared to be a former utility closet, with an iron gate welded onto the door frame and reinforced. A single, bright bulb glimmered in the room, and they pushed her in, not removing the restraints. The gate locked, and they left, closing the door behind them. She had enough time to view her small space before the bulb flickered, and went out. She was now alone in the dark, and she was afraid.
The dark had always frightened her, and this was beyond black. It seemed an inky and visible presence, that clawed at her. She struggled and squirmed with the tape, focusing on that, trying to take her mind off of terror of being alone, being forgotten, being dead while alive, dead at the bottom of the world, dead dead dead…
She couldn't free her arms. She began to panic, and instead took to kicking the gate, hoping she could kick it loose. It too sturdy.
Trembling, she slid to the ground, and closed her eyes to the black. She wanted Rei. She wanted Rei very badly. If she had taken a chance earlier, she wouldn't be here. She and Rei would still be cutting north. Going to find Shinji, and to hell with this madness.
Shinji. She needed Shinji. She needed him now. She trembled herself into a half-sleep, his name still in her mind.
The light-bulb was dim, but after the long darkness, it was blinding. Asuka squirmed up, blinking it away as her eyes slowly and painfully adjusted. She heard chewing, and was surprised to see a chair had been placed in the center of the room. Tea-Leaves was there, eating a piece of roasted chicken with his fingers. For a moment, she couldn't tell if she was dreaming or awake, but she hadn't dreamed as she slept. So, she had to be awake.
"Is Tea-Leaves really your name?" she mumbled irritably. He sucked grease off of his thumb, regarding her.
"Does it matter?" he asked. She almost gasped, surprised by his newfound voice. He spoke in frank, tenor tone, one that drawled but gave the hint of an educated dialect. It was a voice that seemed suited to a businessman or banker. Seeing it come out of the murderous looking fellow was disconcerting. Asuka worked herself into a sitting position, feeling dizzy in the disorienting light. She had no idea how long she had been down here, but she suspected it had only been a few days, maybe not even that long. It could have been a few hours. That was the problem with isolation like this. Time became a liquid thing, loose and imperceptible.
"I thought I was supposed to be ignored…are you here to let me out?" Asuka grumbled.
"No, just here to have lunch," he said. "Maybe a word or two. Good talk helps the digestion." She heard him chewing noisily, and the image of a dog rooting through a garbage can came to her. He said nothing else, finishing his chicken and belching quietly.
She blinked, groggy and fuzzy in the light. "So…you're just…down here. Eating. Despite what your boss said…his orders?"
"Yeah, that's our working dynamic. He weaves the mumbo-jumbo, I just do what I do." He took a thoughtful sip from his cup, and added, "It's a beneficial relationship. Like one of those pilot fish that follow sharks. He does the big stuff, I suck up the little fragments."
The way he spoke was strange, and bizarre. He spoke as though he didn't hold much water for what the Teacher said. Was that why he was here? She dared not fan that hope, but pursued the topic out of curiosity. "You don't…you don't believe what the Teacher says?"
"Of course not." He sniffed. "What authority does he have to say it? Did he have a vision, or was he crowned in light by the kami?" Tea-Leaves shook his head. "No, he deduced it. Said this is how it is…that it is how it shall be. And people follow him. I tell you, I wish I had that kind of a draw." She said nothing, and he took that as a sign to continue. "The big fellow…well, he can wax about the apocalypse all he wants. It was a mistake, it wasn't a mistake, who knows? I know that we have plants and animals again, and all of those were supposed to go up, too. If it was a mistake to come back, why did they?"
Asuka said nothing. She had heard Shinji musing about that very point, once, but they were simply happy to have food that could be caught or harvested. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, don't you know. "You have a point," she conceded, though suspicious.
"Of course I do. Unlike the other hired guns around here, I actually think. That's why it's all so amusing to me, when you get down to it. There's nothing worse than seeing a bunch of grown men and women beating their chest and weeping about not being in the drum circle anymore. Absolutely hysterical. Those are the kind of people who want answers so bad, if you told them that broken glass was water, they'd swallow it whole. Take a fellow like the Teacher, right? He comes along, he has answers. He believes his answers, and everyone looks at him and says, 'There's a fellow who can fix this.' And they follow, all the way to the bank.
"The point is," he said, squaring around to her, "All it is, really, is rhetoric in the end. I could care less. What I do like…what I am going for, in all this…is a good, hearty…bloodletting. That's good for me, as an individual." He sniffed again, and sipped once more at the drink next to him. "It's a natural state, you see…to be in combat with that which is around you. At war with nature, for instance. Surviving in that. At war with the Other, the outsider who wants your food, your territory, your women…just doesn't like the fact that your nose turns up and his turns down, that sort of thing. We are built to be in conflict, we humans. This entire…" he belched under his breath, "…Instrumentality thing? What's natural about that? To all be part of one great and glorious kumbaya whole, that's…silly. Ridiculous. We are individuals for a reason: to assert ourselves against other individuals."
"So…why even throw in with him?" Asuka asked, genuinely confused. "Why follow him if you don't believe any of it?"
He seemed surprised she should ask. "Big, bad, and balmy back there is the only game in town for a fellow like me. Sure, I think what he says is a load of crap…but I like the way he says it." He wiped his face. "He's off the rocker, of course, but if he wants to blow things up and reward me for it, hey…a jobs a job. Might as well enjoy it."
"I get the sense a lot of you are in it to 'enjoy it,'" Asuka muttered.
"Maybe, maybe not," Tea-Leaves agreed. "We have plenty of people out there that just want to break stuff. It gives them a purpose, you know? Bossing minions around, planning and executing attacks, or just…torturing the little folk. Whatever rocks your socks, you know?"
Asuka swallowed, and tried a different tack. "So why keep following him? The Teacher? If he wants you all dead in the end anyway, why not…topple him? Take over?" She craned her head and looked at him. "Why don't you do it?"
"You'd think I'd take the Teacher one-on-one? I wouldn't even stab him in the back…too much risk he'd survive. No, no, I know my place in the pack, and he's made that clear. He tolerates me because he needs someone like me, someone to do the dirty work, sniff out the difficult problems…like you, for instance. And you, you've been fun."
"Fun? What makes me 'fun?'" she sniffed.
"Well, you're a killer. You have some people who fight for survival, some people fight because they have to. Maybe you think you do that, but in the end, you fight because you are just…so…good at it. I mean, you are really good. It's like watching poetry in motion when you cut folks up. I'm guessing, you're like me…you like the knife. Firearms are fine and all, but a knife requires talent. It requires a certain form of artistry combined with a willingness to risk your life…to close with and annihilate the opposition and know that they've been defeated."
Asuka thought of the knife…thought of the times she'd killed with it. Thought of the Progressive Knife…she shifted. There was a queasy sensation building in her, and she thought of great, spindly things burning cities. She thought of crows circling her head.
She thought of a barely seen figure in clouds of white.
"You know nothing about me," Asuka murmured.
"I know more about you than you want to admit," Tea-Leaves said, indifferent, "You see, Miss Asuka Langley Soryu, I have seen what happens when you…unleash your inhibitions. You, you're a fighter. You're a nasty, in-the-mud, blood-drinking kind of a fighter, and I like that. Oh, I love it. Gives me the chills, inside. Watching you is like watching art, and the best kind of art is the kind that is done out of love. You love killing as much as I do."
Asuka studied him through half-lidded eyes, and turned away. "You know nothing about me," she said again, quietly.
"You've left a trail of bodies up to here. I know a killer when I see one, little girl, and I see one in you. I see one in you." Asuka turned her gaze back towards him, and felt something inside stir at that. Something like joy…that others called hate. How it frightened her so.
"This conversation is over, little boy," Asuka said. "Go run to bed and leave the grown-ups be."
Tea-Leaves sucked his teeth in thought. "I imagine that we'll have a chance to settle-up. I hope we do. I can't wait to see what happens when you let yourself go around little-old-me…yeah…that'd be something to see." He seemed to go distant, pondering the imagined battle in his mind. Then he smiled, a dull, flat thing that seemed to mock the concept of the expression. He scratched his neck, and stood to leave.
"There's nothing more I have to say to you, so don't bother me anymore," Asuka added quietly. He turned, his features skull-like underneath the bare-bulb of the small room.
"You never had to say anything. I already knew all I needed to. It was when you had an…argument with your arm. That was my education." He left Asuka alone, and the light vanished once again, abandoning the woman to her thoughts and the darkness.
Notes from GobHobblin: The inevitable reveal is always less than what you hope for, and I'm not sure this met up to anyones expectations. In a way, that's not so bad: when you actually find the villain at the end (if indeed he is the end), it usually is underwhelming. Look at the disastrous endings of several very powerful figures in the past decade. The way they go usually highlights what they never were in life. Either way, though, I hope it wasn't a disappointment.
I actually had this image for the Teacher in mind before I saw Dark Knight Rising, and after seeing Bane, I realized there was a lot of similarities - the Teacher, however, was meant to be more of a mix between Grendel, the Lord Humongous, and Lucifer…which as I type that, I realize is pretty much Bane. I didn't adjust it, though, because that is something that's personally scary to me - a large, very intelligent, and charismatic person who is deeply unhinged. Take Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York: part of you thinks he's a really cool guy, but would you want to be in the same room as him? It's the kind of person who can persuade people to do what he wants, but can also frighten and bully others into his direction as well. A lot of his personality I actually drew (surprise, surprise) from the character of Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. This educated, pseudo-mystical, seemingly intelligent man who had decided that being a savage was what the world really needed at that moment.
Tea-Leaves is just fun to write, though.