Chapter 21: A sweater of tears.
There exists a certain strategy game called Age of war. You begin in the stone age and can evolve through the medieval, Renaissance, Modern and eventually the future age. The goal is to destroy the enemy base and leave yours standing.
But in fact, you do not secure victory when you can buy enough advanced units.
Once you reach the future age and can save up enough to buy four of the most advanced defence turrets possible (Ion Rays). You have basically won.
No matter what the enemy tries to send at you, they will be destroyed before they can even touch your base. You can even leave the computer and you will be fine. Your people will stand forever protected from your enemy and they can happily live the rest of their lives in peace.
Moral: You don't necessarily need a strong attack when you have enough defence.
Rei POV
Somehow, a single good night's sleep and a hearty well prepared breakfast did wonders for my malnourished and emaciated body.
My senses were sharper. My grip was firmer. My sight was clearer.
But above all else as the furious battle raged on and I took one look at the determined Shinji as he stood firm and tall letting loose a storm of lead from his oversized minigun which most dedicated body builders would have found heavy, my will to crush all those who had stepped on me all my life as if I was an object and not a person was stronger than ever.
My Angel reflexes seemed to guide my aim as I let off burst after burst of ammunition into the slowly advancing squadrons below.
Not a single shot seemed to miss its mark and I seemed to move almost through pure autonomous instinct rather than any conscious thought.
I barely had to think a single thought between aim, shoot and reload when I had used up all thirty magazines in the clip of the assault rifle.
I wondered if my creator intended for me at one point to be a killing machine meant to be proficient at other forms of murder besides kicking down Angels in an Evangelion.
The thought chilled me to the bone.
No wonder the good blonde doctor feared me so much.
I'd have felt the exact same in her shoes and did not blame her one bit.
At least some of my programmed destructive capabilities could now be used for good now that I had seen through my creator's manipulative ruse.
As my next clip thudded dead on into the fuel cell of a twelve-tonne tank blowing it apart from inside out in a spectacular detonation, I realized that I had become so much more than just a mere human or Angel.
Angel Rei?
Shinji spared a grim glance of complete confidence in my astounding aim to win the day as he awaited the few seconds before his minigun barrels spun fast enough to unload his next round.
No. I told myself with a curt but prideful grin. Battle Angel Rei
The soldier. The super soldier. Shinji kun's super soldier.
The forest below is already beginning to burn up in an incinerating sheet of flame as Lola lets off flaming arrow after arrow.
A few lobbed Molotov's out the window spread the plume of fiery death almost ubiquitously among the enemy ranks. She screamed out German profanities and roared out liturgy after liturgy devoted to her late ancestor Madoka all of which I could not understand a word of. She frowned in regret knowing she'd already broken one of fight club...er pardon me, team Fortress 3's rules and she'd pay a heavy price for it later.
The second coming of the hunger games was really here. This pink haired German was a real pyromaniac and I loved her for it.
Angelo and Candy had slipped out the back to conduct their attacks from behind the enemy lines.
I could just about hear above the fires and gunshots the thudding of Angelo's steel bat into unshielded skulls and the stabbing of Candy's butterfly knife into unprotected backsides.
When I thought we could not gain any further of an advantage despite our limited numbers, a ginormous missile silo half the height of the storehouse rose from a metal hatch in the courtyard.
Its entire payload is unleashed to the rhythmic taps of Sherwood's fingers to his computer as the three sentry guns I had seen on the rooftop which I thought were just for show with their decayed appearances quickly rev into action spraying yet another stream of pointed metal to contribute to our already breathtaking wave of firepower.
The three hundred Spartans at the battle of three hundred had nothing on our group of eight mentally ill and neglected orphaned children.
This day would forever go down in history as the bane of NERV's existence in which it was finally forced to reassess its tactical decisions and military budget for the first time since its funding.
Asuka has remained fairly passive during this entire fight. She must not be taking us seriously.
Let her. The less seriously she takes us, the better.
I never thought I'd hear myself saying that.
Maybe that was what made Shinji so great at pulling out the unexpected victories like only he knew how. Have more than you show. Say less than you know.
Let the Angels laugh all they like. They wouldn't be able to after he lopped off their head.
When I thought that the tides of battle could not have turned anymore in our favour, green fog swept across the landscape outside.
The few gunmen and artillerists who had yet to perish, brought up strong wine and cigarette ash mixed with vomit and blood following a light breath of the mysterious substance. The way they bled and spewed proved a perfect testament to the toxicity of the unknown chemical that had corrupted their lungs.
There was just one scientist in Japan if not the face of the Earth with such uncanny skill to pull of this trick.
"I thank you doctor" I sincerely murmur inwardly with a great strain and difficulty.
"I guess you really are on our side after all. Perhaps not all grownups are evil."
I uncontrollably give myself a solid slap to my right temple before anyone can stop me.
"Again. My sincerest condolences for what happened to your mother."
Ritsuko POV
"The deadly neurotoxin" I droned out in the robotic and emotionless nasal monotone I could muster. Which as an introverted nerdy shut-in was very, very robotic sounding indeed.
It was the one offhand comment I could think to make to ease the pangs of guilt I felt at being forced to take away so many lives defying so much of the Hippocratic oaths I'd sworn the day I joined the scientific community of medical research.
By itself, the neurotoxin capsules provided to each operative for special operations was not very powerful. Its purpose was to cause mild discomfort for the sake of facillitating interrogations in the way tear gas and pepper spray that the now non-existent national police force once used.
A slight tweaking of the chemical composition with certain other harmless looking medicinal equipment also salvaged from the standard issue med kit including among others some painkillers, amplified the effect tenfold.
Yui and I were probably the few properly focused students who did not miss that day in chemistry class.
A great shame that Gendo was the first to benefit from our hard work however. The darned liar.
"Don't try this at home, Sniper." I warn seriously to Maya as she snipes a rocket artillery operator down before he can fire a huge doomsday rocket that would have brought down the entire stronghold Shinji and Rei are no doubt taking shelter within.
"Of course not. Medic. I've been in NERV long enough to know to leave chemistry to the chemists."
Asuka POV
What
The
F
My brilliantly equipped regiment with the greatest equipment NERV could spare being unceremoniously smashed like bugs by a couple of idiotic brats ungrateful of everything I've done for them.
Why is it that whenever I receive backup of any kind in my duties it always has to come from incompetent spastics who can't do jack.
Wait. Is that who I think it is? I hadn't been paying much attention thinking the mighty NERV legion would decimate Shinji and his imbecile gang without me needing to tire myself for once.
No. It can't be. She left kindergarten after I thoroughly intimated her and showed her who was top dog around the playroom. It cannot be.
But there it is.
Her pink hair. Her bright green kimono matched to Japan's national authenticity to a tee.
The way she holds herself so high despite being caught in the midst of a deathmatch where my forces have no intention of sparing her even if she surrenders without a fight.
How she holds that bow and handles those arrows which such optimistic energy in each movement.
"I see you Lola." I furiously growl into the loudspeaker as I finally work up the energy to begin to clutch the controls enough to shift my Evangelion the slightest step forward.
"You haven't learnt your lesson have you to stay out of my way? You still didn't listen when I told you that pink hair and green clothes do not go together in the rules of fashion and that you should copy me instead. Don't try to hide."
I half expect for her to try and ignore me as she continues stupidly launching her incredibly dumb looking arrows into the fray. I knew how easy it had been for me to scare her into complete submission.
How moronic. Bringing a medieval bow to a gunfight. They were incendiaries but still.
But with how useless NERV's military had proven themselves again, she wasn't entirely to blame.
NERV didn't have much of an air force since it demilitarized so much of itself to fund the Evangelions. The planes and jets they did have been long put into storage and had taken too long to ready for them to be here until a couple more hours.
They wouldn't have been much use in a dense forest like this anyway.
But instead, all logic is defined as she not only throws down her bow and throws up her hands, but steps away from the window she had been using as a firing point and ascends to the rooftop a floor above.
Her hands are still up as she steps from the doorway with a complete look of sincere weakness.
At the same time, Shinji and his gang all of whom are no older than himself follow her example and grudgingly cease fire though they keep their weapons in hand.
Just as well since the last man of my squadron had fallen in the now burning forest which mysteriously was now also covered by a green mist.
She looks upward straight at me in my high perch in the Evangelion to let me see her soiled face full of tears. It reminds me the first time she tried to prove her affection for me in spite of her single mother's poverty by gifting me a stitched striped sweater.
Made of eyelashes which that day had been almost completely cut away leaving several bloody marks. Her disgusting pink eyelashes painted over with red stripes and a message that read "Ich (heart symbol) Asuka. Meine BFF".
I had to admit that it felt pretty fluffy and nice in my hand as I quickly tossed it into a nearby trash can causing her to put her hand over her mouth. As well as that the song she had begun to sing for me to compensate for the cheapness of the gift that was all she could afford had quite the catchy jingle.
"I'd like to call this little number. The striped sweater song." The green clad freak had intoned as she broke into passionate melody despite my balled-up fist in her face and my teeth clenched so tightly I felt they'd snap if I clenched any tighter.
The best time to wear a striped sweater
Is all the time
One with a collar
Turtle neck
That's the kind.
CAUSE WHEN YOU'RE WEARING!
THAT One... special...sweater.
Was the last verse she was able to get in with a pained gasp as she was lifted above the ground with just one of my thoroughly reddened hands.
We understood each other perfectly well since then and she never bothered me with another present again even as a few lasting scars near her eyes that I knew were still there but hidden by her regrown lashes remained.
To my great horror, she holds out her hands to catch the salted water from her eyes as they fall. Before I can register what is happening, she shapes her handful of bodily moisture into the exact shape of the turtleneck sweater I had rejected all those years prior and holds it triumphantly up for me to see.
Her words when she eventually deigns to speak are in perfect German though at times stiff from years of disuse.
"Is this any better Asuka? I made this one, with my tears."
She sobs with a sniff as she trembles a little looking down at the lime green kimono she's worn to this confrontation. She knows perfectly well my distaste for all things Japanese and she is clearly ashamed.
Shinji begins to run his fingers through an invisible cello playing the saddest song of the most mournful scale I had ever had the misfortune hearing in "Solitude in E minor". Composed by criminally underrated music maestro composer Squidward Tortellini.
He continues to play as Rei, Mari and the rest of the strangers I cannot be bothered to name bow their heads in shared sincerity.
I look down at her from my perch both physically and spiritually higher than hers as I smile the biggest and most cracked smile I can bring myself to without breaking my lips.
"Take your sweater" I joyfully exclaim "And go to hell with it you worthless urchin."
"Bitte" She pleads with complete sincerity. "Lassen wir nicht kampfen. Es gab keine punkt.
Rei ist fur deine Shinji der BESTE behandlung und sie bist glucklich zusammen."
The choice of the phrases beste behandlung (meaning best treatment) and glucklich zusammen (happy together) to describe Shinji and Rei is what truly blows my top.
How dare you support that emotionless little mute?
"Let us go. Please." She continues to beg holding the sweater of tears as tall as she can. "You are still my beloved friend and I still regard you as such. Your piloting expertise is my eternal envy."
Very poor choice of words Lola. Very poor choice of words.
"Of course, I'll release you. Lola." I softly purr into my speaker causing them all to breathe a sigh of relief as Lola's group all loosen their grip on their weapons ever so slightly.
"I will release you..." I smile again but this time I'm truly at the peak of joyful as I bare my teeth causing the light to fade from everyone's eyes.
"From your life"
A single bionic missile created from the ingestion of raw metal is all it takes to knock the startled hippie from her position on the rooftop.
"I tried to be nice" she manages to stoically cry as she is toppled.
She makes no sound as she falls.
One enemy down. Two to go not including Shinji himself.
The horror in their expressions was too gratifying to pass up for me to just end them all at once.
It's Shinji who shockingly addresses me next.
But not in the squeaky squeak that distinguishes him as the most yellow bellied coward of them all.
He takes a look down and then a look skyward as his entire body seems to inflame before me.
He is shaking head to toe as he gives his right foot a stomp to steady himself.
He is quiet but his voice is firm when he finally overcomes his momentary existential crisis to confront me. If only I could have had this strong and unyielding warrior back in Tokyo 3.
Perhaps you were not completely useless to me after all Lola. Your death actually accomplished something meaningful.
"You had to kill her." He hisses softly in Japanese and dangerously looking me dead in the eyes with his own.
"The girl cries you a sweater of tears and you kill her. How can you live with yourself? I didn't know her well Asuka. But..."
He raises his invocation to a shout almost on a hair trigger.
It pierces the open glass of the window beside him.
"BUT I KNOW SHE NEVER DESERVED ANYTHING LIKE WHAT YOU JUST DID TO HER!"
Before I can come up with another insult for him and his idiocy, he beats me to the punch as he goes on the offensive with a scathing sermon of his own.
Had my idiot suddenly become a sage philosopher? Had he been reading Immanuel Kant and making actual good use of his time? Had Lola's death made him into a sharp- and quick-witted genius that would make a perfect husband to the perfect me?
"Please go on and insult me all you like, my dear roommate, housemate and lover" he invitingly chants. "Go ahead and tell me I'm a failure as a pilot even when I beat every single Angel you and Rei lost against.
Go on and remind me how I never do anything for you even when I fed you, and tidied your room and sat at your bedside when you were sick and rubbed your feet when your feet were sore."
I try once again to retort but he once again shuts me down with a retort of his own.
"I have just one thing to say to you Asuka. One sentence for you, my father, Misato and all my other tormentors who existed only to get as much of a sick kick as they could at seeing my unending agony."
He scowls for a moment in serious reflection and thought. But only for a moment.
"That's rich coming from you. All of you. You tell me every day to grow a spine when just like a spineless three-year-old you take your saltiness with being outperformed by me all on me. I would have thought that you of all people would know that real winners get where they get by learning from their mistakes and endlessly improving but clearly Asuka, you are just a sore loser."
He wasn't done with his tirade.
"Misato criticizes me endlessly for my lack of discipline. Well, you know what. Maybe she ought to discipline YOU. You ought to let her drive you to NERV and back while she's slamming her feet on the gas pedal and spinning the wheel like a child's plaything and see how you like it?
Discipline. Heh. Infants are more disciplined than you and her, Asuka. Because they don't mess with their health and they know how to discipline themselves enough to keep their fists to themselves."
I was wondering whether I should just launch my offensive and get this over with but this monologue was far too entertaining to skip over. Yes Shinji. Let me feel your hatred. Your anger. Your desire to burn all creation to cinders. Show to me how alike we are and how we are one and the same.
"All of you go and on with how I need to let go of my mother and my past. How I need to honour her dying wishes and be a good son. Do you think I'd be staking my sorry hide in this killer robot that could just as easily get me killed as any Angel if it wasn't for my deep respect for all that she gave to make NERV and my father's dreams a reality?"
Angry Shinji was a truly adorable alter ego that I wanted to see more often from now on.
I needed to punch him harder and more frequently this time when he was back with me.
"Do you not realize that my father is the one who refuses to let go of the past?" He pointlessly asks as he incredulously gives me a blank stare. Oh boy. Here comes the finishing sermon of rhetorical questions. I almost want to gun them all down right here and now to skip it but I guess I'll wait and see where it goes. So far this has been interesting.
"Don't you realize that he's the one who never got over my mother? Forget how he throws me his son around like a chew toy, don't you think that there's something suspicious with how addicted to the thought of her passing he is? Something very wrong with how he treats NERV's staff who he claims were all once her good friends? Don't you think something is very off about how poorly he's armed the army supposed to be the last line of defence for the last survivors of humankind?"
Pfft. Whatever. If he did arm his armies better there'd be no purpose for me since I'd not be needed. And I couldn't have that so in a way I was almost glad of his stupidity and apathy toward the rest of NERV that had nothing to do with the Evangelions.
"You've seen for yourself Asuka. Me. Rei. Mari and the four rebels who came here for the very purpose of securing our safe passage completely confounded your efforts to recapture me. Eight immature children should not have been able to beat a thousand well equipped professional natural born killers.
Does it not strike you as odd that it seems almost as if my father wants the Angels to win and us to lose.
Like he's...throwing the game and mankind's survival to them.
Don't tell me you don't see it too Asuka. I know you are cleverer than that."
"He has us to crew the Evangelions and crewing the Evangelions gives me plenty of fame and fortune which I'd otherwise not have. Screw you for being so ungrateful of everything he's done for you and me." I sharply snap back hating the fact I needed to resort to Japanese once again not liking his tone.
"That's not the point Asuka. The Evangelions are not enough defence and they are very risky for us to use. Not to mention how they give me the cold chills each time I have to even go near them."
"Let's also not forget that my mother, yours and Shinji's had to be killed just so that you could have your day in the spotlight for no other reason than to massage your overblown ego."
Another voice which my EVA's hyperactive voice detector picks up as belonging to the blonde scientist who I would listen a word from if paid a million franks comes into hearing range.
I spare a glance back to see her stop a stolen jeep a little distance from my EVA's hulking foot with officer Ibuki Shinji's feminine lookalike riding shotgun.
"Shut up Akagi. No one needs your pointless drivel." I try to hush her.
"No Asuka. You be quiet for a moment and listen to us because we really care about your well being despite your meanness." She continues.
"Your mother Kyoko didn't kill herself. Your father killed her for quick money. He deliberately neglected the two of you knowing that you needed a very unstable temperament to become the pilot for the Evangelion your mother's soul was put into.
He made it look like a suicide and then disappeared so that you'd never link the murder back to him and NERV."
"You're lying." I tried to reason, too shocked to activate the weapons.
Kyoko POV
"Shinji needs our help" Remarks Yui anxiously.
"We're still back in Tokyo 3 so can't reach them. It's up to our old pal Kyoko Asuka's mother." cries Naoko guiltily.
"I have to do something. ANYTHING" Exclaims Kyoko hysterically as she takes in every last bit of this Evangelion's enhanced power systems to power her soul far beyond what it was capable off back in her old Evangelion.
The time has come to end this farce and be a proper parent for my very confused and lost daughter.
"Asuk...aaaa" I faintly stutter as I struggle for a moment to get a proper neural link between us set up.
"Dear...Please...eee. List...eeeen."
"Who are you? How do you know my name and why did you call me dear?" My now grown daughter's much more shrill and impatient voice from when she was a little baby.
The very sound tells me without any further need for probing that she's grown to be a very dangerous psychotic brute whose irritable temper has caused the downfall of many hapless victims who did nothing to deserve it.
I really hoped that I could avert this destiny through giving her endless luxuries with my overwork, but as the old saying tragically went...One often meets his destiny on the path he takes to avoid it.
"Asuka." I manage to relay with a much more stable connection made possible by the improved power cells this EVA possesses and the sheer amount of atomic energy Asuka's wanton destruction of biting apart buildings with the EVA's jaws has bestowed to me.
"You have no idea how important you are. You have only begun to discover your true power."
There isn't much time. I'd love to tell Asuka how much I still love her but the signal is already flickering once more. It takes so much energy for a bodiless soul to express even small phrases so every second counts. I can say what I need to say and no more.
"Join me. Together we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy"
"I'll never join you!" Asuka barks back on a whim thinking most likely that this is some sort of pre-recording put into the Evangelion or that I am but the spirit of the war machine that is tired of being worked so hard to cause so much damage.
"If you only knew the power of the Evangelion. It's true power only granted through the taking of a human life. The creation of a horcrux and the splitting of your soul through the tragedy of my passing"
I reply as patiently as possible despite the rapidly ticking clock that will soon tear me apart from Asuka once again after finally being able to hear her voice after so long. Oh cruel fate.
"Gendo Ikari never told you what happened to your mother"
"He told me enough. He told me you killed her." I hear Asuka grating her teeth impulsively as I feel rather than hear one of her fists slam a motherboard. Every bit of damage this Evangelion sustains is dealt to me. For the little bit of restraint, she was able to show despite how cruel these years had been to her psyche, I was grateful.
I remember now. Its coming back. The final days in my physical body were spent being experimented on by obsessed bureaucrats and money hungry sycophants as the last bits of my sanity were shattered through cunning manipulation and mental suggestion.
Psychologists were hired to connivingly convince me to give my affection for Asuka to a doll.
They wanted her to go mad with me.
They performed these operations right beside EVA unit 2 which was where my soul would soon go.
Asuka must have seen this and mistaken it as being the cause of my murder disguised as suicide.
I had gone insane but I would never stoop so low to let my reason for living be orphaned.
Did you really think so low of me even then Asuka?
"Asuka. My beloved daughter." I cut her off with the calling of her name and relationship to me. A "no" would have worked just fine and wasted less of my rapidly fading energy but nowhere near emotional enough to call her attention that I needed desperately for this final long overdue denouement.
"Asuka...I...am your mother"
Part of the reason why I had so little time to choose my words was that I had chosen to make this link public to every living sapient soul within the perimeter.
This meant that Shinji, Rei, Yui's old aide Mari and even Shinji's half-sister Maya and Naoko's own daughter Ritsuko along with all the other strangers who I took by their relative position to be Shinji's allies could clearly discern every word.
I wanted them to know that I had their best interests in heart as well even if this was too little too late.
It meant I had to use Japanese which made me sound a lot less sincere and heartfelt than I intended but it was the only way everyone would understand.
Ritsuko POV
"See. You stupid fool? Just like I told you." I announce with a flourish at Asuka.
I no longer cared if she stomped me dead within the second.
I was right and she had no choice but to vindicate me this one time.
Asuka POV
What.
What?
WHAT!
What is this garbage? This malarkey? This delusional machine without a human heart that needs to shut itself up before I show it it's place with a few of my lightning kicks.
I thought this would be an improvement from my old Evangelion but not if it's going to babble this wanton nonsense...that's surprisingly causing me to tear up the slightest bit.
I hide my face from my onlookers. I don't need them seeing this completely innappropriate bit of lament which has no reason for its existence other than my old sentimentality for a guardian I knew was long dead and would never come back to life.
It was all NERV's fault. All stupid Shinji's fault since without him I bet it'd have been much easier for me to get my position in time for my mother to see me in all my glory and actually have the energy to give me some praise.
Since Yui bore Shinji as her son. It's her fault too.
"No." I quietly protest sounding more broken than I intended. "That's not true"
The remembrance of how the machine's discomfortingly familiar intonation and pitch and how it called me "dear" and "daughter" makes my next rebuttal come out as a vicious screech that makes the now barren forest vibrate with its loudness.
"THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"
"Search your feelings. You know it to be true"
The inanimate soulless abomination tries to request of me.
"NOOO! NO!" I shout back thinking that if I just stand firm enough to my beliefs, whatever poppycock is lurking within this dumb autonomation with no brain will finally give in and submit to my will once again like it should.
"Asuka." It tries to tell me, seemingly quivering at my sadness and disappointment with it.
"You can destroy the emperor. He has foreseen this. Join me and together we can rule the universe as mother and daughter"
Kyoko POV
(Of course, Shinji will be right hand and Rei will have a cushy and upright position as a possible sort of grand vizier but you will still be in charge Asuka. You will also get a red lightsabre that matches your hair and a grand throne on a grander spaceship but that's beside the point)
"Come with me. It is the only way..."
Our connection is severed prematurely by another one of Asuka's raging kicks to the motherboard which causes a surge of electricity to erupt from an out of place severed wire.
Asuka. No.
"Everyone. Please save my daughter. Pl..eee...se. Saaa...ve...eeee. Her"
I manage to stammer out to those still connected to me including Shinji.
"Thank...you...uuuu. For...everyth...iiing"
"What an unfortunate turn of events." sneers Naoko insultingly.
"It seems Your daughter's no longer your daughter." sighs Yui apologetically.
"Let's just hope my son, his Rei and my old aide Mari are more reasonable."
Withholding information from enemies makes sense. Withholding it from your friends and family who care about you is just stupid and reckless and gets everyone killed.
The biggest decider of who wins a battle is often who is most well informed.
Special thanks to fictionelement777, neoWarkid4, bandiras, An enemy of the state, Fantasian, Kycosoccerref and every other unnamed guest for your kind and generous reviews. Hope you liked this chapter.
You are all great people. Thank you for reading and see you all next time and bye.