Six: The Long Goodbye
Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
June 17, 2015.
Six soldiers in the azure berets of the Peacekeepers bore a familiar casket into the temple yard. The sky-blue flag of the United Nations draped over the lid fluttered as the pallbearers laid the coffin onto the bier, beside a framed photograph of Ikari Gendo.
Misato sat down, gesturing to Shinji to do the same.
Commander Allard cleared his throat, tapping a bundle of notecards on the lectern.
"We are here today to pay tribute to Supreme Commander Ikari Gendo for his two decades of selfless service to mankind. Commander Ikari dedicated his life to defending us and made the ultimate sacrifice. Our victory is, ultimately, his victory."
Shinji zoned out as Claude went on.
Did Commander Allard ever actually meet Father? Sounds like he's reading off a script.
The service was supposed to be inside the weathered temple on Lake Ashi—it was moved outside at the last minute to accommodate everyone. Even then there were only enough chairs to seat half the crowd; the entire UN delegation stood to one side of the bier under the watchful eyes of a dozen Section Two agents. The sea of navy and charcoal suits were only interrupted by a few military uniforms. An old man in a green long-coat and a visor whispered something to a woman wearing the elaborate pin of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. Both turned to look at Shinji—he felt a chill run down his spine. The pilot quickly glanced away. His eyes wandered to the front, where Allard was packing away his cards.
Ritsuko stood up from her chair and took Allard's place at the lectern.
Oh, he's finished talking.
Ritsuko cleared her throat. "Two years ago, Evangelion Unit-00 broke down. The Prototype had suffered a stroke, so to speak; an overcharged neuroid burned a hole in an LCL vessel and caused the dry P-W tissue to decohere. Without the Fuyutsuki Apparatus, we had to grow the graft tissue in vitro. I spent two weeks sleeping on the lab floor, applying hormone treatments to the cells every two hours." She paused, letting out a long breath. "Towards the end of the treatment, the graft needed decanting every hour. I stayed up for three nights in a row working on it; on the fourth day Commander Ikari ordered me to go home. 'We need you functioning, Doctor.' That's what he said. I took a nap, and when I came back to work the lab door was sealed. The Commander worked there alone for four days, then crawled into the Evangelion's skull to personally install the graft.
Even on the day he died, he never surrendered. His final act was to order me to arm the Evangelions. The room blew up thirty seconds later."
She looked straight at Shinji, who stiffened.
"That's the kind of man Ikari Gendo was. His death is a loss our world cannot replace. All we can do is bring his work to completion."
She turned to the coffin and bowed. She resumed her place in the audience. Misato murmured something to her, and she replied in a similarly hushed tone. I wish he'd paid some attention to me. I don't need four days, just one call would have been enough…
Shinji idly flicked a stone into the lake. The choppy waters swallowed the chip of rock with hardly a trace. A damp wind drove ankle-high swells against the rocky shore, sending little pieces of driftwood spinning in their wake. Across the lake, the towers of Tokyo-3 loomed over the waterfront.
"Ikari-san?"
Shinji turned away from the lake towards the newcomer. It's the man from the UN delegation.
The visored delegate chuckled wryly. "I wish I could shake your hand, Pilot." He pulled off the glove and lifted his sleeve. His right arm and hand were wrapped in a plaster cast which ran to his shoulder. The side of his face was dotted with puckered puncture wounds. "My name is Kiel Lorenz. I worked with your father for many years." He gestured towards the stone the boy was perched on. "Mind if I sit down?" Shinji shifted over, and the elderly man sat next to him. Shinji recognized the smell of ginseng, mingled with the sharper odors of sulfur and benzene. An uncomfortable silence fell. Shinji glanced at Lorenz through the corner of his eye. The delegate seemed well at ease in the quiet, staring across the lake at the distant peak of Mt. Fuji. I wish he'd go away, or at least say something. Shinji cleared his throat after another minute. He'll leave faster if I play along.
"You knew my father, Lorenz-san?" He nodded.
"He attended one of my talks on meta-religion at the University of Aachen—in eighty seven, I think it was.." He laughed. "He decided to pick a fight after class—apparently someone made fun of his accent. It took three unfortunate adjuncts to pry them apart. Didn't help that your father was yelling obscenities in broken German and whacking everyone with his slide rule." Shinji tried and failed to imagine his father getting into a fight . Lorenz sighed, taking a steel flask from under his coat. The aroma of ginseng strengthened when he opened it. Lorenz took a long pull of the contents and screwed on the cap. He noticed Shinji's curious look and shook the flask. "This is Insam-Ju, Korean ginseng liquor. It prolongs life and sharpens the mind." He cocked his head. "Say, Ikari-san, what's the drinking age in Japan?"
"Twenty."
"Ah, so you can't have this yet." The flask disappeared into Lorenz's voluminous coat.
"Um, Lorenz-san?"
"Yes, Pilot?"
"What was Father like? I never really got a chance to know him…"
"Your father was…a complicated man, Ikari-san. He spent every moment after Second Impact preparing for the war with the Angels. Your father built NERV up from a dead-end post for washed-up bureaucrats into the world's most advanced fighting force. He and your mother masterminded the Evangelion Project together. But he lost himself in the process. It was the death of your mother, I think, that turned him into the man we knew."
Lorenz picked a chip off the stone, turning it in his hand.
"After that, the Commander changed. I visited him on his birthday the year after, found him sleeping on the floor of his office with a loaded rifle. Closest I've ever gotten to dying was when he woke up. He believed, and I agree with him, that he was being stalked by agents of the enemy."
"Which enemy?"
"The same enemy that killed both your parents, who did this to me." Lorenz gestured towards his injuries. "The same one coming for you, Pilot."
"Coming for…me?"
"Why do you think your father was murdered the day of the Angel attack? That Evangelion was meant to be your grave, Ikari-san. Without the quick thinking of Captain Akagi, Sachiel would have triggered the Third Impact that very night."
Captain Akagi's plan was to shove a wounded teenager into a murder robot. Not exactly heroic.
"That doesn't make any sense," Shinji said. "Wouldn't the Angel have killed them too?"
"They aren't like you and me, Ikari-san. HERZ would kill everyone on Earth to rule over the ashes. Your father and I have been working against them for twenty years."
Lorenz gripped Shinji by the shoulders with an unnatural strength.
"Promise me one thing, Ikari Shinji. Promise you'll finish what your parents started."
Shinji squirmed, but Lorenz had a vice grip on his shoulder. He nodded.
"I promise." Kiel let him go.
"Thank you, Pilot. You won't be alone, I promise. We're outnumbered, but we will win. We have to win, or everyone we love will die."
Who's we? Shinji opened his mouth to ask that question, but was interrupted by someone calling his name. Misato-san?
Kiel Lorenz stood up. "Remember this, please: your father loved you very much. He spent his whole life fighting to keep you safe from the monsters who murdered him."
"Father…wanted me? He didn't hate me?"
Lorenz shook his head vigorously. "Of course he didn't hate you. You were the only person he still loved. We all saw how much it hurt him to stay away from his only son." Lorenz reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a business card. "You can call me at this number, Ikari-kun. Whenever you want. SEELE takes good care of heroes like you." With surprising dexterity, Lorenz scrambled up the escarpment and strode off towards the temple. Shinji looked down at the card.
"Chairman Kiel Lorenz, UN-HIC"
He turned the card over. Drawn in ink on the other side was an insignia: an inverted triangle flanked by seven eyes.
"Shinji-kun?" Misato climbed down the rocks to the lake-edge, and Shinji quickly stowed the card in his shirt pocket.
"I'm ready to go, Misato-san." She nodded slowly, glancing at the rectangular imprint of the card. Shinji followed her back up to the path, and they walked towards the parking lot in silence. The Torii gate cast a long shadow in the evening light.
Misato cleared her throat. "You haven't ordered your textbooks yet, right? How about we go buy them tomorrow?"
"Okay. Can I still wear my old uniform?"
"I asked the school. They say it's fine, but you'll need to buy a blazer for formal occasions." Shinji nodded, and they fell silent again.
Father didn't abandon me.
Twelfth Ward, Tokyo-3, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
June 19, 2015.
"Hey, isn't that him?"
"The pilot? No way…"
"Yeah, there's no way a hotshot EVA pilot…"
The three girls looked up at Shinji, who pretended not to hear.
The corner of his mouth twisted up slightly as he passed them.
Sorry to disappoint, but NERV's fighting ace is a soggy teenager in a catsuit.
He slid open the door to his new classroom. Few students had arrived; even the teacher was missing. Shinji consulted the slip of paper. Four seats from the front… He sat down at his assigned desk in the center of the room. A cluster of boys were gathered around a window desk—Shinji caught something about a baseball game. Ren-chan's team has a game today. I wonder how that's going?
I'll call her today for sure. No more excuses. Shinji pulled out his new laptop. The screen blinked on.
The door slid open.
"Excuse me. You're sitting in my chair."
"Ah, sorry Ayanami-san," one of the baseball fans said. Shinji looked up quickly. The cluster dispersed, and Ayanami Rei took her seat. She settled her chin on her hand, staring calmly out the window. Shinji noted she was still bandaged, one eye covered with a gauze patch. Should I go talk to her?
At that moment, the teacher entered the room. A twin-tailed girl near the front of the classroom stood up.
"Stand up!" The class rose to their feet, some more willingly than the others.
"Bow!" Shinji bowed. The teacher pulled out a piece of chalk and began to write on the blackboard. I thought I was supposed to introduce myself? Maybe he forgot.
Fine by me. The teacher finished sketching a diagram of the South Pole Complex and turned to the class. "Please open your textbook to page nineteen. Who wants to read the first section? Ah, Aida-kun. The paragraph starting, 'In the year 1989…' "
Shinji opened his lunchbox and nodded approvingly. It took me three hours to make this, but it's worth it. He took out his chopsticks and joined his hands. "Itadakimasu."
He lifted a piece of chicken to his mouth. The crust is a little greasy. I'll fry it hotter next time. Shinji swallowed the food, taking a bite of rice with it. He glanced over at Rei. She hadn't moved from her chair besides the window. She doesn't have anyone to eat with either, does she? The idea entered his head to go eat with her, quashed an instant later by common sense. I don't know her. Besides, I shouldn't bother Ayanami-san. He heard footsteps. The girl from before stood before his desk, hands clasped behind her back.
"You're our new transfer student?"
"Yes… you're the class representative, right?"
She nodded. "I'm Horaki Hikari."
"Ikari Shinji. Pleased to meet you."
He set his chopsticks down. "Um, Horaki-san? I think I need to buy gym clothes. Do you know where I can get them?"
"The office. If you want, I'll walk you down now."
Shinji shut the bento box and got up. "Thank you."
Hikari slid open the class door. The hallway outside was mostly empty, although a couple of students stared at Shinji like he had grown a second head.
Hikari shot them a glare. "Ignore them, Ikari-san. There's some stupid rumor going around that you're an Evangelion Pilot."
"Is that so?" Shinji glanced back at the pair, who were whispering conspiratorially from the doorway of classroom 2-B. One shot a furtive look at him.
"Yeah," Hikari replied, descending a staircase. "It's absurd, of course. The pilot's probably some JSSDF airman. Fourteen is way too young to pilot a mecha."
You would think so, right? I guess Tom Cruise wasn't available and they went for the next best thing: an anxious middle-schooler who plays cello.
Hikari pointed down the hall to a door plastered with newspaper clippings of baseball players. "That's the Physical Education department. They should be taking orders there." She leaned against the wall. "When you're finished, I'll walk you back."
"Thank you, Horaki-san."
She smiled. "You're welcome."
Shinji opened the door. A large man in a soccer jersey looked over at him.
"Um, hi," Shinji said. "I'm here to buy—"
"Ikari-kun, right? We've got your gym clothes here. Your guardian came by earlier."
Shinji took them and backed out of the tiny office.
"Close the door behind you, please."
"Ready to go, Ikari-kun?"
Shinji nodded, and Hikari walked down the hall.
"You know, Ikari-kun, you look really familiar…"
Jericho, Jericho Governorate, State of Palestine.
June 19, 2015.
Kiel Lorenz stood on a different shore on the other side of Asia. The Jordan River stretched out in a broad ribbon . A fresh breeze rose from the water, tempering the heat of the noon sun. Kiel stretched his shoulder, feeling the gears and motors whine and click. Little sharp darts of pain shot through the joint as the sharp edges dug into his flesh, and Lorenz winced. He whacked the stuck joint a couple times with his fist until it released. "The price of long life," he muttered to himself, "is falling apart while still alive." Kiel squinted up at the road, where a familiar white car had pulled over. He's early. A lithe man dressed in a gray suit got out of the driver's side, holding up a hand in greeting. A gleaming flash of reflected sunlight shone from his mirrored sunglasses as he strode swiftly towards the beach. Not for the first time, Lorenz envied the younger man's health. No matter. Neither of us will be in this flesh for much longer.
"Rodrigo Estrada. You're two hours early."
Kiel extended his hand, and Rodrigo raised it to his lips, kissing the signet ring on his finger. When he spoke, his voice was high and resonant.
"I wanted to speak to you before the meeting, Chairman. I've heard some unsettling rumors—"
"I'll verify them for you, Apostle." Lorenz laid special stress on the title, and Estrada recognized the assertion of rank. His expression darkened.
"Did you kill Michael Collins?"
"No. I had no hand in his death. The fool decided to walk around in the open and caught a bullet for his trouble."
"Did you set up Ikari Gendo and Fuyutsuki Kozo?"
"That was Lavrentiy's work, not mine. I sent out a warning through Kaji as soon as I caught wind of the plot—too late. Nearly got killed myself."
"One more question. Did you know that Sachiel would appear?"
Lorenz nodded. "I had my sources." And a rather unusual scroll.
Estrada looked unsatisfied with his final answer but didn't press the point. Kiel took out his flask again, taking a draught of the liquor within.
"We're on holy ground, Rodrigo. Jericho is the oldest city in the world—over eleven thousand years old."
Rodrigo gazed over the river, towards the shore of Jordan.
"When I was a little boy, my father brought me here to the Holy Land.
He posed as his cousin Emmanuel; the Wolf of Pinochet couldn't travel under his own name, of course. He took me to Jericho. This was before the Israel-Palestine conflict was resolved, so we couldn't approach the river. My father asked me to bury him in the Promised Land. When he disappeared, there was no body to bury. Just his memory—and this pistol." Estrada pulled a M1911 pistol from his belt, an intricately decorated piece in silver and dark walnut. Etched on the barrel was a signature—A. Pinochet.
"He would be proud of how you turned out," Kiel ventured.
Estrada laughed bitterly. "I don't think Papa saw his only son turning into SEELE's dog. Well, he didn't see Pinochet turning on him either, so he got a fair bit wrong." Kiel put a hand on his shoulder.
"Soon, Apostle. The crucible has been charged. The Great Work marches on towards the perfection of Mankind. I promise you, my Evangelist: you will preach the Gospel of the New Creation to a world purged of defilement."
Estrada bowed his head. "Amen. And of Ikari?"
"Ikari Shinji? Essential." He looked at Estrada and grinned. "That boy has no will. He'll eating out of my palm by the end of the month."
"He fought well against the Angel of Water," Estrada murmured. "Let's see how he fares against the Angel of the Morning."
Notes:
PREVIEW:
Ryoji here with your preview. Another Angel descends upon the Fortress-City. Shinji faces his worst trial yet. In the heart of Central Dogma, a familiar face awakens from slumber. SEELE wins the hand. Next time on Herz und Seele, Chapter Seven: Silence. Don't worry, there'll be plenty of fanservice!