Conversations With Asuka
Pre-read by Fanf1cFan
Again she tried to move, and again she felt nothing but the horrible sensation of being in a full body vice grip, unable to even twitch.
Shinji. Where was Shinji? Alive, with Asuka.
I am unhappy, lonely. Separated from him. But was it worth it? Is he happy?
Perhaps he was happy with Asuka. If they stayed together, that meant he loved her, or would love her.
Would such love diminish what he felt for me?
Or maybe he would not grow to love her, and they would separate. That would bring sadness to him, to Asuka, to the child. Or they might stay together despite not loving each other.
Which possibility was true? Which one would make him happy? Would he be happy with any of them?
Will I be happy with any of them? Does it even matter what I want?
No, it doesn't matter, a part of her said, the part she feared.
Why not? Why doesn't what I want matter?
Alright, then it does matter.
How can it matter? The irritation she felt increased at how illogical Lilith was being.
Ah, so it doesn't matter.
Shut up! It was hard to think, with the maddeningly cheerful presence of Lilith hovering over her, watching her curiously. It matters to me. But it doesn't matter to him, because I'm not there. Apparently her Angelic ghost had nothing to say to this. She again tried to move, this time just an arm. Just a single finger. Even a twitch, something physical she could feel, anything would be acceptable.
After a long period of silence, she began to feel a longing even for the illogical cheerfulness of her ever-present other self. She had lost all track of time, but there was no outlet for her feelings.
Who am I? She asked desperately, but the void in which she hung did not answer. Where am I??
The more she tried to settle her mind, the more frantic it seemed to become. Still, no matter how void-like her surroundings felt, there had to be something she could divine from them.
I am aware. That was most important. She had not been given the promised nothingness. I can see nothing, but I feel gravity. She was a bit hesitant about that last part. She certainly felt something. Not weightlessness, but not constant gravity either. One moment it felt like she was standing on solid ground, and the next she would be flipped on her head. The next, she felt as is she were lying down.
Apparently she had no body, but then how could she think? She could still think, could still feel, for a moment she wondered at the possibility that she was a phantom. When someone loses an arm, she will sometimes feel a phantom pain, as if the arm were still there. Perhaps I am that, now. Maybe I am someone's phantom pain.
Without thinking, she contracted in on herself unconsciously, as if turning on her side and pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging them in thought. That was when she really did feel herself move. The sensation was as unmistakable as it was glorious. The sliding of skin against something hard and cold, the pleasant ache of gravity holding her down.
She only had a precious few seconds of pleasure before unimaginable pain washed through her at the movement. Unable to do anything else, she curled up on her side, shuddering at the agony such movement caused.
After untold minutes of pure suffering, she came to herself on her side, panting shallowly. Every breath hurt, and it was only getting worse. She tried to move again, but couldn't, because it hurt too much. But if she stayed here, she would die, or at the very least she would keep suffering. With a monumental effort, she managed to roll back over on her back, and gained a measure of peace. Slowly, slowly, the pain receded, allowing her to rest.
The moon was definitely gone now, and she was stuck in the darkness. It should have been comforting, might have been comforting, except for the situation. For all she knew she was in a pitch black entry plug. Maybe the lights had simply failed. Someone would soon come and get her out. Shinji. Lieutenant Ibuki. Lietenant Aoba. They were all undoubtedly looking for her, and would find her, trapped wherever she was.
She wanted to believe this, but could not. Things were subtly different... just a bit off. Even the liquid in which she lay was wrong, far too smooth and viscous. Rubbing her fingers together she felt the smoothness, how her fingers easily slid off one another. Her arm was like a lead weight, her body weak.
No. This isn't right. It's just another illusion.
Yes, an illusion.
Why do you torment me? Am I not in enough pain?
Apparently not.
She sighed, trying to still her thoughts, and not give Lilith anything to agree with, or disagree with.
Maya pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting off the vestiges of sleep for a few more precious hours as she pored over the mass of papers scattered over her desk. Even after the end of the world the paperwork never stopped, though she had to admit this time most of it had a purpose, detailing the damage already uncovered, the damage likely to uncovered in future months, and how much of it surprisingly still worked.
Structurally, the Geofront was still basically intact and viable. Of course, viable was one thing, but it was hard to ignore the massive hole that allowed sunlight to stream directly from the surface into the broken forestland below. Humanity would not be rebuilding the armor and erecting a second transforming city any time soon, that was for sure.
Oh, things were actually better than they were pre-third-impact, at least if you squinted. Most of Japan's infrastructure was still there, and with the population further reduced, the demand on its resources was significantly less. Almost everything was automated, which helped.
More importantly for Maya's own sanity, she now knew which past life was 'real'. The hole blown in the armor was made by a single maximum-strength N2, not the countless carefully-controlled blasts necessary to reduce an Angel to atoms while preserving the Geofront.
Her first memory was the real one. But what in the world was the second one? She picked up a piece of paper, staring at it but not really reading. In her second life, she had picked up paper like this many times. Ritsuko had been there, and everyone else she knew. It had felt as real as things felt now.
Now. Half the population reduced to gelatin, and her mentor dead. Dead for sure, she had seen the body floating grotesquely in the pool of LCL. A third of it had been sloshed out of its reservoir, but most of it was still there, waiting. For what?
Rebuilding had begun almost immediately, and she had accepted the request for help. With only less than half of the population left, they really needed her. For now it looked like she was the only surviving expert on the MAGI, at least in Japan. She didn't know what was happening in other parts of the world, but Japan was focusing most of its effort in recovering what it could from the remains of NERV.
There had already been expeditions into the broken Geofront. She had led the first of them, and had found Ritsuko. And Misato, dead and riddled with bullet-wounds. Out of the hundreds of bodies she had found, the worst had been the Commander. She had found him, or rather his headless body, collapsed deep in Terminal Dogma. She grimaced at the memory. It was just one more of the many mysteries surrounding what people were now calling the Event. No one wanted to call it what it was, which was third impact.
She sighed, sifting through the carefully-arranged mess for the report on MAGI. It was the real reason she had accepted her new reassignment. She had already overseen the reinitialization of the super-system, which had gone off flawlessly considering the situation. It had taken a few seconds too long on several of its self-diagnostics, but after long hours of poring over complex circuits and organiform tubing, she had found out why. The system had been forced to route a primary circuit around major damage to one of its core systems, reducing its speed by nearly thirty percent. After a few judicious replacements from the fast-dwindling supply of parts, Caspar had reported that she was now running fully in sync with her sister-systems.
For now, the system was isolated from its cousins oversees, at least until the other countries got their own systems back on-line. If they ever did. Though news had slowly come in from the other countries, she had heard not a peep about MAGI, Eva, or any of the other NERV installations elsewhere. America had been hit especially hard, with so few revivals proportional to its population, but Germany and NERV's second installation should have been on-line long ago. After all, they had none of the damage that Japan's installation had, and Japan was already up and running.
Still, they also did not have one Maya Ibuki, and German officials had already pleaded with Japan to send any experts on the MAGI that it could spare. Maya found it hard to believe she was the best in the world at the moment, but it really did kind of feel good.
"Lieutenant." She looked up at the rather bookish attendant who had stuck his head in her messy office. "He'll see you now." She nodded, pushing herself to her feet and looking around in satisfaction. While Ritsuko had never approved of her 'filing system', well, the woman couldn't very well complain now, could she? Her mouth quirked into a half-smile as she suppressed the tears and sadness. Turning, she nodded at the intense-looking man.
"Well, lead the way."
The room, her head, and her stomach were finally cooperating again, allowing her some relief. Asuka sat down heavily in the recliner, nearly groaning as the queasiness subsided. Maybe she would try eating again in an hour or so. Her eyes wandered over the mostly-furnished living room of the first-floor apartment they had finally settled down in. For now, at least. This one was more or less intact and salvageable, and had decent furnishings, which had made the choice for them. It had been over a week now, and they had yet to see a sign that anyone else had come back. If they were the only two survivors, the outlook was grim indeed, and whenever her symptoms gave her respite, it hung over her head like a guillotine.
She shook her head, standing with a sigh. How was it that she was the one moping around, while Shinji seemed to have things together? Stepping over to the window, she gazed out over the empty street, cracked pavement, and Shinji, his slow and balanced movements taking him across the concrete in smooth steps. She watched, entranced for a few long moments as he moved. His kata was sometimes a little stiff, but it was obvious he had been trained recently, by someone else.
She couldn't see him doing martial arts before third impact, and they had just woken up from a dream-world they had inhabited for over three months. Supposedly three months. She had no idea how much time had actually passed while they had been immersed in that non-reality. That non-reality in which Shinji had apparently begun learning martial arts.
She walked out and stood on the sidewalk, watching him as the wind played with the ends of her hair. He came to a halt smoothly in front of her.
"Hi," he said simply, calmly. She stepped forward, noting how he subtly tensed a bit. It was both gratifying and irritating to see that smart reaction. She struck at him, and he managed to avoid it in a relatively smooth motion, far different from the hard blocks she was used to. Launching a flurry of attacks, she sped up until one of her strikes barely clipped him, causing him to stumble. The exhilaration in his expression was tempered now.
"Not bad for three months' practice," she said, and he began to relax, now that it seemed she wasn't really trying to do him damage.
"Four months," he said, then stopped himself. It was an instinctual reaction to be able to correct her, but he obviously knew the two words were a mistake when he said them. She colored, obviously restrained herself, then sighed, looking into the distance blankly.
"So that's what you were doing." They both stood there for a moment. "Well, don't let me keep you." After another moment he shook himself, then went back to his practice. After several seconds of self-consciousness, he got back into his rhythm, as she slowly walked over to where he had set a duffel bag down by the fractured sidewalk.
Sitting down with some amount of inner relief, she picked out his ever-present notebook, flipping through it. She watched with inner amusement as, in his next turn, he saw what she was doing, and it affected his flow for a few moves. He corrected himself, obviously deciding to ignore her intrusion. Besides, most of it was about her anyway.
"Still writing your damned book," she muttered, just loud enough to reach his ears. Even so, she was unable to keep a slight grin from curving her lips. "You don't actually think anyone would want to read something like this, do you?" She softened her expression, realizing that statement sounded a little harsher than she had intended. As it turned out, she needn't have bothered. Shinji had stopped moving, and merely shrugged mischievously.
"Really, Asuka," he said, trying not to smile. "All during the war you wanted to be famous, and now I'm doing my best to give you that fame and you won't even-" he was cut off when she tackled him and wrestled him to the ground. It took longer than she would have liked, but she subdued him into a blushing heap soon enough.
"Thanks," she finally said, holding him down until he quit struggling and acknowledged her sentiment for what it was. She was about to let him up when he froze, his eyes locked somewhere below her chin. She colored and was preparing to lash into him for his pervertedness when she realized he was looking behind her, not at her. She looked over her shoulder as the unmistakable drone of a military VTOL became louder.
For the first time since her awakening, Maya's heart had leaped when she saw the two Children standing there in the middle of the road, watching as her military transport landed amidst a cacophony of high pitched whining. Could it really still be called the military? The MAGI were offline, and no one really knew yet how many of Japan's leaders had come back. And even if all of them had come back, pre-third-impact they had merely been figure-heads, signing off on whatever the MAGI told them to do.
No, the true power behind the government had been elsewhere, and it too had apparently come back. Weakened, yes, but back. Surely weakened, if former Lieutenant, now simply Maya Ibuki, could talk them down.
It had stunned her when a wizened old man had approached her soon after things had begun to settle down two days or so after the Return. What little crime there was had begun to settle down, the Japanese being a pragmatic people. When enough technicians had wandered in, many of the automated systems and power plants had been brought back on-line. At the time, the earth-shaking event of only two days prior had seemed like nothing more than a simple power outage.
One only had to look deeply into another's eyes to see the lie in that. It was quite certain that the psychiatrist's profession would be a very profitable one for the foreseeable future.
After a few moments' conversation, the wizened old man was looking less father-like and more menacing. Politically naïve Maya might have been, but it didn't take a fool to see that the only thing the man was interested in was how she seemed to be the only high-level MAGI technician to have come back. Of course, the fact that she had been under the direct tutelage of Ritsuko Akagi was icing on the cake.
It had been extremely unsettling the way the man had wound the conversation around to the Children, and whether they should be searched for, or merely ignored to go about whatever life they could find. Whether they should be found and liquidated because of possible security risk, or simply left alone.
Maya had told the man what she thought of his horrendous ideas, and had explained rather graphically exactly where he could shove his plans if they included hurting the Children in the slightest. Especially if he wanted her to help. He had simply raised his eyebrows quizzically, and acquiesced. Such a change in attitude had startled her, though it had also shaken loose a few further ideas about how to track down Asuka's whereabouts. Shinji was another matter, for his plug-suit had not returned a ping, but apparently the point was moot, for he was with Asuka.
It was hard to keep her vision from misting as she gazed at the two children on whose backs the world had rested for a time. Even from this distance it was easy to see the relief in their expressions, along with a host of other emotions.
Despite her own relief, she still couldn't lay to rest the sneaking suspicion that the wizened old man, whoever he was, and whatever hidden faction he represented, had been more interested in her response to his threats than anything else. As if he had been probing her for weaknesses.
It cannot be this simple.
Okay, it isn't.
Silence, you.
It had taken her a while, but across a period of time she could not measure, Rei had undergone many cycles of pain and peace, broken only by periods of muddled blurriness, and the occasional bout with her Angelic nature. She had fallen into a routine that at first she had not recognized.
There was, of course, no way to escape the pain, so she suffered silently for a while. But it had gotten worse and worse, until she began to cry out. It didn't help, but when she started, she couldn't stop. The more she tried to shy away from the pain, the worse it became.
When she noticed this, she tried to do the opposite, and simply relaxed. The pain was intense enough to draw tears from her eyes, but she stopped fighting it. It was still just as strong, it hurt just as much, but for some reason it was different.
Even now the tendrils of suffering wound their way through her, making her cry freely, but at the same time it was just a sensation. Eventually it would cease. And it did. She observed the momentary peace with the same wariness, now. It too was a temporary thing.
More than ever, she wanted another glimpse of the moon she had seen moments, hours, days, or even weeks ago. She felt the longing grow strong enough to be painful, and then just when it was most unbearable, it began to recede. This cycle repeated for some time, leaving her nearly breathless with cursing for her feelings, which were hurting her just as much as her body had hurt her.
When she finally understood, it was like finding an oasis in the desert. Feelings too would cease, since they had a beginning. Everything that had a beginning, also had an end, and everything that began and ended seemed to cause her stress and pain. Any happiness she gained when something enjoyable appeared, was taken away when that something left.
But pain and anguish also had a beginning and an end. Was everything a mirage? Was everything empty? She closed her eyes, or at least it felt like she closed her eyes. It didn't really matter in the darkness.
Thoughts came up, thoughts of Shinji, of her previous lives. She watched these thoughts arise, and watched as they eventually faded away. Sorrow came up at this idea, sorrow that everything was fleeting, that nothing had a sense of realness. She watched this sorrow build up, and then fade away. Emotion, too, was apparently empty.
Looking within herself, she searched for something real, something that did not have a beginning and an end. Everything she came across, everything she could think of either related to her life, or to others, or were simply thoughts or feelings.
Even her lifelong loneliness was empty. After all, it had ceased when she had met Shinji in their shared dream-world. It gave her a certain amount of comfort to know that even loneliness was empty, that it lacked any true power over her. Still, everything couldn't be empty. Surely there was something real in the middle of all this nothingness. For a moment she wondered at the oddity that her life really had been nothing but emptiness, nothingness. She had asked the Commander to let her return to nothingness, but she was already there, had always been there.
Who am I? she wondered, coming back to her most fundamental question. Who is it that is thinking? Who is it that is searching for reality?
This one thought stilled all others as she considered it. Then it dawned on her like the blazing of the sun. The one searching for the realness, and the reality, they were one and the same. It was why she had so much trouble noticing. She had been trying so hard to find something real, she had not even considered that the reality was her.
I am, she realized, overcome with relief. Her awareness was one thing that was, and always would be. If her awareness ceased, she would not even know it. Awareness was the only thing worth considering, since it was the only thing that was real. Her awareness, and the awareness of those around her.
No one was around her now, but that did not keep her from considering. All other useless empty thoughts became quiet as she pondered. My awareness, and the awareness of others. What is the difference? The only difference between people's awareness was their reaction to it. At the base, everyone's awareness was the same, it was a person's reaction that made them different.
I and Shinji are the same. That was easy to accept. He and I are the same, except for how we react to what we are aware of. She paused, considering the next logical step. I and Asuka are the same. At some base level, they too were the same, though it was harder to accept. On the outside she and her counterpart were polar opposites. As hard as it is to accept, she and I are the same. As is everyone on Earth. Everyone on Earth was fundamentally the same, except for the thin veneer of emotions and reactions based on memory each person had built up over a lifetime.
Slowly her thoughts wound down, until all internal dialog was silent. She apparently had a subjective eternity to consider the nature of her current reality, but now she just wanted to rest. With no thoughts to disturb her, the only thing left was her slow breath, the slow rise and fall of her abdomen.
The next breath she took, a physical tingle ran down her spine. She breathed deeply, and the tingle grew stronger, quickly enveloping her whole body. She continued to breathe deeply, unable to stop herself from trembling at the strength of the exquisite feelings coursing through her. The strong feeling of pins and needles rushed through her, and she was unable to observe time properly, though she knew it couldn't have been more than a dozen breaths.
She clung to the vision of the moon, and the pleasurable feelings coursing through her at her realization. For a few long moments, she reveled in the feelings and the joy they brought, before catching herself. The feelings and the vision before her were transient, and so there was no point in grasping at them, in longing for them. The physical pleasure grew stronger, and with it grew the joy she felt, and her slow breathing.
The more she concentrated on how she was breathing in and breathing out, and how it affected her body, the more the feelings grew. Her breath was like a microcosm of existence. Each intake of breath had a beginning and end. Each out-breath also had a beginning and an end. Her breath as a whole, also had a beginning and end. It began with birth, and ended with death. But would her awareness end?
As she breathed, her breath became less and less noticeable, until it took all her concentration to feel the slight up and down motion of her chest. Soon the pleasure and joy kept increasing even though she lost track of her body. She focused completely on her breath, bearing down with concentration, her awareness held there by the good feelings.
Concentration brought good feelings, so she concentrated. She felt her mind becoming more stable, as the unsettling effects of her previous sorrow were now only a distant memory. The pleasurable feelings began to expand and contract as she focused on her breath, and moved her mind more deeply into itself. She moved ever deeper, unconsciously seeking escape from the feelings coursing through her. Whether they were good or bad, the feelings were strong, and in a way they hurt. Slowly the physical sensations bled away, leaving her with the mental joy she felt as she concentrated on her breathing. The mental joy was not nearly as disrupting, as painful as the physical pleasure had been, and she rested for a while.
No physical sensations arose to torment or disturb her. Her mind was solitary and still, her breath calm and free. A kind of radiance pervaded her body, as if the rays of moonlight were shining through her. If she wanted to, she could see the moon, and its whiteness. She had already summoned the sight, and banished it, playing with its brightness, making it expand and contract. She kept her concentration on her breath, and her calm.
It felt like her mind was bright and powerful, her body light. The subtle pain she had always felt from her Angelic DNA was gone, and the sense of her body felt steady and even, with no gaps in her awareness, allowing her to completely let go of her sense of pleasure and joy. Without having to focus on the mental stimulation of joy, she was able to concentrate even more deeply.
Her breath was now absolutely quiet, free from any hesitation. Her thoughts were neutral and still, no longer worried about the past or the future. For a moment it felt like her mind was shedding light in all directions, her breathing radiant and mind aglow. There was no sense body, of emotional feeling, of mind, or even of thought. They were all one thing, all part of her awareness.
She rested in this state for some unknown period, unable to keep track of such mundane things as time. Then she felt herself descend through the different states she had passed through, though much more quickly.
Returning to normal awareness, she simply lay there, resting in the afterglow of what had just happened. After a while she felt herself descend even further, and wondered what was next. Perhaps this was death. For some reason it no longer frightened her. Death was just one more ceasing. Everything began and ended, it was just a natural part of the world. If she were to die now, it wouldn't really matter. Shinji was hopefully taking care of Asuka, and their child, so she no longer had to be concerned about them. And with what she herself had just experienced, she felt complete. She relaxed, letting herself accept whatever would come.
As it turned out, she didn't die, she did something far more mundane. She fell asleep.
Shinji had known, without a doubt, that he and Asuka were alone, that they were doomed. He had seen the same knowledge in Asuka's eyes every day since she had awakened. The idea that they were probably the only people on earth had broken down a lot of barriers. Now they stood frozen, the wash of air from heavy-duty jet turbines rippling their hair and clothes as Maya ran out the open hatch of the VTOL, tackling the two stunned teens.
After coming to grips with the reality that they were no longer alone, Shinji became quite aware that he was squished up against a sniffling Maya and a suddenly tense Asuka. After an interminable moment fraught with potential danger, he felt her slowly relax. It was comforting. He had never truly been hugged, not since his mother had died. Well, Rei had hugged him, but their relationship had been terminated by the intrusion of cold hard reality.
"Thank God you're okay, thank God...!" Maya repeated over and over. Thankfully she released them before Asuka's grace period ran out.
"So others came back too? We're not alone?" Shinji asked hesitantly, still in shock. Asuka shot him a 'well duhh!' look before restraining herself as Maya shook her head.
"No. No! I mean, how did you guys miss everybody?" Her words almost stumbled over each other, she was still so relieved. "Where'd you wake up?" Shinji pointed mutely back past several rows of buildings towards the beach, over a dozen miles away. "-but," she obviously thought furiously. "That's where everybody else came from, that general area..."
"Yeah, well, Doctor Livingstone here couldn't wait to go hiking, so-"
"-this is the area that suffered the worst damage," Maya continued, almost not realizing Asuka had spoken, and the girl immediately regretted what she had said. She glanced at Shinji, and the stricken look on his face was clouded by other hidden emotions. Automatic anger arose even though she tried to suppress it. Sure, he had to be down too, and what had happened had been a shock to everybody, but if only he'd kept in his pants... no, if only she hadn't gone along with it... no... She stood there wavering, trying to keep a lid on things, when Shinji seemed to sigh to himself, then shrug almost imperceptibly and grinned briefly before turning back to Maya, who was still going a mile a minute.
"If you'd gone anywhere else... or even if you'd stayed in the general area...!" Maya's frazzled words rolled right off of Asuka's stunned visage. It wasn't enough that she had been wrong about his character so many times before, or that to admit such a thing now would almost be too much to stomach, the problem was that doing nothing would be an even worse blow to her pride. She stared off into the distance past cracked buildings, suddenly tired in more ways than one.
What was the point anymore? Everyone had been laid bare in instrumentality, or at least she assumed others had gone through the hellish cross-examination she had been put through. The seemingly endless questions and judgments rendered by either her friends, or younger versions of herself, how everyone seemed to know all her deepest secrets, it had been enough to nearly drive her mad.
"So, are things okay now?" Shinji's question snapped Maya out of her giddiness, and Asuka looked at him, for once suppressing the instant judgments. "Are the hospitals back up, or is there some medical station-"
"I'm sorry!" Maya exclaimed, shaking herself abruptly, "Are you okay?" She looked him up and down, eyes suddenly more serious.
"Well, I've been having a kind of-" his attempt at explanation did not even slow her down.
"C'mon! Both of you can come with me. I came to pick you up, so we can leave immediately."
"How did you find us?" he asked hesitantly, when Maya gave him a moment's respite as the two of them turned back towards the VTOL.
"I pinged the passive locater built into Unit-Two's plug-suit," she explained, glancing towards Asuka. "It's a good thing you kept it with you!"
Asuka watched them go, then walked after them before Maya could turn her frenzied attention back in her direction. It was an almost sure thing Shinji had asked that question for her benefit, seeing her sudden weariness. He had glanced at her for just a moment there, and it wasn't a look of pity, nor did it contain enough worry that it impinged on her pride. It was just a little thing, and he had done it in such a way that she knew he had thought of her, but at the same time he hadn't make a big deal out of it or called attention to her situation. It showed a subtle understanding that she wouldn't have expected of him, and guilt began to creep its way into the back of her mind.
During the trip back she sat, chin in hand, elbow on her arm rest, staring blankly over the wounded landscape below. She was vaguely aware of Shinji questioning Maya about the state of things. Not once did he bring discomfort by giving her a worried stare, or a hesitant inquiry about how she was doing. He wasn't quite ignoring her. She saw how he always diverted the woman whenever she appeared to be about to ask about Asuka, and when he answered Maya's questions about their own experiences up till now, it was always in broad terms, staying away from the touchy parts. A part of her wanted him to pay a little more attention to her, or to ask that 'are you sure you're okay' question, but at the same time she knew if he did it would only tick her off. It was unsettling to see that contradictory part of her so plainly, and to have to recognize it for what it was.
Even if it was on the inside, she had to admit he was playing it smart in not telling Maya everything. Of course it would come out at some point that she was pregnant, but she was still too shaken up to think about the ramifications, or how to go about letting that important fact out. Being rescued had never crossed her mind, nor Shinji's as far as she knew, as they had not even discussed it.
The relief Shinji felt at not being alone was tempered by the subtle let down a return to normal always brought. The spartan apartment they had been given was far from what he knew Asuka was used to, but she didn't seem to mind. Or at least she wasn't letting it be known that she minded, and he couldn't remember a time pre-impact when she held back if something bothered her.
That was pre-impact, however. For a moment he considered the girl as she sat across from him in the apartment's sole recliner. He had taken a seat in a folding chair, and they were trading almost meaningless small talk. Even more oddly in his eyes, she had been the one to start it, and so he smiled and nodded and said whatever came to mind in response to whatever Asuka was saying, as he tried to figure out why things were different between him and his fellow pilot. Well, technically ex-pilot.
Ever since waking up he had somehow been able to keep from pushing her buttons, or rather he wasn't blundering like he had in his former life. Well, it was impossible to do everything right, but she hadn't left him or anything. Maybe that was it. Putting it bluntly, she seemed to need him, seemed to want a friendship, or even more. This time it was him who was a bit circumspect, still reminded of the ghost of Rei every time he looked into her eyes.
Of course, with Rei gone there seemed to be less and less to try to stay aloof, especially since she had told him point blank with her last words to take care of Asuka and the baby.
"Thanks," Asuka said after a pause, her eyes suddenly serious, if a bit pensive. It was such a sudden change in mood from the meaningless talk before that he just stared for a moment.
"For-"
"For not just blurting out to Maya that I'm pregnant," she said quickly, before he could fully ask. She wasn't quite looking at him now, and if he didn't know better just a hint of color was flirting across her cheeks, but he decided that was his imagination.
"No, it's okay," he said, waving off the sudden seriousness. It surprised him that she was even talking seriously about the important topic, since they had skated around it ever since waking up.
"Why is it okay?" she asked a bit softer, sad thoughtfulness in her voice. "Why is it always okay?"
"-no, you," he couldn't keep from smiling, and looked away so as not to have to directly face her. "If you weren't the way you were, you wouldn't be you." He forced himself to look back towards her. "You were right, when you said I need to be less of a wimp, and I've never really thanked you for that, even if I can't always live up to how you want me to-" He cut off when her expression began to slowly degenerate into hurt and anger.
That's not me! Her expression implored silently, but he didn't know, not being a mind-reader. Why are you fixated on the mask I put up for everyone else? That's not me...! The only thing he saw was how she was obviously trying to restrain the anger that had always come so quickly before, yet he was in the dark as to why it was even there.
"I mean, I'm used to it by now, so it's okay..." he tried again, but she simply got up, and walked out, and when she shut the door it wasn't quite a slam, but it was close.
What'd I do? he wondered helplessly. Yet her actions had seemed so different from whenever he remembered her being angry before. She had always either berated him hotly, or simply ignored him totally. Somehow he felt like what he had just witnessed was true anger. But if this was true anger, then what were all those times before? Was she really angry then?
The morning sunrise was just as beautiful despite whatever else had befallen the planet, and the semi-permanent crimson rainbow caused by Lilith's dying wound painted a thin swath across the sky. It wasn't that Shinji was really self-conscious as he walked, but Asuka's presence, especially with her subtle changes in mood made things different.
Her previous anger had quickly cooled after less than a day, though she never told him what he had said wrong. Instead, she had begun joining him in his morning walks on the odd days when he awoke early. There was a kind of apologetic air between them, as if she recognized the fix he was in, but at the same time wasn't willing to explain whatever land-mine he had stumbled into in that conversation of a few weeks ago.
As it turned out, the reason they had not run into anybody was because they had left the beach so quickly, and on top of that had headed back into the wrecked Tokyo-3. Most of the survivors had clustered in the two towns nearest the edges of the once great city, and Maya simply couldn't understand why the two teens had traveled back into the city instead of seeking shelter elsewhere. Shinji didn't know how to tell her that the city, even with all its problems, was all he knew. He literally didn't even know where any of the other townships were located.
Sometimes they talked as they traveled the now familiar sidewalk through the small town where they lived, but mostly they just walked. Perhaps it was by mutual understanding that the more conversation there was, the more chance they had for misunderstanding, or maybe it was just the general mental weariness they had both felt since awakening. Even now no one really knew the effects temporary dissolution had on the survivors who had come back.
Maya had talked excitedly about the expeditions back into the ruined city, and especially about the possibility of reactivating the MAGI. If it happened, morale would definitely improve. People had gotten used to the comfort of being governed by the super-systems, and in truth they were needed more than ever to help efficiently oversee the rebuilding.
Shinji personally did not know of any word whatsoever from outside the mainland, though it was safe to assume that there were survivors elsewhere as well who were desperately rebuilding civilization where they were. Maya had told him once that they had picked up indications from the one satellite receiver they had operating that there was at least one other source tapping into that particular satellite, so at least somewhere there was probably someone with an operable system, unless it was just an automatic ping.
This early there were hardly any people up and about, and fewer were out walking around, so it was with quite a bit of surprise that Shinji happened to notice two others turn the corner not two blocks away. It took another few seconds for him to actually recognize who it was, and he heard Asuka gasp beside him. Walking, and now running, towards them was none other than Hikari, shrieking with delight as she ran, with Touji jogging behind. Jogging, Shinji noticed after a second stunned glance.
It was almost a mirror image of Maya's tackle, and it was the second time since awakening that Asuka had been tearfully hugged. Some back corner of Shinji's mind noted from her lack of tension that she at least seemed to be getting used to it. In the awkward silence males always endured whenever female counterparts did embarrassing things, Touji noticed Shinji's attention on his leg.
"Good as new," he said, patting his leg with a bit of a smile. The same wary eyes and distant expression marked him as one who had undergone a rougher experience than most during instrumentality.
"Well," Shinji said, "at least someone got something good out of all this." He was still unsure how he was going to endure everyone he knew acting like they'd been stripped naked and violated in front of everyone else. For all he knew that had happened to at least someone during their stay in that purgatory. He still had not even asked Asuka what she had undergone, but if it was anything like what he had experienced, he wasn't sure he wanted to know. "Where's Kensuke?" he asked, before he had a chance to think about it. The instant worry in Touji's expression, quickly pushed out of sight, told him all he needed to know.
"I'm sure he's somewhere around," Touji said, waving off his own hurt and Shinji's sudden apology. "He wouldn't miss this for the world. He's probably off somewhere looking for his camera."
After a long silence Asuka spoke, cutting through the discomfort.
"Want to come over for dinner?"
"Tonight?" Hikari asked. "We've already got the ingredients for what we're going to make for out own supper though."
"So bring it over, and we'll cook at our place," Shinji offered.
"Can't," Hikari said quickly. "It's too big to move." Shinji looked surprised and a little amused at this.
"So use the small one I have."
"Absolutely not! It would ruin the taste-"
The argument went on for another minute and a half before Touji stepped in. "Are we gonna have to settle this with rock-paper-scissors?" he asked in a tired voice.
"How about an arm-wrestling contest?" Asuka taunted. Touji apparently caught only her jovial tone, and missed the deadly serious eyes.
"You're on!" Touji proclaimed, then his shaking finger paused, and a look of terror entered his face. "Wait, what've I done? Shinji, man, help me!" he implored. "I've just signed my soul away to the Red Devil!"
"Can't help you there," Shinji answered matter-of-factly. "I've already done that myself."
Touji began to whimper as Asuka dragged him off.
Light from the lamp to his left played over the pages of his notebook, and he chewed absentmindedly at the tip of his pen as he considered the carefully penned words he had so far. So far, the top of the pen was pretty wrecked. Asuka floated through the living room and brushed by his chair on her way from the bathroom to the bedroom, and he tried to ignore the gesture without making it too obvious.
"Shinji," her voice floated through the open door. "We've got to leave pretty soon." Her voice carried none of the stress she was feeling if she was prodding him this openly.
"Hn. Yeah..." He went over the words again. The feeling wasn't quite right. He wanted to accurately present the odd fear he had always felt around Asuka. How her casual nonchalance had constantly questioned whether she even knew he existed, while at other times the littlest of things, like a smile in the hallway after the lava-dive, seemed to carry so much meaning. That constant fear, how it was so obvious she didn't need him or anyone, and could leave him at any time. The desperate quest to keep her attention, and how it always backfired. That was how it had been in reality. In the dream, she had already changed, the mask having slipped a bit.
"Hikari will worry if we're too late."
"Hn, yeah..." Now he was beginning to feel like he always had when she woke him up to go to school. If he could just get a few more minutes to gather his thoughts it would be fine, otherwise he might lose the thread he had such a tenuous grasp on. Suddenly a familiar I'm-Ticked expression slid into view as Asuka shoved her nose up to his.
"If you 'hn, yeah' one more time I'm going to 'hn yeah' right up your..." She happened to glance down at his latest section. After a moment of reading, her hard expression had vanished behind pink cheeks. "Don't write about something like that!"
"Something like what?" he said, trying the innocent look. It didn't fly, and she opened her mouth to castigate him, but he beat her to the punch. "You know, this story is benign compared to some of the stuff I know."
"I'll murder you in your sleep-!" her blush had turned dangerous.
"You could do that to someone you like?" He asked confidently. The tone he had tried for had its effect, and she went scarlet. She immediately turned, trying unsuccessfully to hide her face.
"Give it!" she tried to snatch he notebook away, but he was already out of the chair and running. A chase ensued. Shinji happened to bump into the lamp-stand beside the recliner, and took note of Asuka's concerned look, and how she stopped for a moment to keep it from falling. He mowed a swath to the bedroom door, listening for the satisfying shriek of rage that came moments later.
"As soon as I fix this room, I'm finding that book!" she yelled from the other room. "And then you're next, buster!"
"Maybe I'll enjoy that," he called back. After several clatters of things being returned to where they went, he heard a huff and a sigh as she apparently sat down somewhere. He paused in his efforts to look for a suitable hiding place for the manuscript.
Another sigh. "Fine," she finally said. "Look, we're really going to be late, so-"
"It's no fun when you just give up like that," he called back in a sad voice. Silence greeted his remark, and he was just about to stand and get ready to go when she was at the doorway and across the room in a very few graceful silent movements. He found himself held against the wall, her fingers on several vital points including his throat. The dangerous glint in her eyes warned him against the futility of using his own skills.
Did I go too far?
"Don't mess with me," she said, her voice quiet and hard.
"'kay?" he finally managed to gasp. Thoughts of a pleasant evening meal with his old school friends left his mind as he desperately tried to think of a way to defuse the situation.
"Shinji?" she asked, her voice still deadly. He was about to reply when her expression softened. "Gotcha," she said, releasing him. Humor and a bit of gloating sparkled in her eyes as she turned to go. She silently padded back to the living room, and he let out the breath he didn't even know he had been holding.
Every morning that Shinji awoke to the feel of a reality free of other minds cramming their way into his, free of mind-numbing suicides (and the occasional Rei-icide), and most importantly a reality where time wasn't under his control, he thanked whatever powers there were.
Most people might envy the ability to turn back time, but the drawback was that he had gone through an impact each time it had happened. There had actually been a point where he had somehow grown used to the horror inflicted on his psyche each time it happened. He had found ways of coping, somehow. And none of it was even real.
It didn't matter. He was free of it now, and that was it. Not that he really regretted what had happened in the dream. The happy moments he had spent with her were priceless in his mind, but it was kind of like finding a flower in the middle of a field of mud. To reach it you had to get really dirty.
Turning his head to the side, he saw that Asuka's futon on the other side of the room was empty, which was not surprising. There were times when Shinji got up early, but Asuka always got up on the dot at the usual absurd hour.
At this point he happened to notice that the blankets to his left were mussed up and his left side barely tingled with a bit of warmth. So maybe Asuka hadn't gotten up earlier in the morning. What was it about him that made every girl he got close to try to molest him in his sleep? Well, except Akira, but then again he hadn't slept with her-
He abruptly cut off the strange thread of thought, unable to keep a blush from crawling up his face. No, Asuka had just awoken, he could hear her in the bathroom, water splashing as she apparently washed her face. In fact he could see her reflection in the mirror through the partially open door. She had just finished drying her face, her hair in careful disarray, and was reaching for a brush when he realized that she could also see him in the same reflection.
He knew it was no use trying to explain why he was blushing, so he waited for the inevitable negative reaction. It didn't come, and he watched as her own cheeks went slightly pink, then she went back to brushing her hair. It so stunned him that he just lay there blinking dully as he tried to grasp the situation.
Why isn't she getting angry? he wondered. There had never been a time in the past when she had acted like this. Is this something new, something else I'm going to have to watch out for? It took him a moment to fully realize how simple it was. This wasn't something, it was the real her, the one she had never shown him before. It was hard to think of her as anything but the brash young woman who had always treated him nonchalantly and kept him at arm's length. But that was the point. Whenever she had pushed him away, she had never completely shut him out. Which must have been why she got so angry before. It hit him all at once, and the revelation nearly took his breath away.
"I'm sorry," he finally said.
She didn't berate him, she didn't get angry, she just looked at him through the mirror, question in her eyes, perhaps wondering what he meant.
"I'm sorry for thinking the way you always acted was really you," he explained, relieved when her further calm validated his guess. And he really was sorry. His mistake had only worsened the constant clashes between them. "I'm sorry for always misunderstanding, back then, and for not being someone who could really stand by you as a friend." If anything, the shade of pink on her cheeks got worse.
"How can you say such embarrassing things?" she finally managed to ask in a small voice. Shinji grinned and chuckled, unable to help himself.
"Well, I finally realized it's the truth," he admitted.
Wind rushed through the tops of the trees alongside the road they walked, Shinji to whatever construction project his supervisor had him on, and Asuka to her work with Maya on the MAGI. The two of them were making trivial conversation, and it was nice. She never would have said so in the past, but Shinji was a decent hard-working person, and she was happy to be his friend. Several weeks ago she had told him that, though not in so many words, and had watched in amusement as he had blushed and floundered. Whatever else had changed, at his core he was still the same.
The past months hadn't been perfect, but with the careful amount of leeway she had given him, he had not made any mistakes serious enough to strain a friendship, and it really hurt her to think about how she had misjudged him in the past.
"That guy at your site isn't giving you any more crap, is he?" she asked suddenly.
"Nah," Shinji replied. "We haven't actually had a fight or anything, but he's backed off."
"Oh?" she said, suddenly feeling suspicious for some reason.
"Yeah," Shinji said, looking a little too full of himself for her taste. "I kind of told him that even if he did win a fight with me, my girlfriend would beat his ass into the ground."
Asuka snorted to cover a desperate outburst of laughter, and didn't manage to suppress an embarrassing giggle.
"Yeah, but after I beat him, I'd pound you into the ground for losing." Her eyes silently dared him to react to her giggle. "You know, you don't have to go out there and do such dangerous work," she said after another moment. "With what the government's given us, we could live comfortably."
"I know," he said. "I just want to do something meaningful though. Something to at least begin to help fix all this."
"Of course you do," she said softly. His expression had turned glum, but she refused to baby him or try to cheer him up. It was enough that she didn't chew him up for falling into such self-deprecation. He glanced at her suddenly, and she got a bad feeling. She steeled herself, preparing for whatever embarrassing or unintentional slight he might accidentally say.
"You don't have to work either," he reminded her, glancing down at her stomach, which had only just barely started to even begin to show signs of growth. "Has the doctor said anything about-"
"Shinji, I'm not going to be a weakling!" She managed to curtail anything further, but the lack of trust he had displayed was too appalling to just let slide. Yes, he cared, but couldn't he trust her to know how far to push herself? "How often do you just forget everything you know about me?" She asked, still unable to completely take the bite out of her tone. And of course next he would apologize, and she'd have to hold herself back, and then-
"No," Shinji admitted. "I really stepped in that one, didn't I?" She stared at his rueful expression for a few moments, almost wondering if he had really defused things that quickly. He had never been that smooth in the past.
"Yep," she finally answered, looking back forward again as they continued walking.
"-c'mon Hikari, that would be like surrendering his manhood!" Touji's voice was as teasing as it usually was when the normally withdrawn boy spoke.
"Only an idiot would think that Shinji and Asuka don't like each other," Hikari scolded her recalcitrant charge. The two subjects of conversation were visible in the distance on the lonely road.
"Don't do it, Shinji," Touji murmured, trying to ignore Hikari's elbow jabs. "-don't do it, man..."
In the distance Shinji did it. Hikari watched, half-shocked as Asuka put her arm around the boy in a half-hug before giving him a gentle shove in the direction he was headed. He turned and said something, she smiled, and then he walked away. All in all, this kind of thing wasn't at all what she knew of Asuka, even though she had tried to push her in that direction during the war. Asuka had apparently noticed Hikari and Touji, for she stood there waiting for them to catch up.
"Go on ahead, Touji," she whispered.
"What? But-"
"Don't argue, just go!" she said, winking to take the sting out of it.
"Alright, alright!" he raised his hands in surrender and angled off towards the road Shinji had taken. "Girls and their girl-talk," he muttered as he left. He yelped when she swatted him, trying to look hurt, but failing miserably when he saw her mischievous smile. "See ya later," he said, waving as he turned to go.
"Yeah, later," she answered softly.
She walked up, met Asuka, and they continued walking towards the ruined Tokyo-3. The construction site where the two boys worked was quite a distance from where Maya and her team were working on restoring the MAGI, and as always there was plenty of time to talk. But as always, she could tell that Asuka was holding things back. She had done this during the war, so Hikari was used to it by now, but that was different. At that time Asuka had been privy to state secrets and was under obligation not to talk. But now they both had the same clearances, and it hurt that Asuka was still hiding things.
She never pushed Asuka over it, that just wasn't the way she did things. It wouldn't have felt right. Nor did she try to figure it out herself. If Asuka didn't want to tell her things, she did not want to know. To find out accidentally would be even worse. But the lack of trust still hurt
For a moment she wondered if Shinji actually knew more secrets about Asuka than Hikari herself knew. The two had become close, at least to any outside observer, and Hikari knew Asuka wasn't playing with him. She really had let the boy past her defenses for whatever reason.
What would make her do that? She observed Asuka as they walked and chatted. On the average, everyone was a bit more open than they had been. For all a person knew, his dirty laundry had been hung out for everyone to see during impact, so there seemed less point in hiding things. And yet Asuka was more closed than ever, with everybody except Shinji it seemed.
She spent time with others, more with Hikari than anyone else, but the wall was always there, even if they never discussed it. At least she wasn't sick any more. No matter what questions she had, it was never easy to watch someone run to the bathroom suddenly, and know something was wrong.
Asuka had been sick for over a month. Too long to be food poisoning. Surely it didn't take a month to find out what you were eating that was making you sick. And it wasn't some kind of virus, or they wouldn't have let her come to work. What else could it be?
It didn't come all at once, and at first she didn't even believe it when the idea came to her. She certainly couldn't tell just by looking at her life-long friend, but it began to make a horrifying kind of sense. The temporary sickness, the girl's new openness towards Shinji.
"No!" she squeaked, hands flying to her mouth. "You, you didn't! You two, you...!"
Asuka's immediate look of consternation was all the answer she needed.
"But, but why? How?? You two aren't even-"
"We're getting married, Hikari," Asuka said, trying to cover over the sorrow she felt at having hidden things for so long. "It was going to be announced at the state dinner a week from yesterday."
"When?" Hikari breathed.
"In a few months, when things settle down a little more." She looked like she wanted to say more, but couldn't.
"I'm not mad," Hikari said quickly. "Not, not really. I mean, I'm happy for you, for both of you."
"We didn't tell anybody," Asuka said with a stricken look. "It wasn't just you. You're probably the only one who's guessed right."
"What about the doctor?" Hikari asked.
"Well, it's not like we could hide it from the doctor," Asuka admitted. "Hikari, look-"
"Didn't I just say I wasn't mad?" Hikari smiled and wiped the edges of her eyes. "It's not like I'd just cut you off because of something like this. Is that why you kept waiting?"
Asuka started to speak several times, before finally answering.
"The longer we put off telling everybody about it, the more awkward it became," she finally admitted glumly. "Hikari, I..." she fell silent for a moment before continuing. "I love him, Hikari, but I don't think this is what he wants. I mean, we didn't plan for this, it just happened."
"This kind of thing doesn't 'just happen'," Hikari exclaimed in mock-fury feeling satisfaction when Asuka at least chuckled, recognizing the humor.
"We were alone. I was defeated, and he had just melted everyone on earth down into puddles of jello." Asuka's voice held faint irritation, though it wasn't really directed at her. "I was tired of holding back, Hikari. I think he was too. We both knew we were dead, especially if there was no one else left alive. What would you have done?"
Hikari didn't answer, partly because she was still a little shell-shocked, and partly because she really wasn't sure.
"Hell no!" Asuka continued dragging the hapless boy behind her, not giving him time to be embarrassed the she was holding his hand. "I already told you, you're not wearing your school uniform!This is supposed to be a formal dinner you nitwit!"
"What, umm, what do you mean?" Shinji asked, trying to sound suspicious.
"You think I don't remember what happened back in that, that thing," she yelled, referencing the his date with Akira inside instrumentality. "Just because you feel secure now that you've got a girl doesn't mean you can go to pot!" Shinji tried not to smile. "You're representing me now, so it's makeover time," she said more calmly.
It wasn't until later in the day after she had critically worked him over that she noticed he was enjoying the attention. She tore into him for a good five minutes, noting quite well how even as he squirmed, he wasn't really worried. Finally she just stood there, tapping her foot, arms crossed as she surveyed her newly made-over charge.
"...umm, Asuka, I didn't really mean to-"
"If you wanted to go out and do something with me, all you had to do was ask," she said more quietly.
"Let's go eat something, then," he said, not looking away.
"Alright," she said after a moments' pause. "Nowhere cheap, mind you," she instructed him. "I know what the government's given you."
"The same thing it's given you," he reminded her, heading off to the south side of the mall where all the expensive restaurants were.
"How do you know?" she chided him, catching up and looking sidelong at him. He shrugged nonchalantly. "What, you're not going to ask?" she prodded.
"How much did the government give you, Asuka?" he asked innocently, and she jabbed him with her elbow.
"You're no fun to tease any more."
"Sir, you really don't have to-"
"Nonsense," Fuyutsuki cut off Shinji's embarrassed apology with a wave and a tired smile. "What you two are doing is very courageous." He put one hand on the young man's shoulder, and the other on the young woman at his side. "After all you've done for us, I'm going to be the one to announce your engagement, and that's final." Shinji squirmed a bit underneath the kind old man's powerful aura, then set his expression for a moment.
"Did you ever talk like this to my father?" The question was spoken without any trace of the loathing he could have felt, the hatred he was justified in feeling, or the respect a child has for a parent.
"At times, yes," the man answered, looking Shinji up and down, and finally nodding in satisfaction at whatever changes he decided he liked. Shinji was so absorbed in the give and take of the short conversation that he jumped when Asuka threaded her arm through his and pulled him towards the door. He saw from her expression that she was perturbed. They traveled through the door of the spacious office down the hall towards the elevator that would take them to the level where the ballroom was located.
"You know, I like how you've changed, but sometimes you can sure be a mood-buster when you open your mouth!"
He blinked, then smiled.
"I love you too."
"That wasn't-!" The finger on his chest pushing him up against the wall froze, then dropped when the lift doors opened, and another couple stepped in. Shinji sweated as the couple stood, whispering to each other and giggling silently. They were in their own world, and the fake smile on Asuka's face outshone the fluorescent lamp overhead. His arm, however, was beginning to go numb from the death grip of her arm threaded through it. The only upshot that his hormones had already discovered was that she was hugging his arm against something soft. Numbers slowly ticked downwards. The doors eventually opened, and the couple stepped out, never having even given any indication they knew anyone else was present in the elevator.
"Pervert!" She swatted him over to the other side of the elevator.
"Is that any was to speak to your fiancé?" he asked, feigning a hurt look as he rubbed his shoulder. "Besides, it's not like we haven't already-"
When the elevator dinged, a solemn old man walked regally into the compartment to find Asuka frozen, one hand holding the boy's collar, pushing him against the wall, the other hand covering his mouth. The old man harrumphed once, then settled into the middle of the elevator, facing the door, ignoring the two young upstarts.
For thirty long seconds the elevator was filled with silence. The man stood like a statue, Shinji glanced up at the ceiling and resisted the urge to try to hum nonchalantly, while trying to ignore the murderous aura emanating from his wife-to-be, who stood to his right, her arms crossed over her chest. Fortunately for Shinji's new clothes, the man stayed with them down to the ball-room floor level.
The dinner was a long formal affair, and the speakers droned on and on. By this point the raw embarrassment and shock in the face of the people you passed in the street was covered over by time and new experiences, but one only had to look closely to find traces of it still present and showing, especially at an event like this that was so strong a reminder.
Still, even a teenager had limits, and all of them that were present were beginning to fidget or shift in their seats, until the Prime Minister reascended the podium and began to give his thanks to those who had so valiantly fought to preserve reality.
He read off names of those living, and of those dead, giving special mention to the pilots, including Touji since he had been a pilot for however brief a time. Shinji saw the boy blushing as a very prettily dressed Hikari leaned over and whispered something in his ear. He glanced over to his left to where Asuka sat, and was still taken aback by how beautiful she had made herself.
Her hair had been done up into an extremely complicated and delicate bun with two wispy curls hanging down outlining her face. This left her shoulders bare and in Shinji's opinion the only thing holding up her dress were her curves. No matter how much it hurt to be reminded of Rei, he couldn't keep himself from glancing at her, and he only barely kept himself from ogling, which she would have bitten his head off of for even if she did enjoy the attention.
The Prime Minister continued extolling the now-partially-declassified exploits the Eva pilots had performed, and somehow he had expected Asuka to be soaking up the glory more than she was. He had to consciously remind himself that most of that had been the front she showed to the world, and still showed for the most part unless they were alone.
The Prime Minister surrendered the podium to Kozou Fuyutski, who proceeded to give a eulogy to Rei, which included a bit more about her past than had ever been released before. By the time he had finished there were few dry eyes in the place, and anyone with a free mind and an open heart, and who had been paying attention, would have noticed soft laughter and a flash of pastel blue hair.
But no one here was such a person. In fact, there were only two people in all of Japan who could claim such attributes, and the one of them who happened to be paying attention indeed saw. This particular monk had been sitting in meditation before third impact, had continued to sit during, and was sitting now. To him the entire thing had been nothing more than the changing of seasons. Some might have considered such a view to be cold or callous, but to the monk things were just the way they were. Life had been before, and would continue after.
Sitting in an abandoned temple many miles away, the old monk smiled, for it was not often he saw something new. This presence was indeed something unique, he knew. This presence, this she, had not attained the realm she currently inhabited, not by her own efforts, but she had certainly earned the right to stay at that position. Seeking back along the parts of her lifeline he could see, it was evident that her situation was unique. Usually when one passed beyond the veil their position in the cosmos was set, since suffering no longer existed in any real sense, and they could no longer be tempered into further improvement.
But this she, this Rei, was not completely disconnected from the earthly plane. Yet she was also not technically alive. In fact, any suffering she underwent was create by her alone. He almost shuddered to think of what she had gone through before finally understanding her plight. Then he actually did shudder when he considered the possibilities.
With all possible suffering right there at her call, the only limits to her improvement were the limits in her own mind. Yet with such such a great capacity to succeed, and attain unimaginable heights, there was just as much capacity to fail, and if she did the depths to which she would fall were just as inconceivable.
The temptation to free her from this horrifying potential was almost too great for him to control. Almost. Carefully he withdrew what little power he had. If he had freed her, she would have been safe, at very nearly the realm he had access to, but he could see the bent and the needs of her soul. While she would have been grateful to him, that small sorrow at what might have been would torture hor as long as she existed.
Plus, who was he to decide? It was her test to pass or fail. He sighed with relief. Perhaps he had just passed his own test, in a way. It didn't matter. Calming his mind, he prepared to return to the practice he had already undertook for the better part of thirty years. That was when Rei apparently noticed his attention. He sat, fascinated, as they conversed on a level and at a speed few humans would be able to grasp, even if most of it was concentrated emotion rather than actual words or concepts. He smiled once more. Perhaps there was something he could do for her after all.
The monk laughed aloud as Rei showed him her wish. Watching the lifelines of all those that would be involved, he saw that there would be tests for many people in the upcoming months. And to think that he would have a part in it. It really would be so very boring when this was all over and events settled back to normal. Then again, that too was probably a test.
Months passed, and things returned to a kind of normal as the survivors fell into routines that allowed them to forget what had happened. In the luxurious apartment that two fifteen year olds now called home, one of them was in the kitchen, humming a sad German tune to herself as she worked. She had done her hair in her own mock-up of the style she worn at the formal dinner months ago, just to get it out of the way.
She had been sleeping better now, and it no longer bothered her that what had brought the change was sleeping close to him. It was almost enough to soothe the hormonal changes she was going through now. Morning sickness had left her two months ago, but now she was getting to the part she had dreaded, knowing pregnancy as she did, having studied it in her various schooling.
It wasn't enough to sleep better. Or rather, her better feeling only made things worse when she had these sudden urges to curl up against him and melt into the mattress. Or maybe go further. It was hard to hold herself back, to keep her addled emotions in check, even knowing that it was the changes in her system that were causing it.
The strong feelings crept their way around her mind, looking for weakness, for an opening. What harm would it do to get close to him? She couldn't hold him at arms length forever, and she wasn't going to leave him. She had realized that long ago. She had no doubt that she could take care of herself and their child by herself, no doubt at all. But that was the point – their child.
Her little girl wasn't going to grow up without a father. Shinji would be there if she had to drag him kicking and screaming. Which brought things full circle. What was the point of holding him at arms length if he was supposed to be there for their child?
She jumped suddenly at Shinji's footsteps in the hall, having somehow missed the quiet sound of the door. Her tune abruptly stopped as she turned to see a strange look in his eyes. He was just standing there staring at her, surprise and dismay evident in that subtle frown. She tried to puzzle out what he was feeling until she abruptly realized what had happened.
It wasn't the first time she had cooked, but it was the first time he had caught her at it. It shouldn't have been a big deal. Wouldn't be if he wasn't so darned sensitive about this kind of thing. She quashed the sudden urge to blame it all on him. He slowly walked over, sat down. The table and chair creaked in the silence. He stared blankly, chin in hand, elbow on the table as she silently cursed herself. The boiling pot in front of her spat defiantly, unhappy at being forgotten.
His empty expression was frightening. He had always been easy to read, easy to understand, and she hated being frightened. He wouldn't leave her just over something like this, couldn't, right? So she had refused to cook during the six months at NERV. So she had let him do all the cooking since they had awakened on the beach. Well, he was a good cook! What was so damn wrong with letting him go and take care of everything since it was in his nature anyway?
"I'm sorry." For a moment she was stunned she had just said that. But she was sorry. Now everything would be fine, as long as he didn't have a heart-attack over her apologizing since it was so rare.
No change. That blank look hadn't even flinched. "Shinji, I'm sorry!" She sat down across from him, taking his hands. "I'm really sorry!" The two wisps of red hair outlined her face as she desperately searched his eyes for any reaction at all. At that moment he looked so cold his face was a chilling reminder of his parentage.
He blinked, and his face softened. Her relief was tempered by how unworthy a part of her felt of his forgiveness.
"I'm sorry," she repeated, silently cursing the part of her that was so scared of that blank expression he had worn. This was beyond new territory, and it didn't feel good at all. He might do anything, maybe he'd get embarrassed and clam up, or maybe he'd break down and look weak.
"It's burning."
She blinked at his words.
"What?"
"Don't let the food burn," he repeated.
As she turned to rescue her food, she tried to decide if his calm response was the best. Don't let the food burn, he says. Like the food was the important thing. No, that was just a diversion, to break the odd mood. She hoped. This coldness though, this awkwardness, it didn't feel good, and if it was going to be the automatic response whenever they ran into something like this, she would have to have a talk with him.
Her thoughts were wildly cut off as she felt arms surround her.
"I'm sorry too."
She didn't ask why he was sorry. She was too busy trying to figure out how he could, at times like this, always react in a way that was so unpredictable it wasn't funny.
"It's awkward, and that's partly my fault."
"Why?" she snapped at him, fighting both the strong urge to push him away, and the even stronger urge to turn and melt into him. "I'm the one who always treated you like crap!" He didn't say anything, and he didn't let her go. She struggled to get out of his grasp, pulled against arms she still felt unworthy of. She stopped abruptly, everything suddenly erased from her mind by a certain unmistakable sensation.
"She moved."
"What?"
She took his hand and placed it on her stomach. Fate smiled, and the young child moved again, under his hand. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him, the previous trouble forgotten. He had a look of open wonder on his face, and she knew her own expression mirrored his.
A knock sounded, and she looked over towards the door in surprise. They both had made acquaintances in their respective jobs, but neither had actually invited others over to their home for any reason. She slipped out of his embrace and left him to tend the stove while she saw to whoever this was.
The darkened living room was immaculate to the untrained observer, but her roving eyes found enough out of place to make her wince inside. She crossed the room and touched a button. The door slid open with a hiss to reveal a man who, despite being bedraggled, was obviously not a vagrant.
"Greetings! I would have a word with you."
His voice was high and quavering, and as he spoke, a chill crawled up her spine. It was quite obvious that he was insane. Not take-a-gun-and-mow-down-a-crowd insane. No, he was completely deranged. No one else would come up to a total strange and start spouting off intricate details about a top-secret project that few knew about, and secrets about a genetically engineered human that almost no one knew about.
Psychotic he might have been, but the information he had was far more detailed than even what she knew. She didn't believe everything he said, couldn't. If she did, her entire world would fall apart. But how much could she believe? He came to the end of his speech, turned without further word or goodbye, and walked away.
She glared at his back, trying to decide how much of what he said was true. The only way to know that would be to investigate for herself.
For the second time in his life Shinji found himself lying next to a girl in a dark room and wondering why things felt so cold between them. Somehow he knew that this time he couldn't reach over, take her hand, and ask her directly, like he had done with Rei. Asuka was likely to give him a withering glare and stalk off to sleep somewhere else.
Maybe. Then again, he still couldn't get used to the way she was so much more calm and open when they were alone. Around others she was the same bouncy outgoing, sometimes arrogant girl that he knew from NERV, but when they were alone she was a completely different person. He could almost feel her relief that she had someone she didn't have to show herself off to.
It had been a great boost to his own confidence that she allowed him to see this other side of her, the true her. The part she never showed to anyone else. He alone saw her openly search for words when they talked over dinner, and idly traded stories from their respective works. To him she showed her embarrassment over things that embarrassed her, happiness when she felt it, or depression when it crept up on her, and he tried to do the same.
It was sometimes hard to appear in public with her, because he couldn't be his usual self around the total exuberance she displayed to everyone else. He was forced into the role of her straight-man at first unwillingly, and then willingly when he understood her better. It almost became a game to be the perfect counter to her personality until one day she had dragged him up against the wall of their apartment and told him that if his games ever outright embarrassed her in public, their next sparring session would get brutal.
"Yes ma'am!" he had said, and maybe it was something about the way he had said it that caused that strange look in her eyes. It hadn't been real fear he had felt, he had truly wanted to follow her wishes, to make her happy. She had gone from holding him by his collar against the wall, to kind of leaning against him, her head on his chest. He had felt safe in putting a hesitant arm around her, but that was as far as that had gone. It had felt almost as if she were testing the water.
All of this came up in his mind, as he considered his life with the one who was now bearing his child. So why was she being so cold to him all of a sudden? It had all begun after that formal government dinner, where they had announced their engagement. Or had planned to, anyway. The dinner had been cut short due to some emergency in the still-dangerous Tokyo-3. So much of it was still in danger of collapse, and a part of it had, apparently. He still didn't know the details. Was she mad because they hadn't been able to put their relationship in the open?
Well, it wasn't that she was really being cold towards him, she just seemed more preoccupied. They still talked, still ate together, still acted like a couple, but it was like she was now holding him at arm's length for some reason. He had no idea why she might suddenly do that, when it had always been her that had sought to be close to him ever since awakening.
After all, they would be married soon, whether or not they had been able to announce it openly as they had wanted. A part of him hated it, but the real girl in front of him was slowly erasing the image in his mind of Rei, and what they had done together in the dream. Sometimes he found himself walking along the beach where he had awoken, and looking out over the waves, hoping to catch a single glimpse of the girl that had meant so much to him.
He found himself making the journey less and less, because every time he did Asuka seemed to be more withdrawn for a day or two, and it was uncomfortable. As he drifted into unconsciousness, he wasn't aware of his companion, who had been carefully observing him, waiting for him to go to sleep.
Slowly and carefully, so as not to disturb him, she dressed, and picked up a backpack she had prepared before hand. His backpack, actually, because it comforted her. She stood slowly, aware of the twinges in her back and hips from the child growing inside her, making its weight quite known now that almost five months had passed since conception.
The journey she was about to take was necessary, even if she didn't believe the insane monk. She had to know, absolutely, for her own sanity to remain intact. She cast a gaze back on his peaceful sleeping form, memorizing his features, as if it might be the last time she saw them. The raw pain on her face would have been uncomfortable to see, had anyone else been there to see it.
Over the past months, Rei had traveled far, without ever leaving her cocoon. She knew quite clearly where she was by now, but it was okay. She often traveled the road inwards, exploring the realms of consciousness, and each time she went a little further. Sometimes she seemed to make tremendous progress, and others it was almost like she was going backwards.
For a while, she worked earnestly, seeking a way of escape, but she had seen the futility of that after a few weeks. After that, she had earnestly sought to better herself, to reach perfection before her inevitable death. Death which would not be quick in coming, since the liquid in which she lay somehow nourished her. But then this body would have had to be kept alive to be of use as part of the dummy plug.
After further weeks of concentration in which she seemed to make almost no progress, she had given up in despair, and prepared to wait things out. It was then that she came to the soul-shaking realization that seeking perfection or completion was not only improbable, it was illogical. That which was perfect and unchanging could never be 'attained' because of the very fact that it was unchanging. Besides, what was she trying to become? The very act of being aware was enough.
After that, the sky seemed to have opened up, and it wasn't long before she could summon any scene she wanted just by thinking it. At first she assumed that the scenes she was observing were illusion, or things she imagined to keep from going crazy, but she had within the past week observed what appeared to be work crew working along the broken Geofront. That in itself had not been as shocking as when one of them had activated a sonic drill, and she both heard and saw it in the vision, and at the same time felt it through the plug wall, vibrating the liquid in which she was immersed.
She had been forced to admit that she was observing reality. She had spent long days questing outwards with her consciousness, observing sights she had never experienced in her sheltered life in the Geofront. Other than her travels, she spent much of her time observing Shinji and Asuka grow together. It was fulfilling to see the one she loved piece himself back together, even though a part of her hurt like a grievous open wound.
But both the fulfillment and the hurt were simply feelings, and they came and went, leaving her true self undisturbed. Day by day she observed the patterns of change, the rebuilding of the Geofront, the final repair of the Linear Rail lines, the Japanese people as a whole shaking off the tragedy that had been inflicted on them. Day by day she slowly lost her sense of self, almost as if she was becoming one with all the people around her, their patterns, goals, likes, dislikes. Even so, she did not fail to note the sudden strong outburst of emotion from a single soul directly below where she lay. She saw the lost, torn, crying, very pregnant fifteen year old below, and she knew her life was in the girl's hands.
She watched as the girl dried her tears, wiping her face with a sleeve. When she looked up again, her face was hard. She got up, walked over to the control panel, and reached out towards it. Her finger shook as it got closer to the touch-screen. It hovered over the flashing icon, and her lip trembled slightly.