Revolutionary girl Rei. Adolescence of Rei By Zman123
Chapter 1: I'm the idiot, not Shinji.
Rei's POV
In the ten life-changing seconds after I exited my commander's office following another overly long and drawn out conversation where I could barely hold back a loud yawn with my best efforts to at least attempt to give the impression of respect, my reality was suddenly irrevocably shattered.
Everything I had known, every last one of my perceptions, my established facts, my delusions.
Thrown from the seven storey window I now found myself staring down with morbid fascination, unable to take my eyes away try as I might.
There, in the street below as they walked side to side on the pavement beside a bustling and packed jammed up street, were my two fellow pilots.
The two children whose numbers preceded mine, no doubt to mark my commander Mr Ikari's obvious disdain for them and his inexplicable favouritism for me.
The second child, the much beloved and very popular Asuka Langley Soryu whose shrill and screechy screams which she seemed to like to pull off on a whim at minimal provocation were a daily treat for my by now very painful eardrums.
And the universally loathed and despised third child who no one in NERV or anywhere for that matter seemed to have a single positive to speak of.
And yet for all that, to me and perhaps me alone. He was a hero.
My hero.
His name was Shinji Ikari, the biological son of my commander who preferred that the boy never be discussed while he was within earshot lest his followers wish to incur his fearsome ire and wrath.
And he was clutching his nose as a thin but no less frightening stream of red began to leak onto the asphalt beneath him following a terrifying blow delivered upon him by the red haired screamer whose long winded rants and unprovoked tantrums had long since worn my patience thin for me to concur that any offer of peace and companionship I could make to her would be for naught.
I felt like the world was spinning as I reeled back in shock and terror, hand over mouth as the combination of what felt like every meal I had consumed over the course of my brief but difficult existence manifested as vomit and my very face turned as green as the sewage leaking from a broken sewer drain just down the street.
This would have been shocking enough for me to see on its own but the bereft and hopeless tunnels that my dear friend and secret unrequited lover Shinji's eyes had become when he managed finally after several seconds of trembling to struggle to his feet, seared through my mind, heart and soul where it implanted itself permanently like a burning brand.
My green and queasy face at that horrific moment whose trauma I'd never fully recover from even after years of extensive therapy, morphed into a white that was as pale as the winter snow falling outside as the first days of November began to kick in over our glorious capital of Japan Tokyo 3.
And I swore I could feel my chest being ripped in two as our purple haired Major, Misato stood idly by the duo.
She was laughing as Shinji did his best not to cry. No consideration for his pain. No anger at this insensate act of sadistic cruelty from one EVA pilot to another in these dark times when unity and teamwork was key if the already devastated world was to have any hope of recovery.
I tried to scream. But being the cowardly and useless moron I was, terror took the sound before I made it.
How I wished I could have shouted something right then and there.
Let the one boy who was more of a man in terms of his maturity and responsibility know that someone in this God forsaken planet still gave a damn for his wellbeing as he gave for us. For all of us, even his estranged father and my maker who probably couldn't even spell the word "love" if you asked him to.
(Not that even I as the closest thing he had to an object of affection would dare try that).
And give the unchecked and unchallenged bully who I had always suspected, and who had just now shown her true colours, the chastisement her insufferably evil deeds richly deserved.
Perhaps then I could have slept soundly that night with the knowledge that even as secretly non-human as I was, that I was at least capable of some of the more benevolent human emotions such as compassion and remorse.
But I could say nothing. Not a word, nor a sound as Shinji and Asuka got into the rust-bucket of a vehicle alongside Major Misato where it veered clumsily off onto the road, a miracle that it didn't collide and explode into a ball of flames as it somehow made its way down the road out of my blurry tear filled sights which by now felt inflamed to the point where I swore they were burning.
I rubbed them in desperation with a shaking sleeve but that only made the hurt worse.
It was as the sound of the clearly malfunctioning and barely working engine died away that at a loss for what to do next, I did the unthinkable that even I would never have imagined myself capable of doing.
I raised my hand, balled it to a fist and mimicking Asuka's motions almost to an exact science.
I hit myself in the face hard enough to cause a coal coloured bruise that would not heal for several days even with my enhanced recovery abilities as a part-Angel.
I had only managed to get slightly down the now empty corridors of NERV to head to the elevator that would take me back out to the entrance of the gargantuan establishment so I could head home to rest when the sudden perverted sentiment inexplicably came over me again and this time, I banged my head into the wall, as hard as I was able.
My already failing vision became even whiter and I could barely walk without tripping as I quietly wept to myself as I summoned the elevator with the click of a button and eventually got inside.
The strangest thing however was that as grimacing as the injuries I had inflicted upon myself were, I felt glad.
I felt jubilant that I was hurting myself so badly after failing to prevent my one true companion from suffering the same.
I was an EVA pilot. The most important and high held EVA pilot. The first child whose duty it was to safeguard the entirety of what remained of mankind.
And I couldn't even save one innocent, pure, valiant young hero from his abuse.
The countless times I overheard everyone talking about how useless Shinji was in every sense of the word. They hurt so much more now to see what I saw now with my own eyes.
Shinji, was telling the truth.
It truly wasn't his fault that his performance which had once been the talk of even his disgruntled excuse for a father had been slowly but surely slipping.
Why didn't I listen? I was normally a very good listener mostly because of my inability to communicate properly due to a restrictive life where every movement I made was monitored by a control freak who had the full and unrestrained power to at any moment end my existence and take away every little bit of control I was able to exercise over myself if he so much as caught me stepping one hair out of line.
I spoke hardly a word during the many times I interfaced with the one decent human being with a shred of genuine sympathy for me and yet even then, I wasn't really listening.
No. Scratch that.
Why didn't I direct that awful slap which still hurt my palm even a week after, at Shinji's bully.
Yes. Bully.
I said bully.
Because that was what I now and only now realized the great and honourable child wonder Asuka Langley Soryu hailing from the glorious Germanic motherland responsible for the all important holographic map, to truly be.
I was glad my maker had called me here this day to once again criticize and put down my sub-par performance while warning me against wasting even more of my "valuable time" with his unimportant son while neglecting my "true duty" as the first child and pilot.
For had I not seen what I had, I would have continued to live the most damning of lies that had until this fateful moment made up the web of deceits I had spent the entirety of my miserable existence trapped inside as helpless as the unwitting fly who'd wandered into the spider's parlour.
To call Asuka a common thug would be a generous understatement, for while a common thug might indeed commit petty acts of felony like stealing a little money to enrich themselves, most would never stoop to misdeeds serious enough that they threw the survival of the hapless survivors of the near extinct human race into jeopardy.
This poor generation, forced to relive and repay a heavy price for the sins of their fathers.
Hah. Guess the situation me and Shinji find ourselves in isn't so different to what the rest of the world is going through right now.
That's cold comfort right now to me however as unable to help myself, I deliver another devastating slap to my face in the solitude of the meagre flat my maker allotted me leaving a vibrant red mark which would continue to sting for several days making it difficult for me to even move without a spasm of hurt wrenching across the entirety of my already frail and malnourished body.
The chief of NERV hasn't been very lenient with the across the board salaries at the moment, myself no exception to the new downsizing rule as their merger with the even more grand and mighty enterprise of SEELE draws nearer.
I shudder to think how his treatment of his "beloved darling" wife Yui must have been like when I look at the bowl of cold instant noodles which is the only thing I have to contend myself with as my sustenance (My complex hasn't had electricity for a while now and the amount of water it has left is barely enough for me to quickly wash my face even once every day) side by side with his occasional offhand comment that though I look almost like her, I will never be the real or true her. Whatever that means, though with the maniacal twitch in his usually emotionless stone like face when he said that, I'm not about to ask him.
I may not like myself, but there are some barriers of sadomasochism even I'm not about to cross.
An hour spent in the cramped confines of the terrifying monstrosity known as the EVA which even I feared as bloodthirsty horrors that I could never in my worst nightmares imagined exposed row upon row of razor fangs as they drooled a disgusting flood of saliva in anticipation of eating me alive, was preferable to even a minute where I was forced to stare what I supposed to be the one emotionless shell as he sat drilling into my very soul with his empty tunnel like eyes.
The mere thought of my meetings with him, made me want to gag.
And I had the gall to be upset at Shinji.
To demand he heighten his opinion of a hateful monster I would not wish upon my worst enemy if I had one (I like to think that since as a part-Angel I'm incapable of feeling love, I'm also incapable of hatred also).
What was I thinking, I mentally inquired as through the cracked lens of the one mirror I had left in the grimy set of rooms that were all I had to call an abode, a tightly clenched fist especially jagged around its knuckles careened in the direction of my already reddened check and yet another trickle of salty fluid seeped from my usually desert dry crocodile eyes.
I wasn't, I replied furiously to myself as the hard ball of the organic mace of bone, muscle and flesh connected with my skull causing me to shake and shudder as I struggled to stay on my feet.
I had had about as much of a brain in me that day as a bloodthirsty mindless Angel, and even an Angel would have had more thought than me in that it would know not to harm its sworn companion that was its only purpose for living. The only joy in its otherwise pointless and soulless grind of existence.
"Do not question or insult your superiors" was one of the leading rules of conduct in NERV but if that were the case, I had broken even that rule when out of pure thoughtless self-hatred and a bottled up frustration that had been building inside of me finally got the better of my emotions and I had repeated despite my solemn oaths, the terrible mistake in which I finally relinquished the last of my innocence to a tragic spur of the moment fit of impulsiveness.
In which my lack of decorum and inability to rein in my secret hatred for everyone and everything had caused the death of a good and innocent woman and orphaned her once kind and normal daughter whose optimistic smiles and comical jokes were once enough to make even me smile a little on the inside.
As much as I hated living, I would admit that I was beyond grateful to be brought into existence for if I hadn't I would never have met Shinji and experienced all the priceless experiences he had granted me out of his benevolent friendship for me. Like he was the other half of me and I was the other half of him.
And that was how I had repaid my two scientist who were more worthy of the title of "parent" than my creator and chief would ever be.
"You're not an old hag. Dr Akagi. You're not! I'm so sorry. I'M SO SORRY!" I shout out loud, knowing it was too late for apologies now.
I contend myself with yet another slap in the face so that my remaining untainted cheek begins to bloom like a rose as I clench my free hand so hard I feel as thought it will snap as I battle to get myself back in control in any way possible.
I tell myself that if I die now and my creator decides once more to remove my memories and rewire my personality, there might be no one who knows the truth behind their saviour Shinji's plight and less still anyone to help him.
"Calm yourself Rei. Calm yourself. If you die then Shinji will have no one left. If you die then you'll never have a chance to make amends for the completely awful things you've done to him."
I tell myself as in the nick of time, the fist coming towards my forehead unclenches itself just inches away and I manage with a gargantuan effort to take the towel on the broken radiator beside me and to turn on the sink so that it runs just enough icy cold water to completely immerse the old and crinkled rag before running it onto my aching cheeks as I struggle to my bed, the self-inflicted beatdown having completely robbed me of my strength and knowing that I need to build up my strength again for work tomorrow.
As although there have miraculously been no reported sights of any Angel threats for the past fortnight ever since that new British EVA pilot with the brown hair came seemingly out of nowhere to enlist herself among our ranks, the chief of NERV always finds work to keep us busy like cattle.
Not that I have any aversion to the new pilot, even if the others at NERV do find her a little strange with how seemingly eager she is to rush into the throng of battle and how so much less angsty about it all she somehow manages to be about it all than the rest of us.
She's probably the only person in this moment who I could feel comfortable talking to after driving Shinji away.
Something about her makes her my only conversation partner who it doesn't hurt to spill my guts in front of.
The other Nami, I've taken to calling her as a gesture of my affection and our mutual trust we've slowly forged in the little time we've had together.
Mari Makinami and Rei Ayanami.
Two sides of a coin. Two aspects of one persona. Two women whose titles serve as a tribute that even in these bleak times, a small daily dosage of good and enjoyable Anime never did anyone any harm.
I take a brief glance at the wall of posters I managed to buy with my humble allowance before it was docked even further in preparation for NERV's big merger with SEELE.
It's a set of wanted posters showing the Straw hat pirate gang in all their rugged charm, each of them with their own sum of reward money to be claimed in the event that the incompetent cheap oligarchs in the so called "World Government" of the One piece world ever managed to catch them based on the seriousness of their "crimes against humanity".
Their member "Cat Burglar" Nami's bounty for capture was among the lowest of all of them. A pittance compared to the vast reward sums promised for some of her let's say less agreeable accomplices.
Perhaps her kind intent and endearing demeanour is enough to melt even the heart of even the stingiest bureaucrat?
Well I always did find her more reasonable and considerate to her team and those less fortunate than that whiny, inconsiderate sleazeball leader Luffy. Who can't seem to put two and two together to realize that a team was a team or go two seconds without an insult in the direction of one of his loyal crew.
The "R" in his name stands for responsibility for his negligent mistakes which he makes at the expense of his so called friends and shipmates who've assisted in every one of his endeavour.
No R in his name? Well then…
He deserves that sky high bounty number. I certainly wouldn't show him the mercy I'd afford his henpecked friends if I caught him.
Salvaging the last of the little energy I have left, I take from my bedside drawer a picture of me, Shinji and Asuka at the last pilot meeting.
I shed a tear at how at ease Shinji looked standing next to me then, as if he really believed I would be different from the other traitors who've trod him down his entire career of one humiliation after another.
Stifling my sobs, I rip Asuka from the photo with a careful tear, making sure that the section of the picture with Shinji and myself remains firmly intact and with the last of the glue from a nearly used up glue-stick that I bought to stick the posters on the wall in the first place, stick Asuka over Luffy's photo on his massive reward sum wanted poster that all but promised his captor and lawgiver a lifetime's fortune for one with talent and skill enough to apprehend one piece's most wanted fugitive from justice.
I cross his name below out with an almost dried out Biro and with an uncontrollable yawn and half closed eyes, scrawl Asuka's full name in its place.
Then with the final remnants of the ink from the writing utensil which should long have run its course, I also correct the reward money with as many 9's as I can before the pen refuses to cooperate any longer and I drop it to the ground in exhaustion.
With my final vestige of power as sleep begins to flood my senses, I take a step back to admire my crude handiwork. The Wanted poster now read:
Wanted.
Asuka Langley Soryu.
Reward: 99999999999999999
99999999999999999 Berry.
"You won't get away with this, you psycho. Not on my watch." I utter with my last breath as I just barely make it back to the lumpy mattress atop the creaky and barely holding together frame of wood, wishing I could rush right at my newfound target to deliver upon her the hurt proportional several times to that she had forced her devoted admirer to endure since the sad day she set foot in Japan.
But knowing that even if I did, it would only vindicate Shinji's disdain for my apathy which had in many ways been worse than her and Major Misato's abuse. I was certain the purple haired major was not guilt free in this whole affair either for while I had no concrete evidence, I could feel it in my calcium deficient bones which I was certain by now were as splintered as the still creaking wood I now lay over, the terrible noise attempting to sabotage my wholehearted attempt to fall asleep and succeeding in spite of my eye aching, head pounding sleepiness in which I felt I could not move a fibre of my knackered form try as I might.
Shinji loved Asuka. He said so himself. He also hated unnecessary violence. This he also made me realize to the point where he even made me quote after him repeatedly the renowned quote of peacemaker pacifist Mahtma Gandhi "An eye for an eye only makes the world blind" as he nursed his own aching black eye which he promised when I asked was simply an accident that happened when he tripped and fell from a difficult night where he lacked sleep.
I knew even then that my beloved was lying through gritted teeth for he said it on a day where there had not been anywhere close to the slightest Angel threat in close to a week.
Not that Shinji would want to see me now after what I had done to him.
Calling him was out of the question since some time ago, my commander the chief of NERV had confiscated my cellphone saying that it allowed me far too much liberty to waste my time and far too much unsupervised contact with those whom I needed it not along with the fact that it was another "unnecessary expense that needed to be covered in anticipation for the soon to take place downsizing."
Finding a payphone was out of the question also since I had silently witnessed from outside his office, his doing of the same with his own son Shinji, as punishment for "subpar performance below his optimum" as commander Gendo put it.
And calling Asuka and praying that she'd heed my wishes for once and pass her phone to Shinji.
I'd have better luck trying to plead that Angel who almost ate Tokyo 3.
Say what you would about how Asuka loved to throw Shinji around like he was her own personal ragdoll, she did not like anyone else vying for even the slightest bit of his attention as I was fortunate enough to learn when watching from behind a fence on my way past school one day when I was called out early to meet the commander, I saw her grip another girl much smaller than her as her and Shinji were just beginning to share a smile and sparkly eyes together and almost choke her out as he watched on in terror.
Catch 22 didn't begin to describe the sorrowful situation that I was still summarizing and cursing in my mind as sleep finally took me over with me still twitching uncontrollably.
This was going to be the hardest battle I had to fight. The odds were completely stacked against me. Like trying to bet for snake eyes.
My opponent was beloved and revered as the nation's greatest hero and I, loathed and distrusted in almost equal magnitude as the monstrous Angels I and my fellow pilots defended the Earth against as its last stand.
Say one thing about Luffy. He was daring enough to take any risk if the reward was great enough.
And uncaring and aloof to his so called friends ds as he undeniably was, he would not have them dying on him lest he have no crew to call himself captain over.
I couldn't believe I was saying this. But for once in my life I wished some of that idiot's pig-headed recklessness could be given to me. It was one of the reasons he was off the wanted list for now.
"Venture forth Nami-Blue" I told myself as the twitching finally stopped allowing me entry into the somewhat relieving world of dreams. We decided if Mari was going to be one Nami and I the other, she would be Nami-brown and I Nami-Blue.
"Another innocent wronged by the world government needs your aid."
When I thought about it long and hard, NERV really was just another World government really.
An overbearing group of overlords who promised both freebies and freedom to those who would join them but in reality gave neither.
And if one Nami was enough to put such dents in their plans and liberate so many from their wretched grasp, then two Nami's would surely be their end.
The World government's tyranical reign ended here. I had not the faintest clue how considering just how little I had.
But if there was one thing I liked most about the charismatic beauty of my namesake, it was that she always had a plan when the time came which even the insufferable bratty Luffy couldn't screw up.
What an amazingly strong, independent and clever woman saw in her so called "teammate" who caused more trouble than he was worth, I didn't know was my final thought.
Thank you for reading.
Two things really bugged me about the entirety of the Evangelion premise.
One is that neither one of Shinji's main "love interests" (Asuka and Rei) Show much sympathy for Shinji's clear suffering nor much anger at his obvious mistreatment (The closest we get is Evangelion Rebuild 2 when Rei wanted to unite Shinji with his father with a dinner party and even then it feels as if she believes that the fault of their estrangement is more on Shinji's end than on her commander's).
A love interest should never exist for the sake of being a love interest since the point of media is to go through the emotions of others and feel what they feel and giving a character no emotions can feel like lazy writing.
Another thing NERV never seems to realise is that if they treated their pilots better, maybe they would fight better in combat. Since the pilots are the only ones who can fight the Angels and pilot the EVA's, what Asuka is doing by hurting Shinji as much as she does is akin to a soldier blowing up one of his own side's ammunition depots so that his side no longer has any ammunition to fight the war with properly.
In other word's it could be seen as tantamount to a serious war crime considering how no one has any illusions about how dangerous the Angels are. I see a lot of stories where Shinji is asked to change for the better, but very rarely when the other characters realize what they did was wrong too.
An improvement only works if both sides improve. Shinji getting better means nothing if his "friends and family" just sabotage his efforts.
I think the point of Evangelion is that life is not a cartoon. There is no never afraid ideal hero who never gets scared and walks through hell with a smile because that's just not realistic nor practical, not to mention that such a "hero" would probably be messed up and dangerous in other ways like not being able to function in a proper peaceful non war time society without always wanting to pick a fight. Sort of like Rambo.
Also, its sort of difficult to fight effectively when your own army is turning on each other pointlessly when their entire survival and the survival of the entire earth is at sake. And that was probably Gendo's plan from the start. Divide and conquer. The monster.
Any and all reviews welcome. God bless you all.