Chapter 4
"Oyasumi nasai, Rei…"
Loneliness: a feeling hard to stand for long.
A feeling everybody tries to escape from. But in Rei Ayanamy's case,
that feeling was basically an ennerving wait, similar to the one of someone
in the death row waiting to be executed.
Her eyes shone like two rubies in the dark of Gendo's office, She was
there, sitting in the small leather couch, still covered by the plastic
sheet. She was free to move, but had not budged at all since she'd been
led to that room. Not a single whisper, not the slightest move...
The only thing proving her presence inside the room was her light and
almost labored breathing, except for that, around her the was only darkness
and silence...
Outside silence, of course, because inside herself, an avalanche of
thoughts and memories was crowding her mind ceaselessly. Malicious thoughts,
which what people thought about her notwithstanding, could somehow touch
her and make her show those feelings that until a while ago she could keep
hidden inside...
She instinctively took her hands to her head, as if to stop the flow of all those memories, so painful...
"N-no.."
She uttered that word without realizing it...
Everything was so weird, lately... but what was happening?? She felt
so weak... a lot weaker than before...
A crystal glass on the edge of a table, ready to fall at the first
chance, breaking in a thousand pieces.
Enough... she was tired of the silence... tired of the pain...
She made herself even smaller,bracing her knees with her arms, and
resting her head on them...
She was shivering. Maybe because of the cold, maybe out of fear...
Suddenly, a creaking noise broke the silence in the room. The door
had been opened.
This detail broke the girl's train of thought. She raised from her stance,
taking her arms from her knees, and sat in a regular stance again.
Instinctively, she raised her face, and looked at the man in front
of her: Gendo Ikari. He'd made it, at last...
The placid and grim silhouette of the captain perfectly matched the
room's dark atmosphere.
He came just a little beyond the door, while closing it behind himself
with a hand, slamming it shut. Everything was so boring...
Everything so terribly like the previous times...
Rei's feelings, too, were the same as before. She perfectly knew what
was awaiting for her now...
All was needed were a few movements on her part... he'd take care of
everything, as usual...
The girl was staring at him. She almost couldn't take her eyes off
of him. She had lived this moment many times before, but now that she'd
understood, she wasn't able to consider it as a routine act anymore...
Apparently, she had deserved a different 'punishment' for her escape...
The man didn't budge from his initial stance. He kept his right hand
in his pocket, the other was down at his side. His face was void of any
kind of feeling. He was just looking at the young escapee...
Seconds were flowing slow, like hours, and once again time seemed to
stop in the moments of that exchange of looks...
Suddenly, the things seemed to change...
"Why..." Gendo's strong and relaxed voice quickly flowed through the room, breaking the wintry silence that was ruling at the time... "... why did you do a thing like that, Rei?..."
He went on, this time without a pause.
Rei didn't answer, but just sighed. She sighed deeply with labored breathing, while her hands nervously clasped the edges of her skirt, part of the school uniform she was still wearing.So,it was the silence that gave an answer to the man inher place. But apparently, Gendo didn't like this answer, so he frowned, and decided to repeat the question once again, in order to get a better answer.
"Why?"
Such a mechanical and monotonous voice was better suited to an Evangelion
than to a human being, as Gendo, at least theoretically, was.
Rei tried to concentrate for a few seconds. She couldn't help but answer
to such a question."I don't... know...".
Gendo didn't budge before the girl's answer. His silhouette appeared almost to blend with the darkness of such a black and cold space. Moonlight was seeping through the window, and that up to now had been the room's only source of light, but suddenly was taken out by the passing of a few wandering night clouds, and this detail seemed to go well with the moment's atmosphere, increasing this way the fear the First Children was feeling.
"Why... are you doing this to me, Yui?..." The captain's voice didn't change from what it was before, but this time his words sounded extremely alarming in Rei's soul, who once again felt shivers running along her body, and her heart beating again ay one hundred miles per hour.
"I'm... I'm not Yui..." Ayanami remained calm. Even if hers was, as
usual, a calm that was forced.
She seldom resisted to the captain Ikari's words. Even though, of course,
she perfectly knew that her saying yes or no wouldn't change a thing. She'd
had proof of that several times...
And she was right. Those words counted as nothing to Gendo, who, raising as usual his glasses on his nose, once again repeated his question
"You fled once, Yui... I won't allow it to happen again.."
"I'm not Yui!!!" Rei suddenly raised her head toward Gendo, while he
was uttering those words.
In raising her voice, two tears dropped involuntarily from her eyes,
tears of rage, of course. Rage that was little by little finding its way
out. The little girl braced herself again, almost frightened by her unexpected
reaction. What the hell was happening to her? What was the trembling she
felt? What was that thing in her troath that wouldn't go down? What had
moved her to reply in that wy to Captain Ikari's words? The one who until
a while ago was able to manipulate her like a puppet, without the slightest
resistance on her part?... Was it fear, maybe? But fear of what?... Why?...
Rei quit her thoughts when she suddenly began to hear the slow and heavy step of the commander, getting closer and closer to her. She instintively raised her eyes to see what was going on, but she had no time to evaluate the situation, when she suddenly felt a strong grip around her shoulders, while the captain, with his free hand took a damp cloth handkerchief from hi pocket, and forcibly pressed it on her face. Rei had barely time to notice the unusual smell, but it was too late already. Cloroformium had already begun to have its effect on her...
She didn't say a word, while her vision was offuscating at an impressive speed, and her muscles seemed suddenly paralyzed. Simply, she moved her gaze on the one who was doing it all, i.e., commander Ikari...
Her eyes crossed his once again... and they seemed distant, too distant...
I a few seconds, the room seemed like beginning to spin around her
quickly, until her gaze became white and her eyelids closed, denying her
the capability of seeing beyond them...
To help her from falling, once again the strong grip of Gendo Ikari,
who quickly took in his arms her helpless body, with great and unexpected
dexterity. He slowly laid the girl's willowy body on the sofa where she'd
been sitting.
He was looking at her. He was beholding the face, that was senseless,
but still showed a look almost of pain, different from her usual...
Slowly, Gendo's right hand almost touched the pale and sad face, while
his mind took him back in time... far, far away...
Years a long time past, and that will never come back again... he perfectly
knew...but he'd never be able again to accept a situation like that...
He moved his hand on the girl's face, slowly stroking her cheeks, while
his gaze, beyonf the dark glasses, became full of melancholy.
"Yui.chan...." the man whispered again, remembering his beloved dead
wife... "You weren't able to forgive me, right?"
The blue-haired girl was under the influence of cloroformium, but a
crystal tear came out of her wet eyes, slowly crossing her face, to fall,
at last, on the white gloved fingers of Captain Ikari....
Gendo took his hand away from the girl's face, and began staring at
the small stain keft by Rei's tear. She was crying again...
He turned again his gaze on the senseless, innocent creature. She was
so helpless...
He leaned forward, this time taking the girl's face into both of his
hands.
"It will never happen again, Yui...". He whispered. Slowly, his face got closer and closer to the First Children's,slowly and without realizing it, the commander left this force guide him, so, almost n no time, the man's lips had almost reached their final destination: the blue-haired girl's lips. He close his eyes, too, already thinking of the moment in which he would have touched those pink lips, so similar to Yui's...
"CAPTAIN IKARI!!!"
This sudden cry, together with the thud of the door,slammed open, put
an end to Gendo's ambiguous plans. Someone had entered the room. The man
quickly moved away from the girl's face, trying to recompose his attitude
in the shortest time possible, to prevent the one who'd come in to suspect
the slightest thing... or maybe saying "the woman" would be more correct...
The captain lhad a look from head to toe of the crow-blach haired woman,
who was slowly retaking her breath, leaning on the door's handle. "What's
the matter, Major Katsuragi?..." Commander Ikari asked, obstentating utter
indifference.
Actually, the man's fast movements, when he entered the room, cause
a puzzled expression to appear on Misato's face. The ided that they were
just the fastest way to hide something from her eyes flashed in her mind...
But she had no time to think it over, when she suddenly recalled the reason of her presence there. And to bring it back to her mind, it was exactly viewing the Firp Children asleep on the sofa next to the Commander....
"…Rei…" She whispered with a barely audible voice. She raised her gaze toward the commander, and her face took a commanding look. "Commander Ikari, I'm sorry to be late. I was here to..."
"I can perfectly imagine the reason of your presence here, Major Katsuragi..." Gendo Ikari stopped like that the girl's words, slowly approaching her,
"We better move somewhere else to talk, Major. For now, quiet is the only thing she needs..." The man turned his face towards the interior of the room where Rei was asleep, and from this gesture, the girl understood whom he was talking about.
Misato went back to look at the commander, and nodded, while she slowly walked toward the exit. Gendo did the same, but before closing the door after him, he wanted to have a last look at the little girl who was laying on the sofa.
"Oyasumi Nasai, Rei…(*) "
The first noise to reach Gendo Ikari's ears while he closed the door after him was the sole of the major's lleft boot, that she was nervously stomping on the floor, a clear sign that her patience was running out...
The girl's face had a look of incredible determination and caparbiety.
It's well known that when Misato got an idea into her head, making her
change her mind would have been a hard task for everybody, but this time
instead, to make her change her mind would have been virtually impossible...
Misato cleared her troath, taking on an expression that was even more
professional.
"Commander Ikari..." she cried out, the first to talk "I came asap. Sorry again to be late..."
"Never mind, Major Katsuragi, what matters is that you made it..." commander Ikari uttered those predictable words, as if he wasn't aware of what he was really saying. Those sentences were to be considered "customary", and so were the answers...
"Thanks for your sympathy" the woman answered, in a soldierly tone. In a different situation, she would have even cared to say something more subtle, but that day she decided against further delay, and came to the point. There was little time to lose...
"Commander, I'd like to be informed regarding the facts..." the Major
whispered, crossing her arms "What are the reasons behind such behavior
on Rei's part?"
Misato's question called for an answer. And Gendo couldn't possibly
dodge it...
"At the moment when she came back to the base, the girl was totally deprived of energy, as you have certainly noticed, now she's resting..." Ikari answered, expressionless, not letting his inner fears to influence him...
Of course, having being caught red-handed with the little girl didn't look good for him, but he'd been able to get himself out of a tight spot before. He could make it play on his behalf only to a point, because it would have been hard for him to predict the smart Major's moves. And he knew that Misato wouldn't have beencontented with a short answer...
Misato sighed "I understand. In what condition is she in?" The woman
asked immediately, trying to look even more expressionless than the man.
At the woman's latest words, something in Gendo changed. But only internally,
because his outside was, of course, wrapped by a shell that deprived him
of all human feelings...
The answer didn't come out of the commander's lips as easily as one could have usually imagined, but nonetheless, the young Major didn't show any sign of relenting. She really was good at her job. Gendo had to admit this...
For Misato, it was just not possible to understand the reason ot the long pause, neither could he grasp the thousands thoughts that were swirling in the commander's mind during that pause of reflection, anyway, an answer will come...
"Not defined. At the moment, her condition is not defined" Gendo utetred those words almost as if he wanted to make them as much evasive and short as possible.
Misato's face suddenly went from resolution to utter perplexity.
"Not... defined?"
Almost pretending not to have heard the girl's last words, Gendo Ikari turned instinctively toward the lobby, turning his back on the perplexed major.
"Now, if you don't mind, I'm busy..." the man tried in this way toand his conversation with Katsuragi, while he distarctedly moved the first steps along the lobby that would have led him in little time to other places in the base...
"W-WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NOT DEFINED!?!!?" Misato's sudden scream echoed along the metallic lobby. She couldn't believe her ears. She perfectly knew that the slightest anomaly in one of the pilots would have the whole medical staff of the base running, and now the base's commander himself wanted her to believe that he hadn't yet verified the status of a Children involved in a night escape ??
Heaing that call, Gendo Ikari slowly stopped walking.
"Major Katsuragi..." he whispered. The man didn't even turn around when he heard Misato's quick and resolute step approaching him from behind. His fears had, apparently, a foundation. Major Katsuragi wouldn't have been satisfied by a curt reply...
"Commamder, do you have at least the faintest idea of what happened to Rei!?!?" the woman said in a really angry tone. "That girl didn't spend the whole night at a fun fair!Rei's been who know where without the knoledge of any of us! And don't you think it a good reason to have the girl seen??? She could have been injured, or even have a brok...".
Misato couldn't end her sentence, because before she knew, Gendo Ikari got tired of listening from behind his back to the reproachful speech the gilr was giving him...
"That's enough, Major Katsuragi! I have no intention of talking this over with you, neither you have any right to talk to me in this tone, questioning my will..." In front of such words, Misato couldn't help closing her fists and teeth, and stay silent before a superior's will. It was true, actually, she had no right to get such information, insiede of this organization...
But, yet another time, the young major put his military rank away, and trying with visible effort to speak with a soft voice to assuage him, she talked again to the man.
"I'm sorry, Commander Ikari. I had no intention to discuss a direct
order, But... are you really sure about your decision?..."
Gendo Ikari turned his face again, preparing himself to give her one
of his cold and brief answers.
"More than sure..." he whispered with a strong and authoritative voice. Ignoring the Mayor's look of satisfaction, the commander went back on his way, slowly walking along the lobby with a brisk but unhurried step...
Who knows whether he was really so calm inside, too...
Misato, now more than ever, felt the urge to punch him for the way he'd just treated her, but onc again she had to suppress her rage, and sighing she entered the same metallic lobby, but in the opposite direction from Gendo's....
Apparently, everything always looked fine and dandy, just fluid as oil,
or maybe as tears, tears that inconsciously kept flowing on Rei's pale
cheeks, while she was enveloped in the darkness of the room.
Alone...
It was just a matter of time, but it was going to happen, she could
feel it..
*~*~*
-7.30 AM- Misato's flat:
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"
As much as Shinji was concerned, that hadn't been the best wake-up of his life. He'd been able to ignore the clock's relentless ricking, and the really ennerving sunrays that got thru the blinds, but he surely couldn't ignore for much longer the strange feathered and quacking animal that had been jumping all over him for some minutes!
"QUEAAAAAACK!! QUEAAAAAAAACK!! QUEEEEAAAAAAAACKKKKKKK!!!!!!!" This was the voice of the happy penguin while, not in the least afraid of Shinji's cry, kept jumping up and down, satisfied of his actions.
Likely, it was sleep that had caused him to react in such an excessive fashion, but Shinchan found himself suddenly like paralyzed from fear in a corner of his bed, the farthermost corner from the noisy animal, slowly catching his breath.
"P…Pen-Pen…WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?!" The angry boy cried out,
while he was slowly regaining his composure, after the scare.
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" The angry boy cried out, while he was
slowly recovering from the fright. In the face of those reproaching words,
and
Shinji's threatening look, the penguin immediately stopped jumping up and down, taking on a look not so different from the boy's.
"Gggggggg QUEACK!!!!!" Before Shinji could do anything, the strong beak of the unusual pet caught his pj's leg, forcefully taking the poor boy down from his bed.
"OK, OK, Pen Pen! I got it, I'm raising" The Third Children said, humoring
the penguin, and coming down from his bed, still sleepy. That was weird.
Usually, PenPen acted like that in the morning with his original little
mistress, why was hedoing that to him today?
The boy smiled, while he slowly bent to take the noisy animal in his
arms-
"I really can't get used to have such a strange animal like you around!"
He joyfully said, on his way to the kitchen.
The kitchen...
It was the sight of that room that reminded Shinji, still sleepy, the latest important things happend the night before, and that involved him...
"Ayanami..." Rei's last name crossed Shinji's mind when the boy's eyes fell on Misato's cordless phone, still on the table since last night.
Ayanami, the blue haired girl. Apparently, she'd been once again in the center of everybody's attention, at Nerv....
Her, who every day mechanically obeyed every order they gave her, had
disappeared.
Completely disappeared,leaving no trace...
*What's the matter, Ayanami?... maybe you were too pure to keep on living
in such a corrupt world?...* He didn't know how he could have such a deep
thought in the early morning, but that was enough to make Shinji realize
that he'd better hurry and wash his face really fast!
To take the boy down to earth, once again the unavoidable fury of the
penguin in his arms.
"Queack! Queack!" went the angry animal.
Shinji abruptly came off his thoughts, and once again took his gaze
on the hurried feathered animal. "Yes, PenPen, I got it! Now I'm gonna
make you breakfast, are you happy with that?" The boy said, humoring his
little friend and approaching the refridgerator containing its food.
Approaching the fridge, the boy couldn't help noticing two empty beer
cans laying on the floor, drank by Misato a few hours earlier, before getting
Ritsuko's phone call, of which he was completely unaware...
The boy kept staring atthw two cans, trying to figure out when they's
been drank.
Then, after a short internal reflection, he shook his head.
*Apparently, Misato san has already had breakfast...* he thought, bending
to get the cans and dumping them in the bin. PenPen was looking at the
boy with a puzzled stare, probably he didn't understand what he was saying,
but weren't he a penguin, he really would have wanted to explain the truth.
How Misato was in deep dispair, how she'd been drinking too much beer,
and how just a phone call had been able to restore a little of the
hope that she seemed to have forgotten...
PenPen relinquished any malicious thought when the Third Children bent
to offer him his bowl full to the brim of fish, the best breakfast a penguin
could wish for!
"Enjoy your meal, PenPen!^_^" The boy said smiling. The penguin
didn't wait to be told again, and threw himself on the bowl, wolfing down
the fish, that soon was reduced to half .
Shinji was staring at him, amused, llooking at PenPen eating was always
funny.
Shinj set the usual beer can down on the floor for PenPen "I keep saying
you and Misato are a beautiful couple!..." he said, while he realized that,
after all, the way Major Katsuragi ate wasn't so different from the one
of his pet!
Ikari-kun let the penguin wolf down his breakfast, while he slowly
began to move toward the table, checking his cordless phone for any missed
call, with a result that didn't make him happy. No missed call. That was
the verdict. The boy sighed heavily. He'd hoped at least to find some missed
call that would have given him something to hope for, but this wish of
him wasn't fulfilled...
Shinji shook his head while putting the cordless back on the table.
All that had happend the night before now just seemed like a dream. Nothing
more. Usually, he was able to hide into his dreams, escaping from reality,
but now he really couldn't...
n ci riusciva…
Rei Ayanami.
The moment she had regained consciousness in his arms, for a while she'd
seemed different.
Different from the typical misterious girl he almost couldn't believe
had any emotion. She'd looked helpless to him. Yes. Her, who prepared for
battles against the Angels with the same calm of someone going to the bar
for an appetizer, she'd looked frail, helpless, and, above all, defenseless...
Her face wasn't expressionless as usual, but looked really frightened...
*You were afraid... and you fled* the boy thought, while he put his lunch inside the satchel.
*... After all, we're not so different...*
The boy was so deeply thinking about Rei's escape that he almost didn't
realize how much time had really passed...
He got back his sense of time only when the bird on Misato's cuckoo
clock came back from his little wooden door, and chirped signalling 8:00
AM
"OH MY!!"! IT'S SO LATE!!!" The boy screamed, taking his hands to his
face, in a shock. His school was a little far from the flat he shared with
his minder, and this was what had him worried. The idea of spending all
morning outside the classroom with two buckets of water in his hands wasn't
appealing at all, and that was why he had to hurry, and try not to be even
later than he already was!
At the speed of light, Shinji ran into the bathroom, and immediately
after, still wet, fled toward his room, wearing his school uniform in a
slovenly way.
"Oh shit!!!" he cried out, when, while he was tying the shoestrings on his sneakers, one broke, leaving him with half of it in his hand... ^^;
'More haste, less speed…'
As never before, the saying was really fit for what was happening to
him...
"Hell, I'll never make it on time!!" Quickly, the boy tried to fix his
shoe, and when he solved that problem, thanks to the Lord who'd taken pity
on him, before who knows what else could happen to him, he jumped into
the lobby of his house, that was the starting line of his marathon to the
school.
Before he could make it to the dorr, Shinji, without breaking his stride,
knocked a couple of times on the shoji(**) of his minder's door, and then
flew towards teh door:
Miss Misato, it's late! I'm going to school!! Try and not be late, you
too!!"
He shouted, before closing the flat's door behind him.
As soon as he was out of the flat, the boy instinctively looked at the
flight of stairs below him, and jumped on it, doing four steps at a time.
He would usually have taken the lift, but he was such in a hurry that morning
that waiting for the lift to get to his floor would have been to much for
him to endure!
And then, using his legs in the early morning wouldn't have hurted
him! Even if he kept saying and repeating that that wasn't for sure the
happiest day in his life...
Who knows why, but every time he needed Misato's help, she wasn't there...
"All she does is sleeping, eating and drinking... the only differences between a bay and Misato san is the shape!" He mumbled to himself with a shade of irony. Touji's influence was getting a hold on him, little by little...
Even if, actually, he would have spoken differently if only he'd known that today, Major Katsuragi's room was empty...
*~*~*
First Grammar School of NeoTokyo-3
-8.30 AM-
Sigh…he'd better ask for a nice bicycle as a present from Miss Misato,
at the next festivity.
At least, in such moments he would have spared himself this ordeal...
After thirty minutes, Shinji passed the threshold of classroom
3 A, completely exhausted...
All along the road, he'd had the feeling that his heart was about to
explode anu moment, and he really couldn't explain how he had made it to
the school safe....
*Aaah... the japanese student's life is so hard!...*
"Ikari-kun, you're lucky! Professor Mokuboshi is not here today, and
the substitute hasn't arrived yet..."
Seeing the smile on the face of Horaki, the small but authoritarian
leader of the class, and her kind words, would have been of great solace
to Shinji in such a moment, Professor Mokuboshi had punished many times
pupils for being late, and today he'd been afraid he'd have to stand outside
the door holding two buckets filled with water all morning, but when he
had a look at th ewhole class, his mind was completely dazed.
*Am I dreaming, or am I awake?! * He thought, without deleting from
his face the shocked look, wiping his eyes to understand whether he was
witnessing an optical illusion, of whether it was the reality, incredible
as it seemed.
Everything. He could have expected everything. But not to find Rei
Ayanamy, the blue-haired girl, the fugitive. Sitting at her place while
she was mentally repeating a page on her history textbook...
So placidly...
"Ayanami...Shinji's lips uttered those words almost with fear. He was
afraid that, had he pronounced them aloud, the image in fornt of him would
have vanished...
But it was still there...
That call, so soft, quickly disappeared in the emptyness, but not before
it had reached it's destination...
The blue-haired girl raised her face, and turned her attention toward
Shinji, with the same look of the day before.
The same...
There was no doubt about it. It was her. And it hadn't been a dream...
End of Chapter 4
·~* "Oyasumi Nasai" it's the japanese way to say Good night to
someone ^_^;
· ** "Shoji" is the panel on japanese doors (the sliding
ones)
***********Author's note********
Wow! I just can't believe that this chapter's finally out! I really
hope you like it!:) I know, it hasn't been fixed since it has been translated
by my friend Marcello Clarizia (don't forget to thanks with him!) so, I
really HOPE THAT THERE IS A GOOD SOUL WHO CAN FIX IT FOR ME. I know, but
my friend did his best to translate it, but what do you want? We're both
italian and we can't speak english like a native american;_;
Anyway, if you wanna help me, this is my address:) reichan@inwind.it
And, as always, DO NOT FORGET TO REVIEW!!!!!!!!!