(Concern)

"If men aren't drowned," the little mermaid asked, "do they live on forever? Don't they die, as we do down here in the sea?"

"Yes," the old lady said, "they too must die, and their lifetimes are even shorter than ours. We can live to be three hundred years old, but when we perish we turn into mere foam on the sea, and haven't even a grave down here among our dear ones. We have no immortal soul, no life hereafter. We are like the green seaweed - once cut down, it never grows again. Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, long after their bodies have turned to clay. It rises through thin air, up to the shining stars. Just as we rise through the water to see the lands on earth, so men rise up to beautiful places unknown, which we shall never see."

"Why weren't we given an immortal soul?" the little mermaid sadly asked. "I would gladly give up my three hundred years if I could be a human being only for a day, and later share in that heavenly realm."

"You must not think about that," said the old lady. "We fare much more happily and are much better off than the folk up there."

"Then I must also die and float as foam upon the sea, not hearing the music of the waves, and seeing neither the beautiful flowers nor the red sun! Can't I do anything at all to win an immortal soul?"

"No," her grandmother answered, "not unless a human being loved you so much that you meant more to him than his father and mother. If his every thought and his whole heart cleaved to you so that he would let a priest join his right hand to yours and would promise to be faithful here and throughout all eternity, then his soul would dwell in your body, and you would share in the happiness of mankind. He would give you a soul and yet keep his own. But that can never come to pass. The very thing that is your greatest beauty here in the sea - your fish tail - would be considered ugly on land."

"Is that Hans Christian Andersen?"

I looked up past the edge of the page that my eyes had been fixed on only to find Ikari-kun eying me with mild interest.

I had been sitting on a bench, retreating from the hot late afternoon sun to the shade beneath a tree.

Rather than answer much in words, I held up the cover of the book at bit higher so that he might confirm it for himself.

"I see…" I wondered if he was going to seat himself beside me on the bench.

He approached as if he might.

For now, it seems he chose not to, but he lingered where he stood, only a few steps away.

"My teacher read that to me when I was a kid once, " he stated, following along a trail of thought set off by the sight.

"I think it was my favorite out of the various fairy story collections that we had. I thought the stories were all very, very beautiful, but also very, very sad.

I mean – now that I'm older I gotta admit that he was a bit heavy-handed with the religion stuff at times, but as a kid that kind of went over my head. They stories seem so much shorter now – when I first listened to them, it felt like there was an entire world entailed between the beginning and the end…

I cried a lot at the one with the little matchstick girl." he confessed, half-stiffling a nervous smile, and then, tentatively continueing, perhaps unsure if this was a safe place to say this, but also enticed by the prospect that such a place might exist. I don't know why he thinks that place is here – it might be desperation. I can easily imagine how the Second might mock him for crying, or how Major Katsuragi might crack a joke just to escape the heavy subject.

Besides, he might be worried of seeming unmanly in front of his other friends, implying that he saw something tenuous about that bond still, serious as it might have grown.

A part of me wondered.

If him telling me this meant that there was a special bond between him and I.

That he felt at ease with me.

Or was I just seen as a convenient blank slate whom he could tell everything because there wouldn't be a reaction to deal with? Something he could project upon and see whatever he wished to see, precisely because there was nothing?

Because I was nothing, so very conveniently?

Either way, the words kept dribbling out of him, intimately enough, yet not looking at me, having realized by now that I would not expect him to look:

"...when I was a kid, I kind of wished that I could find some magic matchsticks like that. I imagined that I would light them all on fire, and then, my mom would come, and take me with her to heaven."

It's a good thing that he didn't.

For even if Ikari-kun could possibly come to a place such as 'heaven', he would not find his mother there. That is not where she is right now.

"Probably, everyone would have been happy with that, or that's what I figured.

It's a silly thought, of couse," he added, hastily, fiddling nervously with his thingers. "In the end, there's probably no such thing as heaven…."

This phantastic framing was perhaps a way to express a way in this implicit way free from the need to be reacted to, of having to deal with someone's reaction.

Yet he seemed to want it heard in some fashion, or he wouldn't have said it.

If this sort of conversation was taking place in a book, the character in my position would probably be expected to say something comforting, to insist that surely, people would have missed him.

But I didn't know this, so, I couldn't say this in truth.

I had no idea what kind of person Ikari-kun's guardian was, for example, so I cannot gauge whether or not this 'teacher' person would have lamented the absence of his young ward.

I could say that people would miss him now, but that might not exactly be a relief if part of what they'd miss him for is his prowess as a pilot.

They would need him in the same way that I was needed.

Pointing this out would be a cruelty, not a comfort.

What do I say to him?

What can I say of the way that he obviously seems to be missing his mother when I've never had one? One shouldn't run their mouth about things one does not understand.

I wonder what he would think if he realized that the person he's been missing is actually much closer than he thinks.

Anything I might say on the subject of death would not really apply.

I am well aware of the sorts of comforting phrases that are typically used in these kinds of situations, but they mostly seem like illusions, like I would be making light of his pain.

The truth is that it's not in my power to diminish it – can I bring Mrs. Ikari back to him?

Can I be what he needs?

Can I give him happiness?

No I can't.

It might be that happiness is an illusion to begin with, a fool-fire that our bodies make us chase to do the things that are conducive to self-preservation and procreation.

The moment you are happy – no, the moment that you realize that you are happy and become conscious of it, your happiness is already over, for in being aware of it, you realize that it is only a feeling, and that it will soon pass.

I cannot change that.

I am unspeakably tiny before the billion-year-old forces of physics and evolution.

So what can I say to him?

"I can't presume to understand. I can't pretend to know what it's like to lose a parent, or to miss them – I am sorry. I wish I knew something to say – as I've told you before, I'm not good at this.

I – I am trying to say something, rather than nothing, because I wish I could help you, but I know I can't. I don't want to make light of your experience.

I know that, in the end, no one can really truly understand another's sorrow, nor can people really do anything for each other…"

"That's not true.", he claimed, "You're already helping a whole lot by listening, really – I don't think that I've really ever told anybody about that. "

But what difference would telling it to another make?

Is he just saying this to spare my feelings?

Or is it really true?

It's hard to tell if he's just nervous or truly moved.

I probably cannot ever know.

Or maybew he means just what he says. Maybe I'm underestimating what it does do for a human to be listene to, because I'm not human. Because I'm nothing, so nothing could possibly do anything for me, or be good for me, an an unliving, person-shaped object.

It makes me a little uneasy, because I cannot estimate what I'm doing. Listening might help more than nothing, but – anyone can just say something or express condolences. It doesn't do anything.

It's hard to guage what it does do.

So what do I say to him?

And I do not just mean in this situation, I mean it more generally: what does a being like me have to say to a being like him?

It is not about not being able to think of an option.

I have some idea of what humans typically say, from books or, from other interactions that I've witnessed.

Not knowing what to say is not even the problem. I am aware that humans sometimes come with disabilities that make it more difficult to think of what to say, or how to respond such situations, and yet they remain undoubtedly, intrinsically human in all the ways that matter, in a way that I am not.

I do not think whoever they took my human DNA from had such a condition; I simply lack experience and practice in human interaction, because it never interested me.

If I set my mind to it, I could probably learn – I would not be talented, but I could probably be more or less adequate for most intents and purposes.

But then what?

What if I did that and then, like a computer running a problem, went and executed a perfect facsimile of human behavior for Ikari-kun to speak with, saying just what is expected for an optimum outcome, displaying all such signals and expressions as are required?

What then?

Ikari-kun would just be talking to a fake human, and I wouldn't be involved at all.

I would just be watching.

How can there be an interaction between him and me, when there isn't really a 'me' for him to interact with?

How can he speak to me if I am nothing?

What would he want with nothing?
For I doubt that he could have any relation with Lillith, but as a petitioner who prays to a goddess.

He doesn't know Lillith exists.

He doesn't have the faintest idea who or what I am.

It is all based on a misconception, a misunderstanding based on my superficially human shape.

As with the Commander, I wonder what he sees when he looks at me.

It's much less clear, much less obvious.

But that doesn't mean I can just fill that uncertainty with whatever wishful thinking I desire.

He reacts to me as he would to a human, out of desire to be listened to, to connect with other humans.

What he responds to, what he feels affinity with, is what he thinks he sees.

It's quite likely that he doesn't really know anything about me and just got himself worked into some hormonal frenzy based on some mistaken impression, because he doesn't know me, can't know me, if there is nothing to be known.

He might simply be looking upon a mirage.

It's just too sad.

To be spoken to by others, I need a name.

To be affected by others, I need a 'self'.

So what am I?

The simplest answer might well be that I'm just Lillith.

Is there even really reason to suppose otherwise, other than my highly subjective and biased discomfort?

Well, to begin with, Lillith is a timeless immortal being, and that which is known as 'Rei Ayanami' at least ostensibly exist as a mere individual, with a purpose in service of the human instrumentality projects and connections with the people that surround me.

I am shaped by the particularities of the vessel through which I experience the world, by those I encountered, and I have some leeway over what it is I think.

The soul within me is without doubt that of Lillith, but take a shot of alcohol and mix it with some juices and syrups, and you receive a cocktail that is in some manner its own thing, with its own properties and characteristics, that provides a different experience if you drink it.

However, it would be just as true that the molecules of alcohol within it have not changed at all.

Both ways of viewing it are equally valid.

Both are equally arbitrary.

Both are simply artifacts of human thinking, which subdivides the world in objects and discrete entitities.

The physical reality is what it is and no amount of thinking will alter it, but what, if anything it means, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing… that is up to human thinking.

This is why one person might rejoice at an event that devastates another.

The facts are the same, but what differs is their interpretation.

Many wars have been fought about the question of which is the 'right' or 'true' interpretation, what the right meaning of life is, but for the most part they have come to no result.

That is because they cannot.

There isn't an ounce of 'good' or 'bad' anywhere in the natural world.

There is no instrument you can build, no measurement or experiment you can run that could tell you what a "true self" is.

You would determine it according your beliefs – what you concluded from your experiences, or what you've been taught to consider as such.

You could argue about which belief is best, but how would you chose the creteria for what it best?

It would come down to an infinte regress.

I suppose I could chose the answer which I most like, the one that's comforting or most convenient for the things I want.

The one that makes me happy.

After all, if what creates people's suffering in their thought, if their rejoicing or dismay comes from the angle and the lens that they choose, I might as well shift it so as to minimize that suffering, and this could be a guidepost then.

But the experience of people is not only contrained by their thoughts, it is also subject to physicality.

I could believe that I can fly, interpret even the sensation of falling as that of flying, right until I hit the groud, and then, would feel nothing more at all.

Besides, what I want or what hapiness is plucks apart and reduces down into the name ultimate nihility.

It might be that there is no truth, no meaning.

It is all just parochial subjectivity.

It's highly unlikely that some objective voice of truth will ever call down from the heavens and tell me which the 'real me' is. No fountain of fairy-light will shower me in sparkles upon picking the right answer. No little tune of victory will play to reward me, no gentle reassuring sussurations of the universe assuring me that of course my identity is valid, no magical artifact willing to respond only to me and never to Lillith – probably, no one would say that, and even if they would, it would be for their own reasons, or based on imperfect interpretations or beliefs.

The words of anyone else may be just as arbitrary as my own thoughts on the matter.

Could I even trust myself to believe such a statement by another? Would I not be swayrd to accept it unduly because it may be what I wish to know?

How would I or anyone else even really know what my true nature really is?

It can be said that truth is effortless and pretense is artifice and strain, but there is nothing in this life that is not a strain, or that does not require a myriad little deliberate choices.

Some philosophers have argued that people do not really have any 'true essence', at least not when they first come to be: Existence precedes it.

Beings come into existence, and then, through their choices, it becomes clear what they turn out to be.

So, am I Lillith?

It depends on how you look at it.

Which means, it depends on how I choose to look at it.

If what made me 'Rei Ayanami' was that others simply called me that, then all it may well take for 'Rei Ayanami' to dissapear is to consider myself as Lillith.

And should I decide that I had always been Lillith, it would be no different as if Rei Ayanami had never been.

I felt sorry for 'Rei Ayanami' when I considered her precarious position.

The physical state of affairs could not be changed, but my interpretation of it was in flux – such was my only bitter ghost of freedom.

So, am I Lillith?

Perhaps, these are some better questions:

Do I consider myself the same as Lillith?

Should I consider myself the same as Lillith?

Does it make sense to consider myself the same as Lillith?

If I am Lillith, then what does it mean?

It doesn't immediately determine that I should go back to her and continue her mission and intentions, to complete her offspring, to defend them as their mother.

For if I am Lillith, she could change her mind just as surely as I.

On the other hand, one might also consider being made out of what used to be Lillith a consistent, congruent part of what it meant to be Rei Ayanami.

Perhaps I really was really just simply me.

Just simply a being that happens to be made out of Lillith's soul, something more than the sum of its parts. 'Ayanami Rei' could become the name of the state for when all these components and circumstances have come together – this kind of soul, in this kind of vessel, living through this kind of circumstance. And she would continue to exist as such for so long as these components remain together.

I wish this concerned someone else, that 'Ayanami Rei' was anyone other than myself.

If so, I could analyze this situation without any concern that my position in it might bias me toward one outcome or another.

I could look at it from the outside, from a distance away, judge the feelings involved for what they are, without being affected by them, having them subtly tweaking the weights of my neural pathways.

A system that reacts to predictions about itself is second-order chaotic and therefore low-validity.

One's intuitions become useless and even one's rational thought is liable to be swept by bias.

Our minds are not designed to understand it.

I am trying, of course, to react to predictions about myself as little as I can, so as not to cloud my view, but there is no guarantee that I might suceed.

There is no guarantee that I can look clearly at this existence while I am still trapped in this skin, liable to be swept with its pain, its fear, its drive to maintain some kind of internal locus of control.

...

The next time that I came to see Ikari-kun was in the hallways at NERV, shortly before yet another synchronization test and training session was to take place.

This time, he did not come to talk to me.

That in itself would not have been so unusual, has his attention instead been occupied by Major Katsuragi or the Second.

Even if he had just been listening to his music, that would not have been unusual, since he was, after all, quite introverted, but even that was not the case this time.

He just kind of trailed after the other members when he arrived with them – I spotted him when I heard them coming and briefly looked up from my reading to ascertain who it was.

So far as I could discern it, Ikari-kun didn't seem to be doing or looking at anything in particular.

Perhaps he was simply in a bad mood – I wouldn't know.

Major Katsuragi took her sweet time chatting and catching up with Dr. Akagi when she greeted her, so the three of us were left to linger in the hallway for a moment, though the Second went straight into the room to get some details of the experiment straight from the technicians.

So far as I could tell, Ikari-kun barely noticed the change, and hardly gazed after her.

He just stood there, as if still stunned from some blow that had taken place before I saw him.

I wondered if something happened, but there really wasn't any way to know.

The thought did occur to me that I might go and speak to him – not even to ask, and risk being faced with him wondering what on earth I was talking about, but just to… feel some confirmation of his existence and its qualities, I suppose, or maybe letting him know he is thought of, insofar as I am capable of that.

I might not be.

It might not change anything.

Though I no longer had the freedom to pretend that this would be the only reason.

Once permitted into awareness, that mocking, dismissive voice all the way in the back of my mind was now all-pervading – it is like when one suddenly noticed a feature of a familiar place that had always been there, but never explicitly become the subject of one's awareness.

Once noticed, it became too much a part of an imprint of the whole to ever again picture that place without it. One is forced to confront how uncertain and vague one's idea of the place had been to begin with.

For here I am again.

I didn't need to be told, nor was there anyone doing the telling but me.

It was a quiet, distant realization, not even sharp.

Once again, I can't quite bring myself invest myself in a world that I've already given up for lost, a place where I have no hopes of my own, where I just do what is expected so that at last they may let me be.

Of course not.

It is the kind of persistent, predictable limitation that one could grow sick and tired and bored of, the kind of old sedimentous pain that one is forced to recognize time and time again.

I cannot say in hindsight that 'I knew it' when I had at the time dismissed the idea as a mere stray thought that I would have otherwise forgotten, but as the day progressed there were indications that the impression I had earlier was in fact founded in something.

I'm always just a little surprised when I see proof that I'm not the only one seeing or interpreting something a certain way, seeing how I differ from those around me, how I compare to them as an imitation.

We had long since suited up and descended into our plugs, so that most of my attention had been sunk into the synchronization experiment itself, my efforts given to clearing my mind of the unsteady chaos within so that I could serve as a conduit for other wills to that of Unit Zero and keep open the link.

It was only at the edge of my consciousness that I picked up the words in my peripheral hearing, only passing the threshold of awareness because some apish sorting algorithm judged the terms salient, the familiar names worth attending to.

"Is something wrong with Shinji-kun?" asked Dr. Akagi, likely bent over the screens, if the orientation of the sound was anything to judge by.

"His synch rate seems to have taken a dip, after he was making such good progress, too…."

So it wasn't just my imagination.

The others saw it too, in fact the prood was visible black on white in the shape of the synchrographs.

It really should have minded my own business, but my attention remained keyed in, anticipating, wondering of maybe Major Katsuragi was going to supply something of an explanation, but she only mumbled something noncomittal about school and puberty and how it was bound to work itself out.

I wondered how much her words could be weighted here.

In any case, the NERV staff had their results. Perhaps after checking a few more things from the readout, Dr. Akagi stood back from the consoles and declared that we could finish up and come out.

There was a routine examination scheduled after this, so we did not go to our usual lockers, but a room at the side of the cages where Dr. Akagi and her assistants were standing ready.

After the procesure passed by like usual, they vacated us the room, leaving us behind on the benches in the room, the girls divided from the one boy by a modesty courtain along its center.

I could have taken my time in putting my uniform back on, and at first, that was my inclination, but I gave myself a push to hurry up, having come to a decision.

The ball was in my court now, the situation clearly spelled out, there wasn't a room for doubt.

If existence does in fact precede essence, whatever I chose to do now would create the person that I turned out to be.

I could have just left, as I was honestly inclined to, and been content to privately wonder about what might be going on. I could surrender myself as always and let the flow of destiny go where it would, or I could act, take a small step now, onto another path.

In that vision, when the layers of my assumed existence were stripped from me one by one, I remembered how I had held onto the idea of being connected to others, how those faint scattered moments were some of the few memorable experiences that had felt solid and tangible, that had given me reasons to be grateful.

At first I waited just to make sure that Ikari-kun would be done changing, so that I would not starle him as I had in the past. I'm not sure that my decision was even quite solidified here.

I had expected to simply wait for him to make his way to the exit, but he didn't come, so, the action I ended up taking was a bit more direct than what I expected.

Yet I did it. What real reason was there not to, anyway?

The flow of destiny would do its worst either way.

I brushed aside the curtain and stepped in the other half of the room.

Ikari-kun was dressed alright, fortunately, but his discarded plugsuit was still spilled out on his side of the bench, just where he must have thrown it when he took it off.

He didn't seem to have made any motion to put it away or even leave.

Even when I stepped inside, he didn't react much, none of his usual hhurried, nervous responses.

He sat there like a heavy, inert mass, hands folded on his knees, gaze aimed at nowhere in particular.

His eyes only slowly trailed up to me when I presume he must have spotted my skirt at the edge of his vision. "Huh? Ayanami?"

"Ikari-kun. Is something wrong? It looks like you are upset."

I think he was rather surprised by my presence.

"I don't know – maybe- "

He didn't seem to know what to to.

I was beginning to wonder if I was imposing when he unexpectedly continued to talk.

The world just fell out, as if they had been waiting coiled up somewhere in there to be sprung like a trap:

"I don't think that I've understood my father at all. After we went to the graveyard, I was beginning to think I could talk to him, but – now I'm just confused again.

I don't know what to believe…."

"Oh…"

There was no mistaking it.

Something had definitely happened to him since we last met. And if that something involved the Commander, I could understand why it would drag down his mood.

I tried to think of something to say, but I never got that chance, because it was just about then that the Second Child came bursting through the curtain, making a point to dramatically push both parts aside with her hands.

Imperious as ever, she marched right on in, and wasted no time in asserting her dominance with a barbed, despiteous comment:

"Excuse me for interrupting your friendly conversation."

You know how I could tell how badly Ikari-kun must be shaken up from whatever must have occurred? He didn't even bother to put on a polite face in response.

"What is it now!" he groaned, still restrained in his frustration, but, the lid was no longer quite on. He had most definitely made a face, and the Second Child didn't like it:

"Hey, what's with that disgusted look! Is that how you respond when the most popular girl in class talks to you?!"

Does she really think that entitles her to have a say in every single facial expression surrounding her?

Although, I am not sure that Ikari kun could have 'won' in her book even if he had greeted her with one of the placid smiles that he could manage on his better days.

She had already come here with the intention to make demands and complaints:

"You did clear up that misunderstanding with Kaji-san, didn't you?!" she asked, blaring straight into Ikari-kun's ears. The noise was uncomfortable even from where I was standing.

"Tell me you gave him the letter!"

Letter?

"Oh, that."

I didn't know what they could possibly be talking about, but I soon learned at least the superficians when Ikari-kun pulled a crumbled envelope from his bag, flinging it right into the Second's disbelieving face.

"Take it.", he declared, in a weary, surly voice, "You caused the whole mess – you can give it to him yourself."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"

But thus once, Ikari-kun wasn't even slowed down by the Secon's protestations. Even as he finished speaking he had already grabbed his bag and made for the door.

"SHINJ! Stay right here!"

Today, he could only muster a tired token pretense as concession to politeness:

"Later, got to go."

If the Second was going to be mad, it seems he was willing to let her this time.

He couldn't be bothered to negotiate her today.

I wondered what all this was about – though, I suppose that, since they were roommates, they would have many, many discussions between them that I wasn't a part of.

She was still holding that envelope.

Ostensibly, it was the reason for all this dispute, but if it was so important, then why had the Second scrunched it together in her hand over her anger at Ikari-kun's unceremonious departure?

I wondered if there was any point in asking.

"What is this letter?"

"SHUT UP!" piped the Second, quite predictably.

I really should have known.

"It has absolutely nothing to do with you! Like you'd get it!"

Then, she stormed off.

In a different direction than Ikari-kun, though they should in theory have been aiming for the same destination.

I surmise she was avoiding him, or maybe he was avoiding her.

Hostile as though their interactions sometimes where, at least she was his fellow human.

She might have gotten what it was that was up with him.

Or maybe not. Even humans were infinitely different from each other in all their countless variations. It was clear that Ikari-kun and the Second did not share much in common, even though they were the same age and lived under the same roof.

And if they couldn't understand each other, then what hope was there for me?

The Second might well be right.

I wouldn't get it, not what was in the letter, nor anything else.

I don't really understand all this about human hearts.

Maybe it's not possible for an existence such as I, which didn't have a soul of its own.

But I could say now, with some justified confidence, that talking was a relief to him, and that he hadn't said everything that he wanted to say earlier, just before we were interrupted.

So, if there was anything I could do – and be it in part because I wasn't an involved or as affected by my own baggage as the Major or the Second may have been – I wanted to.

There was no guarantee that I would be able to do anything, but I wanted his load to be lightened.

Also, if something the Commander had done was a reason for his despodency… then, I wished to know that, too.

I think by then there was already a part of me that could not longersimply accept what I was told.

I wanted to understand.

There weren't many other things that I had ever really wanted, that I could afford to want.

So I moved my legs. I hurried after him.

I had no idea what I would do or say when I caught up to him, but I did choose to keep walking.

I wasn't even sure if I was going to find him, maybe I would just give up and go home before long, once I came across a fork in the road – I knew well that this might happen.

And yet, I walked on.


The intention was to imply that something like the Aquarium scene from the manga took place between this chapter and the last.