Chapter 14: Rei Ayanami is not a doll.

Shinji begun to silently weep as he continued to listen to Mari's story. He had finally found the one he'd spent all his life searching for without realizing he was searching for her.
He had found the one who would connect his past with his present.
The one to remind him that he had done wonderful things in the past which were neither the actions of an idiot nor a brat nor a coward, no matter what Misato and Asuka could say to him.

The blue haired Rei Ayanami sat in an empty room of the NERV laboratory facing the wall.
She was once again experiencing a feeling not typical of the empty shell she was created by Gendo to be, and it was confusing the artificial human in the most perplexing way.

The odd feeling came in two parts, both of them pleasant and unpleasant in their own ways.

The first part was objectively much more comfortable than the second.
For the past few days when she had the rare chances her creator gave her of interfacing with his son Shinji, she had felt a tingle of warmth when she had the admittedly very handsome and adorable boy in her sights.
It made her want to throw down all her sorrows and embrace life to the fullest, but it quickly faded when Shinji was once again called away from her, leaving her feeling drowsy enough to collapse.

Simply hearing his name spoken produced this effect which gave vast quantities of pleasure followed by a deep depression when the brief dopamine surge soon wore off.

The second part came when instead of Shinji, she was forced to stand beside her other fellow pilot Asuka in the elevator, in the briefing room and in the EVA hangar as they were forced to wait side by side as their EVA's activated.

Adrenaline took the place of dopamine when this happened to Rei, causing her to tremble and retch in terrible discomfort. It was if to simply peek at Asuka gave Rei the creeps.
She swore that one time when the elevator was briefly jammed, a balled fist had started to go forward in the split second before the door opened and the two of them were let out.

It had gotten to the extent where she begun closing her eyes and turning away from Asuka every time they were forced to be in contact. The mention of Asuka's name caused the opposite effect as Shinji's.
It made Rei's teeth clench and her hands curl into fists.

One of these feelings was killing her with happiness. The other one was killing her with grief.
These feelings Rei understood well even as a non-human secretly hoping to one day be fully human.

Something inside Rei compelled her to walk towards the mirror beside her. Normally she saw only her own sad reflection of an unwanted abomination that would make Frankenstein's monster seem normal and loved in comparison.
Today she saw something different. The sight that would change her forever.

Staring back at her as if expecting her to look into the glass at that very second, was Shinji in his usual white shirt and all his cute brilliance. His innocent white face and his naïve yet alluring eyes fixed intently upon the flabbergasted Rei who was shaking her head wondering if she had fallen asleep again.

"Come" beckoned the Shinji in the mirror. "Come and find me Rei. We can go against Asuka and my crazed father together."

"You're. You're not real" Rei tried to fearfully protest as the Shinji in the mirror took a fist to the face causing blood to well from it.

"Find me Rei. Find me before Asuka beats me to a bloody pulp and leaves me out as food for the Angels." He pleaded desperately. "Stop running away and do one good thing in your life for a change, Rei."

The reflection faded as Rei gave herself a slap on the arm and her own visage wearing a new determined and eager groan took its place.
"Yes. Shinji. Yes, I will do as you ask. Wait for me just a little longer. This time I'm really coming." The blue haired bob girl pleaded as her uncertain walk soon broke into a confident run as she made a beeline down several flights of stairs.

It was fortunate that her status as the commander's "favourite" allowed her to wander to (almost) any part of any of his buildings unsupervised and unsuspected as a welcome guest. What she was about to do would have been impossible otherwise.

She stopped running upon reaching a grey little door at the very bottom floor of the gargantuan building which had a big yellow sign with the words "Warning. Highly toxic chemicals. Enter only if equipped with adequate protective gear and to be used by senior NERV research personnel only. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED"

A scanner was placed by its side on the wall. A finger scanner.
Which Rei fortunately had the privilege to activate, being a clone of the one solitary woman Gendo Ikari supposedly cared for.
The grey door slid open and Rei ran inside as it shut. She was in a storeroom with metal floors and walls and shelf after shelf stacked full of various beakers and bottles.

An automatic light illuminated the pitch-black space as Rei entered and headed for the very back of the room ignoring the hundreds of concoctions scattered around her.
She stopped when she reached a shelf marked "Prototypes. Not to be used outside of experimental purposes UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.". She nimbly climbed to the top shelf and took a large beaker containing a deep golden liquid.

Being an artificial clone made her extremely agile and light footed.

Checking once more to make sure it was the one she wanted, Rei jumped down to the floor and quickly headed out of the forbidden room, pleased with the spoils she had looted.

She sprinted out of the building with the solution under her clothes.
It was fortunate that the people of NERV had learned better than to try and make conversation with her and mostly left her be as she made her escape.
If she had been paying more attention, she may have however noticed a slight confused smile on the faces of some of the workers, puzzled yet happy that the commander's lifeless little doll was showing a little enthusiasm and excitement today.

She headed out of the lab main door and into the nearby café where she locked herself inside a restroom and took out the bottle whose label read. "Experimental Hair growth formula. To be used sparingly. Note: Due to prototype status, may cause fatal damage to skin and brain instead, DO NOT USE."

After carefully looking over the writing once more to check she had fully understood everything, Rei briefly closed her eyes. "I do this for you, Shinji." She whispered solemnly yet ecstatically.
Then she opened her eyes and poured the entire contents of the beaker onto her head, taking care to let as little of the liquid splash anywhere else as possible.

She screamed in pain as she performed this unorthodox makeover, forcing herself to keep tipping the liquid onto herself ,even as she felt her head throbbing to bursting point and a chunk of flesh on the back of her hand sear apart to reveal her muscles as a drop of the mixture splashed onto it.

It was worse than when poisonous liquid flooded into her EVA, rendering her unconscious during the one time she was nearly killed by a massive Angel. She had Shinji and Shinji alone to thank for her survival. No thanks to Asuka who turned to beat a retreat while demanding she and Shinji keep fighting.

The finally emptied beaker clattered to the ground, shattering to glass shards as Rei dusted herself down as she took a final summarizing view of the final result of Dr Ritsuko's unfinished yet greatest invention.

The plain and short bob which made even Rei herself ashamed was no more. The getup which would made even the most self-hating and style unconscious introvert laugh at her in disgust was gone.
A few minutes ago, Rei Ayanami was on the run from the fashion police for being the antithesis of everything beauty and glamour stood for.

Now the fashion army would come after her for breaking every known boundary of style and grace known to not just mankind, but the heavens themselves.
Rei's new hairstyle stretched all the way to her waist, seemingly as endless as the universe itself.
A single look at her new reflection gave her all the bravery and confidence that untold years spent sucking up to her creator not knowing better didn't.

Now she was ready to go and find her Shinji. And she wasn't just Rei anymore. She was his Rei.

"Er miss. Are you alright in there?" A nervous young waiter with blonde hair asked as he came over to the other side of the door to investigate the ear splitting screams that she had been forced to evoke during the incredibly painful makeover which was necessary for her to having any chance of getting Shinji back after all the atrocities she had committed to him.

"Never better." Was the brash and certain reply he got from the usually silent loner with no conversation experience and even worse self-worth.
The instant the door opened, a pool of blood gushed from the boy's nose causing him to faint almost immediately, love hearts in his eyes.

"K, Kawaii" he managed to stutter with his last breath, a grin of absolute contentment on his face.

The same reaction was soon the fate of every guest in the crowded eatery when they took one glance at the long-haired bluenette gracefully striding past them with her head held high.
A carpet of red fluid covered the until then perfectly polished oak flooring and the cashier at the front of the café quickly turned his back to face the phone on the wall.
With shaking hands and sweaty palms, he dialled 911 as the customers and his fellow staff members fell like dominoes, all of them with love hearts in their still wide open eyes even as they lost consciousness.

He knew that one look however tempting, and he'd join them in the emergency room requiring intensive nose blood transfusion which would cost more money than he made in ten years, that is if the hospital even had enough blood to spare. The first sight of the new Rei Ayanami would be your last.

Ignoring the massive crowd of adulating fans her new appearance was attracting, Rei headed directly for the top floor of the nearby shopping mall.
She still needed more than what she had already done to have any hope of convincing Shinji that she could no longer continue her abominable activities having come to truly love him and everything he stood for.

She would pay for the merchandise with a golden watch that Gendo had given her during one of their deeply unpleasant meetings together which she secretly dreaded despite not knowing why (The tough financial times the country was going through made any item with Gold in them an acceptable form of payment).
Another one of his fake gifts to feign his supposed sympathy for her.
It had fortunately failed to endear Rei to the scheming villain, but the value it provided would be the final tie in the knot that would finally bring two mistreated children together at long last.

An unconscious patient about to be wheeled away in a stretcher to the hospital to be treated for a bleeding nose managed briefly to regain sight for one second to catch sight of the same girl from earlier with the long pale-blue hair, now clad in an expensive matching coloured dress and a cross symbol necklace similar to the one worn by Major Misato. The ultimate symbol of piety and purity.
She carried a heart shaped pink box of chocolates whose price tag read 666 yen. Shinji loved chocolates almost as much as he did ice teas.

His heart could not take it and he soon went into cardiac arrest.

"Too cute" he wheezed in the one final second of his mostly miserable life which had been redeemed only by his final sight.

It was seeing this which finally signalled to Rei that she had done enough to begin looking for Shinji before Asuka found him first.
It was a race in which there could only be one winner. No runner ups and no consolation prize.

She only prayed her change of heart hadn't come too late and that Shinji would have the faintest chance of believing she had really changed before he slammed the door in her face.
The one thing that stood between them now was the geographical barrier that each NERV member's address and contact details were to kept confidential and secret to everyone except the big man they reported to.

Rei was about to hit herself over the head at having no idea to combat this terrible inconvenience, when a familiar blur of red that she would usually have hoped not to have to see came around the corner on the other side of the road.

"What an idiot" Rei heard a familiar mocking voice say as Asuka looked at a beggar on the other side who was still trying to keep his nose covered from his earlier sighting of true beauty.
She ducked behind a pillar as Asuka continued walking straight on seemingly still lost in thought.

Rei waited for her fellow pilot to take a few more steps of a head start forward before cautiously beginning to follow from a distance, taking care never to let her sight off the red haired German.
She had to go back to the place she, Shinji and Major Misato shared sometime and when she eventually did, Rei intended to be there.

Asuka would lead her exactly where she wanted without realizing it.

Rei took careful notes of every landmark and sign they passed. She needed to know exactly where Shinji's home was so that she could get back there next time without a guide.
Fortunately, an artificial clone created with the most advanced technology from the second most technologically advanced laboratory in the known world was gifted with photographic memory and Rei memorized each step as a camera might memorize the photo's it took.

"I am not a doll Asuka. Stop treating me like one." Rei muttered to herself firmly, trying to leave behind the unpleasant memory of a lifetime of hesitation in which Shinji had suffered all the while.
The one person to treat a non-human who wanted to be human, like a human. And now it was his time to be justly rewarded for his lifetime of selflessness at long last.

"I am not your slave, Mr Ikari. Stop treating me like I am."

This was very similar to one of the many books Rei had read in the excess of free time she had to herself being the one the commander worked the least hard.

"Stop pretending you care about Kyon, Haruhi. You don't. You really don't. Nagato does. But not you. Ironic isn't it that Nagato, an android has more humanity than you, an omnipotent being who can destroy entire worlds."

She just had to make this parallel as Asuka led her through the maze of streets which would eventually lead back to the apartment of Shinji.
She wondered what Asuka's reaction would be to the new look that gave half of Tokyo-3 a near fatal nosebleed severe enough to be hospitalized and one man a fatal heart attack.

For once in her life, Rei was treating an activity as an active competition where winning was the only thing. And she was actively competing against Asuka Langley, the top ace who never lost to anyone against anything and despised losing with a fiery passion.

But Rei had a feeling she had already won. There was no way Senpai Shinji wouldn't notice her now. This was merely her victory walk across victory road before the trophy collection ceremony.
For the first time in existence, she would win and Asuka woud lose.

She realized as the dirty edifice of a clearly very worn apartment came into view that Shinji's niceness was what finally gave her the ability to perform the actions outside of her programmed parameters as she was now. What had finally opened her eyes to the traitorous nature of her creator who she now knew never cared about her well being at all.

Now she knew the human title given to the feeling that had been growing stronger inside since she first locked eyes with her Shinji.
It was the feeling of true love.

"Notice me Shinji-kun. Notice me Senpai" Rei prayed, keeping her fingers tightly crossed.

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