Okay, this isn't really a continuation of the story, this is more
filler. But it will provide some insight into Asuka's psyche. Well, my
interpretation of it, anyway.
On an additional note, I've gone back through the other three chapters and done some editing. I removed all the typos and even did a bit of rewording. Nothing serious, just changed some sentences around...and stuff. The chapter titles should also be there soon. You're welcome to re-read the chapters if you want.
I altered the author's notes in the first chapter to make note of it, but I did that AFTER THE FACT. So in case you missed it the first time around and didn't get the memo because you already read the first chapter, here it is again.
4. In Your Dreams
Asuka got tired of sitting there on that desolate beach and decided to head out on her own, not particularly caring about what she might find. Anything was better than having to face Shinji again. The baka had shown intestinal fortitude before, but never had he tried to kill her or attack her. It just wasn't normal, even for him. Even if he was a spineless baka hentai, she had pegged him as the last person in the world to want to harm her.
Then again, he WAS the last person in the world.
Still, it wasn't supposed to be like this. HE wasn't supposed to be like this.
She walked away from the shoreline and headed for the ruins of the former city of Tokyo-3. As the sand beneath her gave way to asphalt, she had somehow found her way into a park. She wasn't really paying any attention to it, but the sky had turned dangerously black, although she could see the ground in front of her as clear as day. As she entered the park and trotted along the trail, the scenery had transformed itself into an impassible tangle of trees on both sides and what felt like an infinite path down the dirt road. There was something about the trees she really didn't like; they seemed to be mangled and twisted in any number of violent ways, as if the trees were somehow aware and had the intention of doing her bodily harm.
Growing impatient and wanting to get the hell out of this forest, she began to run. It felt rather strange trying to run; it was as if her legs were trying to move through molasses. Within a few minutes, however, she had reached the end of the trail and had discovered what seemed to be a rather cozy country home. Something about the two-story brick house in the middle of nowhere felt very familiar, almost like she had been here before. The sky had also become more crimson in appearance, laced with foreboding.
Asuka ran through the front yard and tried to reach the front door, but as the distance between her and her objective diminished, she could feel more and more dread eating at her heart. Somewhere deep inside her, she knew that something was about to happen, something that she knew all too well, something she wanted no part of anymore.
Then she heard a little girl screaming from behind her out in the woods. As the little girl got closer, Asuka got a good look at her. She was probably about two and a half feet tall, just shy of being half of Asuka's height. She had wild red hair that ran down past her shoulders. She was wearing a little red Sunday dress and little black shoes. She had a very ecstatic look on her face, as if everything she had ever wanted was suddenly granted to her.
The little girl was yelling at the top of her lungs, her voice being a high-pitched squeal. From the sounds of things, it seemed like she was on top of the world.
"Momma! Momma! I have wonderful news, momma!"
And the feeling of imminent doom was upon Asuka again. She suddenly felt the urge to protect this girl from anything and everything.
'No, kid, get out of here! You don't want to be HERE!'
"It's supposed to be a secret, but I'll tell it only to you, momma!"
'Get away from here, kid! Don't go into the house!'
"They picked me to pilot, momma! I'll never be lonely again, momma!"
'That's not true, little girl, it's just not true!'
"I'll be alright, even without poppa!"
'No you won't! Run away from here, stupid! Do ANYTHING but stay here!'
This was just like her nightmares, which were always the same; Asuka would try to move, but find herself fixed in place. It was as if the whole situation was destined to loop back in front of her again and again, torturing her for all of eternity. She would struggle on, nevertheless, but it was always in vain. The little girl always made it to the house and bared witness to the horrors in front of her, as did Asuka. Every night, Asuka failed both the little girl and herself.
As the girl finally made it next to the front door, Asuka found that she had regained command of her body once again. She immediately blitzed for the girl, not that it would matter anyhow. She once again found it nigh impossible to move at anything but a snail's pace, and the girl had already turned the knob on the door. Asuka threw her arms out in front of her in a futile attempt to get physically closer to the little girl. The door swung open, revealing only an impenetrable wall of pain and horror. As soon as the door completely cleared, Asuka lost visual track of the little girl as she disappeared into the house.
It was too late to press the matter any further, but Asuka pushed on regardless, naively clinging to any hope of rectifying the situation. When she made it into the house, she could not see the little girl anywhere, although she heard the ever-present sound of a rope creaking under the stress of a heavy object swinging from it.
But what Asuka saw in front of her was different from her usual nightmares. Instead of an actual body hanging from the rope in the middle of the room, it was a little doll. The doll had red yarn for hair and blue buttons for eyes, reminding Asuka of someone she knew all too well. And the doll was smiling. Not a friendly, "play with me" kind of smile, though. This was a sadistic smile. It spoke of the doll snatching victory from Asuka's pathetic, undeserving grasp, as if she and the doll were in a race and the doll had beaten her soundly. No matter how close she came, she was always defeated by nothing more than a sack of stuffing.
The doll was also laughing at her. It was a cackling of sorts, and it seemed to be the same laughter over and over again, like a broken record. The spite that it conveyed sent both a chill down Asuka's spine and a surge of rage through her arms as she tore the doll into pieces. She wanted anything to stop that laughing, had to stop it from laughing at HER. It was just a stupid doll and she was the Great Asuka Langley Sohryou; it would be made to learn it's proper place.
(Author's notes: for those of you who saw the Batman movie, think of the laughter you hear at the end of the movie when the Joker is found splattered all over the pavement.)
She tore off it's head, ripped off it's button eyes with her teeth, pulled off limbs, yanked out its cotton fluff innards, anything to ensure it's total destruction. Yet it's laughter only grew in volume and malevolence, achieving near-maniacal levels. This only egged Asuka on, but soon all the white stuffing and body parts had been distributed across the floor. The laughter only became harsher, forcing Asuka to cup her hands with her ears and shriek. It was a cry of a mixture of unspeakable pain, humiliation, frustration, and fear, the fear that one feels when all their hopes and dreams have been dashed.
She had to scream over the voice, drown it out so that she didn't have to hear it anymore.
Soon they were engaged in another battle; to see who could be the loudest. As much as Asuka pushed on, however, her voice was beginning to give out, and once again she had to admit defeat. The voice only fed off of this latest victory and used it to enclose Asuka with a barrier of anger and despair.
Or was it her own anger and despair at having been beaten by IT yet again?
No matter, she couldn't bear it anymore; she had to get out of this place. Even running away to be defeated by it another day was better than remaining in its presence.
She ran for the door, which had somehow closed on its own, and began to jiggle the handle. No response; the door would not budge. She began clawing at it with her bare finger nails, but the only thing that yielded was deep red grooves in the good wood, red with her own blood. She felt a tingly sensation in her fingertips, but it wasn't a sensation of pain. The really weird part was that the door sort of gave way easily, like wet sand.
She didn't have time to dig through the door, though. There was no time for these shenanigans. She had to get away, and fast.
Asuka was getting desperate; the laughter was still in full effect, and it seemed to be coming from all around. She didn't know where her mysterious arch nemesis was, and therefore didn't know from where it would strike. It didn't matter, however. Her enemy knew Asuka all too well, in much the same way as Asuka was intimately acquainted with it. It knew all of her secrets, all of her weaknesses, and it would not hesitate to exploit them all. It was the one foe that Asuka could not overcome, that she could not proclaim victory over. The only thing she could ever hope for was to run away from it all. But even that was futile; even among the alert and the living the monster was stalking her. Asuka knew that she was never safe in her dreams, she just couldn't fight it there. But she didn't know how to fight it in the real world, either. She had no idea how to fight the monster at all. It was always stalking her, hiding in all the dark corners, always waiting for that perfect moment to strike, which it always did.
Said monster was sometimes only a half a foot tall and made up of cloth and cotton filler.
Said monster was sometimes a five feet tall and pale-skinned bitch with light blue hair and blood-colored irises.
Said monster was sometimes a five feet tall and brown-haired cowardly boy.
Said monster always stole everything that was ever important to Asuka. HAD stolen everything ever important to her.
The creature that was the embodiment of all her personal demons had stolen her mother, and it continued even to this day to steal anyone and everyone away from her. No matter what Asuka did or said, she would always be outdone by it. Everyone she would ever meet would continue to look past her, cast HER, the Great Asuka Langley Sohryou, aside, in favor of a doll. She had everything to offer; intelligence, grace, natural beauty, talent, you name it, she had it in spades. What, then, did the lifeless, emotionless doll have that she didn't? Why was she never good enough for anybody?
Since she couldn't get out the front, Asuka bee-lined for the only other exit from the room; a lone hallway. If she couldn't get out through the doorway from whence she came, perhaps she could find an alternate escape somewhere in that blackened tunnel. She wasn't moving any quicker than previously, but then again getting away from this scene at any rate greater than zero was good enough for the moment. As she got further down the hallway, the laughter died down, but she could still feel the monster's presence over her, watching her, mocking her always. She didn't look back; she didn't want to, out of a primitive fear of what she might discover.
Another minute or so of traversing the passage that seemed to stretch to nowhere, Asuka reached a door on her left. Before she could open it, however, she could hear soft moans of pleasure emanating from within. Not caring about what was on the other side, Asuka burst through the door, immediately disgusted by what she found.
There were two people in this room who were currently embracing one another and kissing one another very passionately. The blue-haired female was pinned against the wall with her right leg wrapped around the male's waist, hiking her skirt up in the process, and her hands gripped to the backs of his shoulders as if she wanted to take no chances of letting him go. The male, who had moppy brown hair, currently had his face buried in the female's bosom, speaking into her fully developed breasts, going on about something that had to do with thermal expansion. His left hand wrapped around her waist and seemed to be grasping her buttocks, while his right hand was slowly moving up the girl's thigh, placing it closer and closer to her nether regions. As he moved in further, the girl's moans grew louder and more erotic. Her skin, which had previously been as white as any porcelain doll, now had a more crimson hue, the flushing induced and guided by her lover's hands.
Asuka did not immediately recognize the two figures, although she felt as though she should have. What she did recognize, however, was a feeling that she had felt almost every day of her life ever since her mother became sick. It filled her being when her mother would ignore her in the hospital and instead spend all her time playing with that damndable toy. It was there when her father ignored her and spent all his free time fucking that gold-digging slut who had the audacity to replace her mother. It was with her when her college professors wouldn't call upon her to answer the questions. It accompanied her whenever one of the other students tried to out-do her. It was her only date before she had reached puberty and all the girls in her dormitory were too busy with their boyfriends to concern themselves with her. It courted her whenever her male classmates still paid no attention to her after she blossomed into womanhood on the grounds that she was jail bait, even though she could feel their eyes scanning over her, fucking her.
It kept her company on all those lonely nights that Kaji refused her advances.
It was at its highest in quite a long time when that drunken whore stole Kaji away from her.
It was still there for her whenever people would look to the Invincible Shinji to save the day instead of her.
It was no stranger when Shinji's synch ratio finally surpassed hers.
It smacked her in the face when Shinji sortied during the sixteenth Angel to assist Wonder Bitch.
It had never been higher than when she walked into her home that fateful day almost seven years ago, when her mother chose to kill herself and take that goddamn doll with her instead of her own fucking daughter.
But what had felt foreign to Asuka was that it would get to the level it had reached when Kaji was courting Misato whenever she saw the First and Third Children together. It seemed to especially be triggered by whenever the three of them would sit in class together and the baka would stare for hours at that fucking doll, who always concentrated her viewing to outside the window. It wasn't so much the act of staring, it was that look in his eyes. It was a mixture of desire and curiosity.
Well, he is a desperate hentai pervert. He'd probably fuck his own mother if she was pretty enough.
So how come he never looks at Asuka like that?
If this feeling had a color associated with it, the best bet would be on green. As in the green in her eyes that spoke of greed. Greed for attention, greed for acknowledgement that she did indeed exist, greed for anything that confirmed she was noticed.
Green with envy.
Jealousy.
Jealousy at having been tossed in the waste receptacle in favor of the real garbage.
Above all else, she hated to be ignored by anyone. ANYONE. A small part of her died on the inside whenever she wasn't the center of attention. She wanted to rip out the eyes of whoever it was that was currently taking the spotlight from her. More specifically, she couldn't stand it when that someone was clearly inferior to her and was unfit to even be stacked next to her.
She hated being compared to that fucking doll.
She hated it even more when the doll was chosen over her.
She bloody well lost it whenever the doll would defeat her yet again.
Wasn't she ever good enough for anybody? Why was a doll always prime choice?
Why couldn't have Kaji-kun chosen her over that constantly inebriated sex slave?
How come HE never look at her like the way he looks at that emotionless puppet?
For God's sake, Asuka and the idiot lived together. They spent a good deal of their time in one another's company, why didn't Shinji ever stare at Asuka in the way he would stare at Rei? Despite her non-stop protests to the contrary, Asuka had never really known Shinji to actually be perverted. She knew he was too polite, timid and shy to be that way. He was too afraid to actually dare to catch glimpses of her in her natural state while in the shower. He always seemed to avert his eyes whenever she would approach him in her two-piece swim suit or her towel. When they were crawling around in the vents during the eleventh Angel's attack, she yelled at him not to look up her skirt on the off-chance that he'd actually do it.
When he confessed after defeating the seventh that he had tried to kiss her, she presented her usual front, but inwardly counted it as a slight victory that she had his attention.
That is, when Wonder Bitch didn't come around and snatch him away again.
At times Asuka felt like such a slut. She walked around the apartment at night in some considerably revealing evening wear, deliberately ran into him in nothing but a towel on occasion, even dared him to kiss her. She didn't do it because she wanted to see how good he was (but all things considered, he wasn't that bad), primarily she just wanted to have some fun with him, make sure that she still had a hold on him, make him do anything to come back for more. That, and she had to practice on someone so that she'd be ready when Kaji would finally come to his senses and sweep her off her feet.
Yet she still did all of these things to HIM, always played these mind games with him, and all for what? To make sure he continued to notice her?
What the hell did HE matter to her for?
It wasn't necessarily that she had a crush on him (she would never dare to commit infidelity against her precious Kaji-kun), he just seemed rather...to put it in the best terms, impressionable. He appeared to be one who could easily be shaped into whatever one wanted. She couldn't have Kaji-kun as long as Misato was in the way, and if everyone else was going to ignore her, then she'd have to take matters into her own hands. She'd have to MAKE someone pay attention to her, and it didn't seem like it would take a whole lot of effort on her part to get the baka to do just that.
Naturally, of course, she didn't really 'need' him. She needed nobody. She had done just fine on her own for the past seven years, she didn't need to start relying on other people now. And she certainly didn't need somebody like HIM. He couldn't even stand up for himself, he just did whatever he was told. He was just like everyone else; a lifeless doll.
But that was the problem; he WASN'T just a doll. He was no doll when they defeated the sixth Angel together inside her Unit02. He was no doll when they synch-trained and defeated the seventh together. And he certainly was no doll after the eighth when he kept her from falling into the volcano against orders, resulting in not only damage to Unit01, but also disciplinary action upon himself from the Commander afterwards. She could never admit it, but he was...dependable. Even when he ran away like the immature boy that he was, he always came back and braved the pain like a real man that she knew he could be.
She hated him for always stealing the show, she hated it even more that he acted indifferent to the attention, as if he wasn't trying or that he was too good for them all. Yet as long as he would always come back to the apartment and pay tribute to her with his excellent cooking, as long as she could fall back on him when everyone else around her failed her, she could live with herself.
Why, then, did he revert back? Why did he always cast his lot with the dolls?
And why did it have to be him that saved her? Not just from Angels, but from the hollow emptiness that claims her when nobody notices her? Why did she feel like he could give her the attention she rightfully deserved?
And why had he stopped trying to give her what she needed?
What did Wonder Bitch have that she didn't?
Why for her? Why for that doll during the sixteenth and not for her during the fifteenth?
Couldn't that baka see that she just wanted him to pay attention to her?
Once again, she was outdone by a doll.
She will not stand for this.
The doll will get off of HER baka, NOW.
Asuka had enough of their little make-out session. She ran at the lovers, grabbed Shinji by the shoulders, and threw him to the side. She then took her left hand and grabs Rei's forehead, pushing her head back against the wall, exposing her neck. Next, she put her right forearm up against the neck and began to apply a slight amount of pressure. She didn't want Wonder Girl to die just yet, she needed to be taught a lesson in superiority.
"HANDS OFF OF HIM, YOU STUPID BITCH!" she roared.
Then Rei did something Asuka had never seen her do before, something that was causing Asuka to back down ever so slightly.
She smiled. And not a happy smile, the same smile that the cackling doll from before was wearing.
She also narrowed her eyes until the whites were no longer visible, leaving only the crimson irises that gave off a stare that seemed to pierce through her as if she was only air.
The stare seemed to have a magical effect upon Asuka, pushing her further and further away from Rei until she bumped into the back of the wall of the room.
"What is the matter, pilot Sohryou?" the doll replied in her usual monotone voice.
"YOU'RE the matter, doll!" she retorted. She was not about to be scared of Wonder Girl, let alone be outdone by her yet again.
"I am not a doll." Rei replied coolly.
"YOU ARE A DOLL! You even once admitted that you'd die if ordered to! You don't think for yourself! You can't even PRETEND to show emotion! YOU'RE LIFELESS, JUST LIKE A DOLL!"
Rei placed a hand over her breast, covering up where her blouse had been unbuttoned, making some kind of half-assed attempt at decency. "Ikari-kun would seem to disagree." she stated.
More like gloated.
Asuka felt ready to kill her, but Rei continued on. "Why is it of any concern of yours, pilot Sohryou? You make your dislike of him well known, even to him. Or is THAT another lie, as well? Did you wish for it to be you in his arms and not me? Do you wish to become one with him, pilot Sohryou?"
"What I 'wish' isn't any of your business, First Child. Stay away from him from now on! He belongs to ME!" Asuka wouldn't ever admit it, but she was quickly losing control of the situation. Dolls: 1000. Asuka: 0.
"So he is as a possession to you? (giggle) I see. Then you can never expect him to behave as anything more than an object, because that is all he will ever be to you; an object."
"I don't treat him like an object! He's just an idiot that doesn't stand up for himself!"
"I think that you are lying to yourself again. It is easier for you to displace all of your disappointments and frustrations and project all of your anger onto him, even though you also believe that Ikari-kun is your only hope at some similitude for contempt with your so-called life. But is it not interesting, pilot Sohryou, that you would feel such things for something that you so vehemently despise?"
Having concluded her half of the dialogue, Rei stuck out her arm and pointed at where Asuka had thrown Shinji, gesturing at her to look at him. Asuka turned around, only to realize that the "boy" she had thrown was nothing more than a life-size mannequin. The hair was nothing more than brown yarn, and those uncaring, empty eyes were constructed from a pair of blue buttons.
And of course it had the blood-freezing smile of the first doll.
As if on queue, the cackling of the first doll returned, looping back on itself once again.
To add salt to the wound, Rei was also laughing at her. First it was a quiet giggle, then it evolved into something far more sinister, the red in her eyes reaching out and striking Asuka as if it was Rei herself who was engaged in fisticuffs, leaving no room for mercy.
Needless to say, Asuka had to make a tactical retreat. She rushed for the door, which by the graces of God in His Heaven was still open. She ran out, the laughing dying the moment she fully exited the room. But instead of finding herself back in the hallway of infinity, Asuka finally encountered the thing she dreaded the most.
She was back in the main entrance to this house of hell, and directly in front of her was a woman who had apparently hung herself by a rope secured to the rafter in the ceiling. The woman looked strikingly similar to Asuka, except that she was a good foot taller and appeared to be in her late twenties or so.
The cadaver was swinging back and forth on the rope, almost entrancing Asuka as if it were the pocket watch of a psychiatrist who was taking a crack at hypno-therapy.
It was time to face momma again.
That didn't keep Asuka from crying out at the horror of the sight, however.
But something was different about this scene. Instead of the little red-haired doll that was usually in her hand, momma appeared to be holding an action figure of some kind. It was red, had giant shoulder fins, and had what appeared to be four small green glass ports on its face.
If Asuka didn't know any better, she'd say that the action figure was a miniature Unit02.
The woman, far from dead, lifted her head and gazed down at Asuka. She had a look of bitter disappointment in her eyes, as if she had been denied something she had been looking for her entire life.
"Child!" the woman cried, "Why did you not die with me! Why did you not come to heaven with me?"
Asuka was in tears and began wailing. "I wanted to go to heaven with you, momma! I really did! But you picked that goddamn doll over me!"
"No, child, I gave you ANOTHER chance! I knew you would lose against the Eva series, because you are pathetic, child."
Asuka was clearly hurt by this. "MOMMA! HOW COULD YOU!"
"But I love you regardless, my child, and I was not well when I chose the doll over you. So I gave you another opportunity, child. You were supposed to die with me in the Eva, child! WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO REMAIN ALIVE?"
"I DIDN'T CHOOSE, MOMMA! IT JUST HAPPENED!"
"LIES! You know full and well that you had no wish to die. It was the only thought that kept you going when you fought the Evas, child. It was your first thought upon waking. Why are you so selfish that you cling to life, child? Don't you WANT to be with your momma, child? Wouldn't you DIE for ME, child!"
"NOOO! I WANT TO LIVE!! AND YOU ABANDONED ME!"
The woman took the Unit02 that she was holding and tossed it to the side. It made a clunk as it hit the floor, but incurred no damage whatsoever.
Then a previously unknown third occupant made itself known. It appeared to be some kind of dog. It was small, no taller than maybe a third of Asuka's height, and white all over. But its face was hideous; its snout was that of the head of the Eva series, evil grin and all.
The demonic creature ran at the Unit02 and began to gnaw on it, sending small red pieces flying every which way. The beast was ferocious in its attack, looking as though its master had not fed it in a few hours. Soon the toy was reduced to a collection of mangled plastic with teeth marks.
The woman spoke again. "I did not mean to abandon you, child, but I cannot help you if you abandon me, as well. But have no fear, child. I will never give up on you ever again."
With the conclusion of those words, the Eva hound lifted its head to meet Asuka's gaze. It was growling angrily, foaming at the mouth in the process, and it was retracting onto its hind legs, ready to pounce, ready for the kill.
Unsurprisingly scared shitless, Asuka ran out the door and found herself back in the dark, infinite hallway again. She ran, not knowing which direction led to where and not caring. The Eva hound was in full pursuit, quickly gaining on her. Asuka dared not look back, but she could hear the peddling of its paw-steps hitting the floor, closing in on her position. She could feel its hot, stinking breath down her neck. It smelled of blood and death.
Just before the hound could close the gap between them and finish her off, Asuka suddenly felt the floor give way beneath her. For a good minute or two, she could feel herself falling. She looked to where gravity had routed her destination and could see a glowing lake of fire beneath her. The hot breath of that damn creature was replaced by the warmth of the molten rock below.
Suddenly, Asuka ceased all movement. For the moment it seemed as though she had stopped falling. That was odd; she had not yet touched down on solid ground. She looked up and noted that the mannequin Shinji had grabbed her by the arm, halting her descent. He wasn't laughing, but his face was lacking any expression other than that God-awful smile.
He was holding her securely, trying his hardest to pull her up to the ledge that he was on. Then came a voice out of nowhere. Mannequin-Shinji stopped his current course of action and looked out in some random direction. It sounded as though some of the frequencies of natural speech had been filtered out, as if the voice were speaking through an electronic medium. And there was a hint of the spackle of radio static in the voice, as well.
It was a comms transmission.
And Misato's voice was booming from it.
"Shinji, WHAT are you doing? You are ordered to release that girl over there and let her fall to her death, NOW! THAT'S AN ORDER!"
Upon receiving his instructions, Mannequin-Shinji looked back down at the red-head. Time seemed to do its cliché freezing like it does in all the action movies, where the moment is so intense that the director feels its conclusion must be postponed for as long as humanly possible, the tension and suspense being so thick that it could be scooped into big plastic containers like its one hell of a flavor of ice cream.
The doll, despite that vicious smile, seemed devoid of emotion and expression. Asuka wasn't surprised; he was just a doll, after all. But he WAS the doll that was keeping her from continuing on her merry way to her date with an untimely end.
With that thought, however, Mannequin-Shinji readied himself to relinquish his hold on her. That is, before a second Shinji showed up beside him. A human Shinji. The REAL Shinji.
This was the Shinji that saved Asuka from the volcano. This was the Shinji who had assisted her in slaying the seventh. This was the Shinji that she wished to reel out from his impregnable fortress of self-sheltering.
This was the Shinji she had secretly wished would save her from the fifteenth's wrath.
This was the Shinji that Wonder Bitch stole away from her.
Mannequin-Shinji stopped what he was doing and looked over at him, retaining his hold of Asuka in the process. The other Shinji grabbed her other arm and, working together, the two Shinjis pulled her up to the ledge.
Immediately upon reaching the safety of the ledge, Asuka stood up and ran at the real Shinji, embracing him tightly. She was crying again, but these were tears of gratitude and happiness.
Shinji just stood there, being as neutral as Mannequin-Shinji. "Why are you crying? I thought you would never cry for anyone again?"
Asuka would have none of it. "Shut up, baka! Just shut up and let me enjoy this moment." Even though his arms were not around him, she felt warm and comfortable just being next to him. It felt...good...to wrap yourself in someone else's warmth, to be comfortable, to know that somebody really was looking out for you.
Mannequin-Shinji approached Asuka from behind and placed his hand onto her shoulder. Almost instantly Asuka reacted; she spun on her heel to face him, grabbed the dummy by the wrist with one hand and the neck with the other, and proceeded to toss him into the fiery chasm below. She didn't even bother to look at him as he fell.
She had a self-satisfactory smirk on her face upon completing the act, but it fell away the instant she looked back at the real Shinji. HER Shinji.
He was bleeding from the chest, almost profusely. He clutched at his chest with both hands and bent over, obviously in great pain.
"WHY, Asuka!" he cried out.
Asuka didn't really understand what was going on, but she wasn't prepared to lose the baka. "I don't understand, what's wrong?"
"You rejected me!" he replied angrily and coldly.
"What?! No I didn't, you're standing here, aren't you?"
"You killed HIM, therefore you have killed me. HE is as much a part of me as I am, Asuka! HE IS ME!"
"No, you're wrong! You don't need him, Shinji! He's just holding you back! He's a weak, scared little doll! You're better than that!"
"No, Asuka, he and I are part of the same whole. Without him, there is no me. If you can't accept that-"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Asuka was breaking down again. "I won't lose you again, baka. I won't let Wonder Girl, that doll, or anyone else keep you from me again. If I can't have you all to myself...then...THEN I DON'T NEED YOU AT ALL!"
"So you would have need of me, even though you think that you need no one? You're a goddamn hypocrite!" Shinji was just as cold as ever. Even spiteful.
And the insult sounded vaguely familiar.
Asuka was hysterical at this point. "NOO! PAY ATTENTION TO ME! DON'T REJECT ME! DON'T LEAVE ME ALL ALONE! DON'T LEAVE MEEEEE!!!!"
"If you can't accept ALL of me...if you won't have ALL of me for yourself...then I don't need you at all!" On that note, Shinji pushed Asuka back, sending her flying over the edge, flying downwards toward a fiery death once again.
The sting of defeat at the hands of Invincible Shinji once more was compounded by the fact that she had been rejected by him. HE had rejected HER, of all people!
There was nothing left for her, now. Nothing except to die.
Maybe she should have taken her mother up on that offer.
As soon as Asuka hit the lava below, she was surprised to find that it wasn't scorching hot. Actually, it felt sort of cool, like sea water. It sure didn't taste like sea water, though. It tasted more like blood.
And it was getting really hard to breathe. It felt like she was drowning.
Drowning in blood...
DROWNING IN BLOOD?!
Asuka awoke from one nightmare and entered another, finding that the upper half of her body was submerged in the lake of LCL. She quickly came to and lifted herself up out of the bloody water's reach of her mouth, greedily sucking in the air around her.
Taking a minute to recompose herself, Asuka became aware of her surroundings once again. She was still on the LCL beach, still all by her lonesome self. Shinji had apparently not come back for her yet, if he planned on it at all. She didn't remember falling asleep, she just remembered curling into a ball and wanting to die after Shinji had attacked her. She thought back to when he kicked her, his foot flying right into her injured hand. Her hand smacked her in the face, but that didn't hurt nearly as much as her hand. She could recall it going numb with pain, and she thought she even saw little dabs of blood make their way to the outer layer of bandages.
Was that entirely correct, though? He didn't ATTACK her, he was just defending himself.
Right?
Asuka's pride would have none of it, as is typically the case. Whatever the hell was HIS problem, he had no right to treat her like that. He would be made to apologize sooner or later, if he didn't do it himself.
Fucking spineless baka hentai...
She began to think about why the hell she was half-way submerged in the bloody water. She had not moved from her spot since Shinji left, as far as she could recall. Maybe it was just the tide coming in. With two moons now in the sky, surely that would cause a shift in tidal patterns.
The lake also explained why she smelt and tasted blood in her dream, which was rapidly fading from her memory now. It was just as well; Asuka had never really had any "good dreams" her entire life. While she never remembered explicitly what happened, Asuka knew deep down that every night she relived the painful memories she had tried so hard to suppress. She finally had a cap on them, too, her dreams were becoming less unpleasant.
Then the fifteenth came along and mucked everything up, undoing all of her handiwork.
Deciding that it was of no use to remember forgotten nightmares and never having once put any stock in the belief that the content of ones dreams could yield anything useful, Asuka crawled further up the beach, getting as far from the shoreline as her fatigued body would allow. Along the way, she began thinking about the future. She couldn't count on that idiot baka to take care of her, he'd fuck everything up. He'd probably try to get a peak at her naked, too, the stupid little hentai pervert. No, she was going to have to get herself out of this mess, as usual. She was going to have to save the day, which didn't surprise her.
The first thing she would do, though, is get the hell out of this damn plug suit and into some real clothes. That, and change the now blood-soaked bandages.
So there you have it.
I thought it to be appropriate and IC for Asuka to quickly forget and ignore everything she saw in the dream. It just doesn't seem like she's going to let one little nightmare boss her around and force her to change her ways.
Even though I'd really like for there to be some "magic" going on between Shinji and Asuka, I've decided that she isn't necessarily romantically interested in him. That's not really my true interpretation of the series, like I said I think they're cute together, but it would just be too easy for them to fall in love and let love magically cure the ills between them. It still remains a possibility (bear in mind, however, that I'm not going to have them making out and being lubby-dubby or anything), or they can at least be on better terms than currently, but it seems to me that Asuka does indeed treat Shinji like a toy and doesn't necessarily acknowledge it. And being as possessive as she is, Asuka doesn't like it when people take things that belong to her. She may also be unable to admit that he does serve a useful function for her.
Only time will tell, I suppose. :shrugs:
On an additional note, I've gone back through the other three chapters and done some editing. I removed all the typos and even did a bit of rewording. Nothing serious, just changed some sentences around...and stuff. The chapter titles should also be there soon. You're welcome to re-read the chapters if you want.
I altered the author's notes in the first chapter to make note of it, but I did that AFTER THE FACT. So in case you missed it the first time around and didn't get the memo because you already read the first chapter, here it is again.
4. In Your Dreams
Asuka got tired of sitting there on that desolate beach and decided to head out on her own, not particularly caring about what she might find. Anything was better than having to face Shinji again. The baka had shown intestinal fortitude before, but never had he tried to kill her or attack her. It just wasn't normal, even for him. Even if he was a spineless baka hentai, she had pegged him as the last person in the world to want to harm her.
Then again, he WAS the last person in the world.
Still, it wasn't supposed to be like this. HE wasn't supposed to be like this.
She walked away from the shoreline and headed for the ruins of the former city of Tokyo-3. As the sand beneath her gave way to asphalt, she had somehow found her way into a park. She wasn't really paying any attention to it, but the sky had turned dangerously black, although she could see the ground in front of her as clear as day. As she entered the park and trotted along the trail, the scenery had transformed itself into an impassible tangle of trees on both sides and what felt like an infinite path down the dirt road. There was something about the trees she really didn't like; they seemed to be mangled and twisted in any number of violent ways, as if the trees were somehow aware and had the intention of doing her bodily harm.
Growing impatient and wanting to get the hell out of this forest, she began to run. It felt rather strange trying to run; it was as if her legs were trying to move through molasses. Within a few minutes, however, she had reached the end of the trail and had discovered what seemed to be a rather cozy country home. Something about the two-story brick house in the middle of nowhere felt very familiar, almost like she had been here before. The sky had also become more crimson in appearance, laced with foreboding.
Asuka ran through the front yard and tried to reach the front door, but as the distance between her and her objective diminished, she could feel more and more dread eating at her heart. Somewhere deep inside her, she knew that something was about to happen, something that she knew all too well, something she wanted no part of anymore.
Then she heard a little girl screaming from behind her out in the woods. As the little girl got closer, Asuka got a good look at her. She was probably about two and a half feet tall, just shy of being half of Asuka's height. She had wild red hair that ran down past her shoulders. She was wearing a little red Sunday dress and little black shoes. She had a very ecstatic look on her face, as if everything she had ever wanted was suddenly granted to her.
The little girl was yelling at the top of her lungs, her voice being a high-pitched squeal. From the sounds of things, it seemed like she was on top of the world.
"Momma! Momma! I have wonderful news, momma!"
And the feeling of imminent doom was upon Asuka again. She suddenly felt the urge to protect this girl from anything and everything.
'No, kid, get out of here! You don't want to be HERE!'
"It's supposed to be a secret, but I'll tell it only to you, momma!"
'Get away from here, kid! Don't go into the house!'
"They picked me to pilot, momma! I'll never be lonely again, momma!"
'That's not true, little girl, it's just not true!'
"I'll be alright, even without poppa!"
'No you won't! Run away from here, stupid! Do ANYTHING but stay here!'
This was just like her nightmares, which were always the same; Asuka would try to move, but find herself fixed in place. It was as if the whole situation was destined to loop back in front of her again and again, torturing her for all of eternity. She would struggle on, nevertheless, but it was always in vain. The little girl always made it to the house and bared witness to the horrors in front of her, as did Asuka. Every night, Asuka failed both the little girl and herself.
As the girl finally made it next to the front door, Asuka found that she had regained command of her body once again. She immediately blitzed for the girl, not that it would matter anyhow. She once again found it nigh impossible to move at anything but a snail's pace, and the girl had already turned the knob on the door. Asuka threw her arms out in front of her in a futile attempt to get physically closer to the little girl. The door swung open, revealing only an impenetrable wall of pain and horror. As soon as the door completely cleared, Asuka lost visual track of the little girl as she disappeared into the house.
It was too late to press the matter any further, but Asuka pushed on regardless, naively clinging to any hope of rectifying the situation. When she made it into the house, she could not see the little girl anywhere, although she heard the ever-present sound of a rope creaking under the stress of a heavy object swinging from it.
But what Asuka saw in front of her was different from her usual nightmares. Instead of an actual body hanging from the rope in the middle of the room, it was a little doll. The doll had red yarn for hair and blue buttons for eyes, reminding Asuka of someone she knew all too well. And the doll was smiling. Not a friendly, "play with me" kind of smile, though. This was a sadistic smile. It spoke of the doll snatching victory from Asuka's pathetic, undeserving grasp, as if she and the doll were in a race and the doll had beaten her soundly. No matter how close she came, she was always defeated by nothing more than a sack of stuffing.
The doll was also laughing at her. It was a cackling of sorts, and it seemed to be the same laughter over and over again, like a broken record. The spite that it conveyed sent both a chill down Asuka's spine and a surge of rage through her arms as she tore the doll into pieces. She wanted anything to stop that laughing, had to stop it from laughing at HER. It was just a stupid doll and she was the Great Asuka Langley Sohryou; it would be made to learn it's proper place.
(Author's notes: for those of you who saw the Batman movie, think of the laughter you hear at the end of the movie when the Joker is found splattered all over the pavement.)
She tore off it's head, ripped off it's button eyes with her teeth, pulled off limbs, yanked out its cotton fluff innards, anything to ensure it's total destruction. Yet it's laughter only grew in volume and malevolence, achieving near-maniacal levels. This only egged Asuka on, but soon all the white stuffing and body parts had been distributed across the floor. The laughter only became harsher, forcing Asuka to cup her hands with her ears and shriek. It was a cry of a mixture of unspeakable pain, humiliation, frustration, and fear, the fear that one feels when all their hopes and dreams have been dashed.
She had to scream over the voice, drown it out so that she didn't have to hear it anymore.
Soon they were engaged in another battle; to see who could be the loudest. As much as Asuka pushed on, however, her voice was beginning to give out, and once again she had to admit defeat. The voice only fed off of this latest victory and used it to enclose Asuka with a barrier of anger and despair.
Or was it her own anger and despair at having been beaten by IT yet again?
No matter, she couldn't bear it anymore; she had to get out of this place. Even running away to be defeated by it another day was better than remaining in its presence.
She ran for the door, which had somehow closed on its own, and began to jiggle the handle. No response; the door would not budge. She began clawing at it with her bare finger nails, but the only thing that yielded was deep red grooves in the good wood, red with her own blood. She felt a tingly sensation in her fingertips, but it wasn't a sensation of pain. The really weird part was that the door sort of gave way easily, like wet sand.
She didn't have time to dig through the door, though. There was no time for these shenanigans. She had to get away, and fast.
Asuka was getting desperate; the laughter was still in full effect, and it seemed to be coming from all around. She didn't know where her mysterious arch nemesis was, and therefore didn't know from where it would strike. It didn't matter, however. Her enemy knew Asuka all too well, in much the same way as Asuka was intimately acquainted with it. It knew all of her secrets, all of her weaknesses, and it would not hesitate to exploit them all. It was the one foe that Asuka could not overcome, that she could not proclaim victory over. The only thing she could ever hope for was to run away from it all. But even that was futile; even among the alert and the living the monster was stalking her. Asuka knew that she was never safe in her dreams, she just couldn't fight it there. But she didn't know how to fight it in the real world, either. She had no idea how to fight the monster at all. It was always stalking her, hiding in all the dark corners, always waiting for that perfect moment to strike, which it always did.
Said monster was sometimes only a half a foot tall and made up of cloth and cotton filler.
Said monster was sometimes a five feet tall and pale-skinned bitch with light blue hair and blood-colored irises.
Said monster was sometimes a five feet tall and brown-haired cowardly boy.
Said monster always stole everything that was ever important to Asuka. HAD stolen everything ever important to her.
The creature that was the embodiment of all her personal demons had stolen her mother, and it continued even to this day to steal anyone and everyone away from her. No matter what Asuka did or said, she would always be outdone by it. Everyone she would ever meet would continue to look past her, cast HER, the Great Asuka Langley Sohryou, aside, in favor of a doll. She had everything to offer; intelligence, grace, natural beauty, talent, you name it, she had it in spades. What, then, did the lifeless, emotionless doll have that she didn't? Why was she never good enough for anybody?
Since she couldn't get out the front, Asuka bee-lined for the only other exit from the room; a lone hallway. If she couldn't get out through the doorway from whence she came, perhaps she could find an alternate escape somewhere in that blackened tunnel. She wasn't moving any quicker than previously, but then again getting away from this scene at any rate greater than zero was good enough for the moment. As she got further down the hallway, the laughter died down, but she could still feel the monster's presence over her, watching her, mocking her always. She didn't look back; she didn't want to, out of a primitive fear of what she might discover.
Another minute or so of traversing the passage that seemed to stretch to nowhere, Asuka reached a door on her left. Before she could open it, however, she could hear soft moans of pleasure emanating from within. Not caring about what was on the other side, Asuka burst through the door, immediately disgusted by what she found.
There were two people in this room who were currently embracing one another and kissing one another very passionately. The blue-haired female was pinned against the wall with her right leg wrapped around the male's waist, hiking her skirt up in the process, and her hands gripped to the backs of his shoulders as if she wanted to take no chances of letting him go. The male, who had moppy brown hair, currently had his face buried in the female's bosom, speaking into her fully developed breasts, going on about something that had to do with thermal expansion. His left hand wrapped around her waist and seemed to be grasping her buttocks, while his right hand was slowly moving up the girl's thigh, placing it closer and closer to her nether regions. As he moved in further, the girl's moans grew louder and more erotic. Her skin, which had previously been as white as any porcelain doll, now had a more crimson hue, the flushing induced and guided by her lover's hands.
Asuka did not immediately recognize the two figures, although she felt as though she should have. What she did recognize, however, was a feeling that she had felt almost every day of her life ever since her mother became sick. It filled her being when her mother would ignore her in the hospital and instead spend all her time playing with that damndable toy. It was there when her father ignored her and spent all his free time fucking that gold-digging slut who had the audacity to replace her mother. It was with her when her college professors wouldn't call upon her to answer the questions. It accompanied her whenever one of the other students tried to out-do her. It was her only date before she had reached puberty and all the girls in her dormitory were too busy with their boyfriends to concern themselves with her. It courted her whenever her male classmates still paid no attention to her after she blossomed into womanhood on the grounds that she was jail bait, even though she could feel their eyes scanning over her, fucking her.
It kept her company on all those lonely nights that Kaji refused her advances.
It was at its highest in quite a long time when that drunken whore stole Kaji away from her.
It was still there for her whenever people would look to the Invincible Shinji to save the day instead of her.
It was no stranger when Shinji's synch ratio finally surpassed hers.
It smacked her in the face when Shinji sortied during the sixteenth Angel to assist Wonder Bitch.
It had never been higher than when she walked into her home that fateful day almost seven years ago, when her mother chose to kill herself and take that goddamn doll with her instead of her own fucking daughter.
But what had felt foreign to Asuka was that it would get to the level it had reached when Kaji was courting Misato whenever she saw the First and Third Children together. It seemed to especially be triggered by whenever the three of them would sit in class together and the baka would stare for hours at that fucking doll, who always concentrated her viewing to outside the window. It wasn't so much the act of staring, it was that look in his eyes. It was a mixture of desire and curiosity.
Well, he is a desperate hentai pervert. He'd probably fuck his own mother if she was pretty enough.
So how come he never looks at Asuka like that?
If this feeling had a color associated with it, the best bet would be on green. As in the green in her eyes that spoke of greed. Greed for attention, greed for acknowledgement that she did indeed exist, greed for anything that confirmed she was noticed.
Green with envy.
Jealousy.
Jealousy at having been tossed in the waste receptacle in favor of the real garbage.
Above all else, she hated to be ignored by anyone. ANYONE. A small part of her died on the inside whenever she wasn't the center of attention. She wanted to rip out the eyes of whoever it was that was currently taking the spotlight from her. More specifically, she couldn't stand it when that someone was clearly inferior to her and was unfit to even be stacked next to her.
She hated being compared to that fucking doll.
She hated it even more when the doll was chosen over her.
She bloody well lost it whenever the doll would defeat her yet again.
Wasn't she ever good enough for anybody? Why was a doll always prime choice?
Why couldn't have Kaji-kun chosen her over that constantly inebriated sex slave?
How come HE never look at her like the way he looks at that emotionless puppet?
For God's sake, Asuka and the idiot lived together. They spent a good deal of their time in one another's company, why didn't Shinji ever stare at Asuka in the way he would stare at Rei? Despite her non-stop protests to the contrary, Asuka had never really known Shinji to actually be perverted. She knew he was too polite, timid and shy to be that way. He was too afraid to actually dare to catch glimpses of her in her natural state while in the shower. He always seemed to avert his eyes whenever she would approach him in her two-piece swim suit or her towel. When they were crawling around in the vents during the eleventh Angel's attack, she yelled at him not to look up her skirt on the off-chance that he'd actually do it.
When he confessed after defeating the seventh that he had tried to kiss her, she presented her usual front, but inwardly counted it as a slight victory that she had his attention.
That is, when Wonder Bitch didn't come around and snatch him away again.
At times Asuka felt like such a slut. She walked around the apartment at night in some considerably revealing evening wear, deliberately ran into him in nothing but a towel on occasion, even dared him to kiss her. She didn't do it because she wanted to see how good he was (but all things considered, he wasn't that bad), primarily she just wanted to have some fun with him, make sure that she still had a hold on him, make him do anything to come back for more. That, and she had to practice on someone so that she'd be ready when Kaji would finally come to his senses and sweep her off her feet.
Yet she still did all of these things to HIM, always played these mind games with him, and all for what? To make sure he continued to notice her?
What the hell did HE matter to her for?
It wasn't necessarily that she had a crush on him (she would never dare to commit infidelity against her precious Kaji-kun), he just seemed rather...to put it in the best terms, impressionable. He appeared to be one who could easily be shaped into whatever one wanted. She couldn't have Kaji-kun as long as Misato was in the way, and if everyone else was going to ignore her, then she'd have to take matters into her own hands. She'd have to MAKE someone pay attention to her, and it didn't seem like it would take a whole lot of effort on her part to get the baka to do just that.
Naturally, of course, she didn't really 'need' him. She needed nobody. She had done just fine on her own for the past seven years, she didn't need to start relying on other people now. And she certainly didn't need somebody like HIM. He couldn't even stand up for himself, he just did whatever he was told. He was just like everyone else; a lifeless doll.
But that was the problem; he WASN'T just a doll. He was no doll when they defeated the sixth Angel together inside her Unit02. He was no doll when they synch-trained and defeated the seventh together. And he certainly was no doll after the eighth when he kept her from falling into the volcano against orders, resulting in not only damage to Unit01, but also disciplinary action upon himself from the Commander afterwards. She could never admit it, but he was...dependable. Even when he ran away like the immature boy that he was, he always came back and braved the pain like a real man that she knew he could be.
She hated him for always stealing the show, she hated it even more that he acted indifferent to the attention, as if he wasn't trying or that he was too good for them all. Yet as long as he would always come back to the apartment and pay tribute to her with his excellent cooking, as long as she could fall back on him when everyone else around her failed her, she could live with herself.
Why, then, did he revert back? Why did he always cast his lot with the dolls?
And why did it have to be him that saved her? Not just from Angels, but from the hollow emptiness that claims her when nobody notices her? Why did she feel like he could give her the attention she rightfully deserved?
And why had he stopped trying to give her what she needed?
What did Wonder Bitch have that she didn't?
Why for her? Why for that doll during the sixteenth and not for her during the fifteenth?
Couldn't that baka see that she just wanted him to pay attention to her?
Once again, she was outdone by a doll.
She will not stand for this.
The doll will get off of HER baka, NOW.
Asuka had enough of their little make-out session. She ran at the lovers, grabbed Shinji by the shoulders, and threw him to the side. She then took her left hand and grabs Rei's forehead, pushing her head back against the wall, exposing her neck. Next, she put her right forearm up against the neck and began to apply a slight amount of pressure. She didn't want Wonder Girl to die just yet, she needed to be taught a lesson in superiority.
"HANDS OFF OF HIM, YOU STUPID BITCH!" she roared.
Then Rei did something Asuka had never seen her do before, something that was causing Asuka to back down ever so slightly.
She smiled. And not a happy smile, the same smile that the cackling doll from before was wearing.
She also narrowed her eyes until the whites were no longer visible, leaving only the crimson irises that gave off a stare that seemed to pierce through her as if she was only air.
The stare seemed to have a magical effect upon Asuka, pushing her further and further away from Rei until she bumped into the back of the wall of the room.
"What is the matter, pilot Sohryou?" the doll replied in her usual monotone voice.
"YOU'RE the matter, doll!" she retorted. She was not about to be scared of Wonder Girl, let alone be outdone by her yet again.
"I am not a doll." Rei replied coolly.
"YOU ARE A DOLL! You even once admitted that you'd die if ordered to! You don't think for yourself! You can't even PRETEND to show emotion! YOU'RE LIFELESS, JUST LIKE A DOLL!"
Rei placed a hand over her breast, covering up where her blouse had been unbuttoned, making some kind of half-assed attempt at decency. "Ikari-kun would seem to disagree." she stated.
More like gloated.
Asuka felt ready to kill her, but Rei continued on. "Why is it of any concern of yours, pilot Sohryou? You make your dislike of him well known, even to him. Or is THAT another lie, as well? Did you wish for it to be you in his arms and not me? Do you wish to become one with him, pilot Sohryou?"
"What I 'wish' isn't any of your business, First Child. Stay away from him from now on! He belongs to ME!" Asuka wouldn't ever admit it, but she was quickly losing control of the situation. Dolls: 1000. Asuka: 0.
"So he is as a possession to you? (giggle) I see. Then you can never expect him to behave as anything more than an object, because that is all he will ever be to you; an object."
"I don't treat him like an object! He's just an idiot that doesn't stand up for himself!"
"I think that you are lying to yourself again. It is easier for you to displace all of your disappointments and frustrations and project all of your anger onto him, even though you also believe that Ikari-kun is your only hope at some similitude for contempt with your so-called life. But is it not interesting, pilot Sohryou, that you would feel such things for something that you so vehemently despise?"
Having concluded her half of the dialogue, Rei stuck out her arm and pointed at where Asuka had thrown Shinji, gesturing at her to look at him. Asuka turned around, only to realize that the "boy" she had thrown was nothing more than a life-size mannequin. The hair was nothing more than brown yarn, and those uncaring, empty eyes were constructed from a pair of blue buttons.
And of course it had the blood-freezing smile of the first doll.
As if on queue, the cackling of the first doll returned, looping back on itself once again.
To add salt to the wound, Rei was also laughing at her. First it was a quiet giggle, then it evolved into something far more sinister, the red in her eyes reaching out and striking Asuka as if it was Rei herself who was engaged in fisticuffs, leaving no room for mercy.
Needless to say, Asuka had to make a tactical retreat. She rushed for the door, which by the graces of God in His Heaven was still open. She ran out, the laughing dying the moment she fully exited the room. But instead of finding herself back in the hallway of infinity, Asuka finally encountered the thing she dreaded the most.
She was back in the main entrance to this house of hell, and directly in front of her was a woman who had apparently hung herself by a rope secured to the rafter in the ceiling. The woman looked strikingly similar to Asuka, except that she was a good foot taller and appeared to be in her late twenties or so.
The cadaver was swinging back and forth on the rope, almost entrancing Asuka as if it were the pocket watch of a psychiatrist who was taking a crack at hypno-therapy.
It was time to face momma again.
That didn't keep Asuka from crying out at the horror of the sight, however.
But something was different about this scene. Instead of the little red-haired doll that was usually in her hand, momma appeared to be holding an action figure of some kind. It was red, had giant shoulder fins, and had what appeared to be four small green glass ports on its face.
If Asuka didn't know any better, she'd say that the action figure was a miniature Unit02.
The woman, far from dead, lifted her head and gazed down at Asuka. She had a look of bitter disappointment in her eyes, as if she had been denied something she had been looking for her entire life.
"Child!" the woman cried, "Why did you not die with me! Why did you not come to heaven with me?"
Asuka was in tears and began wailing. "I wanted to go to heaven with you, momma! I really did! But you picked that goddamn doll over me!"
"No, child, I gave you ANOTHER chance! I knew you would lose against the Eva series, because you are pathetic, child."
Asuka was clearly hurt by this. "MOMMA! HOW COULD YOU!"
"But I love you regardless, my child, and I was not well when I chose the doll over you. So I gave you another opportunity, child. You were supposed to die with me in the Eva, child! WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO REMAIN ALIVE?"
"I DIDN'T CHOOSE, MOMMA! IT JUST HAPPENED!"
"LIES! You know full and well that you had no wish to die. It was the only thought that kept you going when you fought the Evas, child. It was your first thought upon waking. Why are you so selfish that you cling to life, child? Don't you WANT to be with your momma, child? Wouldn't you DIE for ME, child!"
"NOOO! I WANT TO LIVE!! AND YOU ABANDONED ME!"
The woman took the Unit02 that she was holding and tossed it to the side. It made a clunk as it hit the floor, but incurred no damage whatsoever.
Then a previously unknown third occupant made itself known. It appeared to be some kind of dog. It was small, no taller than maybe a third of Asuka's height, and white all over. But its face was hideous; its snout was that of the head of the Eva series, evil grin and all.
The demonic creature ran at the Unit02 and began to gnaw on it, sending small red pieces flying every which way. The beast was ferocious in its attack, looking as though its master had not fed it in a few hours. Soon the toy was reduced to a collection of mangled plastic with teeth marks.
The woman spoke again. "I did not mean to abandon you, child, but I cannot help you if you abandon me, as well. But have no fear, child. I will never give up on you ever again."
With the conclusion of those words, the Eva hound lifted its head to meet Asuka's gaze. It was growling angrily, foaming at the mouth in the process, and it was retracting onto its hind legs, ready to pounce, ready for the kill.
Unsurprisingly scared shitless, Asuka ran out the door and found herself back in the dark, infinite hallway again. She ran, not knowing which direction led to where and not caring. The Eva hound was in full pursuit, quickly gaining on her. Asuka dared not look back, but she could hear the peddling of its paw-steps hitting the floor, closing in on her position. She could feel its hot, stinking breath down her neck. It smelled of blood and death.
Just before the hound could close the gap between them and finish her off, Asuka suddenly felt the floor give way beneath her. For a good minute or two, she could feel herself falling. She looked to where gravity had routed her destination and could see a glowing lake of fire beneath her. The hot breath of that damn creature was replaced by the warmth of the molten rock below.
Suddenly, Asuka ceased all movement. For the moment it seemed as though she had stopped falling. That was odd; she had not yet touched down on solid ground. She looked up and noted that the mannequin Shinji had grabbed her by the arm, halting her descent. He wasn't laughing, but his face was lacking any expression other than that God-awful smile.
He was holding her securely, trying his hardest to pull her up to the ledge that he was on. Then came a voice out of nowhere. Mannequin-Shinji stopped his current course of action and looked out in some random direction. It sounded as though some of the frequencies of natural speech had been filtered out, as if the voice were speaking through an electronic medium. And there was a hint of the spackle of radio static in the voice, as well.
It was a comms transmission.
And Misato's voice was booming from it.
"Shinji, WHAT are you doing? You are ordered to release that girl over there and let her fall to her death, NOW! THAT'S AN ORDER!"
Upon receiving his instructions, Mannequin-Shinji looked back down at the red-head. Time seemed to do its cliché freezing like it does in all the action movies, where the moment is so intense that the director feels its conclusion must be postponed for as long as humanly possible, the tension and suspense being so thick that it could be scooped into big plastic containers like its one hell of a flavor of ice cream.
The doll, despite that vicious smile, seemed devoid of emotion and expression. Asuka wasn't surprised; he was just a doll, after all. But he WAS the doll that was keeping her from continuing on her merry way to her date with an untimely end.
With that thought, however, Mannequin-Shinji readied himself to relinquish his hold on her. That is, before a second Shinji showed up beside him. A human Shinji. The REAL Shinji.
This was the Shinji that saved Asuka from the volcano. This was the Shinji who had assisted her in slaying the seventh. This was the Shinji that she wished to reel out from his impregnable fortress of self-sheltering.
This was the Shinji she had secretly wished would save her from the fifteenth's wrath.
This was the Shinji that Wonder Bitch stole away from her.
Mannequin-Shinji stopped what he was doing and looked over at him, retaining his hold of Asuka in the process. The other Shinji grabbed her other arm and, working together, the two Shinjis pulled her up to the ledge.
Immediately upon reaching the safety of the ledge, Asuka stood up and ran at the real Shinji, embracing him tightly. She was crying again, but these were tears of gratitude and happiness.
Shinji just stood there, being as neutral as Mannequin-Shinji. "Why are you crying? I thought you would never cry for anyone again?"
Asuka would have none of it. "Shut up, baka! Just shut up and let me enjoy this moment." Even though his arms were not around him, she felt warm and comfortable just being next to him. It felt...good...to wrap yourself in someone else's warmth, to be comfortable, to know that somebody really was looking out for you.
Mannequin-Shinji approached Asuka from behind and placed his hand onto her shoulder. Almost instantly Asuka reacted; she spun on her heel to face him, grabbed the dummy by the wrist with one hand and the neck with the other, and proceeded to toss him into the fiery chasm below. She didn't even bother to look at him as he fell.
She had a self-satisfactory smirk on her face upon completing the act, but it fell away the instant she looked back at the real Shinji. HER Shinji.
He was bleeding from the chest, almost profusely. He clutched at his chest with both hands and bent over, obviously in great pain.
"WHY, Asuka!" he cried out.
Asuka didn't really understand what was going on, but she wasn't prepared to lose the baka. "I don't understand, what's wrong?"
"You rejected me!" he replied angrily and coldly.
"What?! No I didn't, you're standing here, aren't you?"
"You killed HIM, therefore you have killed me. HE is as much a part of me as I am, Asuka! HE IS ME!"
"No, you're wrong! You don't need him, Shinji! He's just holding you back! He's a weak, scared little doll! You're better than that!"
"No, Asuka, he and I are part of the same whole. Without him, there is no me. If you can't accept that-"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Asuka was breaking down again. "I won't lose you again, baka. I won't let Wonder Girl, that doll, or anyone else keep you from me again. If I can't have you all to myself...then...THEN I DON'T NEED YOU AT ALL!"
"So you would have need of me, even though you think that you need no one? You're a goddamn hypocrite!" Shinji was just as cold as ever. Even spiteful.
And the insult sounded vaguely familiar.
Asuka was hysterical at this point. "NOO! PAY ATTENTION TO ME! DON'T REJECT ME! DON'T LEAVE ME ALL ALONE! DON'T LEAVE MEEEEE!!!!"
"If you can't accept ALL of me...if you won't have ALL of me for yourself...then I don't need you at all!" On that note, Shinji pushed Asuka back, sending her flying over the edge, flying downwards toward a fiery death once again.
The sting of defeat at the hands of Invincible Shinji once more was compounded by the fact that she had been rejected by him. HE had rejected HER, of all people!
There was nothing left for her, now. Nothing except to die.
Maybe she should have taken her mother up on that offer.
As soon as Asuka hit the lava below, she was surprised to find that it wasn't scorching hot. Actually, it felt sort of cool, like sea water. It sure didn't taste like sea water, though. It tasted more like blood.
And it was getting really hard to breathe. It felt like she was drowning.
Drowning in blood...
DROWNING IN BLOOD?!
Asuka awoke from one nightmare and entered another, finding that the upper half of her body was submerged in the lake of LCL. She quickly came to and lifted herself up out of the bloody water's reach of her mouth, greedily sucking in the air around her.
Taking a minute to recompose herself, Asuka became aware of her surroundings once again. She was still on the LCL beach, still all by her lonesome self. Shinji had apparently not come back for her yet, if he planned on it at all. She didn't remember falling asleep, she just remembered curling into a ball and wanting to die after Shinji had attacked her. She thought back to when he kicked her, his foot flying right into her injured hand. Her hand smacked her in the face, but that didn't hurt nearly as much as her hand. She could recall it going numb with pain, and she thought she even saw little dabs of blood make their way to the outer layer of bandages.
Was that entirely correct, though? He didn't ATTACK her, he was just defending himself.
Right?
Asuka's pride would have none of it, as is typically the case. Whatever the hell was HIS problem, he had no right to treat her like that. He would be made to apologize sooner or later, if he didn't do it himself.
Fucking spineless baka hentai...
She began to think about why the hell she was half-way submerged in the bloody water. She had not moved from her spot since Shinji left, as far as she could recall. Maybe it was just the tide coming in. With two moons now in the sky, surely that would cause a shift in tidal patterns.
The lake also explained why she smelt and tasted blood in her dream, which was rapidly fading from her memory now. It was just as well; Asuka had never really had any "good dreams" her entire life. While she never remembered explicitly what happened, Asuka knew deep down that every night she relived the painful memories she had tried so hard to suppress. She finally had a cap on them, too, her dreams were becoming less unpleasant.
Then the fifteenth came along and mucked everything up, undoing all of her handiwork.
Deciding that it was of no use to remember forgotten nightmares and never having once put any stock in the belief that the content of ones dreams could yield anything useful, Asuka crawled further up the beach, getting as far from the shoreline as her fatigued body would allow. Along the way, she began thinking about the future. She couldn't count on that idiot baka to take care of her, he'd fuck everything up. He'd probably try to get a peak at her naked, too, the stupid little hentai pervert. No, she was going to have to get herself out of this mess, as usual. She was going to have to save the day, which didn't surprise her.
The first thing she would do, though, is get the hell out of this damn plug suit and into some real clothes. That, and change the now blood-soaked bandages.
So there you have it.
I thought it to be appropriate and IC for Asuka to quickly forget and ignore everything she saw in the dream. It just doesn't seem like she's going to let one little nightmare boss her around and force her to change her ways.
Even though I'd really like for there to be some "magic" going on between Shinji and Asuka, I've decided that she isn't necessarily romantically interested in him. That's not really my true interpretation of the series, like I said I think they're cute together, but it would just be too easy for them to fall in love and let love magically cure the ills between them. It still remains a possibility (bear in mind, however, that I'm not going to have them making out and being lubby-dubby or anything), or they can at least be on better terms than currently, but it seems to me that Asuka does indeed treat Shinji like a toy and doesn't necessarily acknowledge it. And being as possessive as she is, Asuka doesn't like it when people take things that belong to her. She may also be unable to admit that he does serve a useful function for her.
Only time will tell, I suppose. :shrugs: