Beneath
Chapter Four
Asuka had been first, and that had been gratifying. Three hours after Shinji's identity had been disclosed to the media, she had tried to get in touch. International call, video feed attached. Shinji had instructed the lawyer, Kamesena, to handle it. Though he had been in the same room, Shinji had not looked at the feed, or made any effort to listen in to her side of the conversation. Kamesena had delivered a speech identical in every way to the press release they had already issued, and politely deflected Asuka's questions, which became more urgent and angry as the call went on.
Misato had come second, a full day after his face had been splashed on every information feed in Japan. Shinji had not been there at the time, but Kamesena had assured him it had been taken care of in an identical manner, save the addition of a bitter and honest greeting Shinji had previously scripted for Katsuragi alone. His former guardian had called the lawyer a liar and hung up.
Eventually, nearly everyone he had known during the Angel War had tried to contact Shinji at some point in the last six months. With one glaring exception.
One terrifying exception.
It had taken Shinji Ikari more than six months to visit Rei.
And here he was, in Hokkaido, about as far north as one could get without tumbling into the sea. He was sitting on the hood of his car, eating a bento and staring blankly ahead. Waiting. The day was clear and cold. A cellphone was balanced on his knee beside the bento, ruby-red and dull in the September light.
The car was parked in front of the Shippou Keitei Institute for the Deaf, where Rei Ayanami worked. Shinji's dark blue eyes were not focused on anything in particular, just taking in the splashes of color between the bars of the fence that surrounded the school, listening to distant voices. Conversation and laughter, but...
The laughter beyond the fence was wrong. Sounded wrong. The students did not know what their own voices sounded like. Could not refine pitch and tone. Shinji had that sort of disconnect, or what he imagined that disconnect must be like. He lived in constant confusion. No subtext. No history. All he had was sweet existence and selfish vengeance against the world. Against the people he had known, who had so easily forgotten him.
The coast was more than a mile distant, but he could hear the ocean anyway. It was there, just as loud as the atonal laughter - the constant collapse of water against sand. There did not seem to be a pause for the crashing tide to spread out. To Shinji's ear there was just and only the beating waves, the relentless fall. There was a stink on the chilled breeze too, petrochemicals and fishrot and nanochaff - a type of pollution that had not existed when Shinji had been properly alive.
He closed his eyes. Imagined the ocean was a colossal, wounded Angel, clawing away at the earth in its death throes, lashing out to scar and cut and slice and maim. The voices through the fence warped with that thought, turning sour, into screams...
That image was something he could understand. The present day? Not so much.
It had taken him a while to come all the way back from the dread sorrow of emerging suddenly, ten years into the future. But now he was almost all back. Nearly... normal. Since waking up at the foot of the Angel War memorial and realizing he was stranded, Shinji had been building a delicate latticework of emotion and selective memory to counterbalance despair and, he suspected, absolute madness. This mental construct had now developed to the point where he could now hold conversations without totally losing interest and the will to continue midway through, and his hate - at the world, the people he had cared for, everything - was now something he could control. Most of the time.
The lawsuits had helped. The process of coming back to life after a ten year absence was without true legal precedent. Add an assumption of unlawful detention by a UN-mandated organization? Turned out that could generate a lot of liability, even in the government body that essentially regulated all the world's collective wealth.
So by the time Shinji finally went to visit Rei Ayanami up in Shikinomi, Hokkaido, he was one of the richest people in the country. Between the release of family assets, the rights to his mother's patents, and the settlements his lawyer had been able to secure from the bio-tech firm that had unknowingly taken responsibility for his body ten years ago, Shinji had more money than he knew what to do with. This was the best possible outcome for all concerned, though the people paying out probably didn't realize it.
Shinji had picked up all kinds of power when he slipped outside the world. Vast and ill-defined and largely untested. Getting retribution by way of legal procedure was the most savage and insipid and satisfying form of assault he could imagine that did not involve the ripping of flesh and the shucking of steaming bones off everything in sight all the time twisting and tearing and yes screams...
Six months of that. Six months waking up wanting to mutilate the wrongness that surrounded him. Six months of nothing but hate. He was finally able to appreciate what Asuka must have gone through after the 17th. Or was it the 16th? The Angel that had stayed in orbit and messed with her head. Being so full of rage it felt like bits of himself were spilling out, lost forever. He would have loved to convey that new understanding, but his Asuka was ten years gone.
And now here Shinji was in Shikinomi, at the school where Rei taught. Trying not to hate. Trying to level out.
The school was... modern. All glass and polished wood. Looked like a toy, really. The metal fencing that wrapped around the school struck Shinji as an excellent metaphor for the school's intent. Guarded fragility, see? Protecting broken, incomplete children.
It was almost time. He got off the hood and walked to one side of the property gate and paced until the clockwork built into the main building's face began to chime in a low tone, something more felt than heard. School was out.
He dialed a number into his phone, and gingerly pressed it to an ear, heart pounding. Afraid of hearing her voice. Thinking: I should pretend I'm not here just yet; I just happened to be passing by; I called her too soon, should have given her five minutes to dismiss class; what the Hell am I thinking, just showing up unannounced...
"Yes," the voice came before the first ring was complete, cool and high.
"Ayanami?" his own voice did not fail, but it was a close thing.
"Yes?" this time the question was audible. There was annoyance beneath it.
"Its Shinji." A pause. "Shinji Ikari."
There was no response. At two seconds of silence, Shinji found himself fighting down the rage. If the next words out of Ayanami's mouth did not in some way alleviate the pressure building behind his eyes, he was going to have to leave and drive his new, gleaming Honda to a coastal ruin and smash it into something sturdy. Because this...
This was the last thread connecting him to the past. It was the only thing that kept him anchored in the senseless now. The only thing that made him hide and drink himself safe when the red haze descended and the impulse to reach out and hurt anyone and everyone as much as he could was locked firmly in place.
He shouldn't be here. He should have left this alone. This... this was dangerous.
Rei's next words were maddenly neutral. "Where are you?"
"I'm outside," he replied, fighting to keep the building anger out of his voice. "At the gate."
There was a clatter on the other end of the line, and the connection went dead.
He waited. For as long as the growing red allowed him. Children streamed past, some looking with curiosity at the boy in the suit, sitting on the hood of a car that surely was not his, head in hands. Shinji waited until the pressure behind his eyes grew to the point that he started wondering what sound kids made when you broke. their. little. arms.
If he stayed, the thoughts would get even darker, and he wouldn't feel at all bad about having them. If he stayed, he was quite certain he would be capable of gleeful murder and worse, starting with the children at the gate and working back to wherever in the building Rei was hiding.
So Shinji left. Crumpled the cellphone to sand and got into the Honda and drove out of Shikonomi and onto the Express. It took nearly two hours of stomach-twisting curves around the fucking Shikki mountains, everything drenched in that red rage, before he spotted a likely place to release the murderous impulse festering inside him.
The town was called Sapporo and it was just barely there. This had been a city once, before Second Impact, but now there were just a meager boulevard lit up against the gathering dusk, huddled in the corner of a great urban ruin that spanned many miles across. Shinji could trace the limits of the dead city in his mind.
Perfect, he thought, and the red haze swelled at the promise of release.
He pulled off and coasted down the ramp. Did not even try to brake at the bottom. The pressure behind his eyes had been deferred long enough. It wanted blood and pain.
The car took the curve at nearly 80KPM and was briefly on two wheels, frame screaming as it began to warp. Then the car hit and bounced off the guard rail, sending it into a spin. The front axle broke. The driver-side window lost an argument with Shinji's head as it whipped through the safety glass. And then the car hit the opposite guard rail, grinding against it for perhaps thirty feet before at last coming to a stop.
Barely a rest stop, Shinji thought through the rage as he took in the energy station, the scattering of shops, the small collection of homes built short and close together beneath the Express. I bet it could vanish and no one would notice.
Images of what seemed like revenge flitted through Shinji's mind. The pressure continued to build as he raced down the town's main street, glimpsing life in the buildings he passed and imagining all the spectacular ways in which it might be pulled apart.
The town of Sapporo was not separated from the urban ruin surrounding it by so much as a traffic cone. It was a simple matter of driving down the main street and coasting through an un-manned security gate. He stopped on the other side, where the town's light grew dim. Got out and went to the trunk. Pulled out his 'emergency duffel,' checked the contents, and then stashed it just inside a broken display window in a derelict hardware store. This was, as Kamesena liked to say of trial procedure, not his first rodeo.
Back in the car, he got out an SDAT - not his SDAT, that was long lost - and put the ear buds in. Started up Lux Aeterna and took one last look around, marking the location.
As Mansell's opening swelled, ready to pop, Shinji stomped down on the accelerator.
The Honda was a luxury model, not built for speed. It took Shinji a good forty seconds to get up to 120 km per hour, the car's operating limit. The red haze covered everything, so thick he could barely see, but it was still the easiest thing in the world for him to lash out and obliterate the concrete pylons that had been stabbed in the road at regular intervals to discourage exactly what it was that he was doing. The Lux Aeterna's intro haunted Shinji through the corridor of darkened buildings. And at last, when he was good and lost in the maze of streetgrid, Shinji allowed the rage to swarm over his brain, to settle in its wrinkles and really soak in.
Suffer the little children. Tiny arms folding back on themselves. Small, stupid, round faces opening their mouths to dribble out idiot sounds. Ayanami screaming in anguish, perhaps equal to what Shinji had experienced at the foot of the Angel War memorial. And when he was done with all the little bastards, she would be made to rutt in the gore-covered classroom...
Shinji threw up. It was the only thing a decent person could manage, at this very vivid suggestion. Ayanami down and bruised, legs spread, surrounded by bits of tiny people. The car's path jogged slightly with his spasm, but continued to accelerate. This wasn't over. The haze was still thick, and the world and all the people in it were crumbling at his feet. Lux Aeterna was his anthem, spreading on ahead of Shinji like a great blight.
He could stop the car in a long arc of burnt tread. Turn around, try to find his way back into town. There had been 236 people there when he passed through. He could seal off the Express exit and have some fun. Real fun. The sort that left behind only twisted bodies and terrified telephone calls hanging in the sky.
Screams. The cooling warmth of splashed blood on his skin. The squeal of a body as it was contorted, joints and bones snapping, flesh stretching and then ripping with a sound like pummeled fruit. These images and sensations passed through Shinji like an erotic display, or the smell of miso soup prepared just right. He wanted some of that. Would not be satisfied until it was his. The pheremone release of a person that knew they were about to die? Right now, a whiff of that seemed more potent and alluring than the promise of sex with Asuka had been ten years ago.
Insanity crawled through him, roosted in him, took control of his mouth and forced a crazed giggle. But it never stayed. And it never forced itself on him. So far, Shinji had always been able to hold it in check until it was safe to release. He always had a choice, and so far had been able to resist the attraction of actually carrying out sweet and bloody vengeance. But now that he knew that Rei wanted nothing to do with him, what was the point? This world was exhausting. From Shinji's point of view, making it go away, even only a bit at a time, would be a relief. Just wipe it all out and wait in the blank void for the black thing with red eyes to return.
His entire existence was not rage. It only seemed that way, when the rage was upon him. No, in fact, Shinji's state of mind vassilated, between rage and despair. Both came with their own brand of madness. And every time he was swung from one state to the limit of the other, it seemed to take longer for the metaphorical pendulum to swing back. How long could he resist these violent urges of rage, or the bliss of being unmade that totally embracing despair seemed to promise? And again, why even fight it? Why not just end it?
The Honda began to whine, and Shinji saw the speedometer had finally reached it's leftmost extremity. Showtime. He cackled, eyes shining with an inner light, and removed the force that had been holding the car's broken axle level.
One wheel was ripped away. The car swerved as the front bumper began eating itself, levering the rest of the frame upwards... and then the shiny 2029 Honda ES-6Xtt collided with a traffic pylon. There was a great deal of flying, twisting, and the spitsnap of the car battery discharging. Shinji cracked his skull on the steering wheel and managed a dislocated shoulder as his body slammed against the safety belt.
"Its all wrong!" he cackled at the apex of the poor Honda's flight, a ghastly smile sliced into his face. The world was twisted. Upside down. Pointless. The Kronos Quartet were sawing into Shinji's brain as the car hit the pavement and crumpled.
He woke up as Lux Aeterna was sliding into Dark Was The Night. The car was tight around him, his legs encased in twisted metal. The steering wheel had caved in his ribs, and a sliver of windshield frame had sliced off an ear. The darkness was absolute as Shinji listened to the throaty twang of a banjo in the hands of a violinist, a rattle that went on and on until it was joined by a smooth-screaming cello sounding like an old, dry ghost.
And he felt something very much like fear, sitting crushed in a car, miles from any hope of aide. He was surrounded by ruins, by nothing but black and black and starlight. Block upon block of streets, filled with suffocating emptiness and silent, save for the stream of music from the SDAT's one remaining earbud and the now-distant, perhaps imagined, echo of the car slamming into the road. Dark was the night, indeed.
Shinji waited in the black as his body repaired itself. The car moaned as his legs straightened out without regard to the warped heavy aluminum should have held them immobile. Flesh flowed. The splintered ends of bone grew back together. There was a burst of mental static as something in his brain was made right again.
When he was mobile, Shinji pulled the one remaining earbud free and set about rending the car as close to directly down the middle as he could eyeball. At the trunk he ripped out the motive battery, already half discharged, and let the current pass through him and into the car. From there, the errant energy must have followed an even stranger route, because the darkened lamposts nearby briefly blazed to life, probably for the first time in more than twenty years.
And for a brief moment Shinji was not angry, anguished, or afraid. The street lit up around him, and it was as though he were piloting Eva again. Doing something magical, that only he could do.
But then lights dimmed, and then went out entirely, leaving Shinji night blind. The dark? Thicker and more absolute than ever. The Angel War was over, and quickly becoming myth. NERV had been dissolved. Father had been killed by... who knew?
Though it had been briefly postponed - first by fear and then by wonder - with his rage spent, sorrow followed. This had been the cycle of Shinji's existence for the last six months after all, if you didn't count the long periods of profound intoxication. Not much of a life, either way.
He had loved Rei. He had chosen to go after Asuka, to try to begin something, you know, physical with her, but he had still loved Rei in a simple way. Would have died for her. He had thought Rei felt much the same.
But however she had felt, that Rei was gone. Like everything else in this miserable world, something that was almost Rei had taken her place. He had assumed she had been waiting for him to come to her, that her silence had been special. But really, it seemed that Rei Ayanami at age 25 would rather pretend he did not exist.
Why? For some people he seemed to be a living injury. His sudden existence reminded them of their own losses during the Angel War. And from what he had gathered, skimming Asuka's appeal for contact, hearing he was alive after so long was almost as painful as losing him in the first place. Maybe Rei felt that way. Or... no, it didn't matter. Ten years. He didn't even have ten years of memories in his head. They had all been different people, back then. Who knows what they might have become, if Shinji had been able to hold the soul rot at bay? For all he knew, these men Misato and Asuka were with, that could just be destiny. Honestly, what did a person know at 15 that couldn't change in a heartbeat?
Shinji scaled a derelict hotel, clearing thirty stories with little more than a thought and peering out across the ruin, seeking out the illumination of tiny Sapporo. The sudden vertical movement did a good job of drying his eyes.
Part of him wanted to stay in this dead place, to hide among the ruins and go so deep he would never have to see sunlight again. Let the world forget him a second time. Let him forget all about the world.
Unfortunately, Shinji was, at the moment, quite hungry. The bitter satisfaction of being forgotten a second time would have to wait until his stomach was full. For all the inhuman abilities he had returned to the world with, Shinji was still reliant on food for energy. And having to eat was a blessing. Nothing like the pain of starvation to kick you out of a bleak quandry of loathing and self-doubt.
It took about ten minutes to get back to Sapporo and the emergency duffel he had left in the broken shopfront. His clothes had been ripped to tatters in the crash, so he changed into spares from the duffel. There was also a wallet with ten mon in there, and a good thing too, because the one in Shinji's pocket had been ripped in half after the steering column had tried its very best to take off his leg.
He changed into namebrand clothes the same color scheme as his old school uniform. Ripped off the hair that had been burnt from the motive battery's current. Boiled away the splashes of vomit, and their smell. Applied deodorant. When his appearance was within acceptable human norms, Shinji stowed his SDAT - remarkably undamaged, except for the missing earbud - slung the duffel over his shoulder, and slouched into town.
It was dark enough to fly or take to the rooftops, but Shinji settled on walking down the middle of the street in a wounded gait, wanting to be recognized and feared as something that had just come out of the ruins. A petty vengeance against the world, for that moment of fear he had felt in the crumpled car.
But no one paid him much mind. The street was deserted, and most of the shops were closed. Even the constable's post appeared empty, it's windows dark. Shinji's gait straightened and lengthened as it became apparent that no one was watching.
Residences stretched away from the main street and under the Express, as though living beneath something that modern counterbalanced the proximity of the ruins. Even though the rage was no longer on him, Shinji felt like giving this place a real, proper haunting. Maybe manifest some old injuries and stagger down a residential street, moaning. Or maybe stitch some ghosts together out of ambient energy and electromagnetism.
But he was hungry and tired. Even if he could have dredged up a special animosity for this pissant little scrap of civilization, he just didn't have the energy to do much beyond walk. Maybe a few big jumps, maybe a short flight. But he felt like walking.
The noodle shop was halfway down the town's length and made of bright plastic. It looked like something from a children's playground, only made indecently huge. The last decade had certainly produced some grotesque oddities.
Inside were booths and a conveyor belt looping the open kitchen. Every visible surface was made of the same sort of plastic as the exterior, though someone had been kind enough to paint most of the interior with earth tones. The cook waved Shinji's way as he walked in, but no one else paid him any mind.
Shinji sat in a booth against the conveyor belt, selecting the location so as to satisfy his appetite which, for someone of his size and stature, was quite large. He could eat half his body-weight without actually gaining more than three pounds - the standard variation in weight of a healthy person following a large meal, he had come to find out - his body putting on all the appearances of normalcy while something very, very odd happened inside it.
Shinji had also chosen this particular location because there was a couple by the picture window who seemed to be having a lot of fun with a family-style stir fry, and he wished to avoid looking at them.
From the conveyor belt he snatched up a plate of seafood sushi, a bowl of rice with a side of sliced ginger, a bowl of acceptable-smelling miso soup, and a platter of chilled udon with dipping sauce. A very polite waitress who was two years past pretty came up to correct Shinji's misunderstanding of the conveyor belt selection policy. No doubt she assumed he meant to sample from each. Idiot. He slapped a mon down on the table and told her he wanted a pot of green tea.
As he waited for the waitress to return, not wanting to start the meal without tea, a party of kids his own apparent age came in and sat down right behind him. They were very loud. Shinji pulled the SDAT from his bag and put in the remaining earbud, skipping ahead to Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. He imagined playing the cello part, which had been omitted from this recording. His old cello was gone, of course, but he had found another in the attic of the Ikari compound in Murakami, where he now lived.
Apparently, mother had played as well.
The tea arrived. Shinji breathed it in to check it's freshness and... Asuka! The scent of his former roommate was here, right now, in this room! It was mingled with the meaty freshness of good tea. God, he had forgotten...
He twisted around, looking for the familiar hair and eyes and pink skin. Nothing. No one. Just the noodle shop patrons that had been there when he arrived, and the kids that had come in soon after. They looked to be in high school or university - Shinji could not tell which. All girls. One of them saw him looking, and glared. Right.
His body had not grown in that tube deep underground. Shinji Ikari still had the appearance of a willowy fifteen-year-old boy. His appearance was not remarkable in any way, and while he was slowly learning the fine art of body language, he still carried himself with an undeniably defensive bent, especially now, when he was more sad than angry.
In other words, he looked like a wimp. Still.
Here, his apparent youth marked him as a local, since it was of course impossible for a boy his age to drive. The girl that had glared at him - who was in fact still glaring at him, as Shinji's examination of her likely perceptions had taken no more than a heartbeat - thought she was being oggled by a backwards Hokkaido hick. The irony was delicious, but...
He leaned over the booth divide, deliberately looking at each girl in turn. None were Asuka. But one of them smelled exactly like her. So familiar. Something immimicably associated with his attraction to her. This was painful.
By now the other girl across the table had joined the first in trying to kill him with an angry glare. The two with their backs to him appeared to be unaware that they were being examined. None said anything to him.
"Excuse me," Shinji began. "Does anyone here use a Niyo brand shampoo?" Do they even make it anymore?
He spoke clearly, without any trace of unease. Because even when he was depressed, no one in this rotten future was worthy of fear. Rei had been the only person he had dared to hope for, and how had that ended?
The girl that had first glared at him spoke first. She had pastel red highlights in her hair and was wearing a shirt that proudly announced she was a 'Tennessee Cowboy.' Her eyes were a dark brown, her face heavily made up. Her tits were large, and the outline of her bra and the bump of her left nipple were both defined clearly on her shirt.
"Excuse me?" she said, as though to intimidate by repeating Shinji's polite opener.
"Shampoo." Shinji repeated with outward patience. "Or maybe a lilac soap?"
The girl with the red highlights - call her "Red" - smiled prettily and made a complicated hand gesture. Probably telling Shinji to go fuck himself. As Red was completing the arcane display, the girl sitting just in front of him gave a start. Ah. She turned around, a confirmation on her lips. Shinji smelled her. Smelled Asuka. Lilac and eucalyptus and... something else.
The girl that smelled like Asuka had shoulder-length black hair, which framed a rather unfortunate face, with a large nose and blotchey skin. Her eyes though. They were blue, Shinji's shade of blue, and he could see the irises tighten as she saw him. He wondered what she was thinking.
She was nodding. "Um, yeah," she replied in a terribly-toned voice. "I... I use Konohan and Koala."
Shinji winced at the girl's strange manner of speech and filed the names away for later. There was still something missing. Something underneath it. Powdery. Wait. What sort of deodorant had Asuka used?
"Maito, yes?" Shinji stabbed a finger at the girl, who was still staring at him, expression guarded.
"What?" Red asked for her.
"Deodorant. Is that what you're wearing?" he did not look at Red. "Maito?"
"Woman's Dry," the girl squeaked in her horrible voice, before turning away. Hair had fallen forward over her eyes. What he could see of her face had turned a remarkable shade of red. The girl across from her giggled, which didn't seem to help things at all.
Huh. Well, he had not meant to humiliate her.
"Thank you, miss," Shinji said with deliberate politeness, then turned back to his food. Konohan, koala, maito. Those were the three things needed to reproduce her smell. He would have to get some later, see how it...
"Well?"
He looked up. The girl with red highlights was at the end of his table. Two of her companions were leaning over the booth partition in a way that was probably meant to be intimidating. To project exactly how intimidated he was, Shinji began to pull up some chilled udon before responding.
Had they moved quickly, or had he just zoned out? Time could be a funny thing in Shinji's head. Especially when he was hungry. When he focused, the world slowed to a crawl. But after that there was sort of a snap-back effect, the instant his focus wavered. He may have lost as much as twenty seconds just now, as Red and her friends had closed in.
"Well what?" he replied evenly, dipping his noodles into the sauce which, it turned out, was quite spicy.
"Well, why the fuck is my little sister crying in the bathroom right now?" Red did not seem mad. Almost bored. Annoyed that she was being forced to act like a big sister. Probably not something she relished doing in front of her friends. Shinji turned slightly to make sure the girl that smelled like Asuka was indeed gone. Huh.
He ate a mouthful of udon before replying. "How would I know?"
"Because you did it, asshole," Red sighed. "Look, if you like the way she smells so much, you should ask her over."
"Here," Shinji stated flatly. Well, this was certainly not the pissed-off sister act he had been expecting. She was doing it wrong.
"Yeah, she comes back, just turn around and ask her if she wants to share a booth."
Shinji ate another bit of udon. Briefly peered outside himself to verify that there was, in fact, a girl crying in the noodle shop restroom. Sighed.
"What are you supposed to be anyway?" one of the other girls wanted to know. She was shaking a hand at his large selection of food, several bangles at her wrist clinking together. "You training for an eating contest or something?"
Shinji ate another mouthful of udon, realizing with some disappointment that there was barely any left. The portions here were ridiculous. He slathered the rest of the dipping sauce on the meager remains and ate it.
"Maybe he's an idiot," said the third girl, the one that had laughed at the crying girl's shame. "Or cooking up drugs out in Old Sapporo."
"Is that what they call the ruins?" Shinji queried before draining his cup of green tea. "Old Sapporo? Huh."
"Definitely an idiot," the third girl repeated. "Coming to a place and not knowing what it's called."
"Its dead," Shinji continued to reply in an even tone. "It doesn't need a proper name. Call it a graveyard and just be done with it."
Something inside him flinched. Hypocrisy clawed at his insides. Because, after all...
I'm living in just such a place, aren't I? Living in a place filled with meaningless words etched into stone, a place that can never change because it is literally history. The Angel War. Misato's apartment. Asuka. Rei. Father. Evangelion. The meaning of all of them, it's all changed since then. I'm living in the dark, in the graveyard, and it's made me strong and strange and awful.
He might as well have been cooking up drugs in the ruins.
Red was speaking. He ignored her, eating an eel sushi and staring intently foreward. Unexpected mental alchemy was happening, as Shinji's despair seized on the notion that living in the past was fruitless and empty, and began to eat away at his resentment toward the present. The very basis of Shinji's depression was rotting out it's own foundation.
His mind was slowly opening to the concept of living in the present. It was the first time since his return that he had felt this way.
And then the crying girl was suddenly sitting across from him, and Shinji realized he had lost another gap of time.
"Noko, this isn't funny," the girl that smelled like Asuka complained in her un-toned voice as she tried to get up. Red pushed her back down.
"I want some time with my friends, you little cretin," Red hissed, scowling. "Stay here and make this guy buy you something with his drug money. Don't worry, he's too fried to try anything."
Laughter. The girl across from him turned a deep blush, but, amazingly, did not immediately get up as Red left. Shinji began to focus on her. Stopped. He was losing time too often. The food obviously had not made it into his system yet, or the bursts forward would have ceased. Better to just... Huh.
He actually wanted to talk with this girl. When had he last felt that compulsion? Quite infrequently during the first 15 years of his life. Asuka and Rei had...
And all at once Rei's betrayal was turning his stomach, sapping his strength. The first person he had wanted to protect, the first girl he had managed to work up the nerve to talk to. Seeing her smile. Watching her die. Discovering her a second time. All gone. Potential wasted. A foregone conclusion deferred and. And she must hate him as the others did. Misato, Asuka, Maya, Touji. His death had been a viscious little emptiness she had learned to ignore over the course of a decade, only to have it flayed wide by his return. Nothing but. Nothing but...
The mental alchemy going on within Shinji had been somewhat distracted by the subject of Rei, but not entirely. It had continued to undermine the bitterness he felt toward his missing decade, eventually to the point that he just stopped in mid-thought. Suddenly, Rei became history, distant and unimportant to the here and now. She did not like him? That was too bad, but still. She had nothing to do with this noodle shop, the food on the table, or the girl sitting across from him. Rei drifted to the back of his mind, and Shinji returned to the subject of sharing. Of wanting to share.
Asuka had been the last person he had felt that way about, of course. That night he had dared to touch Asuka's hand... But his interest in this girl was not intrinsically romantic. Just part of a sudden desire to be open.
"S-sorry about before," Shinji stammered. Stammered? Really? "Its just that, you smell like someone I used to know."
The girl was looking down at the table. She said nothing in reply.
"Would you like something?" he used an inflection on the first word, linking it back to Red's dismissive instructions to her little sister. "You can get something from the belt..."
Still no response. The girl put her hands on the table, curled and uncurled them into fists. No apparent interest in the food on the table or the conveyor.
"Uh, what is your name, miss?" Maybe the polite tack would work?
The girl remained silent. Shinji ate a scalloped sushi. Huh.
"You would not believe the car I came here in," Shinji tried again as he poured himself a cup of tea. "It was black and had a leather interior. The guy that sold..."
The waitress came up with a second tea cup for the nameless girl. The girl looked up as the woman listed off specials. In a voice that was obviously being carefully modulated, the girl asked for a glass of water and Western-style noodles in tomato sauce. The scraps of speech she used sounded guarded. Or maybe "wounded," would describe it better. She was clearly miserable and...
Wait.
"You..." Shinji began, then made sure he had the girl's attention, that she could see his lips, "you're deaf, aren't you?"
The girl nodded, drawing back the hair that fell past her ear to reveal hearing aides. "I can hear just enough to read lips," she explained slowly, in what seemed a rehearsed tone.
Shinji's heart had stopped the moment she had acknowledged being deaf. He was peering outside himself, for any scrap or marker of interference from an outside source. Something else was at work here. Something was going on. It was too much of a coincidence.
But all the world laid bare revealed was the shape of the girl's soul. He was not entirely certain what to look for, but there was nothing obviously amiss. Her soul was more white than Shinji's own crackling gold - a distinction he did not know what to make of - but it did not appear to be tainted, or in any way manipulated.
Nothing. This is a coincidence, he told himself. After Rei, after almost going crazy wanting to kill the students at the Institute for the Deaf. It is a total coincidence that...wait.
"C-can you understand me?" Shinji asked.
The girl's embarassment quickly gave over to annoyance. "I said I could read lips," she repeated in a less-rehearsed tone. "I am deaf, not an idiot."
Shinji was smiling humorlessly, desparately. "Sorry, I... what was your name, Miss?"
The girl looked off to one side. Projecting evasive behavior. He could sort of understand, her not wanting to give her name to a drug peddler. Just as Shinji was about to suggest she give him a fake name, simply so he would have something to call her, she looked back to him. Seemed to study him a long moment. As she did, Shinji was surprised to find her... well, not pretty, but if not for the acne, this girl might be at least handsome. She was wearing a blouse, a very light blue in color, and a small tan shawl. She reminded Shinji of the old class rep, Hikari Horaki.
"I'm Naoko," she said, then pointed without looking to where her sister was seated, at a table by the shop entrance. "My sister is Nokora. Her friends are Shiki and Fuki."
Her speech was better now. Either common bits of conversation were something she had learned to speak properly, or she was putting more effort into sounding normal.
There was a pause. Naoko volunteered nothing else. Shinji gestured at the bowl of miso, then the bowl of rice. "Would you like either of these? I can't really..."
"What is your name?" she interrupted, then started making gestures Shinji now recognized as sign language before quickly giving up. She seemed frustrated. "I..." she began. "You are familiar. I have seen you before."
Ah shit.
There was nothing really remarkable about Shinji's appearance, except for his blue eyes. This meant that, despite a good deal of media exposure, he had been able to go wherever he liked without any fear of being recognized. After he told her his name - and he would, he decided - what would happen? Shinji did not know, and he had a burning question that needed answering before things became uncertain.
"Before that," Shinji began, trying to brush her question aside for now. "Could I ask: do you live..."
"You know my name," the words came from Naoko in a rush, all pretense at correct tone gone. "Who are you. Who has my sister abandoned me to?" Bitter anger behind her voice, threatening to spill over. At being left behind, at being forced into a strange situation. All things which were painfully easy for Shinji to relate to.
Fear and uncertainty were creeping back into Shinji's being. He was feeling cornered. But maybe. Maaaaybe he'd get lucky.
"My name is Shinji."
Another silence. Shinji finished the last of the seafood sushi, then ate the decorative garnish of pickled ginger and wasabi. Naoko was not looking at him in a way he could understand.
"You..." she finally broke the silence, only to lapse back into it. Her elbows were on the table now, hands clasped as though in benediction. Shinji endured this all with a projected air of nonchalance. He was just Shinji. One of many.
My family name? Well I don't actually have any family so...
"What did you say to her?" the girl finally managed. "She just... collapsed."
An insane grin was spreading across Shinji's face.
"You are from Shikimori," he said.
Naoko nodded.
"You go to the Institute for the Deaf."
Another nod.
"Your teacher's name is Rei Ayanami."
"She was saying your name before we could get her to wake up," Naoko said, her speech neutral but her expression one of... what, dammit. What? Wonder?
"She is afraid of me," Shinji said, too petrified at the possibility of confirmation to make it a question.
"I do not know," Naoko replied. "She did not elaper... elaborate on her emotional state after waking. She laughed it off and dismissed the class."
Rei is laughing now?
"We saw you on the news," Naoko continued. "Is it true, about the tube?"
"No," Shinji replied. First time he had been honest, when posed that question. He had done an interview with NTV and a European news agency called BBC. He had described his confinement differently to each agency, telling NTV, first, that it had been like a long dream. But to the BBC, Shinji had said that he was awake and aware most of the time, and that his body was kept fresh and young due to total submersion in a well-documented medical regenerative - LCL. With some glee, he had described years of scrabbling at the tube's sides and walls, of forgetting and then finding his name in the cramped corners of his isolated mind. Nothing but an endless, unceasing, undying nightmare. If the circuitry in the tube's hatch had not shorted out due to a gradual build up of moisture, he might have remained beneath the ground for another decade. Fifty years. A century.
The lies were the product of Shinji's emotional cycle. He had been depressed for the NTV interview and given the very pretty talk-show hostess a rather flaccid 'asleep and dreaming' coma trope, because he just barely had the will to hold up his end of the conversation. For the BBC interview he had been angry and wanted to spread fear and horror for no other reason than that he found the world too content, too in need of a good upsetting. He had described first waking up in that damn tube, and how seconds became minutes became hours became days became weeks became months became years became a fucking decade. The interviewer had gone pale midway through, as Shinji described in laborous detail every single aspect of the tube, with a sort of intensity to detail that just could not be considered sane.
The disparity between NTV and BBC interviews had unexpectedly worked in his favor. Many people assumed the NTV interview had been interferred with by the Japanese government, in an attempt to minimize public support for the lawsuits Shinj's lawyer was firing at anyone who seemed to have a shred of liability owed to him. This perceived manipulation caused support to blossom, even in the face of denial by the government and every member of the NTV corporation. Overwhelming public outcry meant most of Shinji's efforts for restitution, even those against government agencies, succeeded. Opposing Shinji Ikari had been political suicide for a number of months. Even the multi-national corporation that had profited hugely from his mother's deserted patents had eventually been brought to heel.
"I can't tell you what the tube was like," Shinji told Naoko. And that was the truth. "But what I said to NTV was a lie."
"Dad said it was Suigawa's thugs that made you say it like it was nothing," Naoko's voice was still aurally abrasive, but Shinji found himself becoming used to it.
"The BBC version was more honest," Shinji continued, evading the implied question of whether the Prime Minister had been involved in the manufacture of his lie.
Naoko's Western noodles arrived in a huge bowl, topped with several small meatballs. The sauce was thick, red, and smelled pleasant.
They both ate in silence. At the table by the door, Nokora and her friends were finally ordering.
They chewed, they drank some of Shinji's tea, and Shinji wished - quite unfairly, and hating himself as he completed the thought - that Asuka were sitting in Naoko's place. There was a momentary comfort and ease here, the sort of thing he had been so close to having with the Second Child.
This situation was fundamentally different from an imagined date with the Second Child, of course. Naoko was not being polite and sneaking little looks at him because she actually liked him. They had not talked for more than seven mintues - the issue of like or dislike could not begin to be addressed in that space of time. No, she was starstruck, wearing the slightly preoccupied but happy expression of someone constantly wondering 'is this really happening?'
Shinji, naturally, was asking himself the same question.
Coincidence did not begin to explain this. It was downright serendipitous - having someone he had fantisized about killing less than an hour ago be the bearer of news that once again placed Rei's attitude in a blessedly uncertain light. His call had caused her to faint. She had said his name while unconscious. Hardly the simple dismissal Shinji had assumed at the time.
Naoko placed one of her meatballs on the empty plate Shinji's udon had come on. She nudged the hunk of meat forward with a chopstick. Again, Shinji wished she were Asuka. He ate the meatball, knowing it was being offered up as payment for his company - or perhaps it just humored her, to feed a rare beast.
When the rice was gone, Shinji ate the remaining pink, translucent sheets of pickled ginger, then brought the last dish he had selected from the conveyer belt, the bowl of miso, to his lips. He drained it in three long draughts, drinking up the onions, cubes tofu, and soggy fried squid that had flavored the soup. Naoko was not halfway finished with her noodles.
As Shinji lowered the bowl, Naoko made a rising arc with the index finger of her left hand, rolling her wrist and extending her pinky as the index finger locked vertical to the table. Then she appeared flustered at having lapsed into sign language again. "I mean, wow," she clarified, smiling.
"I was in the ruins," Shinji said. "It tires you out."
"Why were... um, sorry," she had started to ask him what he had been doing out in Old Sapporo. As she apologized for asking such a forward question, her hands traveled through a short sequence of movements.
"Just wandering," Shinji responded indirectly to her half-asked question. "Its peaceful out there. Quiet."
"Um," Naoko prompted. Shinji gestured for her to go on. "Why? Were you, um. Wandering."
It occurred to Shinji that listing one of the positive traits of an activity as 'quiet' was not the best way to communicate something to a deaf person. So he elaborated. He clarified. He told her almost everything.
I hate this place. I hate being alive. I should have died, should have just dissolved, but a devil saved me. And now the world keeps pressing in. Keeps intruding. Keeps asking. Keeps telling. And I can't stand it, because it isn't my world. My world is ten years gone. The people I cared about are long gone, even though they still exist. So much of myself was in those people, emerging into a world where I had been forgotten by them was like being torn apart.
And now I can't move. I can't escape this feeling of perpetual agony. I'm tired of being so out of place all the time. Its exhausting. And. And that's all.
"Ms. Ayanami told us about you," Naoko put in when he was done, signing as she spoke. "We had a project. A journal. She wanted us to keep a diary for a month. Like, book-and-paper. And when one of the kids asked why, and why they couldn't just, you know, blog it out, she... she told us that remembering is important. And that written words are best. She. Um."
Shinji stared. The girl seemed to wilt. Wouldn't look at him as she spoke now.
"She told us about the virus. The one they put into the NERV systems after the Angel War. The one that wiped out everything. And she mentioned you. She didn't. She didn't say your name, just that she had lost someone in the war, and when the UN set off that virus, it wiped everything to do with that person. It took everything of you that she had. And she tried to write it down after, but it was more like listing facts than really describing a person. And soon she couldn't even remember what you looked like, only that you had this off-brown color to your hair and. And that your eyes were like a deepness in the sky.
"And now you're here, somehow," her eyes darted to his. "And now I know what that deepness in the sky is all about."
Shinji smiled. It was a labored thing. They had known one another nearly two years before Ayanami had given him permission to call her Rei. At the time he had been preoccupied with Asuka, who was sending him some strong signals, and had somewhat trivialized the occasion. But looking back... he didn't know what it meant. What that moment had meant to Rei. She had eventually forgotten him too, but not because she wanted or needed to. She had hung on to some kind of understanding, even when all she could remember of him was the color of his hair and eyes.
He needed to talk to her. Right now.
"You're leaving?" Naoko asked as he stood and plucked the mon off the counter. "You have to leave now?"
"I need to get back to my car," Shinji explained. "I don't have a phone on me."
"I can help," the girl said, standing with him. "I mean. I know where teacher lives."
"I'm just going to my car right now," Shinji repeated. Maybe she hadn't caught all of what he had said. He tried to face her as he spoke. "I'm going to call Ayanami on the car system. I don't know what I will do after that."
"Um," Naoko looked around. Her sister was watching them with disinterest. "I was wondering if I could come with you. Go with you. Or whatever."
Shinji shook his head as he counted out a 1,000 yen tip. He could barely concentrate on what she was saying, anyway. The car. The phone call. "I don't know where I'm going," he repeated again. "I... I may head back to Shikinomi. And if the call doesn't go well... you wouldn't want to be around me, anyway. I mean, you're going somewhere, right? You were in Shikinomi this afternoon, and you're on your way somewhere else now, right?"
"I. I don't want to go with Noko," the girl did a good job of whispering, though her manner and bearing was becoming somewhat frantic. "I. They send me down with her to meet with grandmother in Tokyo 2, only she gets to bring two friends and all three of them hate me and. And you're Shinji Ikari."
That stopped him dead. "What does that matter?" he said, making for the door. His hands were shaking, but he managed to keep the tremor out of his voice. "It means I'm a rich asshole that can do whatever I want. And you want something, so I should give it to you?"
"No!" they were outside now. People, not just Naoko's sister and her friends but the waitress, the chef, the couple in the corner, they were looking out into the parking lot. Naoko had her arms wrapped around herself and was blushing hard as she choked out the following: "I know what you did for us. I know about the things you fought. Teacher would tell us. Not much, just enough to... to awe us. Abstract monsters, weaponized ideas, things I can't even begin to imagine. You fought and you died and our land only exists because of what you did."
The Honda was in the parking lot, gleaming and perfect. He had had it for three months, and at some point it had become a part of him. When it was destroyed, it grew back. Just like everything else. Shinji sat in the driver's seat now, legs dangling out of the car, not quite touching the ground.
"Rei Ayanami told you that," Shinji said slowly, hoping Naoko would pick up on the incredulity in his voice.
"The news people. Father. I heard from. Everyone," the girl had her hands cupping around her mouth, was breathing heavily.
"I was not fighting for you," he said, tapping on the keys set into the seat divider. Tricky, making his mouth visible to her and doing that at the same time. "I was not fighting for Japan. I was just fighting for me, and my own stupid, moronic need to survive."
The car chimed. Shinji told it to call Rei Ayanami. The car began to search for a person by that name and, since Shinji still had a point to make, he let it, rather than typing in the number he had memorized.
"How old are you anyway, thirteen?" Shinji continued. "I can't take you anywhere. I've pretty much lived at a law firm the last six months. That would be kidnapping, even if you agreed to it."
The bit about the law firm was not hyperbole. Nor was the bit about the law, as he understood it. Shinji had been living either in his car or above the drop-ceiling at Kamesena's firm. He had read the old man's entire library of legal precedent late at night, when he was bored or asleep. The information was all there in his head, waiting to be called upon.
"I'm 16!" Naoko protested. "I'm old enough to drive a moped!"
"Shinji." The voice cut into him. Fixed him in place. Rei's image was splashed across the windshield of the car. He turned away from Naoko.
"Rei." It was all he could say, and the word was weakness. Just one word, but there was such need to it. He was instantly ashamed.
"Why have you not been answering your phone?"
"I..." just tell her. Let her know. It was okay. She probably knew anyway. "I kind of lost it, back there."
The young woman on the screen frowned. "There is nothing of yours here, Shinji Ikari. I looked."
It took him a moment to understand. "No," he backpedaled. "I mean I was... emotionally upset."
"I apologize," Rei said. "So was I. Hello, Miss Kutsura." The last bit was directed at Naoko.
"Um, hello teacher." Naoko was standing just inside the feed's view range, but not actually touching the car. "I'm sorry. I did not mean to intrude."
"I met her in this place, Sapporo," Shinji put in, then covered his mouth. "Did you happen to. Ah. Send her, somehow?"
Rei approached the feed view until her mouth was out of shot. "No. Are you quite certain you ran into her entirely by chance?"
It was a mutual challenge. Shinji put his hands down. He was smiling.
"Interesting," Rei said, then backed into the shot. "I must speak with you at length," Shinji almost giggled at that, "but I believe there is another issue to be addressed. Perhaps one that cannot be deferred for six months."
Shinji opened his mouth. Closed it. The warm feeling in his stomach had suddenly been tied into knots.
Rei made him get out of the Honda. Had Naoko sit in the driver's seat. Instructed the deaf girl to close the door, so they could speak privately. Shinji waited ten seconds, started to get sleepy from the ennui, and headed back into the noodle shop.
"Who the fuck!" Naoko's sister greeted him as he walked in the shop.
"Me," Shinji replied, absently, as he headed back to his table. It had been cleared off. "I -the fuck."
The girl whirled and marched out of the shop. Her friends watched her go. Shinji yawned and selected a few more items off the conveyor belt, then moved by the window so he could watch Noko Kutsura yell at her sister through a locked car door.
One of the sushi he had taken off the conveyor belt had cream cheese in it. Cream cheese. Ten years and the recipes had gone to pot.
Rei's face in the windshield was joined by another. The screen had split, like. Conference call, Shinji guessed. The new person, a man, was bearded and also, clearly, not amused. He hoped Rei knew what she was doing...
Noko saw the man in the windshield and fled back to the shop. Before she was even inside, her cell phone rang.
"Fuck you!" she shouted at Shinji, then flipped her phone open. "Um. Hey daddy..."
Naoko was gesturing to Shinji now. He left a mon on the table and walked outside. Naoko got out of the car. She had been crying.
"They want to talk with you," she said, all pretense at correct tone gone. Then she sat against the car and said nothing further, and quite deliberately did not look at Shinji or at the view screen.
"Okay," Shinji said as he slid into place. The driver's seat suddenly felt like an entry plug. There was Rei, hovering in the display, and there was something huge and scary that looked like it wanted to kill him. Naoko and Noko's father, as it turned out.
The conversation was rather long, and mostly involved Shinji repeating himself while Rei made various assurances and promises. He could tell what they were both working toward, but the father was the one that had to suggest it. It did not help that the man, whose name was Yuimoto, seemed to be spending a good portion of his concentration trying to convince himself that the boy named Shinji Ikari who now sat before him was, in fact, not the famous Shinji Ikari. The bearded man was too polite to ask, and Shinji let him wonder. He was never going to act on his fame. Ever.
Apparently the Kutsura family had moved to Shikimori a year ago specifically so Naoko could attend the Keitei Institute. Her sister, who had two ears that functioned perfectly fine, had not taken the move well. Apparently there had been a boy in Tokyo 2 she had been quite fond of. This had led to an escalating conflict between sisters, in which Naoko was always the passive member. The victim. Yuimoto Kutsura shouldered the blame for the current situation entirely.
The current situation, it turned out, was a cruel mix of emotional neglect and casual physical violence, carried out over the course of two hours as the sisters and Noko's friends had driven, as Shinji had, around the fucking Shikki mountains. They had been sent together because Naoko had indicated that things between her and her sister were improving, which was likely either a lie she had been forced to tell, or the result of manipulation by Noko.
Shinji Ikari had fought angels. This was worse. This was harder. Here he was in the driver's seat - the pilot's seat - dealing with problems he couldn't even begin to understand. But the challenge was welcome. It felt like home.
Yuimoto at last got down to it. "Mister Ikari," the man began, his expression a mixture of anger and regret, "if it is not out of your way, and I will be willing to pay for any additional expense, could you please see little Nao to her grandmother in Tokyo 2?"
"I can take her back to Shikimori, if that would be better..." Shinji began, glancing to Rei. The blue-haired woman shook her head. Okay...
Yuimoto appeared pained. "If that is inconvenient, could you please drop her off at the train station on the mainland?"
"No. I mean, I can take her to Tokyo 2, yes. If that is what you want me to do."
"Thank you very much," the man bowed out of view. "Her grandmother is ill, and it is Naoko's preference to continue with the visit, as planned. My other daughter will be returning home now."
Idly, Shinji wondered why Naoko was really going to Tokyo 2. The sickness of a relation seemed flimsy to him, but then again he did not remember mother at all, had spent most of his life hating his father, and was unaware of any extended relations still living. Family was definitely something he could not understand.
Yuimoto exchanged some further apologetic pleasantries, copied down the GPS tag on Shinji's car, and asked to speak with Naoko. Shinji tapped the girl on the shoulder and let her sit in the driver seat again while he leaned against the car and casually dodged the rocks Noko and her friends were throwing at him.
After perhaps a minute of that Naoko knocked on the window and slid into the passenger seat. Apparently this was really going to happen. Shinji got in the car just as a piece of cement as big as his fist bounced off the driver's side window. Yeah, Noko was pissed.
Yuimoto Kutsura apologized for the inconvenience again, told his daughter he loved her, and signed off. Rei gave Naoko some further assurances, then leaned forward until her mouth was out of shot and said: "I will see you tonight, Shinji."
And he could feel her reaching out, over the distance. He felt her being brush up against his, and then recede, leaving a sort of impression on him.
Tonight. Anywhere you are, I will find you. Because there are things we both need to know. Promises to make. Bonds to form.
I've been waiting for six months, wondering if you were even real, if perhaps you were a clone made by someone as a means of acquiring wealth. I told myself that, even though I felt you when you emerged back into the world. Because I was afraid that you were ignoring me. That I was not important enough to contact.
Tonight, Ikari.
Tonight.
To Be Concluded. Please. Christ.
Author's Notes: Some fun facts. This was written over the course of a year on my iPhone and, as some of you have no doubt noticed, while this is a sequence of linear events, there isn't anything in here that could really be called a plot. This is entirely in keeping with the three chapters that came before this one.
The final chapter may be short, may be long. It might have a lot of hot albino sex, or may just be Rei telling him to buck up.