+++++ Eva Hangar. (Monday, August 23rd, +2, Waning Gibbous 1/4)
Shinji found that running without clothing on was far more uncomfortable than he had anticipated. Being soaked in LCL without clothing was far more disgusting than it had been in the suit. Sitting in the far too aptly named 'cockpit' waiting for the connection to establish itself, he tried to keep his mind blank the way that Maya asked him to. It was nearly impossible, of course, owing to the incessant and intrusive thoughts regarding the unresolved issue just before him.
"Ok," Naoko's voice announced, "go for main sequence."
The world once more became a riot of rainbows and crystal that eventually solidified again into the strange sensation of existing as a nearly two hundred meter titan. His body quivered, overjoyed to once again be seeing the world through fresh eyes. Focusing his gaze on the bridge, he saw Ritsuko standing next to Maya, and smiled slightly at the bond he saw between them. They loved one another in their own ways, they wanted to protect, shelter, and nurture the other. This was good. This was what should be.
His eyes travelled to another point on the bridge, and he saw Naoko and Kyoko debating something. He saw, in Kyoko, an affection for the other woman that was predicated on a long friendship. What he saw in Naoko, however, was much more confusing. She disliked nearly everyone on the bridge, including her own daughter. His mother, in another shock to him, came into view and radiated a chaotic medley of emotions. Yui Ikari was fond of Naoko, wary of Kyoko, amused by Ritsuko, befuddled by Maya, jealous of Misato, and alarmingly worried…about him. He could see, as plain as the back of his hand, the affection she had for him. The need to keep him safe, alive, and happy. The sorrow at what had happened, the rage at who was responsible, and the determination to ensure that nobody ever did it again.
"Holding at two-ten. That shouldn't be possible," Yui mused. "Lieutenant Ibuki, I want you to insert the plug another degree, please."
Ritsuko wheeled around. "Ma'am, that's-"
"My prerogative as Director of Project E. I appreciate your vocal defense of the Pilot, Doctor, and laud your fervor, but we need to know more if we are truly going to protect him as he protects us." She looked directly up at him. "One degree, if you please Lieutenant."
Maya hesitated, also looking up at him before saying, "Yes, ma'am. Lowering one degree."
Ten seconds came and went, and Yui nodded in understanding. "I see…that's…good, for him. Drop the plug fully in, and prepare to launch. Pilot, once you reach the surface, you will be under the command of Captain Katsuragi. Follow her orders, as they are intended to keep you alive while you destroy the enemy. Good hunting."
Everyone on the bridge was surprised as Shinji's voice rumbled out, "Understood, ma'am."
"The number's not changing," Ritsuko muttered in confusion. "He's steady at two hundred and ten, no matter how deep we push it."
"Science later, combat now. Pilot Ikari, flex your stomach as you breathe going up, it's going to be a ride." Misato stepped to the fore of the bridge. "Evangelion Unit-01, launch."
He felt the weight of mountains pressing down on his shoulders as he rocketed skywards. Enormous metal beams, concrete slabs, and open defensive hatches flew past his eyes, and after an eternity the ride ended with him standing on top of the world. The ruins of a village showed trails of flame winding through it, the surrounding forests burning brightly. The hills were torn to shreds, the ballistic boulders that had been sent to find him in the Kirijo Manor now explained by the enemy's mining activities.
"…That's not the same one." Shinji remembered, vaguely, a picture one of the ladies in class had up on her laptop. It had been a forest green giant, with thin limbs and a white avian mask. What floated near the village, glaring at him in disgust, was nothing like that alien being.
Almost metallic skin decorated a humanoid figure with marble wings. Defined musculature, but no visible facial features. Immaculately carved feathers, but no genitalia. Individually formed fingers, but no toes. It was, at once, humanity perfected and a mockery of humankind.
"No, it's not. Pay attention to the cable attached to your back, Pilot. That thing is your lifeline, if it gets cut you're going to have five minutes of power before the Evangelion powers off." Misato's voice was coolly professional, "We sent up a rifle with you, I need you to focus on trying to reach down and grab it once we disconnect the magnets, how copy?"
"Yeah…grab the rifle." He didn't like this.
"Ok, disconnect in three, two, now."
His body came free of the restraints, and he moved his shoulders slowly to limber them up. His muscles were stiff from non-use, his breath labored by being encumbered with the restraints around him. Something seemed very wrong with the plan, and so he delayed in implementing it.
"Pilot, you need to concentrate on your hand and arm." Misato was unaware of the reality of his standing, and believed he was simply having difficulties making Unit-01 work. "The Eva will react if you concentrate on what you want it to do."
His mother's request that he listen to Misato forced his hand. He had told her he would, and he would not be a liar. As his hand moved towards the rifle, he saw the subtle motions in the Angelic being that indicated it would react poorly to him becoming armed. Several plans came to mind, hopefully buying him time for more instructions. His prediction wound up being correct, as no sooner did he have the rifle than a flaming whip streaked out to try and take it from him. Rolling the other direction, he hoped the weapon was as easy to use as he thought it would be. Coming to rest on one knee, pushing the weapon into his shoulder, he looked down the iron sights and placed his foe dead center, then pulled the trigger.
Each bullet, tons of depleted uranium made deadlier by advanced propulsion mechanisms, was intercepted before they could make contact. The Angel's whip becoming a blur as it spun in a tight circle to form a shield. With stasis once more reached, and only the provoked volley seeming yet to come, it asked in a voice that echoed throughout the sphere, "What be ye, demon?"
Misato spoke right after, "Nice dodge, Shinji. You need to get to your feet and move to your right, approaching the target as you do."
Standing, and doing as asked far less quickly than he believed she would like, Shinji replied, "I'm not a demon. What…who are you?"
An arrogant pride permeated the Angel's reply, "Mine name is the archangel Kushiel, the Rigid One of God, and it is mine duty to punish the sinful sons of man!" Coiling the whip, it gestured directly at him. "I ask you again, what be ye?"
The question had no single answer. What was Shinji Ikari? A miserable pile of secrets? A mockery of humanity? A monster to bring ruin? A touch of anger entered his thoughts. Qodeshah had told him to protect the ladies. That they would, in return, protect him. What did that make him? "I'm Unit-01, and it is my duty to defend the daughters of humanity." Shouldering his weapon again, he growled out, "So go back where you came from, and tell whoever sent you that you're not welcome here."
"You tread where none ought walk, 'Unit-01'," Kushiel responded mockingly. "None may defy God and be suffered to live. Have at you!"
Ducking under the first swipe of the whip, Shinji charged in. He could hear Misato in his ear, knew that she likely was trying to give him information that he could act upon, but understood innately that there was no feasible way for him to react at the speeds he needed to if he waited for her to vocalize her thoughts. Firing several more rounds, inaccurately, he forced Kushiel to respond defensively so that he could close the last of the distance. Another few rounds, this time directly against the Angel's gut, proved his fears correct. The weapon was next to useless, and now his foe knew it.
What his foe didn't know, for reasons that several technicians at NERV would later analyze thoroughly, was that humans had a terrible tendency to not limit themselves to a singular use of any one tool. Swinging upwards with the butt of the rifle, Shinji snapped Kushiel's head back violently, then grabbed the barrel of the rifle and smashed the hand and wrist wielding the whip, disarming the Angel and breaking his rifle.
Roaring in pain through a mouth that didn't exist, Kushiel grabbed Unit-01's left shoulder pylon, throwing the Evangelion back and attempting to regain its weapon. "Wretched beast, what art thou?"
"God damn it, Pilot, Prog-knife on your right pylon," Misato snapped. "You need to concentrate on your A.T. Field, think about a bubble defending you against-"
Shinji felt the knife deploy, grabbing it and reversing his grip on it with a growl. Slicing the whip away three times in a row as the Angel attempted to continue the fight with its off hand, he could see the patterns developing in the fight. The Angel stated that it was 'Rigid', and that meant it might become predictable. It felt pain, and it could be broken. The bullets might have had an impact beyond simply bouncing off. If he couldn't smash it apart, he'd cut it apart, or tear it apart.
+++++ Tokyo-3. (Monday, August 23rd, +2, Waning Gibbous 1/4)
Ritsuko watched the battle with a feeling of detachment. She could see Shinji's sleeping form in the monitor, consciousness fled as soon as he truly engaged with the Eva. His responses, both vocal and physical, were coming from a subconscious level beyond the lies and masks everyone wore like so much extra clothing. "He can't use the A.T. Field." The realization was as worrying as it was terrifying.
"Not like this, no." Kyoko had come down to monitor the fight from the control level, and had reached the same conclusion as her favorite student. "The light of his soul cannot establish itself while he's unconscious, while there is no 'self' to project. He has no superego like this. He and the Eva are the same thing, twin consciousness working in unison without the core's interference."
"Ok…but which is the ego, and which is the id?"
"One might be wise to never seek that answer," Kyoko responded quietly. "He is going to need our help as women, not as surgeons."
Ritsuko blushed slightly. "He's been hit several times, felt the pain the Eva's felt, and…he's still there."
Sighing, Kyoko shook her head. "That was not what I meant, and I apologize for that. This is no time to discuss such things. I meant he is going to need sisters, mothers, and…yes, he will need intimacy. Life must have flavor for him, or he will not outlive this conflict."
+++++ Tokyo-3. (Monday, August 23rd, +2, Waning Gibbous 1/4)
Each time Shinji shifted left, the enemy went high. Right caused them to go low. Backwards brought an overhand attack, and inwards brought a punch or kick. Of note was that the Angel had yet to continue using their main hand. Either they couldn't heal quickly, or were averse to significant pain. In that, his plan was formed. Feinting to the left and then ducking inwards, he bowled over the Angel as their whip moved to a high guard. Dropping his knee on the shattered wrist, Shinji drove his knife into Kushiel's throat, snapping the blade clean off and only vaguely marring the metallic perfection of the skin…and causing him to gag in pain.
With new knowledge acquired, his hands wrapped around Kushiel's throat, no sooner than he felt the whip of flame tighten around his torso. The Angel thrashed to tear him off, to take away the pain he inflicted, but could not manage to dislodge the enormous Eva from its disadvantageous position. Pain shrieked in Shinji's mind as well, demanding that he stop whatever he was doing and attend to that agony. Pain that had long since been reduced to nothing more than an annoying voice in his mind. A ghost with no ability to control the physical realm. Shallow breaths were still possible, oxygen still moving to the important parts of his being. The fight was over, his foe simply didn't know it yet. His thumbs dug into the spot on the throat that was the softest, the most exposed to trauma. His face gone blank, his thoughts gone empty, his muscles rigid with lethal force. For six, long, minutes he constricted the throat of an alien entity. On the seventh, Kushiel's throat collapsed catastrophically allowing Unit-01 to tear its head completely free from its body.
The resulting explosion would have likely devastated the entire countryside, had it not been for Unit-01 deploying its A.T. Field an instant before. The Eva, and Shinji, absorbed the brunt of the terrifying explosion, the flame and pressure turning the darkened hemisphere as bright as day for three seconds before the force died down. Still, Shinji constricted Kushiel's throat as he held its head away from the body as a gruesome trophy of a battle won.
Nobody was able to contact him, rouse him, or interact with him or the Eva during the five minutes of emergency power he had after the explosion destroyed the power cable. Nobody argued with allowing the Eva to run out of power, either. Even those who knew its true secrets were shy about pushing too hard against an entity that had just managed the impossible on its own.
+++++ Tokyo-3. (Monday, August 23rd, +2, Waning Gibbous 1/4)
Shinji's eyes snapped open as he felt a weight against him. His body went rigid, muscle memory keeping him from lashing out after more than a decade of such actions being punished severely. He tried to speak, but all that happened was that he began choking out LCL.
"Shh, shh, it's ok," the voice of the engineer that had asked him to find her at some point assured him soothingly. "I've got you, my friend, ok?"
His limbs went slack at once, the innards of the entry plug coming into focus with the external flashlights illuminating the scene. Reaching up, he tried to pat her stomach to get her attention, and was unaware that he had instead patted something else entirely.
"Oh, my…yes?" She looked down slackening her grip some.
He rolled his hand, needing to be face down to finish expelling the last of the blood-scented liquid. His assistant recognized his need quickly and he was soon in position with her gently patting his back. Forcing the LCL up in the same way that he typically had forced himself to disgorge other things he didn't want in his body, he eventually sucked in a deep breath of normal air. "Th-thank you. That stuff is painful after a few minutes in normal air."
"Yes, it is. I fell in it once, while repairing a tank. Received a firsthand lesson in it, I did." Still supporting his posture, she looked at him with concern. "You do not have clothing, and the night is now very cold. I…am worried that you haven't yet…'returned to normal'."
His erection was quite obvious, even to him. "Yeah…I know."
"We will get you to Doc, she will give you medicine to help, ok?"
He chose to remain silent as he exited the Eva with her assistance. Once he was standing on the scissor lift, which had been given an added tarp covering to hide him as he went down, he was able to stand on his own while she operated the machine to lower them to the ground. "I'm…sorry, I never asked your name, Engineer-san." She was trying to be nice. She didn't let someone else who hadn't already touched him do this.
"Oh, yes, Sergeant Andreja Valatok, pleased to again meet you." Even with a body of someone who worked with heavy machinery for a living, she still managed to appear small as she fidgeted at not being able to help him more.
Shinji looked over at the entry flap, then down at the slow pace they were taking for safety's sake. "…Would it be all right if I just called you 'Andreja'?"
"It would please me greatly if you did," she responded with warmth and haste. "I did not make a good first impression, I know this. I would like to correct that, ok? We are all stuck here, until the scientists make science answers. I would like you and I to not be enemies."
"I'm sorry, for getting in your face. I…." He wasn't sure if it was an excuse, or if it was the truth. "Ibuki-san is the first person to have ever been nice to me, and she wasn't…wanting that. I don't think she likes people…like me, like that. I shouldn't have snapped, and I'm sorry I did."
She laughed politely. "I am not, ok? You reminded me that we all should be polite, that needless fights only serve to hurt us. Then you climb in the large robot, get hurt, and do not fret when we have to clean your body. You do not look on me with contempt, and instead trust that I have listened to you. I am not upset that you did this, and I am happy that you wish to not create trouble between us."
"…Ok…." He hated himself, and yet everyone around him seemed to not see the same things he did. Shivering in the cold night air, he wrapped his arms around his torso and tucked his hands under his arms.
"I asked if they would let me take a blanket, they said that they did not have one in the helicopter. The pilot and agent became very angry, spoke very poorly of the helicopter mechanics. Claimed they had lost or stolen some things from the kit." She leaned in closer to him, opening her arms up. "I am not afraid of a little goop, ok? I can hold you close to share my warmth."
Stepping over, accepting her embrace out of habit, he found that he was in fact warmer with her there by him. He then remembered the woman that had taken Mitsuru somewhere safe, as well as the kit she had carried with her that contained emergency blankets. "Why didn't they send a medic?"
"I asked this too, you know?" Sighing out heavily, she kept him tightly in her arms. "I was told that 'a situation' happened. 'The pilot's vital signs are stable, he just needs extraction'. They were not pleased, no they were not. But pleased or not, they had none to send."
Both the polite euphemism for something having gone wrong and the fact that it was apparently necessary were worrying. As were the sounds of arguing growing clearer as they reached the ground.
"Because you tell us to unass out here, and now you tell me to standby!" Akane's voice was quite clear, identifying the 'agent' involved. "I don't know if you've noticed, but the eternal summer of the last decade or so has kind of gone away now. It's fucking August, and yet it's under nine damn degrees Celsius out here! You know how dressed he is, you know I don't have any fucking survival kits because dead women forgot to put them in here apparently, so what the fuck do you want me to do about it?"
By this point, both Shinji and Andreja had climbed down from the scissor lift and walked over towards the helicopter. Inside the open bay door, Noelle was tearing apart the area looking for a solution to their problem, and outside the plane Akane was swearing into a shortwave radio at an unknown person. Once they were standing still, waiting for instructions on how to proceed, he felt Andreja wrap her arms around him again, pulling his back against her front to share her warmth. It was both a wonderful gesture, and a detriment to him even trying to calm himself down. His mind was now what it was, and he doubted he'd ever be free of it until he'd died.
Responding to something she heard in her earpiece, she snapped back, "Oh, don't you fucking worry. We're definitely going to be having a fucking talk about this. Out." Switching the radio off violently, she tossed it back into the box she'd drawn it from then turned around and saw Shinji shivering despite being given what assistance was possible. "…God damn it, kid…."
He could see that her anger wasn't directed anywhere near him, but he responded as if it was all the same, "I-I'm…s-sorry."
"Not as sorry as they're going to be." Walking over, ignoring the 'standing issue', she hugged him from the front. "I'd give you my blouse, but I'm not wearing anything under it. Raffle offered her jumpsuit, but I'm almost positive that it would cover precisely one leg, and then she'd be naked. This is bullshit, and I'm going to ruin lives over it."
Andreja indicated the helicopter with her chin. "Why do we not step in there and run the engine, eh? It may not be as warm as a blanket, yes, but it is better than out here, ok?"
"Because I only have enough juice in this bitch to get us home," Noelle responded, hopping out of the helicopter and walking over to the group. The natural sway of her hips was pronounced enough that it drew Shinji's attention, and she noticed him noticing, then noticed that he closed his eyes and grew tense. "That fucker with the apparently useless wings took out several of our other birds, and those we have left have had to put down on emergency platforms. Fortunately, our Ace here managed to show him how we do things here in Tokyo-3." Putting her hand on his shoulder, she squeezed gently to show that she wasn't upset at him. "That was a hell of a fight. I'm glad you're on our side."
With a slight shift of his head, he looked at Noelle and saw that when she looked at him it there were no negative emotions attached. "Y-your ac-c-cent…."
"Oh, yeah." She grinned playfully and rolled her eyes. "Best education money could buy, but when I get focused or angry out comes the mush-mouth. I promise, I try to keep it under control, but there's no stopping it at times."
"Speaking of stopping it," Akane segued, "I'm a little worried about your sidearm, kid. Is this normal?"
"S-s-sorry," he stammered out, trying to pull away from both women.
"Whoa, no, no," Akane felt clearly the ire of the two other women present, and urged him to stop struggling. "It's not the first one I've seen, but it is the first one I've seen that's been at attention for hours. Frostbite likes attacking things that stray from the main body, and typically men…shrink when exposed to cold. I'm worried about you, by being worried about it."
His struggles slowed, and he instead began to curl inwards. "I…I…."
"So there's this one chap, right?" Noelle decided that a 'dancing monkey' was needed at the moment. "Pretty decent at handling a VTOL. Not the worst pilot by a longshot, but certainly nowhere near the cream of the crop. One day, we're sitting on five-minute strip alert which means we're supposed to be ready to scramble within five minutes of the alarm sounding. Most of us take that status as needing to be in the aircraft, right?" She makes a trotting motion with her fingers. "Not him, oh no. Party hat gets flipped on, and ten seconds later out he comes sprinting from the little rec room attached to the hangars. Naked as a jaybird with his flight suit and boots under one arm."
Andreja laughed, pleased that Shinji had calmed again and was listening to the story. "Quite a sight, yes?"
"That's the thing!" She put her fingers just a few centimeters from one another. "He'd been playing two-ball pool, and was still 'at attention'. I have never seen a smaller soldier than that, and it was no bigger around than my thumb until it got to the head. He had a damn mushroom for a pistol!"
Shinji, not fully aware of the various euphemisms in play, still gathered enough of the story to understand why Akane was now laughing uproariously while Andreja seemed to struggle with joining her. The story had its humor, at the expense of the poor pilot it revolved around, but it also brought with it a number of questions. He couldn't think of a way to ask any of them, not with present company, though.
"At least our hero here will never be forced to suffer that kind of ignominy," Akane asserted with a laugh.
Noelle nodded, shrugging her shoulders, "I have to admit, the after-action debriefing would have gone a lot differently." With her playful smile still firmly in place, she locked eyes with the gentleman in question. "You get a bunch of stick jockeys together with intel like that, and it turns into a bloodbath. You've got nothing to be ashamed of. I guarantee you that the lads would have kept their traps shut with a challenger like yours around."
Much of the fear of harm had been smoothed away, with the tiny blonde pilot's story. Though now he managed to blush with a hint of self-consciousness growing. "I…I was t-told i-it w-was 'unremarkable'."
"You were told a lie," she scoffed.
Andreja added her own voice to the issue, "I have not seen so many myself, ok? Of those I've seen I would typically need a spanner no larger than a M-eight to work, yes? You are well into the double-digits, though you shouldn't let that get to your head."
The engineering explanation went over his head, and so he focused on the admonition at the end. "I…I won't."
Everyone heard the sound of a vehicle engine at the same time, three reacting with reflexes born of training or temperament, and one reacting by looking curiously towards the approaching noise. Noelle dashed to the helicopter, pulling out her PDW and a rifle for Akane before handing it over and taking up a defensive position. Andreja bodily picked Shinji up and carried him into the helicopter out of sight before picking up a rifle for herself.
"You allow the professionals to handle this, ok?" The big engineer's voice remained calm and warm, "If this is larger than a human, we'll let you handle it in the Eva, but you keep your head down, yes?"
The cold, hard, seat he'd been put in was painfully uncomfortable. "Y-yes, ma'am."
"No, not ma'am. Ma'am's do not work with goop." Her warmth remained, despite the killing gaze in her eyes. "You call me Andreja, like we said, yes? I will call you Shinji, and we will let the others use titles."
His mind was creating increasingly terrible images the more she spoke to him. Folding his arms and legs in, curling into a ball, he responded as he'd been trained to, "Yes, Andreja."
"Contact, northeast," Akane barked out. "Hold position, moving to flank."
"Roger," Noelle responded tersely.
From his position, all Shinji could see is a brightening of the area caused by strong lights. He could hear the engine's rumble, placing it as a heavier machine that was of considerable size. What bothered him for a moment was that he couldn't smell the exhaust. Trying to occupy his mind with anything but what consumed it, he tried to remember if he had felt any motion in the air at all that wasn't caused by someone moving. It only made sense to him that there would be wind even in the forest, and the lack of it was an oddity for him to pick at.
The noise of the engine ceased, the motor being shut off by whoever was operating the vehicle. Akane called out, a hint of relief in her voice, "Friendlies. We're clear, ladies." The sound of a car door opening and closing. "Glad to see you, Doctor, Lieutenant. Even more glad to see that blanket, he's turning blue."
Ritsuko's voice carried a righteous anger that seemed unlike her, "Some fucking group of women took this whole god damn event as a reason to go full anti-everything."
Andreja had professionally set her rifle aside to lift Maya up into the helicopter. "Watch your head, Lieutenant, ok? You have important things to be about, and can't be about them with a headache."
Even in her rush to reach Shinji, Maya still took the time to spread happiness to every corner of the world she could. "You're covered in LCL, thanks for trying to keep him warm with body heat. You likely saved him some serious complications. Please close the door so we can try to keep any wind out." Sliding onto the bench next to him as the portal shut, she threw the thick multi-fabric blanket over them both and pulled him under it entirely with her creating a shell of warmth. "Not exactly the professional way to do this," she admitted as she tucked in stray corners, "but I work with what I have."
He could feel sensations slowly creeping back into his fingers and toes, sharp prickling sensations that made it feel as if hands and feet were being electrocuted by ants. "I-I'm s-s-sorry."
"I'm not," she replied with a simple shrug. Now that she had them cocooned, she pulled two extendible bars out, creating an open space within the blanket for them to sit more comfortably. "You won! Yeah, the rest of this kinda sucks, but really…that's the important part. You're alive, you killed…that thing, whatever it was. You saved my life, and now I get to spend some time with you trying to help you in return!"
His limbs were starting to cramp, trying to hold himself in a ball. "Y-you…you're r-really positive."
"Annoyingly so, I know." She clacked her fist against the side of her head and made a face.
"N-no." He shook his head fiercely, slowly letting his legs go so they could cross before him in lotus pose. "I…I uhm…." He swallowed, twice. He could feel the burning sensation across his palms grow well past what would be explained by him thawing. "I l-l-like it."
She brightened visibly, a sun cresting the horizon. "That's nice to know! So many people think I'm annoying because I try not to get down in the dumps all the time over how hard everything is." Her eyes flicked down to the noticeable protrusion extending from his groin, then back up to his eyes. There was a clear effort to square the doomed expression he wore with what she'd only briefly been warned about from Ritsuko. "So…can I maybe just address the elephant in the tent?"
"I'm sorry."
"I very seriously doubt it's your fault, Shinji." She settled her hand on his knee, not wanting to draw close enough to reach his arm without warning him. "I know you believe it is, though. How about we focus on solutions, instead of dwelling on something that we can't change right now?" He shrugged his shoulders slightly, which she hoped was permission enough to continue. "Unfortunately, there are very limited solutions here. I hope you don't get angry with her, because Senpai really only told me so that I could help, but she says that you can't…manually resolve this." His head shook violently side to side, affirming her point. "Medicine, and medical procedures, have come a long way over the years…but this is still an issue where we're kind of stuck being barbaric. I can drain the blood causing the engorgement, and hope that resolves things. However, the way I do that is going to be…very painful. Needles in places needles weren't meant to go."
His expression hadn't changed. "I'm not worried about pain, but it won't stop this." His eyes firmly focused on a point off in the distance outside of the blanket fort they were in. "…She…would do that…to torment me. As long as I'm thinking disgusting thoughts, it comes back."
Maya blinked, trying to compartmentalize her mind in a way that allowed her to not add her own anger onto her tone. "What is it you mean, by 'disgusting thoughts'?" She could see him crumpling further inward, and it hurt her heart badly. "I'm not going to judge you, Shinji. I promise. I swear." Rubbing his knee some, she leaned forward to get in his line of sight. "I want to help, and I can't help you until I know what is going on. Please talk to me?"
"…I enjoyed it," the words came through dead lips. "I enjoyed the rush. The release. The touch that wasn't her slapping me, or hitting me, or kicking me." His entire body stiffened, anticipating a pain that wasn't going to come. "If she was doing…that, she wasn't normally finding things I had done wrong. If she wanted me to…I had to be ready. I couldn't stop until she wanted to. If I stopped for any reason…." His sight turned inwards. "She would beat my palms with a meterstick if she knew what I was thinking, when I look at all of you."
She wanted to find the woman responsible and show her the Maya that lurked behind the cheer. For right now, she had more important obligations than revenge. "What is you're thinking, when you look at me?"
There was a moment of hesitation followed by a surrender. He was already damned, he might as well accept it. "All of the ways you willingly doing things with me could go. You coming up behind me and hugging me. Telling me that I'm safe. Climbing atop me and pushing her out of my mind. Making me believe the lie that I'm worth anything." His eyes refocused, an aggressive rage dwelling behind frozen blue. "Every woman that's been nice to me, these past two days, is parading through my mind making me think that I have even a remote chance at this. It's disgusting. I'm disgusting."
Ok. Think. Self-worth issues. Sexual hyperactivity that isn't driven by insecurity, overcompensating, or substance abuse. Dependency? No, that's stupid. If anything, he wants an alternative that doesn't inflict it on m…anyone. Stimulus response. He lives in a world of women, and he says that every woman that's been nice to him causes it. Fuck me silly. The thoughts all processed in a flash, and did not interrupt her even, warm, response of, "I do not think you are disgusting. It would be disgusting if you forced yourself on someone, but you are not. It would be disgusting if you thought of women as nothing but objects, but you do not. It would be disgusting if all you thought was that we owed you this affection, but you wouldn't dream of believing that." She took a small breath, then added, "How long have you…been dealing with this incident?"
"What uhm…what time is it?"
She checked her watch. "Fifteen past midnight."
"Five and a half hours."
A heavy banging on the door announced ahead of time that someone was opening it. "Ok, folks. I've received clearance to RTB, Section Two is inbound with ground transport to the Kijiro residence for our hero, and both Doc and Lieutenant Ibuki are expected back to work for debrief."
Maya frowned, extracting herself reluctantly from the blanket. "We're not taking him back to base? He needs-"
"Commander Ikari's direct orders were that he come nowhere near NERV for the next two days unless there is an attack," Ritsuko interrupted in an 'I'll explain later' tone. "Kirijo-san has a physician waiting for him where he's going, and guarantees that her plumbing can handle cleaning him up."
A few seconds later, Shinji's head appeared out from under the blanket. "Is Mitsuru-san ok?" He told the thoughts thinking of her inspired to fuck off, without much effect. "What was the situation?"
"The situation is part of the reason you're not to go near NERV unless we get attacked again," Ritsuko urged him with a mixture of sympathetic concern and commanding authority. "Young miss Kirijo is safely with her mother, where she should have been the entire time. How her act of defiance will play with her mother is beyond my knowledge, but I know that the Commander was livid at the danger she'd put herself in."
Another vehicle rumbled up to the side of the helicopter, Mikoto behind the wheel. Jumping out of the car after it had come to a stop, she looked at Akane, "You're driving." Then to Shinji, "In the back. I've got plenty of warm stuff for you." Then to Noelle, "Let me know when we're going hunting for idiots. I want a piece."
"Aye, ma'am," Noelle responded with a wave from her pilot's chair. "Sergeant, get in. Shinji, get out. We've got shit to get done."
Maya bundled the blanket around him, hurrying him out of the aircraft. "I'll try to see you later today, Shinji." Hurrying him to the open back door of the vehicle, she kissed his temple and whispered, "You are not disgusting. I swear on Senpai's life that you're not." Another kiss, this time to his cheek, and she held his eyes for a second to drive that message home.
Another, unexpected, kiss landed on his other cheek, Ritsuko reaching his side and shoving him into the car. "Get home, Shinji. I can't get to sleep until I know you're somewhere safer than here."
He looked back over his shoulder at both women, and received another heart-shaped hand sign from Maya as well as a blown kiss and a wave from Ritsuko. What he knew of the world didn't match with the signals he was receiving, and so all he could do is look at the pair with confusion and bewilderment.
Mikoto hopped in the backseat on the other side of the car, quickly wrapping him in more blankets. "Door please, Lieutenant." After Shinji's door was swiftly shut, she patted Akane's headrest. "Drive." Not long after they'd begun making their way to the main road on a really spotty logging trail, she hugged Shinji close. "Aka-chan, secret time, ok?"
Flipping a switch on the dash of the car, Akane sighed, "We're telling him?"
"We know. Shin-tan must know that we know. It's not right otherwise."
Another sigh, one that spoke of acceptance more than frustration. "We just didn't want you to think we were going to treat you like you're made of glass, kid. This wasn't us keeping things from you, it was just our way of making sure you acted like you around us."
The childish voice the skeletal agent tended to use dropped away, replaced by a cold, harsh, tone that spoke of a near complete absence of emotions, "When you told the driver that you preferred us, you signaled to the Kirijo Group that you trusted us. People in your situation rarely connect with anyone quickly if the person isn't trustworthy. Psychological studies have shown, time and again, that just like babies and puppies, people who've been abused violently go one of two ways. Either they develop a sense of who can and can't be trusted, or they reject all human contact. You seem to be in the first group, and so I'm going to ask you right now: do you trust us?"
He was being held, he was warm again, and the women in the car weren't treating him poorly. Shinji responded without hesitation, "Yes."
"When we find where she is, I'm going to do terrible things to her. Things that will be remembered for millennia. We have something in common, you and I." She saw the worry in his eyes as he turned to look at her, and so she smiled with a cold fire. "I slit his throat, and stuffed his thingy in the hole. That's when I found out that those things don't work well as a breathing tube." Sitting up slightly, she gave him a light kiss. "Now we know each other's secret."
Akane kept her hands on the wheel, but let her fingers drum in a loose rhythm. "We don't look at you differently. I know I sound like a broken record, but that's what I had to do to get Thinderella back there to believe me. When she told me, when we were running away from the shitty farm town we grew up in, I just hugged her for an hour. I swore I'd never let anyone hurt her like that again. It took ten years for her to believe me."
"So we will both be telling you, now." Mikoto ran her thumb under his eye with unflinching tenderness. "Nobody is going to hurt you like that again. If someone tries, you tell us and we'll make certain that they understand you don't belong to them."
The sound of leather creaking came from the front seat, Akane's grip on the wheel tightening. "People like that are oxygen thieves, and I've made certain that more than one will never see daylight again."
His eyes narrowed, and he wiggled closer to Mikoto. "Why…uhm, why did you ask for a kiss?"
"Because I wanted a kiss." She pulled him over to lean into him as much as he did into her. "If I was going to die, I wanted to die after having a brave knight give me a kiss." She gave a quiet sigh of discontent. "People like us don't often get a chance for the little joys in life. We don't see two people hugging each other and think, 'Oh, that's sweet'. We think, 'Is he or she abusing them?'. So much has been stolen from us…."
Akane reached back with one hand and flicked Mikoto's knee hard. "I also took her to task for that. You don't understand yourself yet, and she does. She had good motivations, considering she also wanted to give you a chance to maybe be in a better mood before the fight, but she also could have led you to believe she could have a relationship with you. We need to let you decide your future, and let you breathe free air for a while. Doing anything else is just going to make things worse."
Rolling her eyes playfully, Mikoto reverted back to her playful tone, "Aka-chan is just jealous that I kissed you. You should kiss her too, to even things out so my girlfriend isn't jealous."
Shinji was about to flinch inwards, worried that Akane was actually jealous, when he heard his driver begin to belly laugh. "You are such a bitch, Miki," she said between bouts. "You see what I have to put up with, kid? Twenty years I've been with this woman, and she's forever setting up threesomes for me without giving me warning."
"Miki-chan likes it when Aka-chan is caught off guard," Mikoto stage-whispered. "It makes her frisky."
The typically quiet part of his mind, the part that was responsible for interpreting the situation around him, began to wonder what it was that made him so…comfortable with the two Agents. He could see, through his bond with Unit-01, that they loved each other greatly. That theirs was a bond that would outlast the stars. What he began to see, through his own self-induced blindness, was that they were also both becoming fond of him. That what they saw wasn't an animal, or a monster, or a victim. They saw a man who fought to keep them alive. They saw a man they would fight to keep alive. "…Thank you." His words, as quiet as they were, still stopped the teasing the two were engaging in. "For telling me you knew. For…." He blushed. "For keeping me safe."