Chapter 15: Mari's childhood. Part 3: The beginning of Mari Makinami Illustrious
It is said that when the long-lived creature known as an Elf is born, they are given a name by the parents who birthed them. Upon reaching the Elf equivalent to adulthood, the now mature Elf then chooses another name, this time by themselves for themselves as a symbol of maturity – Dungeons and dragons handbook section concerning playing an Elf.
"You asked me earlier why even though I'm from England, I don't have a more English sounding name". Mari wistfully explained as she turned to stare for a few moments at the tangerine sunset sky of Tokyo-3, a paradise Shinji now knew was only possible by unleashing hell onto every other nation.
Funny how so many supposed utopias in both the animated and the real world only got where they did through distasteful atrocities no sane man would condone if they knew the truth.
It really was the slave trade and the holocaust all over again. History really did repeat itself in the most tragic way possible.
He was interrupted from his pointless train of thought when she turned back to face him with the expression, he least expected in the middle of her bleak life story that she was sharing for the first time in her life.
She was beaming at him as a eager little kid beamed at Superman, like a Greek commoner looking upon the great hero Hercules. The admiration in her wide eyes nearly matched their moistness as she dabbed at a tear trail on her face as she continued the story to a bewildered Shinji whose jaw was dropping further with every word she said.
"That's because, Mari was a name I only took on later".
…
Marie woke to the sound of indecipherable words being spoken in a dialect she had vaguely heard about. The meaning of the words she could make no guess at.
Blinking a few times to snap herself back to the world of the living fully, Marie cautiously dared a slight upward glance to see that she had somehow ended up in the back seat of a car and that the speakers who had roused her were the driver and the front seat passenger who still their backs turned to her.
A seatbelt had been secured onto her and when she felt that her forehead was surprisingly dry, she touched the spot where she had struck a branch to find a carefully applied bandage blocking the wound.
As the last of the blurriness obscuring her sight faded away, Mari could see that the two strangers in front of her both had brown hair just like her, the driver's significantly longer.
The driver was wearing a white lab coat while the passenger an expensive if plain white shirt. Neither of them looked to be like the men in military uniforms who had nearly claimed her life a moment ago. A surge of terrible guilt coursed through her as the dying cry of her stray bullet's victim caused her to whimper fearfully in great sorrow.
She really didn't mean to hurt that man, even if he was one of the bureaucratic killers who left her an orphan. And as strange as it was to pity a monster, she hoped that man didn't have a family of his own or that if he did, they would be fine without him.
Words of the unknown dialect sounded around the cabin as she made that sound, the nervous but relieved tone of voice seemingly belonging to that of a shy young child announcing a cheerful bit of news. The words that replied them were spoken in a much more composed and methodical tone which seemed to give the vibe of a responsible but still young parent gently reassuring her child that all was still right in the world. Marie guessed from the pitch this was a woman's voice.
Marie begun to weep as she continued to listen to a deeply emotional conversation she didn't even understand. The voices reminded her of when her dad was still alive and patting her to sleep even as a thunderstorm thundered outside the paper-thin walls of their cottage.
She had no time to further mull over her awkward situation as the car begun to abruptly slow down before stopping on a hard shoulder of an empty motorway and the figures in the front of the car cabin turned around to reveal the pale Asian faces of a woman and a boy slightly younger than her.
Despite a warmth in their eyes that Marie herself couldn't completely describe, her heart was in her mouth as they looked at her with a friendly mixture of concern and relief. They didn't look like killers at all, but six days spent evading NERV and a bad childhood ruined by the same people, had taken its toll on Marie's usually reasonable nerves.
It was the young woman in the white lab coat who spoke first, her unusually soft voice acting as a stress reliever causing Marie to tremble a little less extremely.
"Don't be scared dear. It's alright. You're among friends now and we're here to help you." The driver said in easily passable, if slightly accented English. It was evident from the intonation that it was not the only foreign language this scholarly looking adult had dabbled in. Marie could admire that.
"Do you speak English?"
Marie shyly nodded, her natural instinct since childhood being to let even those that she was familiar with to speak first.
"Oh, that's good. We found you on the road passed out. It's a good thing my son Shinji saw you as we were going by. I was driving very quickly on the other side of the road, so I nearly didn't notice you until Shinji pointed you out at the last second." The driver calmly explained while the boy "Shinji" gave a curt nod and a mhmm.
He seemed to be cross with himself and apologetic to the girl he had just saved, that his linguistic skills were not as strong as his mother's.
"He looks freaking adorable." Marie could not help but muse to herself despite her lingering doubts about her situation and these strange people who had mysteriously appeared to help her.
Something in her chest stirred when she saw this boy which was something that had never happened when she interacted with any human, not even her dear father. She felt her heart was a cuckoo-clock that could spring out that very instant and as painful as that was, she liked it.
Being a nine-year-old girl who had spent the majority of her childhood buried in a book while cold and starving, she would not discover the reason that the six-year-old boy caused the deep blush on her cheeks until years later.
And when she did, the memories of a day which she would forever describe as the best and worst day of her life would come back as vividly as if it were just yesterday.
The perfect appearance combined with the perfect personality of selflessness. At just six years of age.
"What's your name, dear?" the woman asked curiously.
She fidgeted nervously. As attractive and nonthreatening as she now found the two kawaii Japanese Anime characters who had rescued her from certain death, she was still paranoid from her run from NERV.
"It's okay if you don't want to tell us, dear"
This considerate reply to her silence had the exact opposite of it's intended effect.
"M, Marie." She managed to stammer after several tense seconds of telling herself that it was impolite not to introduce herself to anyone who was not trying to snipe her down with a gun.
"Marie Simon Bishop. The first and only daughter of Martin and Theresa Bishop" The second part of her introduction came out upon seeing the curious look in Shinji's dreamy eyes. It would be a shame to leave this loveable little ball of innocence without even giving him her name and at least some of her basic details for him to remember her by.
"Marie. That's a nice name." The woman kindly commented.
"Yeah. It's the name of a famous scientist in the twentieth century."
"I know. So, Marie, where are your parents? They must be worried sick about you."
Tears begun to form but Marie forced herself to continue. As far as she was concerned, this mother and her son were one hundred and one percent trustworthy.
"My mum died before I was born, because NERV got stingier with its taxes. And dad. Dad died when he tried to make the world a better place with his protests. He was killed by vengeful NERV agents who tried to kill me as well. I was trying to get away from them."
"Please believe me." Marie begged as her eyes begun to scan her rescuers in more detail. "NERV are bad people who…"
She stopped talking when she caught sight of the woman's ID tag which in her initial gratitude of being saved she had ignored.
Written in small but easily legible bold letters at the top of the card taped to the woman's lab coat, were the four letter word Marie had sworn to spend her life fighting.
"What's wrong dear?" The woman asked, instantly noticing the pallor and hysteria coming over her.
"What's the matter?"
"Get away from me." Shouted Marie, completely disregarding that she was saying these hurtful things to her saviour. "You're a NERV agent. Let me out! I don't want anything to do with you. YOU'RE GOING TO TRY AND KILL ME AS WELL!"
She tried to jerk towards the door only to discover that her muscles were still pounding with exhaustion induced cramps and her seatbelt was still on.
It took an apologetic frown from Shinji to bring the brunette back to her rational mind.
Unable to communicate effectively, he resorted to simply looking at her with pleading puppy-dog eyes while pointing at his mother.
"Yes, Marie dear. I'm truly sorry." the woman replied, putting a hand to her head as if to comfort herself as she did so. "I'm truly sorry about what we've done. But I promise, I'm not like what you think. I don't support what we do at all. The entire reason I'm a part of NERV at all, is so I can try and change it for the better. I'm not going to hurt you, Marie. I promise. I just want to help you."
Marie put on a slightly less angry, doubtful groan but still did not seem completely convinced.
"Please believe me Marie. I'm truly sorry about what happened to your parents, but really, I just want to make the world a better place like your daddy did." The adult much older than Marie wept desperately. Adults really did cry after all. The nicer ones at least.
"Please" Shinji uttered, one of the few English words a six-year-old Japanese boy understood. The one word that Marie needed to truly buy everything.
So, a female James Bond then, Marie joked to herself as her expression reverted back to a trusting smile.
"I guess I can trust you, Adult. Your son seems like a good boy and I trust him."
The woman seemed to take a moment to register Marie's affirmation of forgiveness. She continued to look desperately at Marie but say nothing.
"I trust you." Marie repeated. "Thank you for saving my life."
The sheer relief and gratitude in the grown-up's next words made it seem as though she was the one thanking Marie for being saved rather than the other way around.
"Oh thank you. Thank you. I'm so relieved."
She took out a metal flask from the front-seat drink holder and undid the lid.
"Drink some water Marie dear. It will help you get your strength back. The next services station is still a long way away and this should help until then."
She passed the container over to the grateful nine-year old in question who begun to chug it down so quickly her onlookers feared she would choke.
"My name is Yui by the way" the woman added as she restarted the engine and drove the car back onto the still empty motorway after quickly glancing around to see that both Marie and Shinji had their seatbelts on and putting her own on. "Yui Ikari. I'm the vice CEO of NERV as well as its chief scientist."
"Yui Ikari?" Marie asked, having vaguely memorized thanks to her keen memory, a newspaper clipping from some time ago showcasing the head honcho of the despised mega corporation in all his distrustfulness. "So that means…"
"Yes, dear. I'm Gendo Ikari's wife and Shinji here is our beloved son."
Shinji turned his face to her with a shy smile and waved as if to say, "Even despite that, I'm nice."
It took some time spent reflecting on this information in cold silence before the young but scholarly girl asked her next question. The warmth that had been present in Yui and Shinji's eyes since the second this conversation had begun provided her the confidence to finally vocalize her next query.
"Why did you marry such a monster if you yourself are as selfless and well-intentioned as you claim. Can you not see what's happening around us that Gendo is a sadist who speaks only lies?"
A few tense seconds of silence before Yui's reply came out choked with subtle but still noticeable sobs.
"His lies fooled me as well, Marie. I honestly believed he was a nice man when I first met him in University, and he romanced me right in. Oh, what I fool I was then. If I could go back in time and stop us from ever meeting, believe me I would. Now Shinji has to deal with having both an abusive father and a stupid mother who can't do anything to help him see the good in life."
Yui choked back a sob as she finished her sentence causing a sharp needle to pierce into Marie's very soul. She was internally smacking herself for being so quick to misjudge this heroic humanitarian.
"Gendo wasn't always like this. I used to think he wanted to make the world a better place as well. He told me he wanted to fix the world's problems and keep everyone safe from the Angels too. And that's why he built the EVA's. I really didn't know what he was doing. But now that I do, I'm determined to do whatever I can to stop him and save Shinji from him."
Marie was about to ask the obvious question of why she didn't just kill that asshole in his sleep but a single recollection of the anguish contained in the voice of the dying NERV gunman she had been forced to kill in so called "justified self-defence" quickly caused her to slap her own mouth shut.
Of course this saint could never dream of doing such an atrocious act and lowering herself to his level.
What kind of example would that send to her innocent little angel of a son, if she did that?
Instead Marie silently made a vow to herself as the rest of the ride continued in wordless contemplation, that from this day onward she would never view killing and maiming as more than a last resort after every other method had been thoroughly exhausted.
She would sooner shoot herself than put more blood on her already forever tarnished red hands.
The Westerns and Superhero shows got it wrong and so did the history books showcasing the glory of every country's part actions including her own. There was no glory or honour to be gained in killing and warfare.
And even if no judge ever sentenced a murderer to anything, everlasting Guilt was already the worst punishment anyone could be dealt.
A young Briton soldier shooting a young German whose situation was no different from his own was dishonourable in every sense of the word. A friendly talk over a warm fire and a nice meal on the other hand, was where the true honour and glory lay. And this was not something they taught you in school.
They reached the aforementioned service station in less than an hour where the three travellers brought fish, sausage and chips. A remnant of England's old culture which still remained after the impact but would also soon die out as the seas and pastures became more contaminated.
They ate quickly since Yui stated that her husband was a very impatient man who enjoyed doing very cruel things when his schedule was not respected.
They left the charming little diner just as a group of NERV agents with holstered guns came round a far corner.
"So what do I do now, Yui?" Marie asked as they got back into the car and drove away, now fed and energized. "I can't stay here, or they'll kill me."
"I know dear. So what I'm going to do is get you out of the country. I'm going to take you to a place that only I know where you can get your identity changed. They'll change your fingerprints, your face and for good measure, they'll give you a haircut and a different set of clothes. You'll have to make up a new name for yourself when you get there, and it has to be different enough from your name now for no one to guess it's you. Do you understand me?" Yui calmly but firmly and hastily explained as she increased speed.
"I guess so." Was the one thing the soon to disappear Marie could say.
"Once you've done that, I'm going to put you onto the first plane that leaves for Tokyo-3. There's an airport in the same city as well. It may not be ideal, but it's the only country that I know off where at least some of the people still speak English that's far enough from here for them to give up the search on you eventually. Not to mention it's one of the few places in this terrible world which might still have an orphanage and basic life needs. You'll have to go alone, without me or Shinji. So good luck and just follow the instructions."
"Why can't you come with me, Yui?" It wasn't fair. It just wasn't. The first two genuinely nice benefactors she had met since fleeing her home who had shown her so much were leaving so soon.
"Gendo won't allow us to do that Marie. I wish I could come with you, but if Gendo sees me with you, he will not be happy. He's a very jealous man. He already hates me for giving some of my attention to our son. And if I try to run, he'll just find me again. And I don't know what that means he'll do to me or our Shinji. And I"
The tears that had been collecting in Yui's tear glands finally overflowed and broke out in hot and sticky trails down her cheeks, unseen luckily by Marie who could unfortunately still hear them in her voice. "I can't put Shinji in danger like that. He's just a nice little boy with bad parents. He doesn't deserve any of this. I'm sorry."
"Please don't cry. It's not your fault Yui. You're a lovely parent and I understand. I'm sorry for even suggesting that."
One hand moved off the steering wheel for the driver to dab her face briefly with her sleeve.
A few more coughs and chokes.
"I really wish I could do more for you, Marie dear, but you have to do this on your own now. And I know you can do it. You've come this far already. We're going to get to Heathrow soon and we'll drop you off next to the building where they do Identity changes. They'll give you a passport when they're done. I'll give you enough money for both your new identity and a ticket to Tokyo-3. Hopefully there'll still be enough money after that to last you a while after you get there. The rest is up to you."
Not long later, the car pulled into the pseudo capital known as Heathrow. As many people had mistaken Barcelona to be the capital of Spain instead of Madrid and Shanghai to be the capital of China and not Beijing, the same mistake was often made by foreigners unfamiliar to England both pre and post impact.
It had largely escaped the Impact unharmed for some reason and was now at least 3 times as populated and 10 times wealthier than the actual seat of power, London.
Time seemed to fly and before Marie could register much, the car had already stopped in a far backroad of a dark alleyway where not even a lamppost illuminated the darkness of the night that had swept round by this time.
"Here we are Marie. Now go down and do as I've told you to."
Marie undid her seatbelt with trembling hands as she slowly stepped onto the pavement.
"Goodbye and good luck. I hope you can live a good life." Yui sobbed as she forked out a small shoulder bag. "The money is in this bag. It's all I can give you. I have to go now. My husband needs me."
"Thank you for everything, Yui. But is there nothing I can do for you for all your niceness?"
The until now mostly silent Shinji looked at her then whispered something into his mother's ear in Japanese.
"Keep smiling and being optimistic" the Japanese scientist requested as she anxiously peeked around the empty alley. "Keep moving forward even when it seems hard. Do it for Shinji's sake. He likes you a lot and he has absolute faith in you."
"I promise I'll do that." Marie solemnly vowed as the woman and boy already begun to climb back into their grey Toyota car, clearly serious about their insistence that Gendo was an impatient and violent nutcase.
"Tell Shinji, I love him and that I wish the same for him." She managed to call out just as the car sped away, not wasting a second.
"Well, this is it." The girl whispered to herself as she begun to take angsty steps to the door in front of her. With eyes half closed and hands trembling, she knocked.
She was the one who knocked and not the guy opening the door to get shot.
A big and burly giant opened the door on a chain, looking her up and down.
His body was a bundle of muscle with oily dark hair, garbed in a tank-top despite the cold weather and wearing a scowl that clearly stated he did not like company in general.
He growled like a dog as he held out a hand. "One thousand pounds" he rumbled in a voice deeper than the Pacific Ocean. It was clear he didn't like talking either.
She tried to keep a straight face while reaching into her pocket to pull out one fifty note pound after another, relieved that there were only fifty-pound notes in the bag she now had around her shoulder.
The giant counted the notes carefully before reluctantly stepping aside and beckoning Marie onto a chair in the middle of the very plain room which was bare save for a few cupboards.
The next few seconds were painful as an operation inevitably had to be, but from Marie's close shave with death in the previous days, this was mild in comparison.
She kept still and her eyes closed as the giant made various surgical changes to her hands, then her feet and then her face. She knew that this was the deathbed of Marie Simon Bishop. NERV had succeeded in putting her down after all, just not in the way they might have hoped.
After what seemed like an eternity, the drilling and scraping noises stopped and the giant held out a pen and a piece of paper where the only writing on it was "signature:"
This was it, Marie thought to herself as she took the writing utensil gratefully and put the nib to her forehead for a few moments. This was where she officially died.
Where an old life ended, and a new life begun.
She could already tell without the need for a mirror that her face while similar, had been altered so that it was undoubtably impossible to deny that her new appearance was far vastly different. Her hair had also been cut to the point where it no longer had any chance of covering her eyes.
This was where the proverbial Clark put on his superman outfit and never took it off again. Where Usagi put on her Sailor outfit and kept it on forever.
Where Bruce Wayne ordered his faithful butler Alfred to dress up as him and fake an accident such as a pretend car crash where the car caught on fire but Alfred secretly got away unharmed to begin a much deserved gainful retirement while he changed into his Batman suit, never to contact Alfred again as he left forever.
After what seemed like an eternity but was in reality only two minutes, Marie wrote a name onto the signature paper taking care to slope her hand as she wrote. Just like Jekyll when he was doing the same when transformed into Mr Hyde.
The name she eventually decided to write: Mari Makinami Illustrious.
Her first name may have seemed far too identical to her previous one on paper. But she knew from her experience of being in the same classroom as an Ellie and an Ellis, a Carl and a Karl and a Catherine and Katherine that it was more than enough of a difference to trick the world while remaining relatively true to herself.
She also drew inspiration from the one film she had managed to watch at her friend's house which had solidified her love for Anime and a sacred desire that she'd one day get to go to Japan by any means possible. The film, My beautiful girl Mari.
Her second name came as a result of hearing Shinji use the word "Nami" many times when he talked. From the cheer he had when saying it, Mari guessed it to mean that it must have been something good in Japanese. The Maki bit was completely random and a result of her mind spinning a random word generator and adding it to the beginning of Nami because it sounded nice enough and enhanced a rather short middle name to seem posher and fancier.
Seeming posh and fancy was key in convincing NERV that she was not simply not worth their salt, but that she would be a refined lady of elegance worthy of their positive attentions.
This would also be a pleasant surprise unbeknownst to Mari in the moment, when years later she met her fellow EVA pilot Rei Ayanami.
Who she would consider her only other friend in NERV sans Shinji.
The two Nami's, they would jokingly call themselves during the one short but fairly pleasant conversation they shared, which had been enough to earn Rei one of her few rare smiles.
Illustrious intended to drive home the key aspect of the new personality she was about to adopt to match her new name.
Just as some family's ended their names with terms such as Merry and Jolly in an attempt to embody these traits.
It intended to point attention to the fact that the fictitious family Mari would later make up to further the disguise, were no country bumpkins with no grasp of advanced English vocabulary.
That they must have been pretty successful to name their noble house after a word only the most devoted scholars could hope to fathom the meaning of.
"Farewell Marie" Mari eulogized as she signed a few other papers, changing her address to a street name in Cambridge (the city of geniuses) which her father had once read about in her bedtime stories and finishing with a made-up postcode. "You lived a good life in spite of your flaws and the sacrifices you made will be forever appreciated."
A few moments later, the big and burly muscle man handed her a passport and a mirror.
She did not need to look into either to know that this was the birthday of Mari Makinami Illustrious.
She thanked him as she collected her bag and dropped another fifty-pound note into his unflinching hands before heading out onto the streets into her new life.
As she stepped out onto a much more well lit and crowded street to flag down a cab for the airport, she begun to list to herself the many changes Mari would have in comparison to the now deceased Marie.
Where Marie was shy, Mari would be bold.
Where Marie was self-hating, Mari would be confident and self-assured.
She would still be an avid reader but not spend entire days buried in her books at the expense of building the best network of friends she could gather.
She would be sure to brush up on her Japanese as soon as possible. So that the next time she met Shinji, she could tell him how much he meant to her in words he could understand without the need for a translator.
Since the biggest difference dividing Marie and Mari apart from each other is that while Marie spent her life chasing a way to selfishly destroy NERV in a self-righteous and petty vendetta, Mari's goal was to see NERV prosper and achieve its full glory.
The immature, whiny brat who single-handedly detested NERV more than any other person on planet Earth, was about to become it's second best pilot after Shinji.
It was her new life ambition.
Mari had set her amount of love she had for NERV to M for mini, when thanks to Shinji being a part of it, it should have been set to W for wumbo.
…
Now Shinji was beginning to vaguely remember that he had once been to England as a very little boy with his mum back in his dad's more reasonable days when he took a business trip there once.
He had given them some money and a little time to amuse themselves while he dealt with his organization's matters.
He remembered how he had come to that land hoping to see wonderous sights Japan couldn't match only to find boredom and disappointment in how dull and grey it had turned out instead.
His boredom had turned to anger. NERV and his father were what made it boring.
Shinji didn't really know why he didn't memorize this. Being an Eva pilot meant that he had been in multiple coma's and even barring that, concussion and other head related trauma symptoms were all too likely in the chaos of the battles he and the other pilots were forced to endure.
"I don't think Wumbo is a real word Mari" he noted, trying to make some small talk to lighten the serious mood a little as his mind tried to organize at least some of this new information.
"Yes it is!" was the unexpectedly feisty and fiery reply from his girlfriend who was clearly just as eager as he was to take a little break from this enjoyable but somewhat tedious walk down memory lane.
"Wumbo is a real word. You know. I wumbo. You wumbo. He, she, we wumbo. Wumbo. Wumbo-ing. And most importantly of all, Wumbology, the study of Wumbo. It's first grade Shinji. My dad majored in Wumbology and got a doctor's PHD for it. It's the reason he was so clever even though he didn't finish school. It's also the course I took to get where I am today."
Well maybe Asuka and Misato should consider taking it too, Shinji said to himself as he made a mental note that from this day onwards, Wumbology would be the only subject he devoted his time and attention into studying.
And here we are with this chapter. Thanks to everyone for reviewing and please keep them coming, each one brings a tear to my eye. I always did wonder why Mari didn't have a more British name.
So now you see, every character has their story. It isn't just the main characters. The main character in one story is the side character in another one.
