/In Pain's Wake/
- lawless priest -
06 - Consequences
It had been a week. A week of hospital food, of Asuka's not so fiery rants and Misato's insistent mothering. Also, a week of hiding what had really happened from her and everyone else. The families of the boys had went to a lot of effort to search for the 'evil people who would dare to abduct their precious boys.'
Sometimes I would wonder about how they would react if they were told what happened to their children, about what their 'precious boys' had done. I wished I could be there when it happened, not to gloat or anything sick like that. I just wanted to know what would be going through their heads, just to see how precious they thought their boys were then.
Maybe that's wrong, I don't really know. Their families must be going through hard times, but they had to know something about who their kids were, about how they acted. I mean, their were family. They lived together, spent time together, had fun together, did all of the things that I could never do, together with those scum that rotted beneath Nerv HQ. Jealousy was not something I took part in, but it wasn't new to me either. When everyone around had something of a normal home life, while you barely had a home at all, it was no surprise for envy to rear it's ugly head.
Family.
It wasn't fair that they could have something so normal, so worthy as that, and still go about destroying lives without caring about how it would effect their victim's families. They had people who cared about them while many had none. Even with Misato stuck on my case the whole week I was still happy that she cared enough to worry about me and Asuka. I knew she was still hurt over what had happened and for some reason blamed herself.
Justice was in her grasp, but had slipped by her. The fact that the punks where still missing was no doubt throwing off plenty of alarms in her head. Kaji had reported that Section 2 had caught the men and had brought them in. He knew that they were the missing boys on the news. None of it was making any sense to them. She and the ex-spy made all kinds of inquires into the culprits arrest by Nerv's resident Men in Black, but they weren't talking. This could only mean that the Commander had something to do with it all, but they were stuck at a wall trying to figure out what.
Section 2 had found them... and section 2 had dealt with them. This did not sit well with the Major. Revenge is a personal thing. I knew that all too well and I knew that Misato believed that she had missed out on hers. It weighed on her how she couldn't prevent the pain and tragedy from befalling her adopted children and now this last incident served as a testament to her failure as a guardian. Too many affronts, too little justice. She would not let it go. She couldn't, it was something that she had to see through, something she had to do with her own hands. I understood, but I said nothing. It wasn't right. I didn't knew how she would take it and I didn't really want to found out.
There were times when Kaji and her would spend whole nights away trying to piece together the clues. It was still a surprised to see that he was still around. That night with the answering machine had assured me that I would never see him again, but sometime after the 15th angel's attack, he just showed up at the door, clothes and hair more rugged than usual, saying something about how he was giving up his search for the truth because he had found the truth. The truth was that he knew what he needed in life and he had let it slip away a long time ago. He wasn't going to let it happen again.
I didn't ask about any of it. It was too personal and too much of a relief to see him alive, but the events that soon came after shattered any relief I could have taken from his presence. But I had found my own relief and with my own hands I had taken back my mind from its quiet torturers. But like I had told Asuka that day, it wasn't over.
/IPW/
I was walking home in the rain, my thoughts were fixed on what I had just done, sparing no energy for the outside world. How could I be concerned about rain drenched clothes or the soggy bangs that blinded my vision and clogged my eyes with their slippery substance? It was all irrelevant. Only the agonizing screams in my head and the sound of father's voice telling the guards to commence their immoral work over the background of a once innocent child's sobs were of any affair to me at the time.
Asuka.
She had wanted to come this time. She could barely move, but she wanted to come with me and do it herself. I had refused and she had screamed at me for half an hour about how it was her right, that I owed her this much. Still, I refused. The pleading tears running down her angry face hadn't helped much, but I couldn't given in. She wasn't strong enough. Not physically and not mentally. Asuka didn't need to see what went on down in the dark recesses of the Geo-Front. Nerv had always had its secrets and this would just have to stay one of them.
Father had not told me what was planed, only to come at the appointed time. I almost didn't make it with Misato hounding me about how I was injured and shouldn't be moving around so much.
I knew she didn't believe me about my wounds, I could see it in her eyes. She was worried that something more had happened to me and that I was too afraid to tell her, but I assured her, numerous times, that that was not the case.
Even with her constant mothering I came when ever father had called. 'Only for this, only this.' It was one thing I wouldn't miss for anything except and Angel attack.
The agents at the gaits leading out into the world had greeted me with a nod, just like the ones who had lead me to the depths of Nerv's dungeons. I gave them the same, just like I did the others. It was always like that. They had known why I was there, they understood. One of them, a man named Murakami, had once told me that if he were in my situation he would have done the same.
He had no idea how much those brief words had meant to me, how much it had boosted it my frail courage. Even after everything that had happened, I still felt guilty over what I had done. It was the same as torturing prisoners of war. Yet, I doubt that POW'S usually raped fourteen your old girls who happened to be one of the only few people keeping their sick souls on this earth.
In the end it didn't matter. They would be paying for their crimes for a long time. Until the end if necessary. As long as I was alive, I would make them remember and I would make them pay. I knew that Asuka wouldn't be able to forget that horrible act, so why the hell should they. In blood and agony they would remember that there was justice in this world, no matter the fact that I had to sale my soul and give up my own innocence just to get. There was no way I would let Asuka end up like me, she had enough nightmares to deal with already.
"Pilot Ikari."
"Wha... ?"
A figure stood in front of me, with an umbrella above it's head. Cold piercing red eyes stared at me from under a mop of unruly sky blue hair. An angel with a soul, but without a heart.
"Rei? What are you doing out in this weather?" I asked her, ignoring the heavy droplets that fell from an uncaring sky. I wondered if god was there watching. I wondered if he approved.
"I have been waiting for you Ikari." She replied. She said it as if it meant nothing, as if it was a normal thing to do. Or maybe she didn't care, or like the other before her and didn't know how.
"Why Rei, why would you wait for me in the rain?"
"Because the Commander will not tell me what you two are up to. Because he does not trust me. Because... I wish to know?" That last part seemed a little uncertain. Why would Rei do this, and why wouldn't father tell her. She was, as Asuka always said, fathers favorite.
"If he hasn't told you why would I? Why should I?"
"I... I don't know." The blue haired girl paused, she seemed even more unsure. It was almost unnerving. Rei had always been sure. Her confidence was what helped me get as far as I had in the past. But of course, that was the old Rei, my Rei. This one didn't know anything.
We said nothing for awhile, just standing there in the rain, gazing at one another. She looked lost, but I didn't know if I wanted to help her. Why should I? She wasn't my Rei, she wasn't the person who had saved my life. She wasn't the almost broken girl I had held in my arms that day so long ago when the Third had attacked.
A vision of Asuka laying there, battered and torn swam before me. Asuka had done nothing but ridiculed me and put me down from the moment that we had met, yet I had given my innocence just the avenge her. Here before me stood a girl, lost and neglected just as much as my Rei before her. How could I leave her here? How could I 'not' help her as I had so wanted to help her other self?
I sighed. It was the sigh of a man who had the world on his shoulders and in a sense, I did. It was just like the sixteenth. I couldn't help her before when she needed me the most, I wouldn't leave her like this on her own to face the world alone again. I owed her that much and so much more.
"I'm not sure if I should tell you Rei. I'm not sure you should know, but if you really want to..." I sighed again. I couldn't help it. "I'll tell you Rei. I'll tell you everything."
The rain poured even harder from the heavens above. Apparently, god was watching, but he didn't approve.
/IPW/
It was very late, probably around one, and I was just getting home. Misato was going to be livid, but I would deal with it. I didn't really have much choice. When I opened the door there she was, sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. I felt like a drowned rat just standing there.
My clothes had dried out some since my stay at Rei's. We had gone back to her place to talk so as to get out of the weather. She seemed to understand why I had done what I had done, but she took god's side and did not approve either. She said that justice couldn't be tainted by impure acts no matter how noble the intentions.
I understood her reasoning, but given the chance... I would have did it again, and again, and again, and again. The world was cloaked in too much darkness and it seemed that all noble acts had to be done in contaminated waters.
"So, where were you?" The lavender haired Major got strait to the point.
"I was at Ayanami's. She asked me to come over." Keeping it simple seemed like the best plan.
"And why would she do that? She's not the most out going person around, if she's even a person?"
"She is Misato! She can't help who she is. She as much a person as you and me." How could she say that? Even with what we saw, Rei was still Rei.
"And so are the men you've been torturing all week. Shinji!"
The apartment was silent. Not a word was said for some time. She knew. How could she know.? It didn't matter. It couldn't change anything.
"You're wrong. They aren't people any more. They gave that up the day they did what they did to Asuka. And why would you take their side? They don't deserve any type of sympathy."
"Sympathy? Why in the hell would I give them sympathy? They raped my little girl damnit!" I could see the fury in her eyes. She wanted to be there. She wanted to be the one doing what I had done. I could hear it in her voice every time she spoke. Just like Asuka.
"So why are you screaming at me? You should be thanking me!"
"Thanking you? Damnit Shinji, don't you know you could be arrested for this? Shit, you could spend the rest of you life in prison. That's why I'm yelling at you. You shouldn't have been involved in this from the beginning"
"Oh, but you should have. They would have done the same to you Misato! I'm an Eva pilot, they still need me. Until the last angel is killed, I'm the only thing saving their asses."
"If you think that will stop them. Those punks maybe scum, but they are rich scum. Their families will do anything to get them back. It's not just about right and wrong, this is a matter of family honor and their reputation. This is about revenge. Don't you get it Shinji, they'll bloody crucify you!"
"You're the one who doesn't get it Misato. I don't care what they do to me, as long as they pay in full for what they did, then their families can shoot me for all I care. Revenge! They don't have the right to even dream about revenge! Not after what their sons did. Who cares about their Honor!"
"NO!" She cried with tears in her eyes.
"NO! I won't lose you again Shinji, I've come so close to losing you so many times before. I won't let you damn yourself."
The tears were flowing freely now and she made no move to hide them as she slowly slid to the floor.
I sighed.
No matter what I did, no matter who I saved, I always ended up hurting someone. Is pain so much a part of life that every act of goodness is immediately counteracted with an equal amount of evil or worse? Why can't it all end? I didn't get it then and I don't get it now. There had to be more to life than this. There had to be.