Chapter 15: Sacrifices.
Death by overwork is a surprisingly common feat in modern society in spite of the general improvements to welfare over the 21st century.
Dealing with Burnout related stress still makes up a large part of psychologist's salaries.
And it is shown that simple stress alone can reduce the average of a student's grade by as much as twenty percent.
On another note. There was a show called Angelo Rules. It was a really fun show with suspenseful plots that kept you on your toes, and yet its also a show that no one really talks about.
It was aired in French Canada but was most popular in Germany, the same way as Evangelion.
The irony is that it was a happy comedy show, yet the main character (Angelo) was also very disliked by his family and his school the same way as Shinji and branded as a pariah. He was always being forced by his family, his school and everyone he knew to clean up after their messes.
The one reason he wasn't as depressed as Shinji is because he had his friends to back him up.
Just goes to show you that even happier shows have butt monkeys in them. A kind main character treated so poorly you wonder why they don't just leave.
Naoko POV
Reconfirming loaction...
Location confirmed.
Location name = EVA unit 0. Interior soul chamber.
Bzzz. Dzzz Dssh
Zzazzzzazz
I am error. Error 404: Sanity not found. Please reload sanity.
Error. Error. Error.
Now loading. File 1024. .exe.
Loading 1kbs.
Loading 2kbs.
File loaded successfully. Reading file...
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Subject name = Ritsuko Akagi;
Subject relationship: Daughter. My beloved daughter who deserved none of this crazed stupidity;
Status Alive = true;
Sanity status (only viewable if status alive ==true) = 1/256;
Warning: Subject sanity level dire. If urgent troubleshooting action not taken, extreme danger. Recommended course of action: Maya I. Trusted confidant of subject... Shinji...Rei...
...Buffering...
File corrupted due to system overload...
Terminating connection.
…
Now loading file 1025. .
File loaded succesfully. Reading...
Warning: system power low.
…
When somebody loved me
Everything was beautiful
Every hour we spent together
Lives within my heart
And when she was sad
I was there to dry her tears
And when she was happy.
So was I
When she loved me.
Through the summer and the fall.
We had each other, that was all.
Just she and I together, like it was meant to be.
And when she was lonely,
I was there to comfor her
And I knew that
She loved me.
So, the years went by
I stayed the same
But she began to drift away
I was left alone
Being a scientist isn't easy Ritsuko dear. Earning money was never the easiest of tasks with NERV's general stinginess but when Gendo took it over by storm, it only went from bad to worse.
I don't ask that you forgive your uncaring single parent who worked tooth and nail to raise you as best she could after the loss of your dear father after he died of overwork in one of NERV's experiments gone horribly wrong.
I only humbly beg that you remember.
We got zero compensation for his death. At least you remember that, right?
Losing your father was hard on me too.
But your life didn't end, my beloved daughter. So please... why can't you live it?
Still I waited for the day
When she'd say I will always love you.
Lonely and forgotten.
Never thought she'd look my way
I don't remember when exactly. But I knew that one day when I came home from NERV to check on you, you ordered me out of your room and locked your door.
You never made eye contact with me again since that day and the one time you did, all the light had faded from your very essence.
Was it really too late for us to make amends?
But she smiled at me and held me
Just like she used to do
When she loved me
Like she loved me
But it wasn't me you held onto and smiled at. It was the hollow, empty shell you called "EVA 0".
You held it more lovingly than you had ever held me in the long epoch of time I had lost track off where you basically swore me off for all eternity.
Perhaps you were happy that I was trapped inside an inescapable prison of unending torture and that I was paying the consequence of my bad parenting.
Then why according to Yui's memories that she relayed to me from EVA unit 1, were you crying the hardest out of everyone on the day of my bodiless funeral?
It makes no sense Ritsuko. But whatever your reasons, I cannot blame you.
Because I still love you, even if there is no longer any way for me to express it.
When somebody loved me.
Everything was beautiful
Every hour we spent together
Lives within my heart
When she loved me.
This song. The thought of this song is the one figment of reminiscence able to bring me to a slight shred of lucidity and saneness. At least momentarily.
This was our song. Ritsuko.
The one we always listened to together on those few happy evenings we had together when I could come home earlier from NERV than I expected.
Do you still remember that song?
I know I do.
But I doubt I will for long.
When will Gendo decide I'm no use even in this state to him anymore.
What will he do to me when he decides that?
Will his kind and generous son's sweet and tender heart beg him to relent, even with so strong an aversion for all things Evangelion related and knwoing that at the very best that what remains of me is a broken mess that has just about lost all the vital thoughts and feelings that once made me human.
Does Shinji even care about me? Yui certainly knows he still pines for her despite never knowing his mother since she left him at so young and tender an age.
Something in my soul or what's left of it at least tells me, he does.
He cares very much.
He's the one living soul that still cares about the three failures of mothers who gave their lives to make the Evangelion project possible and give mankind it's final chance at survival.
A chance I as a cynic would say it didn't deserve but which Yui even now still tries desperately to convince me it does knowing how firm I am in my opinion.
How are you doing Maya? Ritsuko's only friend and the only person she maintained any contact with after she started ignoring me.
Are you still alive? What became of you?
Did you follow your ambition to become a famous military leader?
If you're still out there somewhere, just know that I'm grateful beyond what words alone can describe for all the genuine affection you gave to my daughter and being there for her.
Are you still close with her?
If so. I can but beg you to continue. Give to her the love I never could.
Show her the light of friendship.
A chief scientist is taught a lot of things. But they never taught friendship at school, or in university.
It's no excuse for my actions, but it's the hard truth.
Go on you two. Go on and know that I will watch over the two of you eternally.
And Shinji. What I just said applies for you too. You are our last hope.
The last hope...
Shinji POV
"So, what you're saying Angelo essentially is that in two days' time, this so called "mushroom kingdom" where the rest of the rebels are gathered are going to send a stealth jet which flies high enough so that it can't be detected by any of NERV's radars.
And that this is when we'll get picked up and evacuated out of this country"
I re-clarify as Angelo finishes his curt but detailed description of what he calls "his perfect plan for the perfect escape".
His friends pace anxiously around the room, their hands twitching behind their backs uncomfortably while their teeth chatter crazily.
It's clear that they're incredibly impatient for something.
"That's right. Shinji. Pretty good plan isn't it?" Angelo Rules eagerly asks as he sinks back into his sofa with his arms proudly crossed and a prideful twinkle in his right eye.
"It's..." I choke briefly on my words. Years of being the venting point and lightning rod of Asuka and my father had made it difficult for me to praise, whether for myself or others.
This was just part of the mental traumas I would have to recover from.
"It's the greatest plan I've ever heard anyone ever make. Where do you get these amazing ideas?"
"Because Angelo's an amazing genius" Angelo's own waifu, the pink haired Lola Gruneschmitz almost instinctively replies in her faintly Germanic accent which while fainter than Asuka's is nonetheless impossible to miss.
Her simple but very neatly arranged green kimono the complete other side of the colour spectrum to my former roommate's flaming hair belies my immature superstition that all immigrants from the warlike empire of Germania choose to come to Japan for the sole purpose of beating my face in.
If magic mirrors which created complete opposites of those who looked into them were real, Lola was certainly the inverted reflection of Asuka.
Short pale pink twin tailed hair to contrast Asuka's long and flowing large red single tail.
And a soft but excited intonation in her words as a total juxtaposition to Asuka's bored and constantly furious hiss which constantly threatened to become an ear-piercing screech at the slightest of annoyances.
Asuka could be cold and condescending without even trying.
Even the way she talked to me when she wasn't beating me physically made me want to beat myself instead.
It was the reason why half the bruises I had sustained on my battle scared battered form were self-inflicted. Asuka didn't need to lift a finger to begrudge me every last bit of self-esteem that remained after the constant scolding given to me by dad.
Angelo could have been a coal-coloured demon with razor sharp jaws, pointy horns and a gigantic three-pronged trident and tail.
Lola's meticulously selected style of attire and the dulcet tones in her every word would have still convinced me to jump off a one thousand feet cliff at Angelo's suggestion.
It took a forceful pinch to myself until my skin was red to remind myself that I already had the greatest waifu on the planet and that I was not Kirito or Ash Ketchum with their fickle harems that went nowhere.
I certainly wasn't going to spend my life repeating the crimes of my dad when he started his inhumanly domineering affair with poor doctor Akagi.
Once I committed to a relationship, I gave it my undivided attention and absolute devotion. If nothing else, this was the one high point I swore to always hold over dad.
"I love you Rei. Forever and always" I whispered in silence faithfully with my hands firmly clasped. "And I will never let anything happen to you."
Asuka POV
It had barely been a few hours. But I was already going completely insane from lack of Shinji.
How dare he pick that ugly short haired blue bob over the fabulous five time winner of Germany's national beauty contest.
There was being stupid. And then there was being Shinji.
"Shinji." I quietly snarled before erupting into a screech that shook the very cabin of the Evangelion. "WHY DID YOU BETRAY ME!"
I give the display panel a hard smack not caring how it cut my hand.
Shinji had spat on every ounce of hospitable gentleness I had graced upon him since the day of my arrival. He was about to know what the sweet and saintly Asuka Langley Soryu could do when she had good reason to be angry.
I let out a tearless sob. Shinji doesn't deserve my tears after his infidelity.
"If I can't have you as a friend" I declare knowing Shinji is most likely miles away as I reach into a storage compartment.
"I'm going to make you a TROPHY!"
I hold up an emptied out mayonnaise jar with the words "Shinji Ikari- Friend" scrawled onto it in biro.
"I even picked out this nice jar for you" I sympathetically announced as I set the jar in a cupholder where it will be more visible to remind me of the point of this mission.
Then an Japanese classic tea house comes into view, the simple design of the wooden frames holding the structure in place instantaneously reigniting the flames of my rage.
"All your base are belong to us" I roar as I kick it to shreds with my Evangelion and give one final stomp on the rubble to ensure everything has been firmly ground up.
Disappointing that the tea house owner wasn't in and would be free to keep purveying his unneeded and disgusting culinary wares elsewhere. But I could only do what I could do.
Ahead of me is a car factory. Seemingly harmless except for the fact it was advertising Toyotas and Nissan's and not Citron's or Mercedes on its sign on the roof.
Time to mobilize. Time to exterminate
"YOU UTTER FOOL! GERMAN ENGINEERING IS THE WORLD'S BEST!" I valiantly bawl as I sent my Evangelion's jaws to crush the atrocious rooftop before sending a deadly volley of shrapnel in the form of a hellish missile volley to crush the unneeded vehicles under the weight of the collapsing building.
You can run but you can't hide Shinji.
My new and improved top of the range has a special heat seeking device designed specially to find other EVA pilots whose different metabolism from normal humans as a result of their links with their EVA's make them very detectable with this new technology.
I should have been given this new EVA long ago.
Shame my extraordinary skill had to be wasted till now.
Oh mother. If you only lived to see me in all my glory right now. You'd be truly in awe of my greatness.
Kyoko POV
Nein Asuka. Nein. Nein. Nein.
Da leigst du leider falsche.
You cannot do this Asuka. The age of war is over. It ended long ago. It's been over since 1945 when Germany and Japan got an unconditional surrender from the entire rest of the losing countries.
War isn't meant to keep going on forever and ever. It was that pointless war that weakened the Earth enough to make it an easy invasion target for the Angels from outer space.
There was already a world war before world war 2. Humanity has made the same mistake twice now and it's going to do it again.
Naoko Akagi had it truly right. History repeats and war never changes.
Thank goodness there aren't people in those buildings. But how many livelihoods you must have ruined already Asuka.
I don't know what to say.
I'm amazed.
Amazed that you still haven't grown out of your reckless streak that you've had since kindergarten in spite of my best attempts to make your childhood as luxurious as I could.
School doesn't teach friendship. Says Naoko sadly.
It also doesn't teach the virtues of nonviolence, patience and mercy. Adds Kyoko tragically.
Please help us so that our sacrifices were not for nothing. Pleads Yui sincerely.
No POV
"Yo Shinji. Get on the dinosaur" - Cave chieftan Gendo. Stone age. Roughly 40,000bc.
"Yo Shinji. Get on your warhorse" - Ruler of Ancient Greece. King Gendo. 3000 bc
"Yo Shinji. Get into your segmented armour and get your gladius" - Roman Centurion Gendo. 131 ad.
"Yo Shinji. Get into your Samurai armour and get your Katana" - Shogun Gendo. Feudal Japan year 1121.
"Yo Shinji. Get into the tank" Field Marshall Gendo. WW2. 1940.
"Yo Shinji. Get into the robot" Modern day. Commander Ikari.
"Yo Shinji. Get into the Interstellar armoured combat suit." Darth Gendo. Year 5126. Outer space.
Rei POV
uno = one
dos = two
tres= three
arctic = an extremely freezing block of ice found in the northmost part of the Earth
zap = to electrocute, often rapidly, suddenly and painfully with strong electricity.
molten = Extremely hot and badly damaged by the heat.
"There is just one small favour we ask of you in return." Angelo excitedly states causing my smile to twitch a little. Perhaps they really were just glorified mercenaries after all and were only in it for the money.
And knowing what I knew from my Animes, when you couldn't come up with money to pay bloodthirsty cheapskates...
The results were never pleasant.
"Um. What is it?" I asked looking to Mari "Zapdos" for help only for her to return my look with complete calmness. Was this the point where she switched sides and had me and Shinji killed.
I raised my fists as I adopted an almighty fighting stance. They wouldn't take us alive.
Surprisingly Angelo was not intimidated by this gesture in the slightest as he reached onto a nearby table to pick from a stack what looked to be a thick book of some kind.
His friends did likewise.
I was still poised to strike when they returned, revealing the books to be no ordinary books but rather Manga comics illustrated with me, Shinji, Mari and sadly Asuka on their covers.
Their titles read "Evangelion. The illustrated experience" and a bunch of foreign language gibberish I didn't understand with the exception that Mari's name in both Kanji and what I assumed to be their language had already been neatly written on each cover.
"Please. Sign our comic books. You and Shinji both. It would mean a lot to us." Angelo humbly requested as he and his friends bowed in turn before offering me a pen.
I took one look at Shinji's gaping mouth as he tried and failed to vocalize his sheer bliss at the thought of so much fame and attention that he never knew about till now.
He said nothing, but words were unnecessary.
These rebels that Mari had led us to were not fighting to take power from NERV and SEELE the way most rebels would. They cared nothing about power and dominance.
They were not here for money. Not even adventure or a cheap thrill.
They were here for us. The three of us pilots. To help us in the way we chose to be helped.
To follow us to our final destination wherever it was and to be with us when the stars turned cold and the abyss of death loomed near.
All doubts and worries dissipated from my now completely calm mind as I gratefully took the pen and neatly wrote down my name on the front cover of each and every one of their comics before passing the writing utensil for Shinji to do likewise.
My surprise would only grow when Angelo steered us following our first act as celebrities to the massive stack of boxes he explained were gifts he'd taken great risks to smuggle to us in honour of this grand celebration.
The first and smallest purple box which I had to tear off a beautifully white tied ribbon to open, contained action figures. Intricately carved plastic figurines of me, Shinji, Mari, Asuka and even the late Kaworu whose loss Shinji never truly recovered from.
Articuno (formerly known as "the first child) politely turned to Zapdos and Moltres for their approval before tossing the Asuka figurine into a nearby conveniently placed trash can.
The second slightly larger white gift box, had shirts.
Trademark design custom made shirts. A blue one with a drawing of me and my name, a white one with Shinji and his name, and a light brown one with Mari. Since these came separately and not in a collection, there was thankfully no Asuka to ruin the sensational wave of dopamine rushing through my veins as I immediately decided to change clothes not caring that there were other people around me since each one of them was completely trustworthy and one was my declared husband.
I'd open the rest later, I announced as my stomach growled loudly and uncomfortably signalling that it was time for a meal.
Shinji agreed as he concurred that he too had not eaten the entire day having been called to his father's presence first thing in the morning to be chewed out and given extra chores to do.
The spectacular feast Angelo and his friends had already pre-made and kept warm under a heat lamp did not dissappoint.
Krabby patties, kelp fries and oyster skins marinated in a delightful layer of tartar sauce.
And girl scout cookies for desert (Lola and Candy announced that they joined scouts specifically for this one purpose).
We ate in silence, having said all that needed to be said so that we could have this meal in peace.
Before deciding it was time to get some sleep in the bedroom upstairs (NERV's structures tended to be very comfortable even if they were only meant for simple purposes such as storing supplies), I took a krabby patty with me.
I slipped it carefully under the pillow of the bed I was assigned and set a nearby alarm to 3am.
This had been the best day ever and there was just thing it needed to make it truly perfect.
Once again. Extra special thanks to Fictionelement777, NeoWarkid4, An enemy of the state, ThehiddenLettuce, Soma35, KySocceRref, Brother Bov, Ascandas and all the other unnamed guests for your kind reviews.
Every review helps me out immensely and brings tears of joy to my eyes.
You are all awesome people and you all really make me proud to be a writer on this site.
Please drop a review if you liked this chapter and I will see you all next time.
Thanks so much for reading and bye.
Also fun fact: Rei's voice actor in Rebuild of Evangelion also did Juliet for Romeo x Juliet and Juvia Lockhart in Fairy tail. And Natsuki from Summer wars.
So its not her first time in a romantic relationship.