The End of Hedgehog's Dilemma, Part II: Hedgehog Messiah
NGE characters belong to their respective owners.
Note: This is a very short update that I've slipped in during a small break. Hope it will still please.
Chapter 2
Into smoky steam-wetting her skin and blurring her vision-she fled, scampering upon wet tiles, slipping under showering mist; anything, anything just to get away from the one hot on her heels.
"Asuka! You're misunderstanding Mama!" The woman-if it can be called that-cried out from behind her. Much to Asuka's horror, she soon found her arm grabbed. "Please, if you'd just let Mama explain-"
SLAP!
It was only after the act, after she saw the handprint reddening the other's face, that Asuak realized she had struck her late mother soundly across the face.
"A-Asuka . . ." Stunned, her mother slowly raised a trembling hand to her face. "Asu-"
"Just SHUT UP!" screeched Asuka, pushed over the edge by everything that had been happening to her up till now. "You destroyed my father! My FATHER! He wasn't a good parent but he was all I had back then, back when you were too INSANE to even take care of me!" She felt tears streaming out of her eyes on their own accord, and had to restrain her hands from wiping at them. "Just give me a little more time, maybe a few years, and I would've been able to maybe get close to him again. But now, but now . . .! I've lost everything, and it's all because of you! You selfish MONSTER!"
Her mother's current unbecoming state-disheveled, wide-eyes and in tears-cut at her vision like sharp glass, forcing the girl to face away.
"Why'd you have to come back to life?" whimpered Asuka, hands to her ears with her eyes squeezed shut. "Everything was fine back when you were dead and gone."
". . . I . . . see . . ." Her mother's disjointed voice-still reaching her hearing-was soon followed by weary, slumping footsteps that grew fainter by the moment, signaling the woman moving further and further away. "I'll . . . go . . . I'll . . . again . . ."
Asuka had, by now, collapsed into a curled-up-ball on the wet, slippery floor. "I could've kept on loving my image of you then," she mumbled on, brokenly, "instead of being forced to face your true, ugly . . . self"
". . . I see,"
This new voice, boyish and familiar, jolted Asuka into opening her eyes again and scampering back up. Her wet, murky surroundings had gained some clarity by now, revealing itself to be a bath area at Headquarters-the huge NERV logo on the LED screen facing the tub-with lights turned low.
A naked boy sat with his back to her at the edge of the pool, hunched over. His scrawny back was hunched over as though in agony or despair.
"It's just like when I started the cello," he murmured as though to himself. "I thought that if I came here, I could find something . . ."
"S-Shinji?" Asuka would have gotten up toward him, if not for the sight of his nakedness. "Hey, you-"
"But I was wrong."
At Shinji's cynical statement, the screen showing the NERV logo displayed what looked like the interior of a hospital ward, with the POV focusing on a girl on a bed, with a boy standing to her side. Asuka saw, to her own horror, that the girl was herself in a comatose state-likely how she had been during those days before her final battle in Unit 02-and that her shirt was torn open and she was only wearing panties. The boy-clearly Shinji-was watching her, unzipped, all the while urgently fiddling with his-
"Ikari. Shinji." Asuka felt as though a blow to the stomach had knocked the air out of her, so shocked was she at what she was witnessing. "You sick, impossible bastard . . ."
"There is nothing to be gained from hard work," continued this naked Shinji seated at the tub's edge, his voice marred by an audible tremor, "from giving trust, from making sacrifices . . . because all people are takers, and none have the capacity to give." Shinji's arms, with bony elbow jutting out to the sides, appeared to be holding something to his groin, and was slowly moving it up and down. "I was right to be afraid of making contact with people, of touching people . . ."
Asuka noted, to her growing dread and revulsion, how there was some kissing, suckling noises barely covered under the sound of flowing water . . . a sound that seemed somehow in tune with Shinji's arm movement.
'What's he . . . ?'
"But even the act of avoiding others turns out to be unbearably painful," moaned Shinji. "Because being alone is also painful." His arm movement sped up, revealing his fingers to be clenched around what looked like a mope of silver-gray hair.
Hands, pale and fine-boned and easily recognizable to her, slipped into view clasping onto Shinji's bony hips.
"You . . ." Asuka found herself getting choked up by tears; no, not tears of anger, but of rage. "You . . .!"
"Living is a punishment in its entirety . . . so there's no point in denying myself from doing what feels good, is there?" From his profile, he could be seen glancing sultrily, needily down upon the one pleasuring him from down under. "Now that you're back, make me feel good . . . Kaworu-kun."
The girl saw "Kaworu-kun"-aka Tabris-glancing right at her as his mouth and hands did things that had Shinji arching back his head in apparent rapture. Fists clenched, she stomped up and towards the two.
The Third Child finally noticed her approaching. "Asuka-"
"Enough already!" snapped Asuka, yanking his head back by the hair. "I get so pissed off whenever I look at you!"
The Third Child's eyes, hazy with lust or unshed tears, glanced slowly up and at her. "Because I'm like you . . . ?" Down below, the Angel's red eyes gained a twinkle as he continued to make the human boy "feel good".
Livid at the insult, Asuka pulled hard on Shinji's hair. "Don't compare me to a perverted, useless piece of SHIT like you-"
Click.
The sound of a door knob turning-the very sound that had repeatedly haunted her nightmares since childhood-froze Asuka in her spot. Slowly turning her head, she saw, to the side of the bath area, that door swinging open upon that exact doorframe, revealing that same woman hanging by the neck on that same damned rope.
"Mama!" she screamed, already rushing towards the door. It vanished on her as the surroundings started to shift, becoming malleable. "Mama! I don't mean it! I don't mean what I've just said!" She clawed madly and futilely at what was at once a wall and an empty space. "I-I'm sorry! I'm so bad! I'll be a good girl! I won't ever be bad again! Come back, Mama! I'll-I'll pilot EVA! I'll become smart! I'll . . . I'll! Just come back! " She stumbled forward, into a hard wall and into nothing. "Don't leave me behind again! I'm so sorry! Mama! MAMA!"
"Mama . . . ?"
Amazingly, even at such a time, Asuka still somehow managed to hear Shinji's weak murmur. Shakily turning her head, she notice how Shinji-somehow clothed again-was crouched at the EVA bridge that had appeared in place of the bath. In his hand was a bloodied cross pendant that she recognized to have belonged to Misato, and he was glancing down upon it in wistful bafflement.
Behind him, the very space contorted, such that what looked to Asuka like an old room-complete with an old style fan and messy laundry hanging to dry-came into view. Within that messy, dated room were two naked, familiar-looking young adults caught in the throes of copulation, with the female partner staring over and at Shinji with saddened eyes.
"I wasn't able to become Shinji's mother after all . . ." mumbled a college-aged Misato, currently undulating under the wiry bulk of a younger Kaji . . .
End Chapter 2 update speed to depend on feedback ;-)
