Evangelion Rewrite: Chapter 16 The Truth

Shinji sat at the table with a glass of cool water in his hand. Since the gunmen broke into Misato's apartment, Shinji had gone to sleep to think on the situation and in the early hours of the morning, Shinji decided to tell Misato everything. Shinji heard the sound of electronic door opened and a few seconds later, PenPen waddled into view. "Hey you." Shinji said both calmly and quietly. "I didn't see you yesterday." PenPen waddled over to Shinji and stood by his chair, in response, Shinji gently scratched PenPen's head, causing the bird to coo slightly.

Misato walked in calmly and sat down, opposite to Shinji. Shinji half expected her to be groggy and unresponsive. But she was clearly in a no nonsense mood this morning. "Misato." Shinji began and Misato looked at him. Her face wasn't scowling, but it was hard and a little demanding. "I think that, now is the time I told you everything. So that I'm no longer hiding anything from you and no longer abusing your trust in me." Misato's face lightened into a smile. "If something's too difficult, I'll understand if you want to skip it. But everything you tell me better not be a lie." Shinji nodded in response to Misato and began his explanation.

"One of the oldest memories I have, is of my mothers death. As a child, I couldn't understand why she was dead. But watching her disappear before my eyes was all the conformation a small child needed to know. Later that day. My father took me home and then left without another word. He abandoned me, left me crying in the middle of a street; my knees were grazed from falling over after I had tried to run after him. Thankfully, my school teacher took me in and I lived with him for several years and in that time his girlfriend would sometimes visit. I don't remember much of what happened during that time, only the things he taught me. Such as reading, writing and basic skills. However, one day his girlfriend disappeared and the man I called 'teacher' began to grow cold. It was painful living in such an unfeeling atmosphere, so I ran away. I ran away because I thought that I could find my mother, it must have been the pain of losing someone that I was so dependent on and so attached to as a child, but sometimes, it seemed like I could see my mother watching me. Yet, this runaway trip to find my dead mother proved fatal and in the end I nearly ended up dying of hunger on the edge of a dark alleyway."

"For hours, I laid against a foul smelling garbage can, feeling the life being drawn out of my body. I must have passed out, because I awoke in a room, sat on a chair, in clean clothes. A man in a suit entered and sat a tray of food and water down on my lap and I devoured everything in front of me in seconds, not once thinking of the consequences. The suited man was an older person with grey hair and he a thin growth of grey hair on his upper lip, but most important of all, he had a red band around his arm. He said to me 'if you ever want to eat like that again, you'll have to earn it with cash.' Then he drove me to a cheap and filthy motel and showed me a room at the back. It was to be mine for the next few years. The noise surrounded my room scared me, every other night, it sounded like somebody was being tortured and it took a couple of years to realize that these weren't screams of pain but a different kind of scream." Shinji looked down as he said this and fidgeted slightly. Misato wondered whether to tell him to take a break, but Shinji continued before she could.

"The next day, after my first night at the motel, I was desperate for money. I could put up with the motel, despite how much it scared me, if I could just eat again. Within an hour, I noticed somebody drop his wallet down next to me, whilst he was searching for change to give to a stall owner. The man bent down to pick it up, but I was faster and I snatched it up, before he could, and ran. Once I was sure I was safe, I decided that this was how I would pay the old man with the red band. So I started to pickpocket, I got caught a lot first, but I would always bite my target and make a run for it. Never once was anybody faster than me. However, a year later, the old man said that the money wasn't enough anymore and so desperate as I was, I started to rob from stores at night and burglarize homes and apartment during the early afternoons when nobody was home. This kept me fed for another year, until the old man asked for more. I panicked unsure of what to do, but the old man said that he had an idea. He had a younger man with tattoos teach me how to steal cars, breaking into them and hot-wiring, that sort of thing. Driving was a pain at first and I almost got caught several times, but eventually I became good at it. I reckon I must have been making, on average, around four hundred thousand yen a steal." Shinji bit his lip, remembering that it wasn't something to be proud of. "Well, as you probably guessed, a year later the old man asked for more money. However, this time a man grabbed me and stuffed some sort of cloth into my face." Shinji's voice began to crack and Misato gripped her knees, but Shinji continued on. Determined to tell his story. "When I awoke, my hands were bound behind my back and I had a collar around my neck. A large brutish looking man held the leash. I won't go into detail on what I was wearing, but it was black and left... nothing, absolutely nothing to the imagination. It was a dark night and the brute walked me down many dark alleyways until we came out a sectioned off street and I saw people who kept staring at me and people who just glanced and moved on. Thankfully, and something I'm grateful for, it was too dark to see any of their faces and I couldn't make out their focused eyes." Shinji tightened up and rocked back and forth slightly. Misato's eyes watered slightly.

"Shinji... you don't have to-" Misato began, her voice very much full of concern and a bitter sadness, but she was interrupted by Shinji who still wished to continue. "Don't worry, this is where it gets easier." He said and continued "Well, after that, I'm not sure of what happened. There's a big blank in my memory. Because the next thing I remember, is being inside of a police station with a blanket wrapped around me. I remember looking up to see the caring eyes of a police officer looking back down at my own. He lead me into a room with drinks and sweets and something came over me that made me feel like I hadn't eaten for a long time. But I stayed back, I guess, in my childlike manner, I assumed that there was going to be a catch. However, I felt a gentle hand press softly against my back. A policewoman had appeared and she gently guided me over to the food, where I greedily devoured the food in front of me. They both laughed kindly when I had finished within a couple of minutes. After that the man showed me a picture of the old man who had taken me in and had extorted me. He asked' do you know where this man is?' I nodded and thought in silence until I remembered where the old man with the red band, and presumably his lackeys, worked. A plumbing company, or at least, that must have been the front. Upon my words, the police officer left the room and left the policewoman behind. She tried to coo me and kindly settle me. But I ignored her, instead I looked for a way out. Finding no way out, I pretended to accidentally spill the water in front of me and when she opened the door to leave, I darted out before her and made my escape. I don't know why, but I felt that I had to get to the organized crime hideout and so I ran without a single break until I found that plumbing company. I didn't fully know my way, so I had gotten there long after the police had finished their raid and watched the police drag out all sorts of unseemly characters with red bands around their arms, including, the old man. In the dead of the night, that old man had spotted me, he didn't say anything, he just watched me with a silent fury. After he was taken away, I slipped into the building and made my way up to the old man's room; travelling through the ventilation shafts. Yet, before I could get into his room, something blocked my way. It was a suitcase. So I turned it flat, kicked the shaft open and jumped out into the room that was my destination. Then I pulled the suitcase out and opened it and, to my surprise, it was full of money. So I came out the same way I came in and within a few days of carrying the suitcase around with me. I had found a bank to hide it in. A bank I've since returned to in order to retrieve more money and change the suitcase's hiding position. After that, I simply used up some of the money I had taken out in order to move from rundown motel to rundown motel. Until one day I ran out of money and the next day I got a letter from you, Misato."

Shinji finished and the room was silent, nothing stirred. Misato watched Shinji slowly shrink into himself as he waited for something to break the silence, so Misato got up, walked over to him and, to Shinji's surprise, she had hugged him. "It's okay Shinji, I forgive you." She told him quietly. "And I understand. I understand why you are the way you are. But it's nothing to be ashamed of, all of the pain is behind you now and you came out stronger than anybody else could have ever done." Misato broke the hug and looked at Shinji who stared at her in silence, his eyes watered until large tears fall from his face. "You've made me proud by reliving all of those painful memories just to tell me the truth and I'm so sorry that I forced you do something that painful for me, Shinji." Misato hugged Shinji again and they both fell silent.

"The seventh angel is upon us and I have faith in you two, so put some effort into it and make me proud!" Shinji shouted whilst stood on top of a chair with a flag of the rising sun in his hand, a quick glance around Misato's apartment and you'd see that everything was covered in an assortment of rising sun flags, posters and trinkets. Even PenPen wore a rising sun headband and miniature cape. "Shut up already, you're making it harder than Rei's already doing. You idiot!" Asuka screamed, which caused PenPen to flee into his icy hideout. 'Ah, so that's why I couldn't find PenPen yesterday. Shinji thought to himself and sat down to drink out of his rising sun mug. Rei and Asuka had come to Misato's apartment for their last chance to practice synchronized movement. Eventually the music started again and Rei and Asuka began to use the dance mats, they were pretty good at it by now. But Rei was still too passive and Asuka was still too aggressive. So Shinji tried to cheer them on. But this lead to Asuka snapping at him again. "Why are you even here!? Weren't you laughing at us for this only a day ago!?" Shinji's reply was instantaneous. "If you fail to beat the seventh angel, then I won't be able to go on a date with Maya." Asuka twitched slightly at Shinji's sudden conformation of vice.

"What kind of a total idiot would want to be even near you?" Asuka asked, Rei watched the conversation pan out with meek interest. "Whatever kind of idiot is smarter than you." Shinji answered her and before she could reply, he cut in to add "quit slacking, by now an angel would have used you as his personal doorknocker to Nerv!" Asuka grumbled, but Misato clapped her hands as a signal to just get on with, so she remained silent.

After Rei and Asuka had finished training, Shinji opened a rising sun bento. "Ahh, that workout tired me out." Asuka gripped her fist at this, but decided it wasn't worth it. Shinji knew how to press all the right buttons to piss her off. Before tucking in, however, Shinji got out two more bento and laid them next to him. "I made one for each of you as well." In response to this, Asuka just snootily raised her chin and tucked in, whilst Rei just tucked in. "Tomorrow is the day of the rematch." Shinji said, brining up the obvious. "We know that already you idiot." Asuka said while munching on her food. "Tomorrow is the day I reappoint the second date with Maya." Shinji said and smiled with rosy cheeks. Asuka tried to ignore him and continued eating her food with a scowl. Misato went to get herself a beer and everything seemed normal, except for Rei. Who picked at her food. "Do you want us to defeat the angel so you can be with Maya?" Rei asked Shinji. Shinji was quite put off, Rei was being unusually personal today, perhaps his last conversation did get to her. So he smiled and answered with. "Of course I do! Yet, I do also want you both to win out of pure survival based reasons. You're my partners, no matter how much I may end up disliking either of you, I feel that we'll one day have an unconditional trust for each other." Rei nodded as she took in the information in, then she continued eating.

Asuka flicked a grain of rice at Shinji's forehead, calling him a "good for nothing, idiot."