(Pride)
There came a day when the repairs on Unit Zero finally came to an end, relieving NERV's precarious dependency on but one single weapon.
I knew what this meant, of course – they would need to confirm, as quickly as possible, that I would be able to activate it in a reliable manner, regardless of, or, indeed, exactly because of the mixed results thus far.
It was crucial that this be ascertained before I would be sent up to the surface to battle in a unit that might cease to cooperate at any moment; The ill-fated experiment from two months ago would thus need to be repeated.
I understood the necessity for this; Were I in the place of Commander Ikari or Dr. Akagi, I would have agreed with giving that same order.
So I did not concern myself with such a question as what my personal sentiments on this matter may be.
There was no point in having any, and even if I'd had them, they would be quite irrelevant in this scenario, so it seemed irrelevant to spend time pondering what they may be – it would not change at all that, once the allotted time came for me to attend the experiment, I would have no choice but to go there and to do as I was bid; anything else was far too unrealistic to even bother thinking about it.
I knew that I would go there almost as surely as I knew the sun would rise in the morning so, when that day came, and the hour of the experiment approached, I was largely concerned with swiftly completing my habitual shower as one who wants to conclude some outdoor activity before the sun goes down.
It was my usual practice to wash myself with a bar of mild, unscented soap; I found anything beyond that to be superfluous.
Once I was done, I stepped into my slippers, reached for my towel, and, still in the process of drying off my hair, made my way to my bedroom where I had laid out my clothes for the day.
I was expecting to put them on and then depart straight for headquarters.
This is more or less what happened, but with the addition of one distinctly unforeseen element:
The unprecedented presence of the Third Child.
Nobody ever comes in here. Even my bodyguards usually tend to simply swing the door open and pick me up at the threshold when I am required or meant to be called in during an emergency.
Nobody touches my things. I've arranged them all in some particular way, expecting that I will be the next one to pick them up.
That, of course, was only ever an assumption, and not something that was ever too high in priority or worth acting upon by itself – but my mild irritation turned somewhat more overt when he finally turned around in what would appear to be a delayed response to the noise of the shower curtain being swept aside.
He was standing by the dresser – and there, upon his nose, for some reason, was the one possession that I remotely cared about:
An objectively worthless pair of broken spectacles belonging to a man whose true mind I could not claim to know – but even so, they were the only thing I cared about, even a little, and now, someone had taken them.
It did not occur to me then to resolve this matter with speech – I was too used to functioning basically on my own, within the parameters given to me by entities so distant from my mind that they might as well be blind natural forces, and I myself, the only being in the world.
I practically was, in the same way, that a person would count themselves alone in a forest full of trees, or how some birds would suffer the absence of flockmates in a household full of humans.
Though, compared to that, I may be closer to a creature like a bear or a cat that does not operate assuming the presence of others like it – a solitary creature, or less than that, since I was not even equipped with the facilities to procreate, or even sustain my metabolism without the use of other creatures – as borderline living as a virus, assembled from scratch from unliving materials.
The closest thing I had to a connection was my creator, as elusive to me as an absent God – which might have made those old battered glasses the sad, watered-down equivalent to a relic in a world where the real thing could not be expected to exist.
Either way, I wanted them back.
I did not often want things, for it was pointless if there was very little reason to expect I would be getting it.
But this once, my objective was quite reachable, so I moved at once in simple, straightforward intentionality, looking to grab my things right off the Third Child's face.
I marched at him without delay.
He backed away, as people often did in regards to me, but that was a very minor concern to me at that moment. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to that – if I did, I might have been able to foresee the extent to which he would keep retreating until he was all the way back up against the dresser. But I was frustrated – I wanted the glasses. Perhaps I let this sway me to a lapse of prudence. In hindsight, I can't remember a case of a person standing still to let something be removed from their face. But I often held still for Dr. Akagi to maintain my body, so perhaps that's what led me to have that wrong expectation, which led to unforeseen consequences.
I did manage to take a hold of the glasses, but at this point, the Third Child had gotten so far onto his tiptoes that whatever surprise was caused by my retrieval of the classes startled him enough to make him lose his footing.
I realize now that he may have been surprised by my actions, since, as mentioned before, I had neglected to explain them.
In either case, he fell, and since there was no space left at his back, he tumbled forward onto me, so that I, too, failed to remain on my feet.
Even then, my chief concern was keeping hold of the glasses, which I tried to hold aloft to keep them clear of the Third Child's plummeting weight.
I thought to grab hold of his shirt, to perhaps steady ourselves, but I misjudged our center of balance, which had already tipped too far to the side – at this point, it had become inevitable that we should find ourselves on the floor.
The strap of the bag he was carrying got stuck to the knob of my open underwear drawer, causing the contents to spill all around us like confetti – that would be unpleasant to gather up since bending over was still somewhat uncomfortable – but at least I didn't lose hold of the glasses so that they reached the floor safely cushioned by my hand.
The landing was rough enough to recall echoes of all my enduring aches, but I don't think I had incurred any new aches.
The Third Child, too, appeared unhurt – he fell right onto his knees, but he was wearing clothes, which must have cushioned his contact with the floor somewhat.
But then something puzzling occurred.
He'd begun lifting himself up, as expected, but no sooner than he had lifted himself off the immediate ground, he stopped moving, as if frozen in shock.
He did not even shift one inch – all he did was stare, for some reason.
You would think he was terrified, but of what?
I didn't understand, therefore, I kept still and observed him, looking to see what he would do next. Perhaps refraining from sudden moves would keep him from panicking further, if I was the one he was scared of.
But soon, it became apparent that he was not going to be moving.
I became concerned that I was going to miss the streetcar and be late for the activation experiment.
I would have slipped out from under him if I could have, but that did not seem possible with my legs pinned around his knee and his hand atop my chest.
It was a bit uncomfortable.
Only then did I finally think of communicating with him.
"Could you move?"
"Ah- AAAAAAAHH!"
He backed away just as suddenly as before, practically jumping all the way to his feet.
"I'm- I'm really sorry! I didn't notice, I- I really didn't mean to!"
He seemed quite agitated, actually, was he alright?
"What are you apologizing for?"
He could not seem to produce much of an answer.
I really wasn't good at this…. Never mind. At least I could get up now.
I rose to my feet and started dressing myself.
"What are you doing here?"
I inquired.
He stammered something in response, but I couldn't really make much sense of it.
I couldn't help the impression that I must have been overlooking something crucial, something that would have been obvious to my classmates if any of them had been in my place.
I am not certain, but I think he might have been uncomfortable or distressed.
Was it something I did?
I suppose there was no use thinking about it.
If I wasn't capable of understanding, it couldn't be changed.
I might grasp it intellectually, but even then the best I could hope to produce was some wooden imitation, and I did not really see the point in that. Nothing of any reality would be gained.
Accounting my chance of comprehending the reasons behind his behavior as very low, I decided to focus on getting ready.
I should probably stop wondering about it and simply stick to piloting, now that EVA 00 was operational again.
That, at least, was something I knew how to do.
Once I was dressed, the last thing I did was to put the Commander's glasses back into their box again, so that I could safely bring them with me.
Here was one thing I could be sure of. I understood what the Commander wanted me to do; I could carry out his orders. There was something even I could do – something only I could do – the single blip of joy in all my desolate existence.
In that role, I knew exactly what was expected of me, and how to do it.
So, the more that I felt lost and unsuited to the peripheral background world that everyone else existed in, the more that I held on to the one area where I had a place – even an indispensable place, doing that which I could do for sure.
That was the closest that I would ever come to happiness, my very own, very private joy that took place unsaid and unseen.
They were but cool, hollow glimmers in an ocean of unbearable, but it was the only that I could ever hope to attain, so, I cherished it.
Despite everything that I might have said, I did take pride in my work – on the better days, at least.
…
Once all my things were packed, I continued on to my destination with single-minded intentionality.
The presence of the Third Child had almost completely slipped my mind – he only slipped back into the field of my consciousness when I heard the noise of him scampering down the stairs after me.
"Aren't you going to dry your hair? Are you going to headquarters? Wait up!"
I didn't have much of an answer for him, nor did I think there would be much of a point in trying.
I was behind schedule and needed to get to the tram.
I assumed that he would figure out where I was going from the general direction I was going.
If he did, that did not keep him from following after me – perhaps he had been called in as well?
Under the circumstances, I found myself hoping that he might take another turn, as this blotched interaction had stretched on enough as it is already.
I tried to tune him out, but the prospect that he might come and want something kept me from fully slipping away into my thoughts as I normally would.
This prolonged situation grated on me, to be honest – I longed for the solitude to process and decipher it on my own, insofar as I was capable of that, but even more than that, I just wished to put it behind me and get on with my work.
It seemed that we were going the same direction, however: He followed me down the street, into the tram, down the spiral rails down to the geofront, all the way to the terminals.
This was when I encountered my next difficulty: Though I swiped my security card through its allotted slit, the automatic gate wouldn't open.
That is, until the Commander's son pulled out a second card, swiping it through beside me before holding it out to me.
"Here is your new security card. Ritsuko-san asked me to give it to you earlier."
Ah. So that is why he came – I wonder why he didn't say so right away.
Not that it mattered.
Since the card was for my use, I took possession of it – that might have been somehow wrong, too, since he looked surprised and did not let go of it at once, as if he had not been expecting me to take it right then.
I suppose that, too, mattered little.
...
I had all but concluded that my earlier impression about his wanting something had been mistaken when the Third Child did in fact begin another conversation.
"Sorry about earlier…"
"What do you mean?"
I wondered what he expected from continuing to talk to me.
I was well aware that both our classmates and the employees at NERV sometimes spoke to each other for no apparent reasons, discussing utterly trivial subjects like the weather or the personal lives of various public figures that I was only dimly aware of, but surely he must have noticed by now that I wasn't like him or the others?
The people at NERV usually noticed soon enough.
I figured that I was doing him a favor by keeping quiet, not that I had any wish or expectation of discussing trivialities – I already knew I would not take joy in it.
Yet somehow, for some reason, he kept talking, prolonging this tortured state of affairs.
Somehow, he wouldn't let me have my silence, nor the solitude that was my only refuge in this world.
"...uh, you have your reactivation experiment today, right?"
"Yes."
I hoped that this would satisfy him enough to get him off my case, yet he would not stop.
"I hope everything goes well this time!"
No part of that demanded an answer, so I gave none.
He continued just the same, talking as if for talking's sake, as if for no other reason than to fill up the air and drag my attention back to his person.
"Say, Ayanami… aren't you scared? Of getting into your EVA again..."
"...why would I be? Are you scared of yours?"
This appeared to baffle him. "-it seems stranger to not be scared…"
Does it? Perhaps it does, for a human…
"Besides, the last two times you got really badly injured, so, I'm wondering if you're really okay with it…"
"Yes. I am."
"- but aren't you scared that it might go out of control again? Or, what if we lose against one of the angels and get killed..."
Those were some really strange questions that he was asking.
I really could not make sense of him at all.
Certainly, there were risks, and unpleasant parts, but how did he expect the project to proceed without it? Didn't he see its necessity?
Why would he go and complain about something inevitable?
...I had read that children and their parents were supposed to be alike, but the more I heard him speak, the less I could see the resemblance – it's as if only their faces were alike.
Nor did he show much of the admiration that children were supposed to have for their parents… far be it from me to go talking about something I had never experienced, but it seemed as though even I had more appreciation for Commander Ikari, though I wasn't even his real daughter.
"...Aren't you Commander Ikari's son?"
"Yeah…"
"Then how can you have so little faith in your father's work?"
His response went beyond everything that I had expected – suddenly, all his politeness and hesitation seemed to have gone out the window; He shot back without thinking, his voice dripping with what must have been loathing: "Of course not! How could I possibly trust somebody like him?! He left me all alone all these years 'cause he was obsessed with his oh so important work – okay, he paid to have me fed, but that's all! You can hardly call him a father at all!"
My own reaction, too, was just about instantaneous – from one second to the next, I felt my blood pounding in my head, in such a way as I had hardly ever experienced.
Here was the person who had everything I ever wanted, kicking his privilege to the curb.
Here he was questioning the foundation of my life as if he'd made it his personal mission to take my only support – and I clung harder to it in compensation for my sharp, barbed knowledge of its precariousness.
I turned around, looked him in the eye, and struck him all across the face.
This is how you're supposed to express your utmost disapproval, right?
I'd read about it in books.
Then I turned away, for I considered this conversation concluded, and I had no intention to continue it not even if he tried to make me.
Whatever interest or gratitude I might have had for him was swept away at the moment.
It was hard to believe how someone this irrational and unrealistic could possibly be related to Commander Ikari – though I had certainly heard that parents and children do not always resemble each other. That was in my books, too.
Still – How could he weigh something as trivial as his personal sentiment higher than the future of mankind?
Did he not at all consider anything beyond his personal wants and dislikes? Was he wholly unaware of the consequences?
No wonder then, that he had behaved so erratically thus far. There might not be a great secret to it at all…
...raised as I had been in the utilitarian framework of NERV, this was the first time I had really been confronted with the idea that sentiment could be valued as highly, or at all, and in that first confrontation, I could not see the point in valuing something that did not have the power to change anything at all – in other words, something irrelevant.
But even if I were to consider my own sentiments, the result would have been even less favorable than even the conclusions of my reason – for reason would remind me that he is young and inexperienced, and was just recently thrust into this war from a life of never knowing strife.
Reason urged me to have compassion, to not blame him for that which wasn't his fault, though my heart welled up with an ugly, bile-like feeling: He'd gotten to live the life of a person when I could not. He could leave, though I could not – not even if I were killed, so what did I have to fear?! He got to be the Commander's child, though I could not – and he didn't even value it one bit.
If he didn't want the Commander as his parent, I would gladly take him!
Perhaps them, the Third Child might realize how lucky he was to have a parent at all. Why couldn't I be the Commander's daughter?
But that was of course a pointless thought. Something that could never be true, because it simply wasn't.
So, there was no point in being displeased about it.
Just as there was no point in being scared of something that could not be avoided.
When we arrived at the laboratory, where EVA 00 was already awaiting me on its harness in the wall, I made a point of running right over to where the Commander was standing.
The Third Child had remained outside the chamber proper, having stopped next to where Captain Katsuragi had been awaiting him.
But perhaps he was gazing inside.
If so, I did not care.
The Commander saw me of course, and no sooner did his face soften up somewhat, just as it had after the last incident, or when he'd come to visit me.
"Rei. There you are. We're ready to begin. How about you?"
"I'm alright sir, don't worry."
"I see – I'm sure it will go smoothly this time. You've activated it before."
"Yes, Sir. I'm going to get changed, Sir."
"Right – we'll be waiting for you."
...
Even as I finished clicking the collar of my plugsuit into place, my smile had not faded. I knew I had a place here – or, at least, I had to believe that, in order to survive.
I propped myself up, thinking of the risk the Commander had taken to protect me, turning it almost into a mythology.
I relished being of use by the only means that I could be.
At the very last, once my plugsuit had swished into place, I carefully took out the glasses – these, I would take with me.
But none of that changed that all levity was long gone from my features by the time that I made it to the plug.
„Rei, can you hear me?"
„Yes, Sir."
„We're about to begin the activation sequence."
„Yes, Sir. Understood."
I had previewed this many times, of course; Over the past days, I'd reviewed the past attempts and imagined what I would do and how to replicate my one successful activation.
I sat there frozen still as the lights of the interface flickered to life around me, avoiding all unnecessary motion, any extraneous thought, contracting my consciousness into the most perfect frictionless conduit, leaving no hooks by which the other presence could draw me into her purposes.
With deliberate intention, I greeted Unit Zero, acknowledging her as a being while holding myself apart, conceding only such space as was strictly necessary for me to contact her, approaching her with the respect due to something that might destroy me.
At last, the procedure began approaching the absolute borderline.
That's where things failed in the last experiment.
Tentatively, I conceded to move at least one bit, glancing furtively at the melted glasses floating to the right of my legs.
I focussed on maintaining my separate boundary. I am me. I have a shape. I have a purpose. I have connections. I have a history. This is me – this and nothing else.
The nerve links kept being connected.
The activity flickered past the threshold of the absolute borderline… and… nothing happened.
I could feel EVA 00's presence alright, her limbs, her weightiness, as if it were my own, but to an extent that could be kept at bay.
I had it under control – not so much the EVA, as the situation, or even myself.
I had joined with EVA without being overcome.
„EVA 00 is now active."
„Roger, commencing experiments-"
I did not get to finish that sentence, nor even the scheduled battery of tests – for it was at that very moment that every single alarm bell anywhere in NERV HQ began ringing at once.
I knew what that meant; So did everyone else at headquarters. At once, the test was forgotten. Every single staff member snapped right into business mode, including Commander Ikari: „Abort test at once! Ready Unit One at once!"
„What of Unit Zero?"
„It's too early; It's not calibrated and Rei isn't back to her full strength yet."
So I escaped deployment again.
As the lights went out all around me, I sunk back in my seat.
Only now, after everything, when I was back to the empty, solitary darkness of the plug, did I find myself exhaling a breath that I had not known I was holding, releasing several air bubbles into the LCL.
Every part of my body was heavy with the leaden weight of exhaustion.
I could only convince myself so much.
…
I watched at the railings of the cage as EVA 01 was prepared to be shot to the surface.
I had had my misgivings earlier, but…
After what the Third Child had said earlier, no matter how much I might have disapproved, I could not help but notice that the Commander did not send him off with any word of encouragement.
Of course, not even he could have known that all of Central Dogma would be resonating with the Third Child's desperate, blood-curdling screams mere moments after his unit reached the surface.
„Let me out! Let me out! Please father, let me out!"
