Story based on characters created by and copyright to GAINAX. I don't owe Neon Genesis Evangelion, I never will. If asked, I'll delete everything. I'm not making money by my writing.
Version 01.01.01The party was way too noisy for her taste. There was plenty of people she barely knew. Someone thought it was a mundane occasion to show the full-dress uniform provided by Nerv, but she decided for an evening dress. After all, she wasn't more part of the organization... but invitations for gatherings like the one she was attending continued to reach her.
Those reunions had always something in common: bad food, ramblings about how well Nerv will do the next year and how well it did the past year... but that was only the start. After some kind of conference, the people would enjoy the buffet, that tasted like cardboard only slightly more tender.
The only good thing were that the drinks, even if bad, were free. She had concentrated over them while people she didn't care about talked to her. Then, the magic of such gatherings started to work: the older people, employers and ex employers would start to gossip together, leaving out the outsiders.
Whispered words about the past times, when Nerv was a different organization with different goals... she cynically remembered that the goal hadn't changed but just the way to reach it. World domination was still in the minds of... she honestly couldn't remember the name of the new CEO, but it didn't bothered her too much.
She gazed around her, then she proceeded to the bar. With a gaze, the bartender understood her desire and placed a bottle next to a glass. She couldn't help but smile a bit... sometimes she had the impression that the bartender was the only one who knew her.
Pouring herself a drink, she studied in the mirror in front of her the tactical situation. Some people had started to go home, while other people had separated in little groups, chatting. A particularly bothering group had decided to head towards the bar.
She listened with half hear their conversation, then something caught her attention, prompting her to join the discussion.
"He isn't dead..."
She had spoken softly, without even bothering to turn her head to face who talked and really, she didn't care.
The young woman she interrupted turned her head, visibly angry for the remark.
'HE' had been the main argument of the evening and they had been talking again and again about what happened the last time she saw him.
"He is dead. And I would like if we could stop talking about him"
"He... isn't dead... I'm leaving his room like... he left it, until he returns." she slurred back.
"This wouldn't bring him back, you know..." It was another one, a face she didn't know, adding those voice in a helpful voice.
"He is alive." The woman said that as a conclusion, gulping down her cocktail and pouring herself another glass of it.
"You know nothing... he never exited from the Dream, even when he was alive. He wasn't the same. Everybody knows it."
"Did you see his body? No. Then he's alive... and even if you saw him dead, I think he could came back."
"He couldn't have survived the explosion! "
"He cannot be dead... because he's immortal"
Those words acted like a slap, firing a heated conversation. Still, she was oblivious of the people gaping at her in disbelief.
"You're only a drunken who doesn't know nothing. Get real and go over it, like us."
The woman swallowed the alcoholic liquid in her glass, smashing it down again on the table so hard that more head turned towards her. She straightened her back and every trace of drunkness disappeared from her face.
"Watch your tongue, girl. I am not as drunk as you like to think."
"If you don't are drunk, then stop to ramble about him being alive"
"I'll say it once again as you seem to be rather stubborn" her words gained a deadly glance, "He is alive. That's all. Good night"
Said that, she left.
The gossips, stopped during her speech, now restarted with a new topic: who was that woman and how she dared to talk that way.
But the older Nerv people closed into silence, avoiding that topic at all costs.
Welcome to Neo Tokyo 3
The streets were void of vehicles, no pedestrians were walking over the sidewalks... the city seemed a ghost town, like if everybody had disappeared suddenly due to a evil spell. It was an eerie and weird sight: the shops still opened, with no customers... no one was taking advantage of the owners absence.
No children were playing inside the parks, no birds were flying on the sky... nothing.
The eeriest thing was the utter silence, like it was foreboding for a incoming disaster... who had witnessed Second Impact had known that kind of silence... this time, the activity of the men ceased completely.
Everyone took refuge inside the appropriate shelters, prepared time ago, during the wars, waiting and, who suspected something, trembling, when the klaxons started to cry. Inside the shelters, people felt that speaking loudly was inappropriate and so the few conversations were made by whispers. The older people who clearly remembered the impact and witnessed the wars didn't want to talk, fear visible in their eyes.
The children didn't know what was happening and why their parents took hastily them, impeding them from going outside. A mother was cradling her child, happy to have been able to catch him and to bring him with her in the shelter, another mother whose children were at school was silently praying in a dark corner, hoping that they would be in their refuges, and safes. She wasn't alone: wives and husbands were doing the same, not knowing and not having any way to know where and how their loves were.
A lone child was whimpering in a corner: she was brought inside the shelter by a man who saw her alone and now she wanted her mother who wasn't still inside... the armored door opened and two men forced a woman to enter, but she didn't want to, because her child was still outside... when she heard the child calling her 'mom', she turned and dashed towards the girl, hugging her forcefully, and telling her that she was worried about her, and that she didn't have to make her mother so preoccupied.
Someone envied that woman, remembering someone they lost forever time ago...
Everyone listened attentively if from outside rumors of war were coming... but the silence reined alone, outside...
Only in the distance, a faint rumble could be heard. It was a sporty car; to be precise it was an Alpine Renault at top speed.
Its color was blue, like the cloudless sky, and the gloss paint reflected the sun like the windshield... it looked like it was newly bought, or exceptionally well treated during the years, but now the way it was driven was careless...
Without the problem of looking for other vehicles except for those stopped in the middle of the road and easy to dodge, the driver forced the car at its top speed, shooting the lights as the pilot was sure that nobody would crash against the car. The Renault, still accelerating even if the engine was voicing its protests along with the tires, constricted to squeak at each turn, was the only visible signal of life in the city, rumbling towards its destination, like if it was a life or death matter.
If someone had seen the car, that someone would have thought about what had brought its driver outside from a shelter during a emergency, and if the driver knew what was doing.
Looking at the way the car dangerously speeded avoiding for mere inches a tremendous accident when it skidded at a corner, it was possible to think that the driver was just crazy, but one would also admit that it was a damn good driver, judging by the way the control of the car was regained after the sideslip, jamming on the brakes and burning some rubber before accelerating again.
The driver's nerves had surely to be made of steel because the Renault continued to take the corners at top speed, without slowing down even in the hardest turns... from the way the hand brake was being used, someone could guess that inside the car maybe there was a professional driver...
And who thought that women and motors didn't come along very well together would be utterly disappointed, because the driver was a quite attractive young woman, dressed in black, her eyes hidden by a nice pair of black glasses, her hands, covered by a pair of driving gloves, forcefully gripping the steering wheel, her face concentrate on the task of driving as fast as she can without killing herself.
Her lips were pressed together, forming a tiny line, while inside her thoughts were turmoil. She knew very well what she was doing, and she also knew better than anyone else what were the risks of driving during that kind of emergency, but she had volunteered for the job, and she was going to do it...
Her thought returned completely on the task of driving when, over a hump, her car literally flew thought the air before the gravity force regained possession over it...
The landing was hard, and some spark could be seen where the bottom of the car rubbed against the pavement.
The driver heard the unpleasant noise of metal scratching against asphalt with an inward sigh.
My poor car... she cried to herself, but without speeding down.
She had a mission to do, and someone to reach... and she was late, thanks to the angel attack that was exceptionally wrong timed...
And when something about the angels was well timed? the driver mused to herself, before shifting again her train of thoughts about her charge. I hope that he doesn't get in any trouble...
Her target was still far away, trying to use a non-collaborative telephone. He was a boy, with dark hair and dark blue eyes, darker than the sky... they were the same color of the ocean during a tempest, with inside a hint of gray steel, like specks of steel wandering in the dark, cold water. His eyes were meek, and seemed to automatically slip away if someone was trying to take a good look at them. They were the most interesting part of him... don't we say that eyes are the mirror of the soul? By his haunted gaze, one should conclude that his souls was a mess... but his gaze had also something... something fleeting, something evasive like a ghost... a promise for something that could be and yet it wasn't. It was odd, but you could have the temptation to look better at them, to see what was under the surface.
Other than the eyes, he was a quite common boy: his skinny frame told that he wasn't excellent at sports and that he wasn't used to a wild life... his arms, uncovered by the short sleeves of his white shirt, were tanned just a bit and not very muscular. But this was average for his age: not too muscular, but there was no need for him to gain weight. A pair of dark pants covered his legs, but one could hazard that them weren't much more fit than his arms. His way of dressing was more formal than what a normal boy was expected to wear in an afternoon: in fact, it was a school uniform.
"It doesn't work... just the right time for an emergency" he whined a bit, before picking up again his bag. He was late, but it wasn't his fault: the trains stopped and the communications were shut down. He tried to contact the number that he received, with no success.
And now, what can I do? he thought to himself, looking around.
The city was desert... the speakers had said that people had to go to the refuges, but when he heard the alarms, everybody was entered inside the shelters, so he didn't know were to go. Besides, the thought that a war would come was highly unlikely.
So, he sat over a step, pulling out of his pocket a photo. It was a young woman... and it was quite attractive, Shinji had to admit that. He even knew some boy who would do everything for a photo like the one he was holding: the woman was wearing a skimpy and revealing top, with short, short pants, which left her long, shapely legs uncovered. She was doing the sign of victory with one hand, her bust was bent towards the photographer, and that particular position was exalting her breasts, like they had that need... and if it wasn't enough, they were evidenced by a red mark and a writing, 'look at those !'. On the photo there was also a trace of red lipstick left by a kiss... and a signature: Misato Katsuragi.
He blushed when he was that photo, but the thing that puzzled him mostly was in what way that woman was connected with his father. She seemed to be a person completely different from his father.
Father.
It was a surprise to receive that letter from him. The fact that it contained a single command wasn't so surprising. He had ordered him to go to him. Not asked, ordered. In one word. No more. The other parts were documents he read, without understanding much, mostly because large parts were covered with black ink. The few thins he collected was that apparently an organization connected with his father wanted him for something. With the letter, came also a train ticket and a badge.
Now, sitting and watching the photo, he was thinking what was he doing at Neo Tokyo 3. He knew that facing his father wouldn't be pleasant, so why had he bothered to come?
Maybe something in the letter tickled him: after all, the organization who called him seemed to be powerful, and they asked expressly for him.
Was he... important?
Maybe his father was going to accept him, if he was important...
Wishful thinking... The most probable scenario was that his father needed him for something, he remembered, folding again the paper and looking some more at the image of the woman.
Is she her secretary? Or... a lover? But why is she coming to look after me? And... Why had she sent this photo? I don't understand... why does the U.N. need me? What is that special agency... what was its name again?
He picked again the paper.
Ah, Nerv, that's it. What had my father to do with that? too many questions to haul his mind.
Still sitting, he started to think.
His father. The man he knew so little about. The man who had left him. He could remember when he was left behind. He cried a lot, near a bag too big for a children to bring around... he cannot remember who brought him to the train station... things were confused. He couldn't say if someone went with him to his new house.
House, not home. He was never able to think about the place where he lived like a home. It was a place to stay... like a dump, where the garbage is left. For his father, he was obviously garbage to throw away. For his mother... he couldn't say. She died when he was younger.
He wasn't sure when exactly she died... surely before he was sent away. His mother... sometime, he had seen a ghostly face in his dreams, but blurred, vague. It was the face of a woman, he knew that, and it was smiling... he was sure that it was his mother's face, but never, in his dreams, he clearly had seen it. But that face rarely visited his dreams.
He also didn't remember why his mother died. Surely he was to young to remember, or so he always told to himself. He could have asked to his father to tell him something about his mother, or to show him a photograph, but he couldn't. He simply couldn't talk with him.
Another thing he remembered about his mother was when she took him in her arms. It was a fogged, dim memory... he wasn't even sure if he really remembered it or if it was only a trick of his mind.
But what he remembered was that it was a day...
a day like today, he reflected, ... a cloudless sky, and there was the sun. We were... somewhere, in the open air. She picked me up, while talking with someone... a tall man who wasn't father... maybe
Some memory of his childhood was also about his father, but the most prominent were one, in which he saw his father like a dark giant... so tall, dressed in a black attire. Dark like a shadow, and he was only a little child covered by that shadow towering over him. Then, his father turned away, away from him. He could see only his back, so much larger in his child eyes, covering the sky, like a black cloud.
That was a memory he hated, because in that reminiscence he remembered that he was afraid of his father, because he wasn't who had to be. His father had become an evil ogre... and it was wrong. He remembered that something was wrong.
He remembered clearly a single yet powerful thought that crossed his mind in that moment: he wanted his father back, because the thing in front of him wasn't his father.
The sad thing was that he really didn't remember how his father behaved around him before leaving him. He couldn't say if he was a bad parent before leaving him, before that his mother died... actually he didn't know what was like his father.
so he threw me away, he remembered again.
His life had changed. He had to live with a guardian.
His guardian was a passable person, in our boy opinion, but he had no illusions: his guardian kept him only for the money, not out of pity or compassion. It was only a work, like teaching.
Life had been lonely. His guardian never spoke too much with him and was always busy with the school. He honestly couldn't blame him for that.
What could he do in his life? Discharged by his father, he had no purpose. What was the point in going to school? What was the meaning of his life? Everything that happened to him was only a consequence of the actions that other people did... he had no choices, no desires, no dreams. He never wanted to be an adolescent... maybe, he could also die. He didn't think that it would matter a lot.
Once, he wrote his thoughts about his live in a composition... the result was only that his teacher become angry with him.
And now, I'm here... why, father, did you want me after ten years? he asked, fidgeting with a piece of paper, his gaze down to his shoes.
He thought when, a couple of days before, the quiet routine of his life changed. All started when his guardian said that there was a parcel for him, from Neo Tokyo 3...
Suddenly, an aircraft flying very low, and roaring past over his head took all his attention.
"Jet fighter ? So low, and over a city ?"
Other hissing sounds gained his attention. This time the forms in the sky were without wings and littler, but they were going towards the same curse that had the aircraft.
"Missiles..." he whispered in awe, then he froze when he realized that a missile was going to hit a palace just in front him.
He started to run away, while behind his back a ball of fire enveloped the last floor of the palace, disintegrating them and scattering debris all around.
Shinji heard then an entire concerto of explosions, becoming near. He stopped, the last pieces of glass landing around him.
A giant was walking. Missiles were exploding against it, without giving it a scratch. Shinji saw as that huge beast smashed down a pair of planes, with a luminescent stick that seemed to exit from his hand. His mind was in a overload: just in front of his eyes, there was the stage of a film about a monster flatting a city... a bad catastrophic movie, with the only difference that it was real. The heat he felt with the nearer explosion was proving that... and even the best sound system couldn't give someone the feeling of the shock waves inside his stomach and head, or made the Earth tremble like that.
Still, Shinji blinked a couple of times, hoping that everything was a mirror, or a nightmare, or something. He pinched himself: he was awake... and a plane had apparently thought that crashing over him would be a good idea. He saw the flames around the wrenched remains of the exploded aircraft, then he run away. His eyes widened when a car appeared suddenly, stopping next to him with a squeak of tires and shielding him from the explosion on the ground. The door of the driving side opened, revealing the subject of his photo, this time in the flesh.
The woman couldn't believe her luck: she had found him, she wasn't as late as she thought she was, and he was still alive. Nevertheless, the last condition could change soon, for both of them.
The things he learnt about himself didn't bothered him too much. He had figured out something similar. But the part about her, that bothered him greatly. His perception of reality had changed and he couldn't see everything in the same light as before.
Moreover, lately, there was in her a twisted impulse to change their relationship... a thing that scared him, but he should have expected something similar.
He had grown alone, neglected, and like a tree forced beneath a heavy weight, he grew convoluted and warped.
The plant grew, until it started to yield fruits that ripened in the coldness.
A mysterious fruit, left alone and neglected, but that when it's ripe, the hand of the master is free to pick.
But, in the same cold maze, another plant grew contorted and warped.
When he and she met, maybe they sought in each other a bit of a much needed warmth, growing together for a bit.
Still mulling those thoughts, he didn't heard her entering the locker room.
He heard the faint noise of tissue being dropped on the floor, so he turned, discovering that she had finished to undress and stood naked in front of him, without shame.
He was surprised and startled, unable to move, unable to speak, only able to breath slowly.
She pressed herself against him, interlacing her fingers with his. He let her do so without opposition.
"I don't want... I cannot escape from here. I cannot live outside... unless you come with me," she whispered slowly, then she nested her head over his shoulder, her breath tickling his neck, "because your soul... is as twisted as mine."
He felt her warm body, her heartbeat while his tiny droplets of sweat formed on his forehead.
He freed his hands, then he grabbed her shoulders, pulling her away from him.
Their gazes locked for long moments, each other trying to read the emotions in the eyes of the other, then she grabbed her clothes and went away, without turning, without saying any word.
He just stood still, the cold air drying his sweat. He wished he were able to found the word to tell her that he wasn't enough strong...
A change was lost forever.
He had the possibility to break the yoke that trapped him, but he couldn't do so. The bonds with other people were too strong and tied him where he was.