Strain
"The assassin's cold blade carries sorrow that cuts through all happiness…"
Chapter Four:
GrayShinji and Rei stood in front of a enormous hospital as people bumped and pushed each other to get inside, although neither one of them was injured they were just here to see one person in particular.
"So this Asuka is a great doctor or something?" the young man asked as he moved out of the way to allow another person to pass him in order to get into the hospital.
Rei moved closer towards him so her soft voice could be heard over the flow of people coming in and out of the building before them, "Yes, Soryu is now a doctor. Because of her history she is very famous in the medical field."
"Um, and we are here to refresh my memory right?"
"You are correct."
Shinji scratched his head, "I don't really remember doctors treating people for losing their memory." He said as he looked around to find Rei already walking into the hospital.
Not forgetting his manners, Shinji ran in front of her and opened the door, "You did not lose your memory. It is just stored away, and I am confident that Soryu can remove what is blocking your memory."
"If you say so… I just hope it isn't painful…"
Rei gave no reply as she walked up towards one of the many desk, "I am here with my appointment with Dr. Soryu."
The nurse behind the desk gently wrapped her black hair with blond highlights around her finger, "I am sorry, but she doesn't have any openings." She said as she continued to chew her gum.
"Call and tell her the Third is here to speak to her."
"I just said-"
"Do it," Rei calmly interrupted, "This is important."
The crimson-eyed female turned towards Shinji, "Go to room 333. She is either in there or she is in her office next door."
Shinji nodded as the nurse dialed the number on the phone to contact the doctor.
It wasn't until he started walking through the hospital that he actually noticed how many people were here… it was even a couple of translators that were speaking to some people, but Shinji quickly turned the other way as a lady began to cry… and he could tell that those were tears wasn't for happiness.
He decided to take the stairs… mainly because of the fact that it was so many people stuffing into the elevator, and partly because he enjoyed the peace of the stairway.
The sound of his footsteps echoed as his shoes hit the granite steps, and it was so cold that he was expecting to see his own breath.
He felt aware… too aware.
Shinji could hear the soft footsteps of a woman not far above him, and he could hear the closing of the heavy doors a floor below. Some people were having a conversation a floor above him, and a man was running up the stairs and was now… right behind him.
Suddenly Shinji spun around only to find a man dressed in medical white with bags around his feet fly pass him. A nurse not far behind was informing him that he was needed in the OR in order to operate on a boy who barely made it out of an car accident alive.
The ex pilot sighed. Being with Rei was making him paranoid
Deciding that everything was all right, Shinji continued walking up the stairs until he made his way up to floor three. Pausing before pushing the heavy doors to open them, he checked to see if anyone was behind them. Not hearing any voices or footsteps behind either of them, he pushed one open and stepped into the third floor hallway.
"Room 333." He whispered as he stood at the end of the hallway and looked all the way at the window at the other end of the hall.
"Ah, it is a few doors down on your right." Called out a friendly voice beside him.
Shinji turned to find a man dressed in all white and assumed he was a nurse, "Thank you," the young man whispered, as he looked at all the doors, "It is a pretty long hallway."
The man smiled, "Don't worry about it. And yes, it is a pretty big hospital."
Using the male nurse's information, Shinji looked at each of the room numbers till he came to room 333.
Clearing his throat, Shinji softly knocked on the door and called out the doctor's name.
He waited a while, and repeated the process.
Shinji almost knocked on her head as she opened the door…
A lady dressed in a white dress covered with a lab coat of the same color stepped in front of him, her long, lively red hair stopped at the center of her back… but the long needle she held in her hand bothered him…
He felt a bit dizzy as he looked at the needle, it was twice as thick and almost three times as long as the biggest needle he ever seen… but the look on her face bothered him to a greater extent.
She looked amused.
"Oh, hi Shinji. I was just fixing this," She held up the syringe and pressed the end of it causing fluid to come out, "for you."
He was becoming real dizzy…
"Oh shit, Shinji I was just joking-"
He passed out…
~*~*~*~
"Today's lesson: Hand-to-hand combat!" the man yelled as he walked among the crowd of people, "People we are not here to practice! Break your opponent's arm, kick them in the balls, and even kill them if you have to… or if you want to."
He pulled out his gun and shot a boy directly in the head after he was knocked down by a simple punch in the chest, "This is no place for weaklings."
Looking around he managed to catch a glimpse of a crowd looking at a fight, not wasting even a second he pushed his way through to see what they were looking at… the best were fighting each other.
Shinji narrowly avoided her blows, one by one he didn't counter… just blocked and moved. Although it was far from a perfect defense it was more than suitable.
But on the other hand, Mana carefully choose where to strike but had to do it fast on the off chance that Shinji would decide to hit her… and he probably would have if it wasn't for her gender.
"What are you doing!?" The man boomed his voice causing Shinji to almost fall off guard, "This isn't a one on one fight, everyone is fighting to see who survives! Fight! All of you or I will kill you myself!"
A meek, smaller boy gulped, "I-I thought we were just training-"
The hooded man kicked the boy to the ground, "Fight or die!"
"I'm not going to kill anyone… I rather die." Came a soft reply from the center of the crowd causing all eyes to turn towards Shinji, "You better just kill me now…"
Mana jumped in front of him as the hooded man began to march towards him, "No! He doesn't mean it!"
"Shut up." He said eyeing Mana before moving along to Shinji, "The old men told me you was important, so you won't die… but if you don't do as you are told others will."
He flashed his insane smile, "Now hit her as hard as you possibly can."
"I-I can't."
A gunshot rang out in the room and another person dropped to the floor, "Do it."
And he did… using his right hand he hit Mana as hard in the stomach as he possibly could. She didn't black out, but it did take her some time to regain her normal breathing pattern.
The boy simply started at his hand as if it acted on its own… as the others around him started fighting to live… it was then that he noticed it.
The twitching of his right arm was beginning… it felt like he was about to black out but he felt completely normal.
He could hear his heart beat despite the battle cries and shouts around him.
The room was as large as a gym and it wasn't cold at all but he was shivering…
He didn't even have to turn around because he felt the punch coming towards him, so he simply sidestepped, but the more he dodged the more he began to feel tired… but this wasn't… normal.
He was fighting to keep his eyes open, but not because they were deprived of sleep…
It felt like something was tugging at the edges of his sanity and soul… begging to be released even if for a second…
The moment he closed his eyes, that 'something' took over.
And it was then that the true carnage began…
~*~*~*~
"Leave him with me. If you care so much about him just leave him in my care till this is forgotten."
"They won't forget about him, and we are leaving the moment you remove the block."
Shinji rubbed his eyes and slowly set up in the bed, he hated to eavesdrop but… but he just couldn't stop himself from listening.
"This holy war you are raging on them is not going to cause any damage for real Rei. Look they have assassins all over the world. Hell, they probably even have some watching me here in the hospital! But you know that this isn't going to work… it is suicide Rei, and you can't replace yourself any more."
"SEELE is going to be destroyed."
It was things like this that he didn't really want to ask Rei about… like when Mana was talking about those mass production factories, and now the doctor talking about replacing…
"Anyway, I'm ready to do the operation… but we may need to leave Shinji in the 'room' for a while. While he was out I ran a couple of test and… his psyche graph was pretty unstable. I don't even think he has a mental block or whatever. I think he just experienced something much worse than EVA…"
"We should be leaving as soon as permitted. Start as soon as possible."
Shinji pretended to be asleep as the both of them stepped from behind the curtain, wishing the operation thing wasn't going to hurt… that much.
Asuka picked up an IV pouch out of the box beside the hospital bed, "I guess I'm going to have to use some pretty strong stuff to keep him out, I mean he is Shinji."
Rei said nothing as the red head pulled out her trademark syringe and walked towards the 'sleeping' boy, "Rei, do you remember how you was when you first came to me?" the woman said as she got a tight grip on Shinji's arm and forced the needle into it.
It wasn't that hard to pretend to be knocked out since his arm was really limp since he was beginning to feel dizzy again…
The albino silently moved towards the window to look out of it, "Yes, I do." She said softly as she pulled back the blinds.
Noticing that she didn't want to talk about it, Asuka changed the subject, "How do you feel about Shinji?" she asked as withdrew the needle from Shinji's arm.
She didn't answer.
As Shinji slowly began to black out, all he could hear was Asuka saying something along the lines of, "It never helps to keep it inside."
~*~*~*~
Pain…
"My hands wrapped around his throat… and with his dying breath he begged me to stop."
"He was even crying."
Lost…
"When she walked away I-I didn't think I would never see her again…""
Agony…
"I… I didn't only take his life… I-I destroyed his soul by killing those around him…I took his sanity by torture. What kind of monster did they turn me into…"
"No, what kind of monster did I become…"
Insanity…
"I didn't want to watch it… she was teaching us how to drive our target insane with mind games. I didn't want to see a child commit suicide… I… I didn't want to see a grown man cry…"
Loneliness…
"It doesn't matter how many people are around them… not one of them know me… not one of them care…"
"Not one of them loves me."
Destruction…
"In this world tainted by the darkness of the human heart… are we not all destroyers of each other… monsters who take pleasure in the pain of our victims… trash that can only make a living by killing?"
"No… I'm not like that."
Death…
"Is… Is this all I amount to? Just a weak coward that refuses to believe that I'm just a killer?"
~*~*~*~
Shinji screamed as he tried to grab the sides of his head only to discover that his hands were bound to the side of the bed he was on top of.
It felt like his head was going to explode… The voices, memories, lies, flashbacks, dreams, and even nightmares all entered his mind at the same time, each of them trying to become the dominant one in his mind's eye.
"Listen to me Shinji! Don't try to fight it." Asuka's voice came over the speaker as the boy continued to jerk his head from side to side.
"I-It," the young man paused as tears started to slide down his face, "It hurts… make it stop… please!" he begged as his mind felt like it was breaking in half.
As Shinji was struggling to keep his sanity, the women on the other side of the window turned to talk to each other.
Asuka started first, "Rei… he isn't taking it well at all. We might have to cancel it… for now at least."
The albino took another glance at the boy who was tied to the bed, "Can you administer any drugs?" she whispered as she continued to be witness to the pain Shinji was in.
"How can you remember things when you are unconscious?"
The red head was really beginning to get worried when instead of answering, sweat began to form on Rei's forehead, "Let's call it off, I don't want to see him go into that state…"
As Asuka turned to retrieve the drugs needed to put the boy at ease, the screaming suddenly came to a stop…
Rei, her calm exterior broken, nervously looked through the window…
One by one… the straps that held him down started to break.
"I'll… get the tranquilizing gun…" Asuka slowly backed away then burst out into a full run for the gun.
He slowly raised his head, and examined the albino on the other side of the thick glass placed there for protection.
…For a moment, the both of them stared at one another.
Her eyes searched for any compassion… any feeling.
She found feelings, but not the ones she was looking for… she found nothing but grief in those lonely blue eyes.
At this exact time, something came to her…
Was this how it always was between them?
Not only being separated from each other by physical barriers, but by their own sense of self.
She was known to keep so many secrets… even from those who could be considered loved ones, and him, who would always retreat from others because of his fear of pain.
When he needed her most, where was she?
When he cried for her, what did she do?
When… When he disappeared, was she to blame?
Is it because of her that he was so distant… so lonely?
As he punched the glass, Rei snapped back into the present…
Despite the fact that it was near impossible to break the glass, the boy continued to hit it… over and over again as the one person who probably treasured him the most could only stand witness to this self mutilation…
As he began to come to his senses, the punches continued but… tears started to fall to plain white tile that covered the hospital floor…
Rei silently turned the knob on the door and entered the room, it was only then could she hear what he was whispering.
He continued to hit the glass not caring about the blood that stared to appear on his fist, "I'm just a killer who doesn't want to be responsible for his crimes… so I'm running away again… like the weakling I always was."
"Shinji… we all run away at one point. People are not superior beings at all, everyone has to come to accept the fact that we all are corrupted… we all are weak, but by excepting that, we can become stronger and better."
Rei moved to Shinji's side just as he began to collapse… and luckily she managed to catch the falling boy in her arms, "Shinji, I'm… I'm sorry for hurting you like this," Rei gasped as Shinji's arms wrapped around her waste and his head landed on her shoulder.
Shinji slowly began to close his eyes, but before he drifted off into sleep the girl that held him began to speak, "Can you recall those words you said to me Shinji?"
The young man slowly blinked as the exact statement came to mind, "I-I said I hated you…" he said quietly feeling ashamed of himself.
She embraced him and brought her lips closer to his ear, "I came for you to show that the feeling isn't mutual…"
Fin
_________
I don't think I did a very good job on this chapter but I like it, it looks pretty good to me but I really think I should have added a bit more Asuka in this.
Now that I think about it, I wanted Asuka to have a much bigger impact on this story (Take Mana's place or even Rei's), but it seemed so much better to make her something successful… something happier. -_-'
Anyway, some of you probably noticed that the quality of the story seems kind of higher than some of my previous stories. That is because I wrote them while I was making one shots and stuff. So all I do is really pre read the chapters and fix stuff before I send them to my pre readers. ^_^.
I need you people to take off your Shinji/Rei hats and to put on your Shinji/Mana hats for a while, because some of the chapters that follow this one will be about Shinji's past after the Third Impact.
Many late thanks for reading and many more thanks for reviewing. ^_^
Next chapter: Tears and Gunpowder