(Entrancement)
Ikari-kun was, at last, discharged on sunday, from what I heard.
What I know for certain is that come monday, he was back at school in the morning and set to continue particiüating in the usual regimen of training simulations and synchronization tests.
He was probably glad to no longer be stuck in the medical wing and put his mind on other things that whatever had happened inside Leliel's pocket dimension.
It must occupy him still in one form or another, however, for his long and steady climb in synchronization rate persformance that had come to a marked end, or at least been stalled by a ownward fluctuation.
His scores may have fallen beneath the Second's as well if not for the coincidence that she too happened to have one of her lower performing days.
During the time that he'd been kept for observation, various things had happened, not all of the equally relevant.
It was decided that the great hole left by Leliel in the middle of the city would be turned into a park – a kind of urban design competition was currently being held to decide upon the best use, but some of the newly unroofed garages and basements were considered for repurposement as swimming pools or scateparks. Reerrecting the buildings may have been considered too much of a hassle.
It might have been considered inconvenient in terms of optics to have the city center full of construction just as the seventh and last phase of construction had finished on the city's defenses.
For what little good walls and conventional artillery may be expected to do.
Inspector Kaji was present during one of our training units and remarked that he found it unforgiveably square and boring that NERV was not holding any kind of celebration.
The Commander thought it a waste, and once, I would have thought of this as a rather prudent decision – a party serves no purpose, I'd thought, it's just a waste of resources.
And it doesn't mean anything, the entire city was build to be destroyed very soon after, if not by the remaining angels, then certainly upon the advent of Third Impact.
It was born only to die – but weren't all of us?
I found myself wondering if the city and all who worked on it did not deserve a celebration precisely because it wasn't going to last more than a very short time.
As consolation, maybe. As a zen monk might contemplate his mandala in the sand before the waters carry all the grains away.
In other news, the Dummy plugs were ready.
I had seen one hanging off the ceiling of a hall in Terminal Dogma, presumably for demonstration purposes, held there by robot arms ready to tansport it to the site of its use.
It looked in shape much like a regular plug, only that it was bright red.
It was labelled with my name and the version number 00.
I understand that this is because I am who it is supposed to copy, but it seems reductive, somehow, to equate us. A personal name of any kind seems out of place on its casing.
Most of that casing, I suspect, must be empty, just shaped like a regular plug for the purposes of backward compatibility.
I knew this because there was also an auxillary version of the system that was soon scheduled to be fitted inside the plugs of Units 01 and 02, and that was to be installed beneath the seat.
No Dummy was thought necessary for EVA 00.
It would have been more difficult to install inside the less advanced prototype, but more than anything, it may be supposed that Commander Ikari considered an EVA piloted by myself to be already as much under his direct control as it possibly could be.
He wanted the other two fitted with Dummies as soon as it was feasible, for 'insurance', as I once heard him put it – though it was unlikely that the Dummy System would see much practical use any time soon.
Dr. Akagi thought it usable in theory, but this was a long way off from being confident in relying on it, though I was not aware of the exact nature of the remaining unresolved issues.
In any case she was planning to hook up a Dummy to a simulation body so that she might iron out any remaining kinks and continue to refine the programing, and this was expected to occupy her and Lt. Ibuki for the forseeable future, though I would no longer be as directly involved with the continuation of the project, so I did expect that I would soon find myself effectively out of the loop – in a sense my memory data and my body doubles would be going on their own adventures.
Though perhaps that was overstating it: During a recent meeting that I was in the room for, Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki had brought up the recent progress on EVA Units 03 and 04, which were being constructed overseas, which had the prompted the Commander to question whether or not the Dummies could be made to produce robust-enough results in time for their completion, even speculating about the possibility of dispensing with the need of selecting pilots for them alltogether.
However, Dr. Akagi was cautiously tentative in her response and declined to make any promises or guarantees – one did get the impression that, at present, the Dummy System was at best in a quite rudimentary state of 'technically' working, though it was hard to guess what exactly that meant since I was not involved in the tests.
I must hope, regardless of what that might mean for me, that the Doctor's research would prove fruitful, if only because it may just end up preserving at least two of my classmates from suffering lethal dangers.
...
With the first Dummy Plug now up and running, I had found my workload much decreased.
But one thing remained very necessary, besides the same pilot training duties which the others were also subject to: And that were the usual memory backup and calibration sessions.
It was on account of one of those that I did not attend school the next Wednesday.
Dr. Akagi was taking a much-needed day off that day, so it was actually Lt. Ibuki who oversaw the session.
Being less experienced at it, she didn't diverge in any way from the routine protocol for the procedure or carry out any additional experiments, but even so, I was kept until well into the afternoon.
The light was already beginning to take on the hues of sunset when I made it to the surface.
It seemed like one more day that was already mostly over, passing me by like a gust of wind.
I waited for the tram that would take me to the vicinity of my apartment without expecting that I would be doing much more today than showering and going to sleep.
Even beneath the flame-colored beginnings of the evening, the day was still hot – to walk in direct light was to walk under an oppressive carpet of heat.
So it was a relief then to shut out that brightness as I closed the door of my apartment behind me, coming into a much dimmer, cooler world shielded by the heavy curtains.
However, as I went on in, I was met with a surprise.
Never before had I walked into my room only to find someone already present.
I've heard that typical people can find it eerie to find typically lively places in a state of abandonment; For me, personally, the presence of people in my home still struck me as profoundly strange, even when it wasn't an alltogether new sight at this point.
They were just there.
At least the issue was mitigated by their being familiar faces.
Standing by the dresser was Ikari-kun, and when I came into the actual room, I spotted Suzuhara casually sitting on the lone chair that I owned.
He raised a hand in casual greeting: "Yo! You weren't home, so we kind of invited ourselves in."
"Why is that?"
"We were told to bring you all the school stuff that's been piling up on your desk."
He motioned towards the bed with a gesture of his hand, and much as advertized, I found a stash of printouts, notifications and would-be homework.
But this is when I noticed something odd, like there was something not quite right about the contents of the room, like nothing was quite where I had left it in the morning – I could have sworn that there used to be, at the very least, some scattered crumpled paper napkins by the bed.
Of course it didn't really matter, that was trash without value that I may have thrown out days ago if I had not been too preoccupied with other things – but this place, this room, was just about the only thing that came close to being truly mine, and the thought of anyone touching my things, rummaging through them-
The irritation must have somewhat shown on my face.
"I told ya she'd get mad!" exclaimed Suzuhara.
Under different circumstances, I might have been flattered that he, at least, unlike Dr. Akagi, considered me capable of such sentiments.
Then I heard a rustle, drawing my eyes to Ikari-kun – he was holding up a plastic bag that had been held in his hand, I think, even since before I arrive.
As he spoke, he was sheepish and apologetic in his demeanor:
"I'm sorry, I- I just cleaned up some – I promise I didn't touch anything that wasn't trash."
...oh.
Oh!
So that's what it-
- so that's why-
Oh.
I. I think I felt my face burning a little.
That doesn't happen so often.
Since it wasn't the first time, the reaching for the words was a lot easier, more automatic, not a trained muscle yet, but one of which I knew where it was, where to feel for it:
"...Thank you."
I've been noticing, lately, that he keeps giving me ever newer reasons to say that.
New things to be glad for, to be happy about.
There hardly used to be any such things, or, maybe I wasn't really looking for them.
But now that I am, I notice that he is often the cause of it.
…
With my schedule now being somewhat sparser, I was finding a lot more time to read.
Since I had picked up Yui Ikari's journal again, I had made good progress through its pages.
One thing that surprised me, especially given how idyllic and in a sense 'ordinary' her everyday life had seemed to me, is to see her casually mention the Dead Sea Scrolls in one of the entries.
Not just the name, but intimate detail, brought up in a perfectly casual tone, like it was nothing surprising to her.
It took me a few such references to piece together that Dr. Ikari had apparently been the daughter of an influential SEELE member.
Her family must have been involved with the conspiracy for generations – the coming apocalypse was nothing new to her. She was raised with it. She was expecting her research to contribute to it.
Yet it seems that, at the time of her writing, she did not expect the days of retribution to come within her lifetime. She spoke of plans of retiring from academia after contributing a few good papers, of getting married and having many children.
Besides, she showed no sign of meaning to subvert or deviate from her organization's plans – if she had, it was unlikely that SEELE would have funded her research as handsomely as the text describes.
She was SEELE's ideal, home-grown prodigy.
Still one surmises that she must have abandoned that path, eventually, to become a figure in which Commander Ikari would have such absolute trust.
Turning over to the next page, I wondered what changed her mind.
...
Another day, I had simply been walking to school, like many times before.
Under different circumstances, the memory of it could have blurred into the prototypic recollection of an average walk to school without ever leaving a distinctive trace in memory.
But it was not to be so.
I was just passing the first signs of the incline that announced my growing closeness to the hill on which the school was situated when a sudden noise of hurried steps shook me from the lull of my contemplations.
At first I was just going to keep walking, thiking it an incidental interruption wholly unrelated to myself, but then the running stranger passed me, and stopped running, and revealed himself to be no stranger at all, but rather Ikari-kun, who prompty stopped to catch his breath as soon as he entered my field of vision.
This, I felt, justified stopping my steps.
"Ikari-kun."
"Oh, Ayanami! Good morning!"
He'd briefly rested his arms on his knees at this point, still huffing occasionally.
"...is there a reason why you are in such a hurry?"
It seemed like the most obvious thing to ask about.
"Not I really, I just – wasn't sure I'd be able to catch up with you. I know you get off as the same bus stop as me, but I never seem to run into you in the mornings. You're usually at school when you get there, so, I guess you normally leave earlier?"
I didn't know what to make of it that he seemed to have paid so much attention to my routine.
It made me feel seen, but also kind of… exposed.
It didn't use to matter where I was or when I came so long as I showed up wherever NERV expected me too. For so long, being unseen had been my only refuge.
Being noticed was strange.
It didn't feel quite safe – that may have been a lack of familiarity, mostly.
I wasn't used to it. I didn't know what to think about it.
It wasn't all bad, but I couldn't say if I could or wanted to keep this up indefinitely.
I wasn't sure just how much 'being seen' I could withstand….
It wouldn't be long before his looking would be drawn to places that I may not want him to see.
"I left later today because I went to see Dr. Akagi yesterday. I had to stay long."
I hoped that would end the matter by serving as a complete and finished explanation.
Yet it only piqued his interest more – no, not just interest.
His eyes wavered with considered concern:
"...were they keeping you for extra experiments again, or was it 'cause you weren't feeling well?"
What can I tell him?
That I'm an abomination so unnatural that I would be actively falling apart in every instant that I'm existing if this were not actively counteracted by a disproportionate amount of constant countermeasures?
If my existence were made public, it is likely that most people would consider it a horrific thing.
Some of them may be inclined to have more sympathy than Dr. Akagi, but they would probably still look upon my being here as something akin to the breeding of a brachycephalic dog or other such questionable practices that result in beings that exist in a state of constant suffering for the use and amusement of their makers and users.
Something that never should have been, or at best, was the result of a painful compromise.
Recognizing my sentience and capacity for pain more than the Doctor did may only incline them to see me all the more as something that was better off put down.
I wasn't sure that I did not agree. I must admit, sometimes I can't be bothered to keep myself alive if it were too much of a hassle. Most of it isn't very rewarding.
A release from the labours of living seemed preferable still to some other people thinking they might change or fix or process me, subject me to some more benevolent farce of this maintenance without planning on ever letting me go – grabbing hold of me to change out parts and adjust some screws, destroying even what I came to be without a release.
I could imagine Major Katsuragi trying that, if she found out what I was.
But even in that terrifying optimism of hers she would see that as making amends for the inustice of my creation, though she would probably not say this out loud to me.
If the decision was a mere hypothetical of whether to create me or not, I could see how it would be seen as a net negative – I myself would not create another like me.
But now I did exist.
And I had to reckon with that.
I existed, and I would dissappear, and I had to reckon with that, too.
With the disappearance of what had managed to exist despite everything.
My being was an anguish and a torment, but did that make it worthless?
Did that make its erasure a pure good?
It has been said that "Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance."
This body was created for a reason, but me? The person?
I just came along with it.
But I am tired. I am so tired of prolonging myself, sometimes.
Sometimes I wish that I could allow myself to contemplate the difficulty of my life without those heavy implications hanging over it, without every ounce of pain and dysfunction proving exactly why I should not be here.
I wish I could afford to even groan under the strain of this existence without knowing they will pounce like vultures to fix their precious asset – the result of their hard work.
Revealing my pain had never got me more than further merciless pecking.
They would seize me, and grasp me, and do who knows what to me, putting their greasy fingers in my bleeding open wounds…
And rationally, I understood that Ikari-kun in particular was highly unlikely to do any of those things.
Indeed I'm convinced he was probably quite willing to offer what meager comfort it was within his power to offer, that he'd witness my pain with the most sincere sympathetic twinge as he always had.
Even though my reason must disagree with this, and hold it an objective mistake of which the outcome should be clear as proven by that previous confrontation and his general disturbed responses to much of what he'd witnessed here, there was very much a part of me that actually wanted to speak of the ugliness I held within my heart to its fullest, blackest extent.
Let him be repulsed, if repulsed he will be, and at least have it gotten over with.
If I did not speak the harsh black words, they could never be answered.
I would never open the door for him to respond, for him to perhaps surprise me by soothing the tatters of my being.
For truth to be answered with truth…
But if I was honest I could more or less tell what his answer would be.
I should really be grateful that he had been so considerate as to lok past the unstated secrets.
If consideration it was, and not cowardice – but it was relief to me all the same.
To break this temporary illusion of my own accord would just hasten the inevitable predictable outcome.
If I were to bring it up, to hope for some unlikely fulfillment ot comfort as for a light on the horizon, that would just lead to predictable pain and hardship, and anguish of which he would already have enough on his plate, or I could just let it be, and in paying the price of expecting nothing, get to remain a little longer in a fool's paradise…
But how long could it last?
Right here right now, Ikari-kun was clearly coming to the conclusion that I wasn't going to answer him.
"I don't mean to pry!" he stated, as if the error lay with him.
That is certainly very considerate of him?
But how long could this go on?
How much longer could any of this last?
He was rambling, now, probably concerned that he had offended me.
That's not it. It's frustrating…
"I just want to show I'm paying attention to you – which, I guess you might say is prying so – uh… Jeez… I don't know what I'm saying anymore…"
...he doesn't understand.
And if I were to speak, he would probably understand even less.
If OI don't explain it well – if that is even possible – if it remains but half understood….
He would just fit it into some kind of belief or box or idea of his that explains it according to his own understanding.
Maybe, according to such explanations as he's comfortable with, never daring to contemplate that something that sounds too terrible and too awful could possibly be the truth.
He might not even believe my truth, as he refuses to believe anything that is too upsetting for him.
He would find it terrible, but still it is the reality.
The only reality I will ever have.
Can I blame him?
Every person is first of all strapped to their own needs andlimitations.
How can I expect him to overcome that if I can't do it?
The truth would scare him, disturb him, and as that seems to be the appropriate reaction, there's nothing I could say to it.
I am plainly marked with obvious, evident proof that I am something that should be avoided.
Something opposite to him, that could never coexist without pain…
He's decided to put that doubt away for the sake of keeping this connection, but I can guess that what he said in that outburst a while back was probably the actual truth – that he probably feels rejected or deceived by seeing himself kept in the dark, as if he were being excluded from something, as if I were withholding something.
As if I even had anything to give to him.
He wants to hold onto others so badly, but I'm afraid that there is nothing to me that can be held onto.
And yet another part of me – that irrational part – cannot help its pointless frustration…
For my silence is not a judgement of him, and I so wronged that he's making it into one, even if it's just quietly. Even if it's just in secret, held back by whichever bits of him know better than to say it at least while he can afford to be reasonable, a luxury he will not always have..
Can't he see that I would not even try to explain if I it wasn't important to me that he does?
I'd be glad to let him think whatever he will.
If it were someone I don't care about, I wouldn't even try. It wouldn't even matter.
If I thought badly of him – if I didn't think he wants to understand, or wouldn't care to, if I didn't think there would be goodwill, why would I even bother with such a pointless, hopeless, futile endeavor?
I didn't have anything to say.
Sometimes I feel like I don't ever have a single thing to say to any other person, like the conversation would preclude itself before it's even started.
But even as I contemplated my lot while Ikari-kun was still stumbling over himself to come up with an apology, I already felt it.
Suddenly starting up out of nowhere, prompting a sudden contraction of fright.
Mostly on the right side.
Not just the right field of vision – nor was it simply a pain –
It was just – everything-
There was brightness as the disk of the moon, stark pale and greyish-white.
I-
I…
Next thing I really knew, I felt my knees against the curb, and the front of me, against Ikari-kun's shoulder, touching but in a few points, but, held in place as such by his hands on my arms.
He was on the floor, too, crouching down it seems.
Most of everything was still ringing or throbbing a little, ending as it had begun on the right.
There was sweat sticking upon my face, my arms, uselessly hanging down, until I'd just begun to raise them so as to steady myself.
"Hey… hey… Is everything okay?"
Well, this is inconvenient. I really must have startled him.
I hope this wasn't going to be an inconvenience or a distraction.
My head, in particular, still felt a little tender when I tried to turn it, mostly to look at him.
It struck me that he must have reacted fast to catch me.
"It has passed."
I moved to get up back to my feet and help him up as well, but he didn't let go of my hand when I thought he might, staying behind, reluctant to keep moving.
"Maybe you should stay home again today. Or go see Dr. Akagi."
"There is no need. Minor malfuctions are acceptable. There is probably little that she could do."
I mean, I figured.
If it was somehing major she'd have caught it during the last session, or would do so during the next.
I'd rather not go see her more often than necessary.
There was a limit to what could be done, anyways.
I was coming closer to the intended expiration date with every day, by my very design.
Lately, it seemed almost as if time had been passing more slowly, but it wasn't standing still.
"It is just that there isn't much time left, anymore. "
"What… what do you mean by that?"
Oh. Oh yeah.
Now I'd done it.
I must have got him scared.
I shouldn't have blurted it out.
I must still be slightly out of it.
"It won't be long. Until the project comes to its completion. It won't matter anymore."
"...you mean, because we won't have to fight?"
"...yes."
That was all I could say. It wasn't a lie.
Ikari-kun must have senses that this was not a happy hope that I was referring to.
He wasn't quite a ease… and again I know not how much this was consideration or cowardice, but in that moment, he did not probe me further.
He simply implored me to maybe talk to the Doctor just in case, at least after school, but even that he didn't press me on.
Mercifully the subject passed.
As we walked, I noticed then, belatedly, how much of the warmth of his hand was still clinging onto my own as a passing afterglow.
Other spots, too, where he had touched my arms, or I his shoulder with the tip of my chin.
If that kept happening, I was going to lose count.
I might even come to think of the feeling of his hands as something perfectly natural and expected, something I might miss in his absence.
And how foolish would that be, when time is so clearly and patently running out before my very eyes, moment by moment by moment…
"...thanks. For catching me." I said, nonetheless.
It was no longer unfamiliar. No longer just something falling out, but words I was chosing to speak with deliberate intention.
…
Pretty much since I began reading Yui Ikari's diary, I had been waiting for the moment when Commander Ikari would be making his appearance.
To begin with, it was him I was hoping to learn more about, not so much this woman I had never met. She was relevant to me only because of her connection to him.
Now I realized that he had actually shown up a while ago, without my noticing.
What tripped me up is that in this part of the world it is generally the custom for the wife to take the husband's surname most of the time, though not always.
Though if 'Gendo' did not happen to be a somewhat uncommon name, I may still have assumed that this 'Rokubungi Gendo' was a wholly different person who just shared it by coincidence.
The man that was being described did not resemble the Commander Ikari that I knew very much at all. He seemed a disreputable, penetrant character, often smirking, getting into physical fights.
Young as she was then, Dr. Ikari kept being told not to associate with him, but this she writes in her diary always followed by a remark that she is old enough to choose her own company.
She says that he is really a sensitive person, though nobody ever took the time to find out.
I cannot recognize the stoic taciturn man I know either in the ruffian from the warnings nor in the fondness of his lover.
She gave off the impression of a young girl who had found an ugly stray dog of dubious parentage and insisted upon keeping them.
Ikari-kun had once related to be a story where his mother was a victim, led to an untimely dead by the experimentation of his father. But the story that I was reading here was much the opposite: She was the mastermind. She brought him into the project, as well as her life, simply because she so pleased.
In her journal, she described their many escapades in detail: Her wealthy SEELE member parents were outraged when she took their private jet for a spontaneous trip to the louvre, only to find that her dear 'Rokunbungi-kun' wasn't too impressed with the Mona Lisa.
There was much more talk of their lovers' meetings for a while than there was of anything scientific.
All of these were probably precious, intimate moments for her.
She speaks of going with him to a bar, patching him up after a brawl, a trip in nature, to the side of a lake, where they gently held hands, and then, a fateful night they shared beneath the full moon.
It isn't long before they're heading to the hospital to get an ultrasound, and on their way there, she is prompting the Commander for possible names.
"Shinji if it's a boy. And for a girl, Rei…"
...huh.
I suppose he was still fond of the name, even when he didn't get to use it when he thought he might.
I felt strangely touched but also sobered.
There was a time when I would have rejoiced to hear this. There's a reason I had hoped once that he was my genetic donor.
But the information came at a point where I was no longer sure if that would be such a grand thing to be his daughter.
Not that I thought it was bad, either, it just wasn't as simple anymore.
It was something to be looked at from a simple, sobering distance.
Though I suppose this might cast a different light on why he thought it would be silly that Ikari-kun might be interested in marrying me – if he thinks of me as his daughter, he would think of us as brothers and sisters, and those are not considered eligible to marry, though that bond is also a very close one and often more lasting – it tends to take a lot less offense for someone to divorce their spouse than to disown their family.
I don't think he really was suggesting anyting like that, anyways, back then in the elevator.
I think I've come to understand humans a little better since then.
I used to think it would change something, I were his daughter, but he doesn't behave towards his own son as a typical parent, so even if we were blood related, things may well be unchanged.
At this point I think it's probably better that we're not related, it would just make things more complicated.
In any case, Yui Ikari liked the names. But what she wasn't so fond of was her husband's reaction to the news. He wasn't as glad to hear he would be a father as she thought he might be, rather he was upset – "The child will have to live in the world after Second Impact. A veritable hell."
He strangely seemed the more responsible of the two here.
His wife surmised that he must have had a difficult time in his youth – unlike her, he'd known the darkness of the world, and he was not at all thrilled at the prospect of bringing another life into it – especially since it was about then that Adam had been found, which to them, as members of the conspiracy, had to mean that any child they might conceive scarcely have the time to reach adolescence before being wiped away in Third Impact.
And this is where, among this distant sea of unreal perfection, Yui Ikari finally starts to seem like a real, actual person to me, to speak of anything that I would recognize in the very different world that I now live in – because this is when she, much as I do now, first comes to experience any kind of doubt about her purpose.
It was amazing that she could live so long before ever really encountering it – one may chalk it up to her optimism, her privileged upbringing or the countless other gifts laid into her cradle.
Endowed with beauty, prodigous intelligence and the facility to compell the affections of others without effort, she went long without ever facing doubt, and yet she could not escape it.
I'm not sure that I like what this says about me.
I shouldn't need somebody to suffer in order for me not to resent them, after all her ostensible perfection is no more her fault than my imperfection is mine.
Suffering or not, she is just as real as I. Belated or not, her sorrow was also real.
Since her youth she had been involved in the conspiracy, grown up with the creed of SEELE as if it were her religion. Her life's work had been dedicated to furthering their ends.
From what she'd previously described, she saw it as preserving humanity, as keeping it from a fate of destruction –
But now she struggled to see it as that, since she had a living son and husband.
It was one thing to preserve humanity in the abstract, to help it presevere in some apocalyptic future by transforming it to another shape, when the alternative was destruction.
She was an idealist, an idea person – the promise of utopia was quite real to her. To arrive within her life time, she must not think of just an abstract, general 'humanity' in a distant future, but of concrete, specific individuals:
Her new husband. Her old professor. Her bespectacled friend. Her newborn son.
How 'preserved' would they truly be, as mere ingredients for SEELE's higher lifeform?
When she confided of these doubts to her husband then, he simply said one thing: "How about we say screw it then?"
It occurs to me that this was only possible because she had disregarded her parents' wishes in getting married to a complete outsider with no prior connection of their circles, some rougish, coarse bastard son from a filthy industrial village.
The Dead Sea scrolls were no divine prophecy to him, the plan no gospel.
He looked at it with the eyes of a greedy scoundrel seeking his own opportunity.
And so it came to pass that they went on to conspire against SEELE and subvert their plan to their own ends.
Though here, more than anything, it was shown that the Commonder really must have had some great, uncharacteristic devotion for his wife, for I had always known him to be harsh and consequential in his decisions – and yet, for her sake, he had yielded and agreed to put a child into this world he so despised. For some short years, it seems that he even thought to save it, if only for her sake.
The Commander Ikari that I knew had never been so swayed by another. I would expect him to refuse to beget offspring, if I did not already known that he did so.
But Miss Yui was in need of another 23 chromosomes for the child that she desired, so he consented to give them to her.
He followed her every word like a dark, malignant shadow, or her zealot templar paladin.
I don't think he should have done so, or I would tell him that, if he were a stranger, and his child a pure hypothetical rather than my only friend in the world.
Yet even after chosing to go against everything she had ever believed in, this Yui person was somehow unwavering in her faith, her brief brush with doubt swiftly forgotten as the brief anomaly that it was. More than ever, she had a sense of mission, a truer calling still that she had set her eyes on.
She told the Commander not to worry, that everything would be alright – their son, she said, would survive, because he had the will to live, and because she believed that, as long as one has that, everything can be paradise.
In this it shows that Dr. Ikari never got to meet her son, at least not while she was writing this diary. She knew him as a mere infant, a potentiality of a human being upon which any glorious future was easily projected.
I am not sure that he has that will to live, nor would I say that he perceives the world that he lives in to be anything like paradise.
He may be much closer to perceiving it as the hell as which his father had characterized him – and from my admittedly rather limited experiences, I am inclined to agree with him.
It was strange to read this with a foregone conclusion, knowing that her plans to see her child grow up had never come to fruition.
I don't know whether to be sad that her hopes didn't come true, or angry at how naive she seemed.
Looking inside, I don't believe that I strongly feel either.
...
My mind had not been anywhere near that classroom.
Wherever it had drifted off to had seemed more important at the time, more real than even the distant mountains that my eyes were technically lingering on – now in hindsight, I couldn't really say what it was. It shadow in my memory was like a half-remembered dream, where you are left wondering if there was ever anything to remember to begin with, or if it wasn't all just retroactive confabulation concocted once your waking mind returned.
What I do remember, and likely always will, is retained in great clarity, most likely impressed upon my soul forever despite the simplicity of it.
I was called back to the immediate present by surprise, forcibly returned to my very particular presence in my very physical wooden seat, and when I looked around for the source of the sound that had called to me, I found Ikari-kun standing beside my desk, adressing me with a gentle smile, ready to hand me a little orange bundle with a long container for chopsticks stuck inside the knot that kept the cloth together.
"Here, for you!"
He must have noted my surprise.
"I've never seen you eat anything for lunch here, so, I thought…"
He trailed off, but there wasn't really much of a need to explain any further.
"Thank you", I said, almost by reflex now.
I wondered if I should say something else now.
I felt painfully limited, considering how wooden it must seem for me to simply keep repeating the appropriate phrase because it was the closest thing I had to an idea of what I was supposed to do.
Because I couldn't just respond without thinking, as naturally as it came to everyone else.
He might think I was only saying it out of courtesy or obligation, that there wasn't any real gratitute behind it, just a phrase. And that wasn't the case at all – it was plain to see that the little lunch box now represented a significant effort. This wasn't something he had just done incidentally because he could, out of simple, general-purpose kindness.
It required preparation.
It was hard tangible proof that he must have thought about me even when I wasn't before his eyes.
I noticed that. I was aware of the implications.
It was just that I could not seem to squeeze the fullness of my existence in this moment through the pitiful seive that was my ability to express myself.
How frustrating, to find myself thus held back when it was the most important.
I might almost begin to believe that I had only imagined my feelings or even my awareness, just something that thinks it is sentient and aware.
It was only up to me to make myself understood. No one else could do it. It's not as if anyone else was ever going to know what's inside me, if I can't somehow get it fumbled into words-
"I'm fine just waiting until I get home, but, I am happy that you thought of me." I attempted, trying to imbue my tone of speech with disinct firmness and clarity.
I anticipated the puzzled looks, the confused words, the subtle digging of my fingers into the yet unwrapped orange cloth -
But that didn't happen.
It seems a notion got across, more or less, pass the chasm.
The dim morning sun illuminated the subtle blush on his cheeks:
"Really? That's great. I'm really glad to hear it…"
Sometimes I wondered why he kept bothering.
Yet, at the same time, I never wanted him to stop.
I, who not too recently had never wanted anything else than to be left entirely alone.
'Please don't ever go away completely', I thought.
'Please don't give up on me. Please keep looking for me, even if I can't always receve you – even if I can't always be enough for you. Even if cannot respond to you in the exact way that you respond to me.
Please tell me that you want to stay with me not inspite of who I am, but because of it.'
…
When I got home that day, one of the first few things I did was to clean out that box.
It was hot, so, if I let it sit in my bag, it might not molder, exactly, but I'd expect that it would take on unpleasant smells – to return it to him in any kind of disfavorable state after he'd taken such care to prepare it for me didn't seem right, so, cleaning it out was the least I could do to return his kindness.
So I washed it out, the box itself, all its little compartments and smaller boxes inside, the chopsticks, the little sauce vessels.
Seeing all the parts laid out on my drying rack made me appreciate how much work had gone into it.
He'd said he was used to it and that it was no bother to make an extra portion when he was already cooking for Major Katsuragi and the Second Child, but still, he had thought of it.
He had taken the time of the day, acting on his own when he didn't have to.
Even more than the gesture, or the food itself, it was his smile that had stuck in my mind, his gladness when I seemed to appreciate the gift.
It was not just that I held gratitude towards him, is that I saw how his face lit up upon being thanked.
I suppose he must have been hoping for that for a long time.
That someone would thank him.
Not just for the cooking, but for everything he did.
Piloting, fighting, sitting through experiments, shedding sweat and blood…
He was doing soo much, hoping for just a little bit of appreciation without daring to ask for it.
Knowing that outright asking was probably futile.
He cooked every day for the Second, too, and all she did was take it for granted and make a point of critiquing it out lout or dramatically handing her leftovers to Hikari whenever she was mad at him for no discernible reason.
I'd heard her shout at him if for some reason or another he could not manage to pack her lunch that day. All he'd accomplished by doing that for her was that she now expected it.
There was such a tender brightness upon his face at being appreciated that it was almost heartbreakingly sad.
He really just wanted someone to care. To bother being kind to him.
And that was a hope I would not even allow myself to harbor, but I can't say that I don't know what it is to do thankless work.
So the more I considered, the less it seemed sufficient to just deliver a clean box to him.
There must be a little more that I could do, even just a little thing, to soothe even a little of his suffering, to add just one good thing to his day.
I had no illusion of there being much within my power – I did not think much of my meager skills in dealing with people. But I thought that, if it was me, even knowing the intention to take away from my suffering would mean something – a drop in an ocean, maybe, but still one drop more than nothing, still more than perishing unwitnessed.
He was only asking for such simple things, and yet they were not given to him.
And I had very little to give.
But despite myself, I wanted… I wanted to do at least something if I could.
Perhaps it was also a desire to mean something to someone, to leave some feeble record of my existence, to be witnessed myself even as I witnessed him.
That is perhaps all we can do for each other, in this world where we all, in a sense, screaming lost inside the dark, unable to help or even understand each other, separated by endless chasms.
We could be there for each other as the stars are, by shining a light onto each other even across the boundless dark.
To be a little useful on my own terms.
Someone should give to him in return – and if not I who will?
I might be the least suited person possible for this, but I can't let him perish thinking that no one cares enough to do this.
Thus seized by a sudden burst of determination, I walked over to my refrigerator, looking for something that I might put inside. As a surprise, maybe, a little show that I cared, clumsy though it might be.
Reality swiftly reasserted itself, however, for beyond the door was really nothing suitable.
The fridge was rather empty, apart from a little instant stuff.
I supposed I would have to go shopping… but for what, exactly?
I really didn't know.
I'd never done anything like this before.
I don't have the slightest clue what I'm even doing.
My mind grasped for precedent as if at straws.
Yui Ikari had mentioned something like this in her diary.
Despite her great wealth, she enjoyed domestic activities. Not only did she do her own cleaning, she made it a point of pride to cook and put a lot of work and dilligence into preparation as well as presentation.
I think she mentioned that Commander Ikari used to be really fond of Omelettes.
Her Omelettes, at least. It seems that she was rather skilled – it figures that she would be similar to her son. Strange as it seemed that he would share that hobby even though Dr. Ikari had not been there to teach him.
Though, if she had lived, perhaps she would be packing him his lunches, and he would have no need to do it himself at all, or to be grown up before his time.
He might have indulged a little longer in youthful mischief just as his friends Suzuhara and Aida.
I wonder what she would put in his lunchbox if she were here.
Probably something home-cooked.
I was tempted to sigh.
I cannot make anything like that.
I don't have that in me.
I am not made to make anybody happy.
I have never spend my days doing that.
If Yui Ikari were here now, what would she do?
Would she know just what to do?
If she were here, would she make him happy?
I cannot think that he would wish me gone in her place, though, not anymore.
He has shown that he considers me important.
If it were possible, I suppose, he might wish for a world in which we could somehow both exist.
The position of a mother, after all, is rather different from that of a classmate.
So what would a classmate do?
What might a human girl do?
Horaki-san can probably cook, but I don't think I know her well enough to guess what exactly she might tell me.
Besides her, the only other girl my age I am remotely familiar with is the Second Child.
I can only imagine that she would scoff at such a question.
I don't think she wonders very much about what she ‚should' do or what's the reasonable thing to do, but simply does whatever she wants…
It occurred to me, then, that this was not always an irrelevant matter.
What do I want to do?
The more I think about that, the easier it comes to mind.
I might have to procure some ingredients. And proper cooking utensils, while I'm at it.
…
"Ah, Hello Ayanami! Good morning!"
That was Ikari-kun. He often made a point of greeting me when I appeared in the classroom door.
I wondered sometimes why he he made a point of including me in all these little human rituals though he must have noticed that I could not reciprocate it in the way that he might be hoping or expecting me to. That it couldn't mean to me what it did for me.
There was always that sad sense of futility to it, yet I was glad that he never really stopped.
I was glad that he came walking up to me, like many times before.
The bright smile that he had affected to greet me somewhat dimmed itself once he had a good look at me.
"...you didn't have that band-aid on your arm yesterday."
"Dr. Akagi administered some treatment. I spoke to her about the recent dizzyness issue, so she had adjusted my medication."
"Aha… That's a relief. I - I hope you feel better now."
I must admit that I was, at least, less worse.
To be honest I wasn't planning on talking to the Doctor about it.
But then I thought that I wanted to keep coming here. To keep having new experiences, at least a few, at least for a while, just a little longer.
I would dissappear soon enough – even a full human lifespan was but the blink of an eye by the measure of the cosmos. There wasn't a need to hurry it along.
Once it became impossible to operate this body in a satisfactory manner I would be unable to object to the reason of warming up the next one, but I don't think that moment had come yet.
Not for now, at least.
For now there was some business that I still wanted to take care of as this me, with these hands:
"I didn't bring it."
"...the bandaid?"
"Your lunchbox. From the day before."
I had been thinking about what to put in it, but I couldn't come up with anything before I had to go to NERV in the evening.
Though, to my relief, Ikari-kun did not seem too bothered about that even without that additional information.
"Don't worry about that. You can just give it back whenever."
I see then.
"...if that is the case… would you mind waiting a little longer?"
"...Sure?"
...
I more or less recognized much of the events that now followed in Yui Ikari's narration.
The establishment of GEHIRN, the beginning of the work on the EVAs… and somewhere along the way, Fuyutsuki was recruited to their cause, though he bore great resentment over his former student's involvement in Second Impact.
It was clear even to Yui that he stuck with them only because he liked SEELE's plan even less.
Braver than him was that woman with glasses, who had also been joined to their ranks - though she later left their group over a difference in opinion.
She told Yui to consider that humanity may be able to leave a record of itself without relying on the power of the divine, that even her controlled, altered version of Third Impact may not come to be needed, but in this, it seems, Yui was not willing to wholly abandon the tenets of their own faith.
She thought that to release mankind from its destiny, that destiny had to be fulfilled, at least on paper.
It was for this that she created Evangelion Unit One, the magnum opus of her life.
The journal described the process in detail.
There was a photogaph of what I recognized to be a room in Terminal Dogma – later on, it was used as a dumping ground for failed EVAs, and that's how I had always known it, but in this picture, the grand, cross-shaped ditch was bare of skelletons and instead, I saw Lillith -
Submerged partially in liquid, attached still by a cord of pulsing flesh do a mirror image of her upper body, its face covered in tarp, its chest opened, a square cutout mirroring where the present Lillith still had that great scar on her chest.
Except the wound was still fresh there, the core just recently taken, moved to be housed in the chest of her doppelganger, still attached like a flatform that had grown two heads after being sliced in half, or a cell half-caught in mitosis, practically one entity still -
Still I could not doubt that what lay there now across Lillith was soon to become EVA Unit One, her one trueborn offspring, rather than a mere copy, like the Adam-based EVAs.
This must be how Lillith lost her lower half – she was severed at the waist so that the EVA might be cut free.
But that EVA was part human, too, and for those parts, Yui Ikari's own DNA had been used.
She also wished it painted her favorite color – no doubt, it was her great vanity project, what she saw as the cummulation of her life.
In the text, she spoke of how it would be an arc to protect humanity from the ravages of destruction. How it would remain as eternal proof of its being even when humanity was long gone – she hoped even for it to go on to seed brand new worlds just as Lillith did in giving birth to us, so, in its creation, she thought herself to have equalled that of the gods.
So she didn't think it a cruelty or a risk to have her three year old son watch the activation experiment. She thought it a great privilege.
She thought of her work as doing what she could to protect him, even in the case that SEELE should learn of her treasonous deeds and ‚dissappear' her.
She mentions Fuyutsuki was threatened with that.
She doesn't mention at all what happened to her other friend after their disagreement, the one that her old teacher nicknamed ‚Maria Iscariot' for turning her back on their group.
I can only conclude that SEELE did more than just threaten her.
In this climate, Dr. Ikari might well have thought that she wasn't putting her life into much more danger than it was already in by volunteering to be the test subject for the activation.
After all, it was her theory that proposed direct entry into cores, so if it failed, it should be on her head – or so she said.
Her notes were getting a bit more cryptic towards the end, like there was something she wasn't saying.
I wonder if she was concerned about SEELE finding her writings, but what greater secret could she still hope to conceal when her betrayal was already described plainly?
Either way, I was never going to find out from this text, because this is where her writings end.
She described the experiment, but she never lived to describe its results, let alone analyse them.
Yet some other records had been placed here, stuck inside the book between the last of her writings and the back cover, lodged between the empty pages that she never got to fill.
Multiple reports.
Something describing the incident, as well as various attempts to salvage her – one headed by… Dr. Akagi? No that cannot be – from the timing, I expect it must be her mother. A different Akagi then. The Second report was of something led by Fuyutsuki.
The third was not to do with the experiment at all, at least not at face value – it was actually the first proper draft for the human instrumentality project. I recognized parts of it from the later version.
It was written by Commander Ikari.
Though it surprised me to learn that it had only been submitted after his wife's demise.
Had the plan been substantially altered then?
The timing struck me as odd, if they were simply formalizing what had only been discussed broadly before that day.
Why were those reports stuck in here, as if they were a continuation of Yui Ikari's writings?
The failed attempts to rescue her may be considered related to the experiment she described, but how does the instrumentality draft feature into it?
I had no choice here but to keep on turning the pages.
…
I didn't use to be very much interested in the affairs of other human beings.
I'd considered them irrelevant to my mission, passing curiosities at best.
At worst it was just exhausting to have to listen to them when I couldn't avoided.
It was being imposed upon when I'd rather sink back into the silence, much like all this life was an endless chipping, pulling and pinching at me when I'd crave the stillness of the void.
But now, when it was with him…
When it was with him, as of late, it's like I could not stop listening.
Like every little thing about him was the most interesting thing there could possibly be, like I could hear him speak forever, letting the gentle trickle of his being sink into the endless black hole of my emptiness.
I longed to understand him completely, or forever keep trying in constant infinitesimal improvement if that was impossible.
I yearned to know all that there was, as if he were my new favorite subject or the most gripping book there could be.
He wasn't really telling me of anything special, but it became special because he was the one telling it.
I almost found myself beginning to be interested in Aida and Suzuhara also, simply because they were important to him, because I'd heard so much of them in his voice.
I don't know if this was simply my own futile hope to be special to someone, sending out into the world what I wished to have even when I knew better than to ever expect to get it.
I don't know if I was reading too much into it for desperation.
But it was a warm, balmy summer afternoon in the low golden light, and somehow he had followed me all the way from school, never even noticed where he should have taken a different turn because he was engrossed in conversation with me, even as we passed on the narrow barren sidewalk on the motorway bridge that leads to where my appartment is.
He simply kept telling me of Aida-kun's latest exploit in sneaking out of town to see a large militar ship at a nearby harbor, and how he'd gone with Mr. Kaji to acquire a razor so that he might shave his first few emergent moustache hairs.
He was rather grateful, then, that Mr. Kaji had taken the time to indulge him for that kind of rite of passage.
I think he mostly seemed glad that anyone was willing to hear about his life at all without teasing him or telling him to shut up.
Surely, his friends did that also, but it was still something he was getting used to, that he still felt surprised by.
Maybe it's because of this that he is interested in me.
He asks about me.
If I'm not in class, he evidently notices – he's glad to see me back the next day.
He takes note of me.
He cares. He tries to understand, even if he can't, but most of all he witnesses.
He lets a little bit of proof my existence to be carven upon his heart.
He gives me time.
He gives me new things.
He lets me come along if I so desire, but he's fine with it when I can't come.
He doesn't push, he won't demand, he actually seems to be pleased from spending time with me, as if it's actually enough for him, as if the crumpled little offerring I can give him with my clumsy trembling hands actually matters to him.
We have tea again, this time, when we get home to my place.
He must have seen the empty lunch box on the counter, but he doesn't comment on it.
Instead we end up on the balcony, mugs in hand, the nylon curtains being slightly pulled out of the way just for a moment, and from the familiar dark, we emerged into a space that I hardly ever used for very much else than drying my laundry.
There is no furniture on the balcony besides my washing machine, no garden chairs or anything.
I never thought that I'd ever have an use for it.
But here we stand, looking out at the used and washed out empty places in the courtyard.
Standing there in the last of the light, right in that last moment before it turns from gold to crimson.
"I'm sorry I don't have another chair – or very much to offer you in terms of hospitality. I understand that it must be unsatisfying for you to be around me. I don't really understand how one does that – I never know what you want from me."
"I don't want anything from you.", he said, as if that were but a silly proposition. "I just like hanging out with you. I came here because of that, not 'cause I was expecting you to do anything."
"But if that is the case… then why would you do that?"
"...why, you say? Hm…" I didn't seem to have occurred to him that that was a question someone would say.
"It's probably hard to say why anyone likes anyone, sometimes they just do. I guess noticed you around the place a lot – at NERV, or at school… and I thought I should get to know you. Actually, almost since I first saw you, I've been thinking that you seem like a really interesting person and I really wanted to get to know you! – but I was a bit too scared and awkward at first… but I was thinking about you. I was wondering why you're always alone. It's like no one was even interested. Like no one was even wondering what you might be thinking, or what you might be feeling – what you might have to say. I thought that was sad."
I don't know. I've always been alone.
I don't think an octopus finds it sad when they are alone, since it is a solitary creature – being near others is what would be stressful.
But a human cannot help but view what he sees in human terms.
I suppose I must be a very sad sight for a human.
"I'm sorry if spending time with me is depressing or upsetting for you. You don't have to feel obligated. I'm fine like this. There's no need for you to come here, if you don't want to. "
"It isn't about obligation!" he insisted. It seems that in his eyes, this was a fatal misconception that urgently needed to be corrected: "Please forgive me if I made it sound like that. I- I guess I'm just messing things up again, like I always do."
"I do not think that you're messing things up."
"I must be, if you're thinking that I'm just… putting up with you or something like that. That's not the case at all. I like you. I like being around you. I'm happy about that.
You know, actually – this here is a very special place for me."
"...here?"
He could not possibly be referring to my tiny rundown appartment.
"Yeah." he confirmed, complete with a smile and a half-determined nod. "Coming to see you is really special to me. I just feel at ease, like I'm far, far away from everything else – it's almost like floating above the clouds.
Out there, everyone is expecting so many things from me, but in here that doesn't matter. It's like we're in our own little world, in a place all of our own where it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It's like I can talk about anything with you, even deep and difficult stuff, but you're not going to get mad or take it the wrong way – you just listen, and you say things directly, without playing games or beating around the bush, or expecting me to just know the right thing out of nowhere. You've been very nice to me, but at the same time, you give me the space to figure out stuff on my own…
I'm coming here because I want to. I wouldn't want you to be any different."
...what is it though, this strange, strange feeling?
I wondered then, not for the first time.
It's like ease.
It's like floating.
Like not having a single care in the world.
I wondered faintly what the word for it might be-
Although that might not really matter.
It would be the same by any other name.
….
When I think of him, its very strange.
A strange feeling.
Of wanting to be with him forever.
Since before I became me.
Why?
When I look at him,
my heart is touched.
My heart.
Something that cannot be seen.
My heart,
stretching to someone beyond my heart.
…
The Diary of Yui Ikari was laying on my crumpled bedsheet, the back of it cover pointing upward, closed and finished, complete with the bits of the incident report that were stuffed inside.
Not far from it was my hand, resting on the sheet as I sat on the bed, facing straight ahead beside it.
I was not really looking at the concrete plates that formed the wall in front of me, though I supposed that my eyes must have been left pointing in that direction. If I was taking in the sheer blankness and the greyness of it, it was largely as an ambient influence for my thoughts to marinate in, though there was really only one thought remaining within my consciousness, drowning out everything else, a thought that allowed no other ones to follow, as a discrete finite automaton may reach a terminal state.
Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that I was bracing for what would follow, for the conclusion was inescapable.
It would take many more assumptions to justify another one, if there were alternatives at all, they would look like flimsy, over-complex constructs that could not withstand occam's razor. It would have been irrational not to recognize them as attempts to explain away what was plain to see.
I had expected to this journal to tell me some unforseen details about the creation of the EVAs or the Commander itself. I was also expecting – even hoping – to hear something that would tell me something of my own origins, and I was even prepared not to like it: The obscene, sordi details of my inhumanity, the artificiality of it, the alien.
I still wasn't expecting this.
I mean, I was well aware that the question to this answer was an unknown, I just wasn't expecting it to be relevant in any way-
But I think I understand now.
I think I've figured out where my human DNA came from.
Timeline notes: I meant to imply that Mari's Donor exists (vaguely like she does in the Manga), but ‚our' Mari (who I'd argue is implied heavily enough to be artificial like Rebuild!Asuka) doesn't & won't be showing up - couldn't fit her in when I'm already doing a limited PoV. For the purpose of this fic's timeline, Shinji and Asuka are normal humans like in the OG show.
I just thought it might be neat to allude to her as a little background detail.
