Chapter 27: Finally a therapy session.
Mari and Shinji's relationship is comparable to that of Mitsuha and Taki's relationship of the film "your name" .
The EVA pilots had each stopped by at the washroom downstairs to wash the dyes from their hair and style it back to their normal styles (in Asuka's case, she simply removed her wig). Comic con day was fun while it lasted but now it was time to get serious again.
They couldn't pretend to be someone they were not forever, and that was part of the reason they were now heading to be counselled.
"Mari" Kaworu groaned with a touch of anger in his usually calm voice riding shotgun as Mari drove the car towards Counsellor's corner. "I told you that being a pilot was a very dangerous job. Why did you join NERV? I only did it so you wouldn't have to."
"I got tired of waiting for you to return, and I also knew that with the Angel attacks getting worse, I was needed." Mari simply explained. "Not to mention that from my experience with Shinji and his mum, I knew that NERV couldn't be all bad. Besides, we'll have a better shot at all making it to see the end of this if we work together. I'm sorry, if my decision upset you."
"No" Kaworu admitted. "I'm sorry. I should have known better than to be angry. I should have known that you would eventually miss me. And even if you didn't, you would do anything for the kind boy who saved your life."
He turned to look back at a now completely speechless Shinji who visibly shrank back despite the evident gratitude in Kaworu's usually taciturn expression.
"I cannot begin to fully explain how much it means to me to have a chance to thank the one who saved Mari's life. Know that from this day, I too am forever in your debt Shinji. Thank you, Shinji. For everything."
"It was nothing." Shinji exasperatedly tried to reply.
"It's everything to me, Shinji. Without you, I would still be the lonely outcast I was before, forever heading down a dark and troubled road to nowhere. Thank you for protecting Mari and taking care of her during the time I could not so that we could see each other again. Know that even if no one else believes this, that from today onward, you will always be pilot number one to me. The true best pilot of NERV."
"It's true Shinji" Mari said picking up to where Kaworu left off as he turned back. "Without your piloting skills and your synchronisation with your EVA that you alone had, who knows how many times I would be dead by now."
"It's true, Shinji. You've beaten tons of those stupid Angels which me and Rei couldn't even scratch and kept fighting even when both of us were out cold simply so that you could save us even after all the terrible things I…"
"We Asuka" Rei reminded, looking away from Shinji and downward in shame. "I wasn't the nicest to Shinji either in those years, constantly gaslighting him just because I couldn't see how bad a man his father was through my own stupidity and thoughtlessness. Even after we were so mean to you, you chose to save us again and again Shinji knowing that you were putting more than just your life on the line each time. Knowing that you could get into even more trouble with those in charge of you by disobeying your orders. (One time, you nearly even caused an impact trying to save me). Because you thought of us as your friends."
"Well you were my friends. Even though you both had your flaws, I still loved you both" insisted Shinji firmly despite his bashfulness in the moment.
"What I guess we're trying to tell you Shinji." Asuka chimed in, pride filling her every word completely uncharacteristic of the self-absorbed narcissist she had been until today. "Is that for being such a nice guy and for everything you've done for us over the years, congratulations.
"Congratulations." Rei added.
"Congratulations" Kaworu praised, turning to look at Shinji once more with an admiring smile.
"Congratulations" Mari added, unable to turn around since she was focused on the road but the pride in her eyes still visible through the front mirror that Shinji could easily see in his position in the backseats cosily smooched between the now completely different Rei and Asuka.
"Congratulations." A woman with brown hair and thoughtful eyes finished as she grinned at Shinji from the clear maroon evening sky of Tokyo 3, from a place Shinji knew to be both real and imaginary at the same time.
It wasn't until their car had climbed a steep hill and began to slowly decelerate that the now completely enlightened Shinji, seemingly freed of all his turmoil and pain in the moment managed in a barely audible but no less euphoric almost whisper managed to shyly reply.
"Thank you all." He smiled with closed eyes and a blush on his cheeks.
"Thank you, mother. No thank you, father. And to all the children (that meaning all of you and myself since yes, to be quite frank I am quite the awesome kick-ass badass), congratulations"
As the car stopped in a parking lot and the quintet of underage battle scared veterans slowly exited their vehicle to behold the place of therapy that they should have been to long ago.
…
Counsellor's corner should have been renamed Counsellor's castle with the level of pizzazz and wonder that both its grand exterior and interior possessed by the magnificent building that reminded the five young EVA pilots of the Olympian halls that the mighty titans of legend were rumoured to have lived in back in the days of Jason, Hercules and Achilles.
The marble columns along with the long, wide stairway to the entrance gave the impression of a heavenly temple.
Service was quick and efficient. Within a few minutes of Mari explaining everything to the well dressed woman in a nurse's gown at reception, a man from upstairs arrived to tell the pilots that they had each been assigned a therapist tailor suited to help each of them better come to terms with the different but equally serious afflictions they had suffered in silence through.
…
Shinji's therapist was a handsome man seemingly not much older than himself (despite him politely stating later that he was actually over thirty) with short dark hair and a casual shirt and pants. Pictures of various motorcycles lined the walls and a few trophies (for winning motorcycle races as the therapist later explained) were placed neatly on a nearby shelf.
The man introduced himself as Keiichi Morisato, award winning motorcyclist who was on a hot streak before stepping down following a near accident that nearly killed himself and his beloved but luckily did not cause them any injury except mental trauma. His choice to take mental sciences as his degree of choice for college was done in the hope of being able to help others still trapped in the pit of loneliness, he had felt prior to meeting his wife, a certain Belldandy.
A lovely woman quite out of this world, he described her as making Shinji smile in wistful remembrance of his first sight of Mari gliding onto his school building roof, and then seeing her again outside the train station where she provided him all the help he needed to regain hope in himself, humanity and the world.
She had literally, descended from the heavens to help him in his hour of need. Like an angel, a true angel. Partly thanks to his own good past decisions he now knew… but still.
"Explain your problem, Shinji." He politely asked, a sympathetic tone in his words signifying complete understanding of Shinji's turmoil, whatever it could be and that he too had once been through a comparable level of depression at one point in his own life.
"It all started, when I lost my mum." Shinji begun. "And my dad begun to use me as a scapegoat for everything before everyone around me followed his example despite my best efforts to keep things under control."
…
Rei's therapist was a woman of a different calibre. A middle-aged woman with white hair clad in a very expensive purple dress of the same fine tune calibre as the blue dress Rei herself had brought in her quest for Shinji's attention and Asuka's approval.
"I am Urd." She stated in a serious and level voice with almost the same amount of monotony as the earlier versions of Rei used prior to gaining a higher level of personality brought about by Shinji's constant kindness towards her. She really wasn't thinking straight back then, but she promised herself that she was different now. "What ails you, Rei Ayanami, esteemed heroine and guardian of Earth?
"I still don't feel fully human." Rei replied, unable to look up as the terrible memories of all the wasted chances she had to tell Shinji just how much his kindness truly meant to her flashed by her eyes and tears began to blur her vision. "I feel, I feel as if the mistakes of the past that I made can never be erased no matter how hard I try.
She paused as the mental image of a maniacally cackling Gendo pulsed through her very soul. "You belong to me Rei and you can never escape." He insisted before bursting into crazed laughter causing Rei to shiver uncontrollably while clutching her head.
"Like I'm, still just a puppet held up on stitches. Like I'm not meant to be."
"All of us have a right to life, Rei." Urd soothingly stated, placing a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. "Regardless of our race, gender and other differences, we are all human because we all have a soul and free choice to decide between good and bad."
"I don't want to be held up on stitches." Rei shrieked, more to herself than her therapist as she continued to clutch her head. "I want to be myself. I want to help my friends, my real friends who actually care for my wellbeing."
And she went on through her sighs and sobs to explain to "Urd" that she was originally a clone of the now deceased Yui Ikari built by the insane Gendo Ikari in preparation to when he brought about the end of the world through her, to resurrect his late wife.
She told Urd how Gendo had been using her as a subtle way of keeping his son Shinji loyal to him despite his clearly evil intentions and how she had done everything he asked her to do despite knowing how morally wrong it was deep down even before gaining an improved level of sapience through her growing to actually love and care for the boy she had been trained by her master to deceive.
"Before, I blamed it on the way I was originally programmed, but now I'm not so sure." Rei said as the session continued. "But I don't want to be a puppet any longer. Please help me."
…
Mari's therapist and her, seemed to be the most similar to each other in appearance.
Belldandy Morisato had long dark blonde hair that could easily be mistaken for the same brown as Mari's.
A white robe as Belldandy's choice of attire reminded Mari of the priests of old in their cathedrals chanting prayers, blind to the suffering of the masses outside.
Something in the way Belldandy smiled reminded Mari that she was different and truly a holy woman for the sake of holiness. She steadied herself and smiled back.
"And how may I help you today, Mari Makinami?" Belldandy sang chipperly, nearly bursting into chorus with every word. "We owe you and your other pilots our complete gratitude for all the sacrifices that you have endured to protect us all from the unspeakable horrors plaguing our world, left behind by the careless previous generation who were unfortunate enough to stray from the path of righteousness."
"Thank you, Belldandy. We do our best. I suppose my only problem would be this. A boy who saved my life when I was very little has just announced his feelings for me. And while, I'm indeed very grateful to be chosen by him, I fear I might not be worthy of him."
"What could you possibly mean?" Something in the way she asked this question revealed to Mari that this was not the first time Belldandy had been called upon to deal with an issue of this nature. It relieved Mari greatly.
"Shinji is a very fine young hero, and a worthy fellow pilot of mine. I fully return his feelings of course, but part of me still fears that I will not be able to provide for him all he deserves. And I'm usually the sort of go getter who never fears a challenge. And to make things more complicated, Shinji still has his two former friends Asuka and Rei. While they seem happy so far with how Shinji has chosen me over them, I truly wonder if I really am the one for him. He's known them for much longer than he's known me so. What do you think of all this?"
"If they are truly his friends, then they will understand." Belldandy reassuringly assuaged a slightly tense Mari. "Just as my relatives, Skuld and Urd understood when I chose Keiichi and grew to accept him in time. I am sure Shinji's friends will happily accept you once they realize your intentions are completely noble, which from what you've told me ,they must be."
"But what if they turn out to be better for him than I am?" Mari had hid this concern earlier but now she felt it was an issue that must be dealt with before things went sour. She had to get along well with both Shinji and his friends if they were going to work together well enough to pilot effectively.
Not to mention that in spite of his newfound confidence, a tiny slip up was all it would take for Shinji to retreat back into the terrible shell no one should ever have to be confined to, out of free choice or not.
"When someone truly loves you, they return your feelings. And if you love somebody, you trust in them to make the best decision. Shinji has already announced his feelings for you. For you not to trust his decision is for you to not trust in him." Belldandy's softly intoned in an almost romantic manner. "And there are many kinds of relationships. Relationships with family, relationships with friends and of course, relationships of lovers. All three are equally valuable."
"What do you mean?"
Belldandy took a brief glance at a photo she had of herself and Keiichi the first time they won a motorcycle trophy together. She turned back to Mari, her eyes gleaming with wisdom seemingly beyond the world itself.
"Simply put, no two friends needed to become lovers before they started to care for each other.
A person can love their family, their friends and their lovers all at once in equally special ways. And it is better to love uniquely than equally for each relationship is different, but uniquely sweet and special in its own way."
"I think I understand" Mari hesitantly concluded as the rest of the session drifted to small talk about how a small bit of the trauma that remained from her terrifying childhood in which she lost both her parents was still faintly haunting her despite how she had mostly moved on, and whether the years she and Shinji spent apart before being reunited disqualified them as viable matches for each other.
…
None of the therapists came close to the level of sheer awesomeness Asuka perceived in the dark-haired goth in the red cape and dark overalls seated before her, like a goddess on her throne overlooking the puny world she had complete reign over.
While Keiichi had but a few trophies on just a single shelf, the therapist who proudly introduced herself as "Morgan Le fay" (she nicely asked Asuka not to make fun of her admittedly very strange last name which simply meant Morgan the fairy in French) had a cabinet full of golden cups, plaques and medals of all shapes and sizes.
NERV's increased stinginess with its taxes, as well as an increasing number of increasingly powerful Angels had put a dent in her motorcycling career and Morgan had decided, partly as penance for her past mistakes to follow the good Keiichi and Belldandy into the therapy career.
"But you're pretty awesome too Asuka." Morgan admitted when Asuka had expressed her jubilation at meeting one of her childhood idols who had been a source of encouragement and inspiration for her ever since she saw her at her first big race. "Were it not for you, Shinji and the others, I wouldn't be alive and here to have this discussion now. You all must go through a lot every day for us, and I respect that."
"Thank you" Asuka could not help but reply with a look that screamed "yay Senpai noticed me" now that she had been validated personally by her idol. If only her mother could have been here to see this.
"So, getting back on topic. What is it that's bothering you Asuka?"
"Well, I er" Asuka stammered out as a sudden lump caught in her throat. She could play tough all she liked when she was in the company of Misato, Shinji and the rest of NERV and the public, but in the presence of her esteemed childhood heroine whose ethics and ethos a young and still innocent Asuka had swore she would try to emulate as best she could.
She couldn't pretend here and she had come here specifically to not have to pretend.
"It's okay Asuka, take your time. We have as long as you need."
"Well its just, that I don't feel I can measure up to anything." Asuka eventually managed to get out in a somewhat coherent if shaky line.
"I feel as if I'm never worth anything in life. And that no matter how I try, my successes never get anyone's attention.
"But why would you feel this way, Asuka? You and your friends have saved our world countless times by now. Surely that must be worth something to you?"
"But what's the point." Asuka snapped, almost losing her cool. "It's all worthless. My mother. My own mother couldn't give a damn about me. She chose a doll over me, her own daughter that she paid a fortune to bring into existence."
"What do you mean, Asuka?"
"My mother didn't birth me." The usually confident Asuka was close to a sob. "She grew me from some of her cells in a lab." She laughed, dryly to herself.
It turned out Rei was not the only artificial human around here. Kind of ironic how many times she had insulted the blue haired girl for being guilty of something she was guilty of herself.
"That means nothing, Asuka. To me at least, you're as human as the rest of us. And that means you have rights like the rest of us. How you were born is not important. What matters is that you're here and now, alive and well protecting our world with your heroism. Your actions define you much more than the way you were born."
"But she never loved me" Asuka snarled viciously, her nails digging into her legs as her sadness intensified. "She loved a doll, over me. I could never make her proud no matter what I did. And when I eventually became a pilot, she was killed. I couldn't even make my own mother happy. So what does it what I do?"
She stifled another dry laugh as she nearly resorted to raising her voice.
Her position didn't seem all that different to Shinji's either now that she thought about it.
Shinji's father didn't appreciate Shinji for his efforts either. She really did feel a bit bad now thinking on all the times she had taken a light jab at all his failed attempts to improve his relationship with that evil man.
Like Shinji in the lack of parental respect received. Like Rei in the artificiality in her method of conception into this cold and cruel world. Fate really had its sense of humour sometimes, pairing the three of them together.
"You hate me because you're just like me" She heard Shinji's angry voice echo back to her.
"But I thought we were kindred spirits Asuka." Old Rei's deflated monotone soon followed causing Asuka to shrink back into her seat with her ears covered.
"She began spending more and more time at NERV and less and less time with me. Is that any way for a mother to treat her daughter whose every action was to make her mother proud?" Asuka asked, incredulous.
"That's sad Asuka. It really is. But what about your father?"
"My father was a very evil man." Asuka insisted with a burning passion. "A cruel sadistic two timer who took my mother and I completely for granted. He was always with another woman who wasn't my mum and when he did stay with my mum and I, he was very violent."
Asuka shook as she said the following words. The three words that perfectly summed up the one part of her wretched youth that she tried the hardest to forget and yet stayed in her memory the longest.
"He beat her." Asuka said with complete and absolute pity for her mother lacing her every syllable, completely ignoring the fact that her mother wasn't exactly a priest either.
"My dad, beat my mum and tried to beat me. And he did it all with no one trying to stop him because he was a high-ranking member of NERV with a higher rank than my mum and lots of woman attracted to him, completely blind to the monster he really was."
"That sounds terrible." Morgan replied with sympathy but still somehow not losing her cool. Another reason Asuka made the star motorcyclist her childhood idol.
"And then my mother killed herself when the doll she loved more than me broke apart." Asuka finished, nearly shouting.
She began to stifle a sob.
"I didn't have it easy either." She cried as a tear trickled from her eyes.
"I DIDN'T HAVE IT EASY EITHER!" she shouted as more tears followed the first and she gave herself a punch to the face whose sheer force outmatched every single punch she had given to Shinji over her years of being an overly salty bully who had given to Shinji the same pain her mum and dad gave her.
She understood now why Shinji had seemed like an overly emo coward, and now that she did, she absolutely loathed herself.
Every punch she had given Shinji, was a punch she had given herself.
Every time she insulted him by calling him an idiot, she was calling herself and everyone unlucky enough to be in the same insufferable hell she would not wish upon her worst enemies, an idiot as well.
She really was an idiot.
"NO ONE LOVES ME!" she bawled as her fourteen years of maturity, collapsed to the level of a four year old, crying over having used up their last quarter in the arcade machine.
She yelled as she cried some more, occasionally punctuating her tantrum with yet another self-inflicted punch to her forehead.
"Please Asuka. Stop hitting yourself. It's not helping." Morgan tried to say.
"WHY CAN'T I DO ANYTHING RIGHT?" Asuka snapped in return as she readied her fist for another punch to her head only to be stopped by Morgan quickly gripping her arm in a sturdy but still comfortable grip.
"What do you mean you can't do anything right, Asuka? You've already saved the world more times than I can count. So many people are indebted to you for going through what you go through to keep them safe."
"I couldn't even be nice to Shinji." She shakily sobbed through her sadness, choking on every word. "I couldn't even learn from my parent's mistakes. I'm a terrible person who doesn't deserve to be loved."
And she would go on in the next ten minutes after she had finally gotten enough of a grip on herself to at least stop crying, to briefly summarize how over the previous few years, she had been no better than her domestically abusive father in the hits she delivered to her secretly favourite roommate and teammate, and no better than her short sighted mother in completely disregarding his sincere attempts to get her attention to the feelings he had toward her in spite of all her meanness.
He complimented her, she slapped him.
He cooked her meals and cleaned her room, and she hit him over the head with the broom he used to clean it.
"He says he forgives me." The now nearly insane Asuka truthfully added in a brief moment of relative lucidity "But the truth is, I don't think he really does. I don't think he can ever truly forgive me."
A sob and a sigh.
"And even if he could, I don't think I can ever forgive myself."
"Asuka please." Morgan interjected when Asuka was silent for the next for seconds to signify she was done saying all she had to say.
"Asuka. It's good that you realize what you did was wrong but continuing to hurt yourself over your mistakes won't fix them. If anything, it means you'll never get a chance to fix them. If there is one thing I can tell you, coming from experience, it's that pointing the finger never solves the problem. It's not about who was right or wrong but finding a solution for the problem. It's better to be at peace, than right."
"But what can I do?" Asuka helplessly sighed.
"If it was your violence and inconsideration which nearly drove your friend Shinji to despair, then to prove you've changed, you need to do the opposite. You need to start treating him the way you should have treated him long ago, while making it clear you will not go back to making the same mistakes you've now learned from. It might take a while, but eventually you will convince him and everyone else that you really are a better person now."
Morgan then launched into a brief but no less poignant heartfelt speech on how the path to reformation was never easy, but always very, very worthwhile as Asuka wiped her face with a packet of tissues kindly provided by her therapist and star and with incredibly force of willpower stopped herself from sobbing any further.
There was no time to waste in self-pity and needless rumination. She needed to start demonstrating to not just Shinji, but everyone she knew that the tyrannical bully that had been terrorizing everyone she knew since the day she arrived in Japan from Germany, was a person of the past.
As dead as the uncaring mum and dad who had raised her, and raised her badly.
Es war zeit fur der nachlebenden generation, der probleme von der tatergeneration zu fixen.
It was time for the new generation to fix the mistakes left behind by the older generation.
It was too late to amend the past, but not too late to secure the future so that the terrible pain endured in the past was not wasted.
Asuka had spent all her life telling Shinji to stop running away and face his past. Now it was time for her to take her own advice.
…
The four pilots came out of their respective therapy rooms two hours later, each wearing a relaxed yet determined expression of unbreakable hope and euphoric relief at finally having released the burden each of them had suffered in silence in for far too long now.
"When thunder clouds start pouring down, light a fire they can't put out. Carve your name into the shining stars" Shinji sang to remind himself of everything his therapist had reminded him to do.
"I live life without pretending." Rei declared proudly. "I'm not Pinocchio and I'm very real."
"An eye for an eye, only makes the world blind." Asuka recited, finishing the saying she had often heard her crazed father often shout the unfinished version of during his drunken rages.
"Life gave me lemons and now it's time to make lemonade." Mari finished, regaining all her usual optimism and happy-go luckiness in that one sentence.
They walked downstairs in a neat line, Mari taking point, Shinji following closely behind, Asuka third and the shyly smiling Rei last.
Asuka shot a panicked and fretting glance at the clone of Shinji's mother, now with her long waist length blue hair trailing behind her very attractively with every step she took.
Rei simply grinned in reply, her gaze soft and not hard and her body movements completely peaceful.
A reminder that when her friends forgave her, they meant it.
A reminder of what made the two Japanese and one British perfect for her, despite their imperfections.
"Everyone, thank you so much for giving me this chance" Asuka said to herself in her head as they headed to reception to find a nearly asleep Kaworu who had just finished looking through the entire stack of video game magazines in a box by his sofa.
And as they headed out of the building where Mari would drive them to her mansion so that they could all eat one of Sakura's seven star banquets before going to bed to get an earlier rest, Asuka cracked a satisfied grin at how much trouble the Angels, NERV and SEELE were going to have now that she could focus her complete hatred upon them instead of the selfless companions she was now beholden to guard with her life if necessary.
Gendo was going to regret every ounce of ingratitude he had shown his wholly devoted and loving son and for driving a good woman, wife and mother to suicide through his megalomania.
SEELE was going to wish they were never born when she made them pay for trying to force Rei into a position that she loathed, of being the destroyer of the world and everyone she loved just all for the sake of satisfying SEELE's stupid fantasies, ignorance that could destroy a planet.
And the Angels would pay for denying them all the simple life as normal teenagers they so richly deserved after their messed up childhoods around messed up people.
…
Gendo Ikari was rubbing his hands together with a cracked grimace on his face as flight attendants attended his every whim from the comfort of his extra luxury class cabin on his extra luxury class flight.
Soon he would be arriving in the country of liberty, hopes and dreams where his silly little runt of a son and his disobedient little wretch of a daughter were hoping to find these completely useless things.
He'd show them the futility of hope.
He'd take great glee in dashing their dreams against the razor sharp cliff of despair, to see the look on their faces when they lost all hope.
And as for liberty? No one who was the property of the most powerful man on Earth, more influential than even the entirety SEELE was going to get any kind of liberty as long as he was breathing.
Not Shinji, not Rei and certainly not even his wife Yui when he resurrected her.
They belonged to him and they would always be his toys, he thought to himself as he chugged down an entire bottle of French Champagne before devouring a whole roasted goose in a few savage bites.
It was a cat and mouse game that those misguided little runts simply could not win.
He had that blonde haired Mami Tomoe woman to thank for that. Perhaps when he returned, he would give her the honour of being his personal escort. That seemed appropriate as a reward for her admittedly useful contribution. No woman in the world could ever turn down that offer with the great Gendo Ikari being as magnificent as he alone could be. Ritsuko was starting to bore him anyway with her lacklustre appearance.
She was starting to outlive her usefulness and when one of his lackeys outlived their usefulness...
I mean seriously, its about time the members of NERV got some kind of therapy.
Another easy step that would have removed so many problems.