+++++ Tokyo-3 Academy. +1
When the final class of the day was dismissed, having spent the entirety of each class realizing just how subpar his education had been, Shinji felt both absolutely demoralized and irreparably embarrassed. Keeping his head down, he made his way out of the school building with every intention of hurrying back to his apartment and praying for a meteor to core the Earth to spare him from further pain. Crossing the basketball courts in the courtyard, he believed that he was on his way to that freedom when he felt a hand roughly grab him by the shoulder and was spun around to face one of his classmates that clearly had murder on the mind.
"You the pilot of that piece of shit, new kid?" Cracking his knuckles, the jock's coarse language seemed to be natural for him.
There wasn't an available answer that would prevent what was to follow, and Shinji knew that. Something he had done had caused his classmate anger and/or pain, which made it his obligation to take that pain upon himself. "I'm sorry." Apologies were to be kept to two words or less, or the pain would just be worse.
"Sorry?" The jock shook his head in disbelief, his anger only rising. "Now I know I'm not going to feel right unless I bust your face in, new kid."
Shinji saw the jock's fist cock back. His instinctual reaction was to close his eyes, but closing his eyes would only cause him to have to take yet another beating. Time slowed as the blow began its forward motion, rage twisting his assailant's features. Somehow, and Shinji would never know how, there was suddenly a blue curtain of hair between him and the fist. While he couldn't see what happened, because of her head blocking the line of sight, he heard the unmistakable sound of bone cracking.
"Toji Suzuhara, you had best not have just done what I think you did!" Hikari Horaki, for as slight as she was, apparently had a voice that could be heard across the prefecture when she so chose.
With too much happening at once, Shinji couldn't keep up with the various actors as they played their parts in society. Another student, apparently having made a half-hearted effort to stop Toji Suzuhara, was now trying whole-heartedly to defend him against an enraged Class Representative. The new teacher slowly walked over towards the situation, clearly fully aware of what had happened and just as clearly allowing the lower-level authority to get the first volleys off. Toji himself was cradling his injured hand and attempting to justify something even he himself knew couldn't have possibly been justified. What that left was Sasami, who had turned around and with a completely unblemished face was now actively patting Shinji down for potential injuries.
"Are you ok? Did he hurt you?" Without guile or dissembling, the beautiful bluenette looked slightly upwards into his eyes with concern radiating off of her. After receiving no response, she frowned with concern and nodded to some internal discussion. "Here, I'll walk you home. I think you might still be suffering from shock."
Unable to determine how to stop her from joining him, he found himself herded efficiently away from the scene leaving the other two male students to the not-so-tender mercies of both Hikari Horaki and Hakubi-sensei. After half of a block, he also became aware that he no longer had his school bag and in a moment of panic stopped to turn around and head back for it. He was responsible for the laptop, and losing it on his first day would- Noting that Sasami had also stopped, he saw that she was easily carrying his bag in addition to her own.
"Is something wrong?" With her head tilted to the side just so, and zero cunning in the question, she managed what might have been impossible for many others: she broke through Shinji's emotional blockade for the briefest moment.
"I…uhm…." His hand twitched towards his bag, unable to touch her but wishing to stop her from bearing his burdens all the same. "I thought…my bag."
Lifting the strap off her shoulder, she offered it to him with a happy smile. "I didn't want you to leave it behind. How are you feeling?"
"I…uhm…." Between being tongue-tied at existing as the sole point of focus for a beautiful young woman his own age, being bound by his training to interact with others as little as possible, and the growing embarrassment at having been attacked, defended, and taken to safety, Shinji couldn't find the words to reply. "Th-thank you. I…uhm, I can…I can get back to my apartment from here."
"I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to go with you. I saw from your notes throughout the day that whoever was teaching you…well, I think they set you up to fail." Her face shifted from open-eyed care to genuine concern. "Please don't think I'm making fun of you, but you're very well spoken when you choose to speak. Since you are the one who saved everyone's lives, I don't want you to struggle during school when you already have such an enormous burden on your shoulders."
That made absolutely zero sense in Shinji's mind. Two different attempts to vocalize something, anything, both died at the point of action. A beautiful young woman, who from all appearances couldn't lie if she tried to, was wanting…to help him? He was nothing. Less than nothing. His own family wanted nothing to do with him. His own blood had spent years reminding him that he had no worth, no value, no purpose. Why on Earth would anyone think he was worth helping?
Gesturing in the path of direction they'd taken, Sasami smoothed over the awkwardness with, "Shall we?"
Caught up in her social graces, Shinji turned and began walking towards his apartment. Telling her 'no' was just as much an option as throwing her into oncoming traffic was. Her proximity, neither too close nor distant, inspired his anxiety to skyrocket and plummet as his thoughts tried to make his day take some sensible form. One thing he noticed, after another block, was that no matter how fast he walked she managed to effortlessly keep up with him. The height difference wasn't substantial, but it was enough that she shouldn't have been able to keep up with his frenetic drive to not be in public.
The closer they came to his apartment, the more it was evident that Sasami was growing unhappy. There were no outward displays of anger, disgust, or other darker tidings, but the aura her presence provided practically dripped with incredulous outrage. The piles of rubble and trash that clearly predated last night's conflict, the men and women standing on corners or in back alleys engaged in a variety of unsavory pastimes, the lack of any coordinated efforts to provide services or goods to the local area, each just added to the unsustainable silence they walked within.
Shinji himself was fully aware of how embarrassing it was that he was bringing someone so…good into a place that writhed in degenerate rot. Taking the stairs up to his apartment two at a time, as the elevator was both non-functional and likely not even present, he reached the sixth floor and practically threw the door to his dark, cramped, unfurnished…. The only furniture I have is a bed. The realization of this truth came too late for him to do anything about it before Sasami strode confidently in and assessed the circumstances of his life.
With his cheeks radiating heat, and his eyes fixed on the ground before him, Shinji murmured the conditioned response, "I'm sorry."
Setting her bag down, Sasami turned back around and gently closed the door. Reaching for the light switch, and finding it inoperable, she chose to move over to the window with the intent to open the curtains and let sun in. "Your windows are…boarded up."
"I'm sorry."
After a quick evaluation of why the windows were boarded, she sighed out, "The glass is completely shattered." Turning again towards the 'bathroom', or what passed as one, she noted the complete lack of anything other than a cheap hole dug into the floor for his waste to go in. Her first instinct was to grab Shinji and drag him back to her place. She lived in what would be considered obscenely opulent extravagance when compared to him, and while she was an alien princess with access to unlimited funding, "You…are the pilot of that machine, right?"
"I'm sorry."
"Not nearly as sorry as I am." Breathing out slowly and restoring her calm, she turned to him and smiled with confident hope. "Well, at least you have a bed for us to sit on. Let's get started studying."
+++++ Horaki house. +1
Each subsequent line of each text Sasami sent to Hikari caused the Class Representative to swear increasingly violently. Her plan to have Sasami accompany him home turned out even worse than she feared it would. He wasn't living with family, he wasn't living somewhere safe, he didn't have any food, he didn't have a shower let alone a bathtub, he didn't have a toilet fixture, he didn't have a couch, a music player, a television, a functioning ceiling light, a functioning window, a table lamp, a closet…. "Daddy!" Storming angrily out of her room, she stomped downstairs and approached her father.
Were it anyone other than one of the Horaki patriarch's beloved princesses addressing him in the tone used, the meat mountain that was Toshiro Horaki might have liberated their head from their shoulders. Instead, he simply flipped to the next page of his underlings reports and asked blandly, "Yes, child?"
"I thought you told me that NERV is responsible for sixty-five percent of the wealth in the city." Crossing her arms, she scowled at the man that had taught her how to both protect herself and protect other people.
"Sixty-five point eight, now." The question was enough to pique his curiosity, so he set down the report he was reading and raised a single eyebrow. "Why do you ask?"
Shoving her phone out, Hikari showed her father the pictures that Sasami had surreptitiously taken of Shinji's environment. "This is where the pilot of the purple guardian lives!" Allowing her father to gently pry the device from her grasp with a hand four times the size of her own, she clenched her fists and shoved them down to her sides. "He's the son of the Commander, and he doesn't even have a toilet!"
Few things managed to truly surprise Toshiro Horaki. Over his long decades of service in 'The Family', he had seen just about every depredation man could commit upon man. To see a man so young, thrust into a fight he'd not caused, now treated worse than the pigs that had died to make tonight's dinner managed that rare feat. Flicking through the photos, he began to understand why his middle child had been practicing the words and phrases he'd let slip in her presence. "I will ask around, child. It may be best that you take in an extra breakfast and an extra lunch for him tomorrow, to be safe."
Switching from righteous fury to doting adoration, Hikari bounced over and hugged her father. "Thanks, daddy. I'll need to go buy a few things if I'm going to make sure he eats properly."
"You have my permission to splurge." Patting her twice on her back, he once more felt pride for the woman she'd become. "I will tell you what I can, when I am certain of the truth of things." After receiving a kiss on his cheek, he turned back to his reports. He couldn't rush off, like his daughter would prefer, and just start asking questions about such a powerful organization. He trusted that she would understand, and he knew that she was right to trust him to exercise every effort in finding the truth.
+++++ Sasami's home. +1
"To be perfectly honest with you, the way they're treating him is little better than how House Amaki treats the terrorist seditionists they capture." Sasami had been pacing back and forth before a holographic display of her mother, communicating across the incomprehensibly enormous distance in real-time thanks to her civilization's advanced technology. During the conversation, spent as mother and daughter more than ultimate supervisor and dutiful subordinate, she'd made everything she'd learned available with the appropriate disgust it inspired. "He lives detached from his family because his patriarch…has no use for him other than as a conscripted warrior. He hasn't been given a proper fitness coach to help him craft his body to handle the rigors of combat. He hasn't been given a dietician to ensure he eats appropriately for his genetic structure. He hasn't been given an education worth more than an Earthing of eleven years in any subject except for Japanese, and even that is lacking in fluent understanding of the lexical rules! The night of the battle, he was left alone in a dark room in a section of town that is in desperate need of governmental attention without genuine security ensuring he wasn't killed!"
Anyone viewing Misaki Masaki Jurai under normal circumstances would invariably come away with the opinion that she was the type of woman to 'mother' anyone and anything that crossed her path. The circumstances being what they were, a much different Misaki was receiving the report from her daughter with a far different cluster of emotions being triggered. "That…is not what I had hoped you would report."
"I know, mommy, but it's what I can report." Sasami came to a halt, sitting down heavily in a floating chair that had kept pace with her. "I…I feel the need to say something else you might not like."
Despite her reputation as the universe's mother, Misaki also held the reputation as its most deadly living creature. It was that demeanor that allowed the statement. "You may proceed."
"If he continues to be treated this way, if his life continues to…to pile up misery after misery, he won't have any reason to fight. If he is truly the only pilot capable of defending this planet from the Adamites," leaving the rest of the statement dangling, she spread her hands and shook her head.
"I had gathered as much myself, Sasami. That is not what you wished to tell me."
"I would like permission to intervene." The last thing Sasami wanted to do was interfere in Earth's development. She was responsible for ensuring that the UP3 was upheld so Jurai wasn't shamed by the rest of the Galactic Powers, but seeing something so unreasonably cruel as she had, she was left with no other thought than someone, somewhere, wanted this planet to commit a form of suicide.
Her stern visage hadn't shifted. "Why?"
"Because I believe that someone is genuinely interfering in the normal progression of this planet by manipulating its hero into devaluing life."
Misaki's stone face grew harder. "Sasami."
As much as she'd hoped to avoid revealing all of her thoughts too soon, she'd known that there was no chance of her hiding it from her mother. "I…also think he's…kinda cute."
At that, Misaki's face rapidly changed from the ruthless warrior to a joyful mother. Her smile subsumed her eyes, and every bit of her energy radiated with a desire to hug the nearest living object as a proxy for the daughter she'd just heard the most wonderful words from. "Oh, Sasami, that's so beautiful!"
"Mom," despite herself, Sasami was embarrassed at her mother's fixation on the personal over the political, "I think he's cute, but he's a human. I know I can't let anything happen."
"Oh, you just let your mummy deal with that, ok?" It was unlikely that whatever rules prohibited Sasami from dating Shinji with an eye towards a future union would remain intact past the evening. "So long as you agree to take responsibility for anything that happens by you assisting him, I approve your request. We'll talk more tomorrow, sweetie, buh-bye!"
With the holographic projection dissipating, Sasami rocked back in her chair and let it hover with her facing the ceiling. Having received what she'd hoped for, she tried to ignore the chaos that had likely just been unleashed back home. People involved would understand after she'd had a chance to explain to them what's happening, after all. Hopefully…. Maybe. After a few minutes of introspection, she received another text from Hikari that showed the homemade meals the Class Rep had prepared for their besieged classmate.
"Hmm…." She pursed her lips in thought. "If nothing else, maybe I can help them find each other. Hikari's too good for that brute, and Shinji needs some good in his life." A quick reply with just the right touch of enthusiasm fulfilled her duty as a friend, freeing the rest of her evening up to begin typing up a plan of action. If she was going to meddle, she was going to do it properly.
+++++ Shinji's apartment. +1
"She…wasn't angry at me." Shinji had spent the entire time after Sasami left thinking through the seeming mass of walking contradictions that she represented. She had been angry, but then despite that anger she turned around and became his biggest cheerleader as he struggled through the schoolwork. She had been disgusted at his room, but then she just ignored that she would be sitting on his bed and treated it as if it were any other normal seat in the world. What haunted him more than any of that, or the hundreds of other acts she took, was the way that she looked at him while she was leaving.
Sasami hadn't looked at him with relief to finally be gone, she looked at him the way he'd caught himself looking at a mirror sometimes. Like there was nothing to be done for the trauma that was inbound. Like the pain, the hurt, the sorrow, all of it could only ever be endured.
It didn't suit her, in his opinion. The way she dressed, so casually and yet with the demeanor of royalty. The way her hair was presented, with a youthful vitality without the arrogance and lack of sophistication. She shouldn't be hurt. She shouldn't be sad.
The memory of Ritsuko Akagi, standing by his side and encouraging him to save her life, drifted through the noise. 'If you climb aboard Unit-01, if you just try, you win the right to a tomorrow for all of us. You can use that tomorrow to do what you came here to do. Just climb in, listen to my voice, and trust that you're here for a reason.'
Curling in on himself, letting those words live in his space for a time, Shinji once again thought to himself how intelligent the Doctor had been. He was where he was for a reason. His life couldn't be saved, the pain never healed, but people like Sasami and Hikari and Hakubi-sensei could be. They could bring others the light he could only ever see from a distance, they could help those that deserved to never live his life. He didn't have an obligation anymore…now he had a duty.
Shinji drifted off to sleep with his new mantra circling his thoughts. I mustn't fail them. I mustn't fail them. I mustn't fail them.