(Animosity)
Soon we were called on again.
I cannot say what I'd been expecting from it. As little as possible, I would hope, for that's what I was trying for.
If I would be deployed to fight and suffer, then I would do that, and if I was meant to sit it out again, then I would sit and wait as I was told.
Nothing that I thought or felt was likely to make even the slightest impact or difference in this anyway, and even if it could, then what for? What might be the meaning of it?
Wills other than mine would be done – at best the Commander's, at worst, those of SEELE and the ancient, immovable plans laid by the first ancestral race countless eons before.
And we, the Promised Children, were the least free of all, as every aspect of our coming had been foretold since time immemorial – or perhaps we had only been molded and influenced or, in my case, outright programmed, according to some interpretation that much later, living men had made of the ancient runes, but either way, our lot was decided, and none so more than mine.
Even these thoughts I was having right now might well be part of the design – or perhaps they were not, and all that ever constituted me as a person is merely incidental to the grand design.
It matters not, in the end.
My erasure will be incidental for certain…
But that day is not come yet.
They summoned us to the projector room, the one with the great big screen embedded in the floor. To the other side of it stood Captain Katsuragi and Doctor Akagi;
On it displayed before us was the reason why we would be put to task:
Hardly more than an outline, really – something like an ultrasound picture, or an embryo seen within a chicken egg through the backlight of a candle.
It was enough to make out a vast ellipsoid shell, and within it, something that, exactly like a chicken embryo, bore a striking resemblance to that of a human – far more so, truly, as one could glimpse five-rayed hands. Where it differed from a human, it might perhaps be compared to a fish or an amphibian kind of creature. A kind of real-life Innsmouth horror.
This image had come from a seismic observatory monitoring a nearby volcano, after Captain Katsuragi and her right-hand technician had taken over the facility and imposed a communications blackout.
Now they were returned to tell the tale.
Ikari-kun was the first to speak a few tentative, disbelieving words: "Is that… an angel?!"
"Yes.", confirmed Dr. Akagi, somber and businesslike as ever – unlike him, she wasn't seeing anything here that she wouldn't already have been able to expect from theory.
"We believe this to be some kind of unfinished developmental stage – like an egg or a chrysalis.
This presents us with an unforeseen opportunity – Therefore, the objective of this mission will be to capture this angel alive, without damaging its shell or causing it to hatch."
"And if it does?" blurted the Second.
It seems that for some reason, she couldn't simply wait for the explanation to be finished.
"Then it is imperative that you destroy it immediately. The designated pilot of-"
"Pick me! Pick me!" the pilot of Unit Two interjected again, raising her hand as one might when asking one's turn to speak in school. "I love diving! Besides, it's only fair since Misato made me miss out on the school trip!"
...was she taking this seriously? This mission concerned an unprecedented preemptive strike, an attempt co contain an angel with conventional technology, which, thus far, had always failed, and not least of all, the descent into an active volcano.
She'd be literal kilometers underground, buried from all sides in a hostile environment, where the slightest equipment failure might kill her in mere instants, not to mention that she would be having very little maneuvering space, and no hope of receiving help or rescue so deep below the ground. It was not a suicide mission outright, but if things went the slightest bit awry, NERV would have the descending EVA and her pilot. Should we really be sending our best pilot and our most advanced EVA to do this? One might justify sending a skilled person on a hard task, but her skills would hardly matter when she would be very nearly immobile hanging off a coolant pipe like a lifeline.
If the angel were to hatch before or during xier capture, she would be completely at xier mercy, and there was no way of knowing when xir might hatch. The capture attempts might even induce xem to do so – the researchers were basically banking on the possibility that xir wouldn't. Still, the advantages of being able to expect a living sample up close were undeniable.
Weak points may be discovered, new technologies developed.
But if a risk must be taken, was it not more prudent to jeopardize a more expendable asset instead?
To my surprise, Dr. Akagi did not think so:
"Asuka will carry out the mission."
"Yay~ It'll be easy. You guys just watch. The last one might've been a tie, but this time, I'll finally even our score!"
Disagreeable as she may have been at times, I had no desire to see the Second Child charred into coal by the heat and then compacted into a Diamond by the pressure.
NERV would lose a valuable asset, and Horaki-san would be sad.
It was one thing if it were inevitable or strictly necessary for the plan – it's not as if I could do anything about that then. But right now-
"Dr. Akagi, are you certain? Perhaps I should-"
"The necessary equipment isn't compatible with the prototype, and the remodeling on Unit Zero is not yet complete. We will be bringing Unit One as backup, but as for you, we think it's best if you stay at headquarters and remain here on standby in case things go south on-site."
Ah. They couldn't send me.
"I see..."
I really should have known that Dr. Akagi would have ceded to the demands of expediency had it seen an option.
I would have left it at that and thought of it no further, for what more was there to do but accept the force of circumstance?
I didn't expect the Second to lean forward to turn toward me with the most mocking little grin and address me without bothering to cover up her spite beyond the demands of plausible deniability:
"Sucks for you, huh? You'll be missing out on all the fun~"
I said nothing to this.
It is hard to feel anger at a person who is about to jump into a volcano with a smile on her face.
There was no way of knowing if she truly believed herself some grand hero in a mythical tale, or if that was simply a narrative she had told herself because she is just as aware of the truth as the rest of us, but found it too terrible to bear.
It's not like I wanted her to be in despair over her relative insignificance in the grand scheme of things – knowledge may be power in many circumstances, but in this case, awareness would not save her. The horror may not be ended, it could only be explained.
As she left in a hurry, skipping along the Doctor and the Captain to get ready for her mission, I wondered if it would not be more merciful to let her spend her last few months in the belief that she lived in a more forgiving world until the Third Impact dissolved her AT-Field… the question was whether the world itself would be so obliging.
If it were me, I think I would desire the truth, for it would be just as true whether I knew of it.
I think I might find some comfort in knowing why the sky was coming down and what for, cold as it may be.
I was not so sure about Ikari-kun – I think he could go either way. He might not go searching for that what would upset him and, in some respect, was not the most mature, but he didn't seem like like he could be satisfied and at ease with an illusion whose paint he could see crumbling.
Less crucial to the mission at hand, he'd lingered by the screen on the floor even after the Second had skipped across it, looking intently at the image of the angel.
Disconcerted though he seemed, he could not look away.
"It looks almost like a person."
There was a reason for that, too, but I could not exactly tell him.
So I could only point out this:
"The Third Angel had roughly humanoid shape as well, as was the last one."
"I guess you're right, it shouldn't be that surprising.
It's just… it's a baby. Kind of. Or a cocoon. Or, maybe that's looking at it from a human point of view. But - It's… young. They grow and they change, just like we do.
They're living beings… I mean, it's not like we didn't know this all along, but seeing this really drives it home. It's a baby, and we're gonna put it in a cage and cut it up. And poke it with needles..."
"Since they decay right after death, keeping the angel alive cannot be avoided."
I said it because it was a fact, not because I liked that it was so.
Ikari-kun did not seem to like it either:
"It's one thing if we have to fight them to defend ourselves, but, do we have to go out of our way to hurt it on purpose? It might be our enemy, but this seems like being cruel…. - Do angels hurt? Do you think they can feel pain?"
"Since communication is impossible, there is no way of knowing that."
That was probably the kind thing to say – as well as the truth. We did not know.
However, I had plenty of reason to suspect, and this I omitted.
Even so, he was not put at ease.
"The transforming blue one screamed when we shot it. Or what could have been something like screaming. I know how this sounds, but… I kinda hope that we don't manage to catch it."
"I feel the same."
I don't think I had known this before I said it, but it was plainly, solidly true.
I knew what sort of existence might await the angel if xir is captured. I know what I would choose in xier place.
...
We met again in one of the equipment hangars.
We had all suited up, although, in my case, it was likely only for the purposes of standby duty – and that would be a good thing, for if I were needed, that would be because the operation had failed, and the other pilots perished.
Towering above us, EVA 02 was already waiting, having been furbished with pressure-resistant armor. We were still waiting for its pilot only, who was yet to arrive.
Ikari-kun and Captain Katsuragi exchanged two brief strands of words about what might have delayed her before she finally did show.
The pressure-resistant plugsuit she was wearing when she did seemed at first a rather insignificant detail, noticed only because it was fairly noticeable – in a reverse of how deep sea creatures would dissolve and swell up when brought up to the surface, the garment appeared somewhat bulbous in shape when worn at normal atmospheric pressure. Naturally enough, one would think.
At first, I did not at all make the connection between this and her obvious state of dismay, though it was plain enough that once again, something or another must have enraged her.
"What on Earth?! Is that my Unit Two?!"
Despite her question, she paid little heed to Dr. Akagi's various explanations about the many functions and uses of D-Type equipment.
But what she chose to focus on instead, I never would have guessed in a hundred years:
"It looks so uncool!"
...un… cool?
I was familiar with the notion of 'coolness' of course. I read about it in books. But I was still stumped as to how it applied here. If you had asked me to describe the D-Type armor, I might have compared it to a deep sea diver's suit or astronaut gear, particularly since EVA 02's usual face could still be glimpsed in the glass of its helmet-like headpiece.
Be that as it may, the Second Child was incensed:
"Forget it! I won't do it! There's no way that I'm going to present myself in public as some sort of living water balloon!"
This was a little bit confusing, now. I didn't exactly follow.
...she was upset… because of how the suit looked? But what did that matter? Its purpose was to protect her body from the pressure. How did looks enter into it? What about its looks was even so offensive?
It looked like… like an anti-pressure suit, because that's what it was.
Yet to her, that seemed so all-important that all her earlier bravado to hog the dangerous mission for herself had all but evaporated.
She wasted not a moment in pointing fingers at the next best available person:
"That's what you have Shinji for! Make him do it!"
Why would she think Ikari-kun would be a good fit for this mission? Granted, she knew nothing about EVA 01's special status or the Commander's orders that its loss must be prevented under any circumstance – but having shared a flat with him for over two weeks now, you would think that she would be familiar with its pilot at least. Certainly, he had prevailed on solo missions before, out of sheer necessity, but he wasn't a quick thinker or improviser. He tended to panic.
He was just about the worst possible fit…
And all this after she had loudly insisted to take the mission, too.
It occurred to me then, however, that I'd overheard many of my classmates discussing things to do with 'looks'. The boys had their own variant of this with the, at time, excessive application of body-spray, but if I understand this correctly, concern with appearance was a bit more frequent among those considered to belong to the social class of 'girls', because of socio-historical reasons, I believe.
I recall scenes in books of people feeling humiliated if they were seen in a bad light.
Males too – like ambitious businessmen who cared much for their image. The Second resembled those businessman type characters a great deal.
Still one would think that not being crushed by lethal pressure ought to have been ranked higher than appearance…
If one were thinking it through.
I think the Second Child was responding purely from her impulses, however. Of course she was. She may have been nearing its tail end, but she was still an adolescent.
For all of her precocious talents, she was not too different from our classmates, or even Ikari-kun – if one were to cut him some slack, one must allow her the same.
I became aware then of how I was thinking of 'girls' or 'adolescents' as separate groups even though I could very well be considered to fit those properties as well.
I was so used to regarding humans as an other… because they were, to me, I supposed. I had been told both that I acted rather mature for my age, and had people begin acting as if they expected to have to explain the very simplest of things to me, like I was some kind of infant.
But in the end, both of those came down to the same thing: That I was not all that good at resembling a typical adolescent. Not that good at appearing as a human.
I was very bad at many things, and I felt this keenly, for all that I told myself that it did not matter so long as I could still serve my one purpose of piloting EVA.
Why would I ever even expect human categories to apply to me?
I had never been an infant and would never be an adult.
I had existed a much briefer time than any of my co-pilots, but in a sense, I was also older, as I was rather near the end of the time that I had been designed to last.
I wasn't like them. Faulty. Insufficient. Inadequate. Lacking and empty.
But if being like this allowed me to keep what was happening in perspective at a moment like this when everyone around me was just reacting, and be fair to them still, then at least there would have been some sort of point to be being like this.
At least it might be some good. I did not choose to be like this, to be what I am. I could not change it, and even if I could, I'm not sure I would wish to, as then I would no longer be myself in any meaningful way.
I can only be what I am; The only path left to me is to try to make the best of what I'm given.
So no, I did not necessarily begrudge the Second. It is not that I wasn't irritated, but I could recognize that it was best to put that aside. I was able to see her behavior as a symptom of the world's sickness and her own unfortunate fate.
Her animosity probably wasn't even about me so much as whatever it was she was projecting onto me or associating with me, her own insecurities.
She was acting in the only way that a young person of her age and temperament could act under these circumstances.
So how I could I begrudge her more than the volcano itself?
How could I begrudge her more than the angel, who was perhaps about to share my unfortunate fate – or rather one to which mine would still seem preferable, though the angel and I were similar creatures. It was a fate much like EVA 00's that awaited xem.
It was a dangerous gamble that awaited the Second Child.
This, I could see.
If it provoked anything in me, it was a faint and distant sadness, but that, too, I put aside.
It didn't seem as if the Second was in any mood to be talked into cooperation, so it was clear what must be done.
Just what I would have done had she refused to continue the dancing training…
Except, in thinking all of this over, I'd taken too long.
I'd let time pass.
Something moved before I did, right at the corner of my vision.
Tentatively, reluctantly, I spotted Ikari-kun right in the act of raising his arm.
No doubt he must have long wrung with himself internally, to even consider such an act – unlike the Second, he had no great confidence in his chances of survival:
"Excuse me, perhaps I-"
That won't be necessary.
I knew exactly what to do here.
No reluctance remained in my heart at all. Within a moment, I had raised my hand.
"I could pilot Unit Two as well."
I should have predicted what would come next. I could have, but I didn't. I should have known precisely from the Second Child's reaction to the incident with the dancing exercise.
In an instant, she was all up in my face, and slapped my hand aside.
The hot breath emanating from her red, contorted countenance wafted in my face.
The suddenness of it startled me a little more than it reasonably should have.
I stood frozen in place without shifting an inch while she made her displeasure heard:
"The only way you are ever touching my Unit Two is over my dead body!
Fine! I'll do it myself! I'll suffer any humiliation I have to rather than lose against the likes of her!"
The hatred burned like the cold glow of an arclight in her ice eyes.
Little as it might have mattered in the grand scheme of things, I still couldn't understand whatever in the world I had done to inspire such a particular loathing in her.
…
In the end, this standby mission would conclude just like all the others, remaining just that.
It simply ended up becoming a string of hours in which the fitting of EVA 00's new armor plates was interrupted so that I could sit inside it and wait for orders at the launch pad.
Most of the new plates were still a neutral gray, but a few had already received their new paint job.
Actually, Captain Katsuragi had consulted me on this a few days back, after one of the training simulations.
Last time, the color was simply chosen based on what would make for good visibility during wind canal tests, so, I did not expect to be contacted.
The Captain must have thought it a nice or encouraging gesture. Another instance of what Dr. Akagi might have dismissed as her guilty conscience.
But I don't really see any problem with it – it matters not what color the EVA is, so long as it can be quickly told apart from the others. So having it no longer be orange would be an advantage, as it would less resemble the paint job of Unit Two.
I had chosen blue. Like the water. Like the sky.
I think I'd made a similar choice before, concerning the stripes on my pillowcases, but this time it was a darker shade, like the last lingering color in the night sky before it wholly turned to black.
It had seemed fitting to me in very many ways.
But as of now, EVA 00's new coating had not seen the light of day.
I was not summoned. This was a mercy.
The Second was not killed. This was a mercy also.
The Angel, however, was not captured. From what I'd heard, the Second was forced to destroy xem within the caldera. Though it was a loss for the project, this, too, in its own way, was a mercy.
…
Captain Katsuragi chose to stay at the deployment site overnight to allow both of her young charges and chance to rest and recuperate, so the debriefing for this mission did not take place until the next afternoon.
I watched both the tapes and the technicians' analysis of the event complete with all the suggestions for improvement they had deduced from it, but even so, Ikari-kun slid up to me on the briefing room benches to tell me off it some more.
I concluded that he must have felt a desire to unburden himself of at least his own, personal experience of the events.
Though I'd done some reading on how to do this since my last haphazard fumblings in that matter, I still wasn't fully sure how well I was faring in this entire 'listening' issue.
I tried as best as I could to make the occasional sound of acknowledgment to show I was still listening or to ask the occasional question in which I paraphrased his last few points back to him, asking if I got them correctly without declaring in presumption that I did.
Reportedly, this was supposed to show interest in and validation of his feelings.
But I'm not sure if it would have been helpful to ask him up-front if he thought his feelings were being validated, so I couldn't tell how well I was doing.
At the very least, he did keep talking:
"...but the only reason I pulled that off is that Asuka was already pretty close to the surface when it happened. I couldn't have gone in much deeper, without one of those heat suits…
It was awful. I was scared out of my mind – I can't have lasted more than a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity… One moment she was joking and showing off, the next, I really thought she was going to die, down there, all alone deep deep inside, where none of us could get to her, while we could do nothing but stand there and watch..."
"But she did not, because of your intervention."
It seemed important to point this out. If for no other reason, then because overlooking real, tangible results is just as far from clear sight as seeing only what is pleasant.
"...yeah… yeah… I guess that's right…" he conceded, some of the afflicted countenance falling away from him – he worked his way into a smile, more or less. "Though in the end, I think it was you who saved us."
This, in turn, greatly confounded me.
"...me? I don't understand. How would that be possible when I didn't leave NERV headquarters to begin with?"
Rather than reconsider his stance, Ikari-kun only built further on that little spark of positive momentum he had found: " Yeah! It's because you helped me with my physics homework! That's actually how I got the idea for how to beat the angel. Asuka figured out right away what I meant without me having to explain it much, though – I guess that's a genius for you. She pumped it full with coolant, so, in a sense, we kind of beat it with the power of thermal expansion – or it's reverse, sort of… "
He allowed himself a sensible chuckle here, probably cause he could not have stifled it alltogether even if he'd wanted to. "So, I guess you're right that wasn't all bad – we even got to go to the hot springs in the end. Though I felt a little bad that we didn't invite you along. It's like we all went to have fun without you. That's not fair!"
An odd concern.
"There is no need to feel bad. I wouldn't have been interested anyways."
Surprise shined through, briefly, but he swiftly caught a hold of himself, arranging his bearings back into the semblance of politeness.
"Ah… I guess you'd be pretty used to hot springs already, so it's probably lost its magic to you…"
"I- ...I don't understand. Why do you think I would be used to them? I have never been to a hot spring in my entire life."
"Never? But I thought you'd lived in this city all your life. Before they build this whole fortress city on top of it, this place was mainly famous for its hot springs – back when they called it Hakone. You've really never visited one though you've lived here all this time?"
"Is that something I should be doing? A hot spring is just a naturally occurring spot with warm water, right?"
"...I guess it is, if you break it down to the basics… but for just being hot water, it feels really good! You should definitely try it sometime-"
That was when the door to the briefing room was thrown open again
"Oi! Baka Shinji! It's time to go home! Has no one ever taught you not to keep a lady waiting?"
I would presume that the pilot of Unit Two had been sent to fetch him on behalf of Captain Katsuragi after she had concluded her own lengthy amicable chat with Dr. Akagi.
Yet somehow, the moment that she spotted the two of us still talking together, all the levity evaporated from her voice at once.
"Baka Shinji. We need to go. Now."
Ikari-kun stood up as he was bidden, rising to his feet almost out of reflex. But by the time he had got there, his mind had caught up to him, and his movements slowed down in reluctance until he was half turned toward me, as if inwardly debating what to do next.
The Second Child, however, had no intention of waiting for him to finish his deliberation – she seized him brusquely by the wrist and made for the doors, but only after shooting me one last, sore look.
Once, Ikari-kun had definitely been the chief target of her ire, but by then, it seemed that the greater part of her disdain had come to be squarely pinned on me.
Still I knew not why, and looked not at all forward to having all this vehement hostility spilled at me, but it was what it was.
It was probably better than the alternative – Ikari-kun would have taken it harder.
Perhaps if I kept quiet and refrained from adding more fuel to the fire, she would eventually tire of this and move on once her attention became swept up in something else.
