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Chapter 21: "...You're face, to face …"
Shinji just let himself stare into the blue sky.
Resting next to him, his SDAT player was unused, but still close by. He knew he should destroy it; he should smash it into a million pieces.
But somehow, if he did that, it felt like he would be destroying another piece of himself.
Right now, he needed to get away from everyone for a bit, even though he wasn't really breaking any rules, he was sure that if he was found out there would be some scolding.
It didn't matter.
He just needed to think…
The girl had been distant the moment she walked out of his door. Luckily, Misato was in the shower, but even throughout the day she hardly said anything to him. Even only a passing 'thank you' for lunch.
He was alright with that, if she wanted to keep up her image to everyone else that was fine with him, to her this was novel, having someone truly care about her.
Her…
Asuka Langley Shikinami
She had told him her story; she had confided in him. An orphan taken in by NERV.
The boy's head still couldn't figure it out. She wasn't lying, he was sure of that. Just by her tone of voice and struggle to tell he knew that was the truth. Part of him hated himself for even thinking she would lie about that.
What puzzled him was the fact that she still could pilot Unit-02.
If she was an orphan… who was inside Unit-02?
Unless maybe she was too young to be there for her mother's death…
Maybe her mother was absorbed into Unit-02's core in this life just like his own mother, only for her father to send her away.
Judging by her father's neglect in his original life that could make sense, though it was a step even beyond what Gendo had done to him.
But there was one silver lining, despite everything she had gone through, here Asuka was not nearly as troubled as his first life.
"She doesn't know what it's like…" Soryu said, sitting next to him with her knees to her chest.
"She's always been alone; she doesn't know what it's like to be…"
"Loved." Shinji said, completing her sentence.
Then again… there was a flipside to that particular coin.
She had never truly felt that loss either. Loneliness sure, that emptiness that nothing could fill, but the loss of someone she loved and the pain that comes with them being ripped from you…
Perhaps it was better that she never met him after all.
"You're going to have to stay alive this time, don't want to be creating a Soryu out of a Shikinami."
"You better not let her turn out like me…"
God… if he were responsible for that…
"Honestly, what are you even doing Third?"
"Is that supposed to be a joke?"
"No, how many chances do you think you'll get, how long until this just eats you? At some point you're going to break."
"I already did." He mumbled.
She said nothing, just stretching out and laying down next to him while staring at the sky.
"I still have whiplash from those lives…" she said softly, a slight pain in her voice.
Shinji said nothing, not wanting to remember those… unpleasant times. When the weight of his failure had been too much to bear.
Luckily, a high-pitched shriek tore him from those thoughts.
"LOOK OUT!"
To be fair, he wasn't expecting to be landed on by someone parachuting from the sky, but that was exactly what happened. How they had managed to land directly on him was completely baffling to him.
And he was being smothered by… oh that's what those were.
Air, he needed air.
As the person pulled back Shinji sucked air into his lungs, doing his best to catch his breath and there in front of him, on him, sat an unfamiliar brunette.
It was bizarre, it almost looked like she was dressed in a school uniform, though not one that belonged in Japan. A loose tie hung around her neck with a crest over the left side of her chest.
For a moment Shinji just stared at the girl who in turn did the same, before she reached up to her face, a sudden look of concern washing over her.
Getting off him, she crawled around on her hands and knees mumbling about glasses, he just watched as the girl crawled around, tearing up her what appeared to be thigh high socks and disregarding any embarrassment from what she was revealing with that pleated skirt while positioned like that.
Who the hell parachuted in a skirt?
And were those A-10 clips on her headband?
Even Soryu was looking back and forth from him to the girl, gripped with confusion, completely unsure of what to say.
"I'm not the one hallucinating, now am I?"
Finally finding her glasses, she turned back to the boy, "Ah, I'm sorry, are you alright?"
The Third Children didn't even have a chance to reply when a dull beeping started to emit from a bag that had been attached to her parachute.
Ruffling around, the girl found her the phone that was wringing as she began to fold up her the mess that that she had used to land.
"Hello this is Mari,"
"Yeah, the wind picked up and took me off target,"
"It looks like I landed on a school of some sort,"
"What?"
"Well, you told me to enter into Japan covertly,"
"That's not my problem that's for you and the euro people to work out,"
"Just be there for my extraction, ok thanks!"
She snapped the phone shut, as Shinji brought himself to his feet. That was a British accent… this just kept getting stranger.
This girl… he had never seen her before, not once in the countless times he'd been alive, and that really did not sit well with him.
"Look, don't tell anyone you saw me." She said as she packed in the rest of her parachute and walking over to him.
Leaning in she went up to the side of his face and took a few sniffs.
"Alright, this is too weird." Soryu said, still laying on the ground, her eye narrowing at the pig-tailed brunette.
"Hmm," she said pulling back "You smell good, like LCL,"
"one of my favorite smells in the world."
Shinji had never met a normal person who 'liked' that smell. To him that was a major red flag, that was all he needed.
"Shinji Ikari, Pilot of Evangelion Unit-01" he said, his hand reaching out.
She paled, "Um," she didn't have any words, but she reached out her hand to meet his.
Now it was his turn, without warning he pulled her close to him again earing a small yelp from the girl.
Bringing his mouth next to her ear, he figured this was an issue best delt with now.
"I don't know your face, and I know lots of people's faces, it's kinda my thing."
The audible gulp was an indication his point was going to come across clearly.
"If you pose a threat to my friends, if you so much as insinuate something happening to them that could be perceived as inconvenient, I will end you." He said slowly and deliberately.
The girl said nothing, just waiting for him to release his vice grip on her hand.
"Have you ever seen someone's head popped off like the cork of a champagne bottle?" he asked, not releasing his grip on her hand, the memory of the first 'person' he killed coming to mind.
She just shook her head slightly.
"Do you want to find out?"
Again, she said nothing and just shook her head.
"Good," he said in a more cheerful manner.
Letting her hand go she just stumbled back and turned to walk away, looking behind every once and awhile to just see him there, arms crossed, his words still lingering.
"You know Baka," Asuka spoke up from the ground "I do love it when you get a little mean."
ʡʘʘʢ
Kaji had found the kid just sitting and working on homework in GeoFront. He seemed normal enough from a distance, though it was alittle odd that he didn't have his headphones in with his SDAT player sitting next to him.
Coming up from behind the man peered over the shoulder of the 14-year old, trying to catch a glimpse of his work.
From what he could tell, it was flawless, even if the handwriting was sloppy as all hell, but who was he to judge.
Brining the can of coffee up to his ear in a bit to startle the Third Child, he frowned at the response he got, or the lack there of.
"I'm guessing it's either Misato or Kaji behind me." he mumbled.
Not getting an answer the boy shrugged "Kaji it is then."
Turning to face the man, Kaji got a good look at the boy. He seemed healthy, the man could spot nothing out of the 'normal', if there was such a thing for Evangelion pilots.
"Hey, why don't we go on a date sometime?" he asked with a smile.
The boy just frowned "So I guess Misato and you have a thing for younger men then?"
Later, quite a few NERV personal would be filing reports of someone or something disturbing the peace around that time, citing a rather loud shouting from a twenty-something male.
ʡʘʘʢ
"Your hobby?" Shinji asked as he pulled out another bundle of weeds.
"Yeah, you know you've got a talent for this." The man commented noting just how much more work he had gotten out of the boy that he originally thought he would have.
"My teacher had a garden, so I'm used to this." The boy explained, which Kaji could believe, but it still sounded like an excuse.
Looking over, the scruffy man just smiled "Is that so? Personally, I love growing things, gives you a greater perspective the world, a chance to sort things out, remind you to just enjoy life."
"So, it helps you forget the pain." Shinji asked, no, stated to his partner in gardening.
"Not a big fan of pain?" Kaji asked.
Shinji sighed "Depends on the pain."
The man raised an eyebrow "What do you mean?"
Looking over at the kid he got the same feeling he had when they had gone on that fieldtrip, the same feeling that the kid wanted to share something about himself but was wrestling between hiding it and showing to him.
"I think they're two types of pain." The teenager replied.
"Physical," he said, looking down at a cut that he had collected on his hand "its sharp, sudden, but it'll almost always fade, I can deal with that…"
He just stood up, still looking at his hand.
"and then there's the pain that doesn't heal by itself, you can't get if from a cut or scrape, it stays forever even if it dulls." He said looking out over the GeoFront.
Kaji frowned; this kid was way too young to be dealing with these feelings.
"But…" Shinji's voice seemed stuck in his throat "it can heal, you just have to…"
.
.
.
This, Kaji was interested in his answer "What do you have to do Shinji?"
"Healing that pain, those wounds, that pain puts physical pain to shame, that pain is the one that people…"
He looked down.
"…kill themselves over?" Kaji asked, filling that question.
God, he hoped he was wrong.
"Shinji…"
"I'm alright…" Shinji stood up, while Kaji just knelt there in the dirt.
In that moment, he felt so small, it seemed for some reason this kid was a towering object, so big and complex that the older man wouldn't have a chance to understand him.
But he could try…
"Shinji, she did it because of her own choice, not yours." Kaji said.
The boy just stared out over the GeoFront, silent for a few moments, before he responded.
"No… when we talked… I told you the truth, but it wasn't everything."
The man looked at him confused, what more to the story could there be?
"The worst part is… that I ran… then I understood… and a piece of me was happy that I hurt her, it made me happy after everything she did to me…"
"but then… I came back."
"I tried again and again, I had so many chances to get her to understand me, to take that leap of faith with me,"
"that pain of healing, that cut that only scabs over but never heals, and the pain that comes from healing it…"
"well… I thought maybe… maybe it just wasn't worth it, maybe I could make her believe she didn't need me… that the pain she felt wasn't worth it for her."
"Maybe she would just be better off without me…"
"So, I rejected her, I told her that I couldn't help her, that I wasn't going to understand her… that she could never be happy with me."
"And that was my fault, she was my fault…"
"I did terrible things." He confessed. "To her, to myself, everyone… things that I'm still paying for."
Kaji just stayed crouched there, unable to say anything, or more likely not wanting to say anything.
"I have dreams, every night about it, usually I fail over and over, but the worst…"
"The worst are when I save her and she forgives me, she accepts me… only for her to die for no good reason one I can't even control."
He sucked in a breath.
"To heal that pain…"
"What do you have to do Shinji?"
He turned to him, a slight sad smile on his face.
"You know… when you're with Misato, those quiet moments together… and you talk about your brother…"
Kaji's heart went cold, his body petrified at that last word.
Turning, the boy looked at the man with those eyes he had seen on their trip. The ones that looked as if had seen too much.
"How do you know about that?" he tried to keep himself from growling, but this was suddenly a very different dance the two were having.
"I know lots of things."
"Only one other person knows about that." The man said lowly.
"If you think Misato told me you're a damn fool, and really shouldn't be working as a triple agent."
Kaji's breathing stopped, his eyes widened, with those words the boy had suddenly ceased to be Shinji Ikari, the person in front of him was a completely unknown variable…
A threat.
"I can see those gears turning in your head, who does this kid work for…"
"NERV?"
"The UN?"
"The JSDF?"
.
.
.
"SEELE?"
Kaji's heart was racing.
Did the kid not know about him and the IPEA?
The kid said those names with extreme ease, they just rolled off his tongue as he looked back at the man who now knew this wasn't a normal conversation anymore.
"Who are you really?" Kaji's eyes narrowed, his grip on his trowel a little too tight.
"Shinji Ikari, The Third Children, Pilot of Evangelion Unit-01." The way he said those words… was it robotic? No, not quite.
And what was with that wording? 'Children'?
"You're digging for the truth Kaji, that's what you do, that's what you're good at… but what do you expect to happen when you finally get there?"
Kaji's didn't know what to say.
"You already know what could happen to you when you get there, or but what do you think might happen to Misato?"
"Is that a threat?" Kaji growled, this kid… no he wasn't a kid anymore.
"No, it's a reminder that out of everyone, she has the most to lose if you get yourself killed."
That was a threat.
"Again, that was a statement, not a threat."
"I'm trying to help you Kaji, because in the end everything you do and will do doesn't amount to anything, you're wasting your time trying to figure out Human Instrumentality."
Kaji's eyes went wide.
"What do you know about that?"
The boy just curled his lip at him. "That you shouldn't bother with it, instead you should take Misato out on to a nice dinner and tell her how you feel."
"Why are we talking about my love life now?"
"Because we were talking about mine." He countered.
"I can't stay here and water your plants with you Kaji. There's something I have to do, something only I can do."
"A long time ago, someone told me that I'd have to make a choice and decide what I wanted to do, and make sure I didn't have regrets afterwards."
"So, I'm asking you to trust me, and promise me something."
"What exactly would that be?" the man asked.
"If something were to happen to me… if something took me from Misato… I think she'd be beyond devastated."
"Don't go getting yourself killed… be there for her, you can give her something no one else can. You're the only one who can give her a future Kaji, so do that, even if you don't think you're worthy of it, try to be worthy of it."
"Try to be worthy of her."
"Remember that the opposite Shore is closer than you think, once you take the first step, you'll never know what you were so scared of."
"Say the words you weren't able to eight years ago."
Who the hell was this kid?
The boy turned and started to walk away, with the triple agent too flabbergasted to say anything, to even call out to stop him.
The only thing Kaji could decide right there and then was that he had finally come to a conclusion…
That Shinji Ikari terrified ever single cell in his body.
Im pretty sure the Kaji is working with the IPEA in at least some fashion in Rebuild since its implied that he's working with Mari and Mari gets access to Unit-02 for the battle against the 10th Angel, which means that she herself would have to be in some way connected to the IPEA. In NGE we don't get any clarification on who the third entity Kaji is also working for, but it probably has to be either the UN or the JSDF. The UN makes more sense since he's coming from Germany, but it feels to me like it's the JSDF (which would be more meaningful since they attack NERV in EOE), but either way it doesn't really matter here since he's most likely working with the IPEA for reasons stated above.
I'm not a fan of Shinji being a total dick so we get a passive aggressive tone here. Sometimes a point has to be made, Mari for instance, she is an unknown variable and therefore a threat (much like him to Kaji later in the chapter), but Kaji, well sometimes you just have to hit home the idea that as a triple agent you should be wearing Kevlar…
SHOUTOUTS!
Akomis – Thanks! You gotta have a little happiness to balance this all out.
Su Exodus – It's sad really, he can save her from her dreams, but she can't do the same…
UltraSpink of Da USA – Ah you noticed the choker didn't you, still debating looking at 3.0+1.0 spoilers.
EvaPilotFair – We'll see, but Soryu already hates herself so she wouldn't wish for Shiki to be anything like her, though Soryu considers her a fake, we'll have to see.
A Guy – Ah very perceptive…
MisterHalt – Well speaking of that exact scenario…
calborghete - Oh, that particular moment... poor Misato when she realises she did get 'Shinji' killed.
deathbringer374 – Thanks! Hopefully this keeps you tied over till next week.
Alrighty, no updates this weekend, but expect one by Tuesday.
Until Next Time.