Chapter 19: What about Kaji and Kaworu?

The dark haired NERV officer known as Kaji begun to tearfully tremble as he left his tv on, still playing one advert after another now that the daily news was over. He bit his lip so hard that blood begun to trickle down his neck.

"I'm sorry Misato." He regretfully wailed in his deep sorrow. "Sorry, that I ever met you. You really are no different from Gendo and the others. You really are just another self-righteous pretender. Call yourself a Major and you can't even knock some discipline into that red-haired bully."

He lost all sense of control as his gaze drifted to a photo of him and Misato together on one of their dates. The dark-haired man and purple haired woman looked so content and cheerful standing in front of that charming little restaurant. Their smiles only added the final spark to ignite his fire of rage.

"AAAAAH!" he roared, nearly breaking his vocal cords as he took the glass picture case with the photo and pushed it to the floor where it shattered into pieces with a loud crash.

"I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! III HHHAAATTTEEE YYYOOOUUU" he bellowed as he begun to kick and punch at the paper-thin walls of his apartment with all his might. His hands and feet were horribly bruised, but he continued to beat at the already badly worn walls till he had created a massive hole exposing the angry man to his next-door neighbour (a short and skinny old man with white hair) who quickly backed away with their hands in the air upon seeing him in his state.

He continued to scream at the top of his lungs as he turned a knackered fist at himself and begun to punch his own head. He was just as responsible for that poor boy's misery as the purple haired child abuser, he now had nothing but contempt toward.

The world begun to blur around him. He heard ringing noises. But he continued to beat himself down with every last ounce of his strength. This was his punishment. He deserved this. He had been so busy trying to figure out the secrets behind NERV that he had been blind to the blindingly obvious faults of the woman he had given himself to completely and to the plight of the boy he had always considered as his own son.

How dare he have the gall to say that after he had all but left Shinji to die at the hands of those two assholes who were not worth the space they took up on earth.

"it's all my fault, it's all my fault, IT'S ALL MY FAULT!"

"The engagement's off, missy." He murmured furiously as he fell to the floor worn out, unable to punch himself anymore as his neighbour hurried to their house phone to dial emergency services. "And German girl, whatever your name is. You need to be disciplined."

He laughed weakly and maniacally as darkness washed over him. "Discipline. Discipline. Discipline."

Emergency services would find him lying in a contorted mess on the floor with an almost completely black forehead and severe internal bleeding in his cranial region, which would require several neurological operations to even begin to attempt to repair.

His prognosis would state that his chances of ever regaining consciousness ranked just one step above the average lottery player winning the lottery. In other words, it would take nothing short of a divine miracle for that man to ever open his eyes again.
The best-case scenario if all went well, a three-year coma.

Misato had unknowingly driven her betrothed to near suicide.

…

In a dimly lit hospital room, somewhere deep below in the lower floors of NERV, a grey-haired boy who had recently awoken from his own comatose state which had lasted several years and spent his first awakened minutes catching up on the news with the battered telly fortunate enough to be placed beside his bed, in the hopes of gaining some insight to see how the world had changed during his reticence, barred his teeth in great ferocity.

It replaced his usual casual smile which usually did not fade even in the heat of the wildest fights he had been forced to partake in as another EVA pilot.
He had never been afraid of the fiercest Angels. He had never felt any sort of animosity towards NERV for their poor treatment of both himself and the world they claimed to protect.

That red-haired girl named Asuka however, was a different beast altogether. How any pilot could be so cold-hearted to the plight that their fellow pilots were forced to suffer each day in the never-ending battle for mankind's survival, having been through the same themselves, made even him both afraid and disgusted.

Such insensate and tasteless cruelty, from one of his fellow pilots towards one of his fellow pilots.
He couldn't and wouldn't stand for it.
Mankind's very future rested on his and his team of pilot's ability to act and fight as one in top physical conditions. And that Asuka was putting every single innocent in the world at risk with her appalling treatment of that Shinji.
Survival of mankind was his mission. His mission was all. And if this meant thinning out his ranks to leave only his helpful teammates who took being a pilot seriously, then so be it.

"Someone like you, Asuka, is not allowed to harm my friends" the grey-haired boy said in fluent Japanese with a slightly Russian accent, as he stretched himself slightly to shake away the last lingering traces of drowsiness. "I Kaworu Nagisa Mikhail, will put an end to your schemes. You're an insult to everything we pilots stand for, and I cannot allow that."

He got up from the bed. "Do not worry Shinji. We will get along just fine. Your senior pilot Kaworu will see that nothing bad happens to you."

The mind took longer than the body to recover from the effects of coma but now more memories were coming back to the boy as he found his clothes which had been conveniently placed in a neat stack on a chair in the room, untouched since the day his coma begun.

Memories of his easier days in the orphanage where he thought life would be simple and straightforward and when he believed that good things such as friendship were forever, and he took them for granted.

His mind settled upon a blurry but still very meaningful image of a twin tailed brown-haired British girl with red glasses, among the crowd of other orphaned kids.
A series of other blurred pictures followed. He remembered the small but comfortable room he had back in the orphanage, and how the same girl occupied the bunk directly above his own.

It was winter, and they sat together in the warm cafeteria huddled beside each other, downing hot chocolate. Now he was stuck on a very difficult maths question which he could not do no matter how much he pondered. She was there to show him every step to the solution and repeat the demonstration again and again when he still struggled. He had described her as "quite the scholar", which made her blush so cutely. It was the first week he wasn't given a detention slip or a demerit (the orphanage staff were very kind but also very strict about a good education).

They exchanged literature in their spare time not spent playing or working on their work. Studying Shakespeare was by far his favourite pastime with her. Especially the play "Romeo and Juliet" in which there were a million things that could have been done right to avert a tragedy but were not done thanks to an infuriating mixture of rashness and thoughtless hatred.

In return he showed her "War and peace". A novella that NERV had nearly burned every single copy off.

But her name. What was her name?

"Think of the first female scientist to win two Nobel Prizes and work with radioactive materials."

Your name. I know I know it but what.

"Her name was Marie. Think of her name and you won't be far from my name. Think of Marie, but more Japanese sounding."

Come on. I need to remember your name. I just have to. REMEMBER ALREADY.

"That Anime film we watched together so many times. There weren't too many DVD's we had to choose from, but we always loved that one. You know the one. How could you forget it? The one about the lonely boy and girl finally finding company in each other after being all alone for too long."

I KNOW IT. I JUST CAN'T QUITE PUT MY FINGER ON IT. COME ON KAWORU. STOP BEING SO THICK AND JUST THINK FOR A GOSH DARN SECOND.

"It's the same name you gave to me when you decided we would be best friends forever. You called me what our favourite film was called. You called me, my beautiful girl…"

"MARI!" Kaworu cried, a mixture of joy and anguish half and half mingled in his voice.
"I'm sorry. I hope you won't mind that it took me so long. Please still be there. Please be alright. I'm alive. I'm well. I just need to find you then everything will be fine. Please don't be dead already"

Kaworu had already been very alarmed upon seeing the date on the news channel presented by reporter and pilot Rei Ayanami, that a good four years and a bit had passed from his approximate date that he was laid low by a rampaging behemoth of an Angel even he couldn't defeat.
He had had an inkling that something was not right in NERV from that day, having armed with such inferior armament to face such a mighty foe when better technology was quite apparently available as an upgrade from the very outdated EVA's they had been using, and from the looks of it were still using.

Surely such an advanced mega research corporation had something better by now?

The last time he had seen her, she was crying and begging for him not to go to NERV and stay with her safe in the sheltered little life they had built for themselves. He had steeled himself and left the orphanage anyway in spite of her tears, stating that if he did not go, another one of the kids, perhaps her would be chosen at random, by force if necessary. NERV was short on pilots then and knowing what he knew about what piloting entailed, he couldn't take the risk that they take any child but him away.

Some children didn't even survive the synchronization test between them and their EVA, and died on day one of their recruitment stage.

As well as some mumbo jumbo, that this was his destiny that he could not escape from.

He slapped his own mouth over the last thing he said.

As he threw open the rusted door of his isolation room and raced across the dark underground corridor, he rechecked the two lists he had made since the start of his career in NERV.

People to save: The world, Mari

Targets to eliminate: SEELE, NERV, Angels, Adam, Lilith.

He added three names, two for the first list and one for the second one.

People to save: The world, Mari, Shinji, and in small letters: Rei

Targets to eliminate: SEELE, NERV, Angels, Adam, Lilith, and then in bold: ASUKA!

"Don't panic Shinji and Mari." He exclaimed as he dashed up the stairs with awe inspiring speed completely unnatural for a recent coma recoveree who'd just woken up.
"I'm coming to save you both. And you too Rei, provided you're on our side, which for now I'll assume you are."

Props once again to all my reviewers for reviewing and please know that I appreciate every one of your kind inputs. See I think that Kaworu was put in the third film as a way to pander to the audience. He stole valuable screen time that could have been used to develop our main characters better. He was a good guy but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Mari or even Asuka could have accomplished what Kaworu did, pulling Shinji aside to tell him the truth about what really happened and then begging for his help to stage a coup against WILLE.

In the case of Asuka, this would have made so much better of a character. She could have even had a heart to heart moment where she apologises sincerely for all the bad things she did to him over the years. How much better would that have been?

In the case of Mari and Kaworu. Both are minor characters with a major impact who realise something's up before anyone else. They're also the two characters in the third movie not to torment Shinji.

And since Mari represents England, why not have Kaworu represent another non-Japanese minority? His accent in the film did seem a little Russian.

As for Kaji, He's a good man. Kind of ironic that he can see the faults in NERV but not the more obvious faults in Misato for mistreating Shinji. No?