Chapter 12: Officer Ibuki books it out of NERV.
By now the brown haired girl and boy had found a wooden bench where they sat facing each other as the girl continued to tell the story of her life to the boy she saw nothing but good in.
The boy had remained in solemn silence throughout the tale determined not to miss a single word of the important narration he knew he'd never get the chance to hear again.
"No, no, no, no, no. Wrong, wrong, wrong" the chief of NERV spat in cold disdain as he sat facing his first lieutenant Maya Ibuki, a tomboyish but still incredibly eye-catching fashion icon who looked as if she'd fit much more snugly on the front cover of a fashion magazine than in the imperialistic offices of NERV's headquarter fortress where the very walls echoed with authority.
Her short brown hair was the same tone as that of chief General Gendo Ikari's son Shinji and it was not hard to imagine that were she reversed in age a few years, they would look like twins from a distance.
The only thing more similar between them was the complete and utter frown of disdain they shared when once again they were hauled into the big man's office to be given another admonishing one of his rants over accidents they alone could profess to heaven they had zero control over.
"It's come to my attention that you're not measuring up." Gendo Ikari continued, not looking at her as he spoke but down at a photo of his late wife Yui which he kept on his desk. Two tall guards stood staring at her like stone statues with their rifles pointed squarely in her face, ready to feed lead into her body the second she made any threatening movements.
"You need to stay late, again. With no overtime. Your project needs to be completely redone. Oh, and I have to write you up again too. That's three more demerits this week alone."
"You really just can't seem to do anything right." Was the line of his long and lengthy lecture which caused her until now expressionless lips to twist into a furious frown which she looked down to hide from the bane of her existence and of many others unlucky enough to be in the same prison she had trapped herself in since the day a young and naïve college student saw an add promising her great pride and job prospects in being a soldier for the most powerful protection agency in the entire world.
The sheer jubilation and elation a young and inexperienced college dropout felt upon seeing that job offer when she had realized too late that her degree would be useless for the job positions that would soon be closing up in response to the increasing threat of Angels along with the increased presence of NERV. She had always fancied herself pretty good with a gun, at least in Video games which she always seemed to be better at than her studies.
How excited she had been the day she got her smart grey uniform and her rifle after breezing through the training exercises like a piece of cake, the first test she ever passed with no sweat.
They told her she'd have more than enough money to send to her family and keep herself in luxury for a lifetime.
Not two years later, her mother and father had died to hunger and cold related illnesses caused by the simple inconvenience of not having enough to buy food or heating.
They had both been unlucky enough to develop arthritis and osteoporosis in their fifties and unable to work themselves prompting Maya to put herself out into the world of work as soon as she could.
The aforementioned paralyzing conditions in and of themselves caused by a lifetime of malnourishment and overtime work in NERV's factories ,which of course like the rest of NERV gave every worker, zero compensation.
And Maya herself little more than skin and bone as she felt closer to dying on both the outside and the inside every day. She was but one rank below Major Misato but she had never been able to shake away the feeling that in this workplace that was terrible in every sense of the word, she was nothing more than the kicked can on the pavement whose only destiny was to be thrown in the bin once everyone had gotten bored of the kicking game.
She wondered if this was what the poor boy forced to live with Misato and the other mean German pilot's presence felt, when his father called him here every time to berate him on a whim.
"Oh, and starting from next week, we're merging with a bigger company. Which means downsizing and twenty percent wage deductions across the board. In case you didn't get the memo about it already."
The commander nonchalantly added to the woman whose anger was now causing her to convulse uncontrollably as she continued to keep her gaze downward unable to take much more of this.
Maya was beginning to wonder if her rule of viewing only the Angels terrorizing humankind as acceptable targets for her rifle applied to every situation. Her trigger finger was really starting to itch right now. There was being nonviolent and then there was taking stupid crap which took away her very dignity as a human being.
It was in these seconds that a sudden epiphany begun to hit the meek and timid lieutenant full force.
She had discovered too late the reason behind why no one in NERV ever smiled or laughed since she'd been here. The reason why Gendo's son Shinji was treated so harshly despite his above average performance in every battle he was in and treating everyone he worked alongside with the same respect as if they were all one big family to him.
The reason why she had heard in whispered rumours by some of her co-workers when they were safely out of earshot of Gendo, that NERV was the place where careers came to die.
Gendo was lucky that her rifle stayed locked in the weapons cabinet until it was combat time.
She would gladly have gunned down the sociopath with no right to keep his son and planted the father of the year trophy on his grave given the chance.
Shinji would be driven with an armed escort to keep his two "legal guardians" far from him to her house where she would take every bit of food she could afford and given it to him until she herself died of starvation to join her parents in the afterlife. She may have been a coward. She may have been a pushover. Perhaps merely serving in NERV made her heartless as well. But at least she had not lost her head enough not to notice that something in Shinji's fake smile spoke of horrors beyond most people's wildest nightmares.
Her nervousness and excessive thoughtfulness for the lives of others had gotten in the way of these thoughts before but hearing Gendo hurl these insults in her face as if she were not even human had given her the courage that all the combat training and fear therapy courses in the world could not.
Even the nicest and most shy shrinking violet had her breaking point. Her breaking point came today. And while she wasn't and never would be the thick-skinned steel plate that the other soldiers in NERV had been successfully hardened into, she knew she had to do something, however little of an impact she made.
"Do whatever you want with me." She managed to choke out in a low voice still unable to meet her commander's sharp gaze of burning passion. "But please. Don't hurt Shinji. He's your son who's already broken up over losing his mother. Be a bit easier on him. Please."
"You dare interrupt me in the middle of a speech and expect me to give my attention to you?" the General impudently admonished, chewing on every word before he spat them out. "I ask for your undivided attention to your head of authority as penance for your mistakes, and you have the rudeness to try to lecture me when you are clearly the one in the wrong?"
"Apologize this very instant or I will have severe disciplinary action taken against you." he ordered, his until now quiet voice growing a little louder on the last syllable.
"Please sir. What did your son ever do to you? What did he ever do to anyone but try to be nice? He's been a good pilot who has led NERV to many victories snatched from the jaws of defeat has he not?"
Maya Ibuki didn't care at this moment whether she was fired from the only source of income keeping her alive. She didn't give a damn if the two gunmen watching her shot her dead this instant.
The General's complete and utter ignorance of her words concerning the wellbeing of his own child, told her everything she needed to know about how truly terrible a parent he had been.
The only thing she could think about was a crying Shinji who was wringing his head as he looked up to reveal empty sockets instead of eyes.
His clothes were torn and ragged. Blood seeped from a wound in his shoulder and there were big bruises all over his face and his arms.
"Help me officer Ibuki. HELP ME!" he screamed as a blur of red erupted from the doorway behind him and dragged him away. "AAAAAH!" he cried to no avail as he was whisked out the doorway and the darkness of his gaping mouth expanded to fill every corner of the mental image until everything was black.
"Shinji…" She whispered as she stood up straighter than she had in years and managed despite her evident fear to look her commander in the eyes the first time she had done so since her first day in NERV.
The one boy and one co-worker to never harass, belittle or undermine her earnest attempts at being the best employee she could despite her limitations.
And it had taken her this long to realize that his father was not simply a bad boss, but a bad father too.
A bad father who didn't deserve the decision of who got custody over the hero that was the one pure soul keeping NERV together despite their flaws.
"I'm coming Shinji. Hang on." She balled her fists as she vowed this vow to herself.
Promises didn't come easy from the doormat officer afraid of her own shadow, but when Maya made a promise, she kept it if it cost her very life.
She took a deep breath and gave herself the hardest pinch she could as she refocused her blurry sight on the devil before her sitting on the throne of hell. If this was a twisted Anime show made by a twisted mind with no idea how to write a sensical story, this was her episode.
The episode where the side characters took over the script to become the main focus.
And no self-respecting Main character let injustice go unpunished when there was even the smallest contribution that they could make in combating it.
Main character Maya was pushing the director out the way to grab hold of the script. The next words out of her trembling mouth represented the first lines her trembling hands wrote on the tattered papers which dictated the rules of the terrible existence she had been forced to endure for far too long.
"Mr Ikari Sir. For once in your life, be reasonable. Fire me if you like, I know my performance was far below what was expected of me but please, grant me just one formality. Just, a semblance of a formality. Allow me to take custody of your son. Shinji. I may not have much in the way of material possessions or experience in childcare, but if you simply give me a chance to prove myself, I can make him happy in my own way. And if you must fire me, allow him to take control of the payroll you usually offer me. It is the least a young hero such as Shinji deserves after all the good, he has done for NERV."
The chief of NERV said nothing. He sat staring into the distance as if pondering complex matters completely unrelated to the discussion at hand and his eyes slid past Maya without pause. The guards seemed to be nearly falling asleep as the grip on their rifles drifted a little loser.
"Think about your wife Yui!" Maya insisted, managing to raise her timid and shaking intonation a tiny bit fuelled by another mental image of Shinji's silent screams as they echoed throughout her mind causing her head to throb to bursting point. "Your wife would have wanted you to take good care of the life you two created together. This is not what Yui would have wanted if she was still here with us. You know that."
"Don't bring my wife into this." Her persistence managed to evoke from the stern man still not looking in her direction. "How would you know what she wanted? Shut your trap before I do it myself."
"Okay fine. But why?" Her pleading had become demanding. She had known since the instant the thought of a lost and crying Shinji came into her thoughts that she was not staying here in NERV even if she was given the contents of the treasury for her salary.
"Why do your shut your son out? Why do you shut the world out? WHAT ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF!?"
The first time in her life to raise her voice, and it felt absolutely awful. But this had to be done.
"I SAID ENOUGH!" the usually unflappable and emotionless boss loudly retorted slamming a palm on his desk making Maya recoil back far enough to hit the wall.
But this shout completely uncharacteristic of the cold sociopath was only momentary and though he still did not look his underling in the eyes when he next addressed her, she could tell that he was close to tears himself despite his pretence of power and control which he was now artificially injecting into his words.
"You've gone too far this time, Miss Ibuki. You go too far. As punishment for your sub-par performance and this disgraceful display of utter disrespect for your superiors, I hereby declare you…"
He never finished his sentence as the victim of his verbal assault took off her golden badge on her uniform and threw it at the feet of his desk. The half-asleep guards raised their guns at Maya but a sudden chill in their bones caused them to shake and tremble with a newfound mixture of fear and respect for the minor officer. Their attempt at a threatening gesture looked more hilarious than frightening as Maya finished her commanding officer's sentence for him.
"Fired? No Mr Ikari. I quit. You didn't fire me, I gave myself up."
"Very…well" the big man retorted slumping forward in his seat with his chin on his hands. "So be it. I could kill you right here and now, but why should I waste a bullet on you? Ammunition is expensive in these costly times and so, as you wish, I will let you resign. Return your uniform to reception before you go and never show your face here again."
"You've betrayed Yui, Mr Ikari." She said as she turned to make a dignified exit preserving the little dignity she still had left after selling her soul to a monster worse than the devil himself.
She walked past crowds of soldiers with her eyes averted so as not to see the shocked and mortified expressions on any of them as she took off her officer jacket and threw it onto a nearby table.
These defiant gestures were not typical of the scaredy-cat lieutenant they had fallen in love with during her time here.
A darn shame that she had been held up in the big man's room for long enough to let Major Misato make her exit back to the crummy apartment Maya knew she was still keeping Shinji cooped up in as her personal slave and punching bag for the other pilot with the red hair that even Maya feared.
An even darner shame that NERV agents information was to be kept confidential at all times including the addresses of each and every worker from the CEO down to the cleaning lady.
Maya would have dashed to Misato's home and banged on the door until her demand that Shinji be handed over to her unhurt was finally met, and given Shinji the very last of the chocolate milk and cake she had kept in her fridge for a final meal when it came time to make peace with her god before succumbing to starvation by poverty.
Maya had never been very good with languages in school. She had opted to spend the language lessons slumped into her desk covering her ears as the uncaring lecturer babbled on and on with nonsense that she was sure the rest of her class didn't understand or care about either.
But she had by a divine miracle managed to learn four words.
Four German words which perfectly summarized everything about her situation right now perfectly. Four words which would flawlessly describe the rhetoric behind every action that Maya Ibuki was about to take having finally parted ways with the place where careers came to die.
"Ich Hasse Dich Asuka." Maya muttered as she sat abroad the bus which would take her back to her unheated, unelectrified rat hole of an apartment with no running water, where she would savour her last night with a roof over her head before the landlord came to kick her out tomorrow.
It would have been payday the next day, but now Maya wondered if the money she had earned from NERV was cursed and if she'd have accepted her salary knowing what she knew now.
Little did Shinji and Mari yet know as Shinji continued to listen intently to Mari's story of her life before coming to Tokyo-3, that they had gained a very determined ally that day.
A very useful ally who for all her failings in NERV caused only by the warm kindness she shared with Shinji, would serve as an excellent sniper for their merry team.
The one shooter of NERV capable of actually hitting their targets as long as they were not agitated. And Gendo had thrown her down like garbage who didn't even deserve a bullet through her skull. Rookie error.
Score one for Team Shinji Ikari.
Strike one for Team NERV and Team SEELE.
Once again thanks to all my reviewers for reviewing. Stay tuned for more.
See one thing that always bothered me personally with a lot of animated series, not just Evangelion, is how it seems that one character seems to be the only one who needs to learn a lesson while the other characters don't need to learn anything and can get away with anything scot free.
In Evangelion, Shinji is the only person called out for their flaws of being too cowardly to fight in an EVA even when everyone knows that the poor guy gets abused regularly. Asuka is never called out for being an outright jerk to not just Shinji but everyone else. Misato never gets called out for being a bad parent who can't discipline Asuka or calm Shinji down when he's mad.
And Gendo never gets called out for running the world down to the ground because he can't get over his wife.
Sure, Shinji's not perfect but neither is Asuka. And Asuka should accept some responsibilities too. If she and everyone else were a bit nicer to Shinji, maybe Shinji wouldn't be so hesitant to get in the robot.
These animated series all make me wonder, where's a social worker or a psychologist when you need em?