#Shinji demanding Rei be returned to him

[elia-de-silentio]

TENTATIVE ANALYSES: NEON GENEAIS EVENGELION

Episode 4: Rain, After The Escape/Hedgehog Dilemma

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

Shinji runs away from Nerv. That's it that's the plot.

Jokes aside, this episode has relatively little dialogue and a lot more introspection. Misato scolds Shinji for refusing to retreat in the fight against Shamshel, something he takes with disturbingly good cheer. But ultimately the stress from the situation makes himself truly feel, and the kid bails. We follow him on a train, while Misato discusses with Ritsuko wheter it would be better to actually retrieve him or not. Leaving the trainstation to wander in a field, Shinji meets Kensuke, one of the kids from last episode, out camping. Kensuke takes him as a guest in his tent, showing him a lifestyle of 'adventure' as a normal fourteen years old has it: little more than play pretend, something fun and so far away from the traumas Shinji has experienced. They are woken up in the middle of the night by agents of Nerv, and Shinji is taken back, but he's given the possibility to formally retire, now that there's no emergency. At first, he takes it, bidding farewell to his classmates; but then decides to stay, missing the train that would have taken him to the civilian world and greeting Misato again.

NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES

The episode contains several 'still moments' of Shinji sitting on the exact same position on a train,while the light and the number of people changes around him. This, besides a trick to cut some production costs, works to illustrate how 'stuck' Shinji is while the people around him move about with their life.

CHARACTERS

Shinji: our hero has officially broken down. He has been severely traumatized twice, he has stopped caring if he lives or dies in combat. Or maybe not: he has a little bit of survival instinct, and it's whar makes him take the all-things-considered-reasonable decision to run away. The interesting thing is that he doesn't talk for much of the episode, leaving us to guess his mental state. For example, after the escape, he doesn't return to wherever he was staying at before Misato picked him up in the first episode. He spends hours and hours on the train, goes to the cinema, literally sleeps in a gym, wanders aimlessly in a field and if it hadn't been for a fortuitous meeting with Kensuke who was camping, it's likely that he would have slept out there in the open. He has left the NERV headquarters, but he hasn't found another place to belong; and maybe he doesn't even want to. In fact, when he's brought back to Tokyo-3, he gets the opportunity to officially leave it, and in a first moment, he accepts ... but then, he rethinks that. He purposefully misses the train that would have brought it to a normal life, and greets Misato once again.

Misato: she's very torn between her various identities here. The military leader who reprimands Shinji for disobeying her orders, who has to track down the runaway, and the woman who understands this child's terrible situation and the reason for his escape, and provately thinks that it would be much better if he never returned to NERV. This is resolved by Shinji ultimately deciding to stay.

Kensuke: here he provides a contrast to Shinji by being a perfectly normal kid who does things fourteen-years-olds do. He goes out camping and lives that as a big adventure, and that's exactly what a big adventure should be for a young teenager - not fighting giant monster with their actual lives on the line, with little to no preparation. Despite this, and not being able to truly understand what's going on with the other's life, he offers him companionship and a place to stay.

Gendo: he acts oddly in this episode. Despite his insistence in the first episode that Shinji became a pilot, he shows very little concern here, simply demanding EVA 01 to be refit for Rei.

THEMES

Responsibility is a big theme in this chapter. We see it in the way Misato is torn between trying to retrieve Shinji (it's her duty as a military officer that her subordinate does not leave his place without warning) and reasoning that for how things were shaping up it might be better if they don't find him and he has nothing to do with NERV again.

As for Shinji, it's shown in how he is suspended between two worlds, the way he runs but doesn't find any other place to stay. The meeting with Kensuke illustrates him how his life should be, one of innocuous explorations of independence by camping, no responsibilities beyond doing well in class. But he is not a normal child; he is an EVA pilot, and he has lost that right. In the end, he takes on the mantle of responsibility that was forced on him of his own will.

SYMBOLISM

• Train: Shinji spends the majority of his first day of escape on a train, just doing the same trait without moving, bent downward listening to his music. Around him, the light and scenery change, people go up and down the train while going on their regular lives, alone or interacting with each other. The train represents a liminal space for Shinji: he is in a moving space while staying seated in the same spot, going sonewhere and going nowhere at the same time; he is alone, not talking to anyone, but at the same time he's surrounded by people. The train is a place where he can just stay without making any decision. At the end of the episode, when he decides to return to being a pilot, he willingly misses the train, representing his active decision to stay somewhere.

• Cinema: a place where you look at someone else's life, another element representing Shinji's uncertainty about taking charge if his life. Quite interestingly, we see nothing of the movie: our hero is more interested in watching a couple making out in the half-empty cinema. We have to keep things Freudian, after all: the sexual act is a manifestation of the 'drive towards life' that our hero has shown to be quite lacking.

• Tent: where Kensuke hosts Shinji. A place that is rooted but can ne removed at any time, perfect for a child who wants to experiment with independence but ultimately will return to a safe home. A luxury Shinji doesn't have, passed from an unfamiliar ceiling to another.

REFERENCES

• The movie Shinji goes to and ignores (along with everybody else) is a documentary on the Second Impact, and event that will be further expander upon in the following episides.

• This was originally supposed to be another action episode, but then it was decided to do something more about Shinji's psychological state after the battles. It is the only episode where Hideaki Anno didn't have a direct hand in the script.

• This is the first episode where the Children Numbers are mentioned. As Rei is the First Child and Shinji the Third, this hints at a Second Child that will eventually be introduced (see episode 8)

And this is all for the episode. Thank you for reading insofar!

If you liked this analysis and want to support me, you can do so on my ko-fi (link in first reblog)

#nge #neon genesis evangelion #nge meta #nge analysis #nge shinji #nge misato #nge kensuke #tentative analyses #tentative analyses: neon genesis evangelion

[madmanjive]

Shinji, Asuka, and QRei wander until they are picked up by a truck, transporting them to a nearby Lilin settlement.

Toji is a village doctor and father of a young child named Tsubama (with Hikari, who is also alive).

Kensuke is also there. He’s an avid survivalist and works for a smaller sub-organization within WILLE called KREDIT, developing and refining the re-vitalization tech used for Angel Sealing Pillars.

Shinji stays with Kensuke and Asuka. Asuka wanders around naked and has a few suspiciously intimate moments with Kensuke, who she refers to as Ken-Ken.

Shinji is nearly catatonic. He refuses to eat or engage, still shaken by what happened with Kaworu. At one point, he gets a glimpse of Asuka’s DSS Choker and vomits, having been reminded of Kaworu’s head exploding. Kensuke cleans up the vomit.

Asuka marvels how he can manage to throw up without eating anything. Frustrated, Asuka and other villagers try to forcefeed him meals. Village elders scold Shinji for not trying hard enough. Hikari implores that the elders go easier on him.  

Meanwhile, Shinji is slowly recovering from his initial shock. Asuka is protecting the village perimeter.Kensuke teaches Shinji how to fish, elaborating more on the Angel Sealing Pillars. According to Kensuke, ASPs do not run indefinitely. Their failure will mean the end of the Lilin settlement and its inhabitants. Here, he introduces Shinji to “Ryoji Kaji” - Misato and Kaji’s 14 year old son, who works with Kensuke on KREDIT.Ryoji wears a light blue/white radiation suit. Here, it’s explained that Kaji died during 3rd Impact by closing the Door of Guf, while Misato was pregnant with Ryoji. Presumably, the Door of Guf can only be opened and closed with a Key of Nebuchandezzer, so Kaji could have procured two Keys from SEELE, one that he gave to Gendo, and one that he kept for himself.Ryoji has no clue who his parents are - allegedly thinks of himself as orphaned (parallels with Kaji’s own childhood post-Second Impact). Misato had abandoned him shortly after he was born. 

Turns out, Rei has an LCL deficiency in need of constant maintenance. Her body deteriorates the longer she remains outside her tank. With Tsubama near, Rei starts crying as the realization dawns on her. She has no idea how to process her death and doesn’t understand why it makes her so sad.Before she dies, Rei finds Shinji and gives him the SDAT. She thanks him. Her plugsuit changes color from black to white and she explodes in a pop of LCL.Shinji decides to return to WILLE and help Misato restore the world back to its pre-Impact state.WILLE does not react to Shinji well. They quarantine him again, though this time without a DSS Choker. Asuka and Mari visit him in his quarantine cell.Mari re-introduces herself to Shinji. Asuka admits to Shinji that she’d “liked him a long time ago” when she was still a child. Asuka is relieved to be long past those childish feelings, and happier still she had the opportunity to get them off her chest.Gendo starts to make use of Eva 13. The Wunder embarks to destroy him and 13. Here, a battle ignites between a skull-Eva army and Units 02 and 08, repaired with the spare parts WILLE salvaged from Paris in AVANT.Asuka attempts to destroy Unit 13′s core, first by removing her eyepatch to unleash an energy bolt from her Bardiel-corrupted eyesocket.When that doesn’t work, she goes beast mode, only for Unit 13 to destroy her after she injects Angel blood into 02 for an emergency upgrade. Asuka dies.  

Gendo successfully merges with 13, ready to start the final Impact. Shinji demands that Misato let him pilot Unit-01.Misato agrees; the time has come for Shinji to face off against his father in Unit-01. However, Sakura and Midori are vehemently opposed to the idea.Sakura, terrified and panicked, tries to shoot Shinji. Misato intervenes and takes a bullet for him (just like in EOE).As Shinji rushes to Misato’s aid, they have a heart to heart. Shinji tells Misato he met her son, Ryoji, and liked him. Shinji hands Misato a photo of Shinji and Ryoji smiling together that Kensuke had taken moments before. Misato smiles, relieved.Mari retrieves Shinji and transports him to Unit 01. Inside 01, sits Rei II with long hair. Shinji goes berserk.Shinji and Gendo duke it out in Units 01 and 13. Shinji is positioned as someone capable of growth, someone who can move on from the past, versus Gendo, who is escapist, stagnant, trapped in old memories. Shinji resolves to create a new world without Evas. During their fight, Shinji and Gendo’s memories cycle through, pulling in random scenes from their pasts: Shinji’s middle school, Sachiel stage, inside Misato’s apartment, etc.WILLE is baffled how Shinji can pilot despite his synch ratio reading “zero” - until Maya and Ritsuko realize “zero” actually represents the number closest to zero; that is, infinity.At one point, Gendo and Shinji stop fighting and the setting transforms to reveal a train, where they both confront each other. Gendo’s backstory is explored: he was alone and didn’t care about people, until he met Yui, who made him feel for the first time. When she died, he decied he’d do anything to get her back again.  

Shinji gets right up in Gendo’s face and pops his AT Field. Gendo protests, incredulous and resisting. We see a flashback of Gendo sending Shinji away.Shinji gives Gendo the SDAT through the AT Field. Gendo, defeated, departs the train  

Shinji and Rei brainstorm how the new, Eva-less world will look like. Shinji says, in English, the new world will be a “Neon Genesis.”Rebuild is set up as a sequel/loop of the original TV series. Kaworu is the same character in every Evangelion story: when he dies in one universe he gets brought back in another.Shinji remembers the original anime inside Unit 01, which contains both the Lance of Longinus and Lance of Cassius (the lances of hope and despair, together).  

Shinji attempts to impale himself as we get flashbacks from End of Evangelion. Giant Rei returns in hyperrealistic/fantastical CGI.Misato sacrifies herself and the Wunder by colliding the ship into GNR’s giant head. Before she dies, she says “I’m sorry, Ryoji” - a parallel played straight with Gendo in EOE.Yui blocks Shinji before he can impale himself with the Spears. Two sets of arms wrap around 01, including Eva 13 (Gendo). Gendo and Yui reunite, smiling fondly at their son.Shinji gets transported into the sea of LCL from End of Evangelion. Asuka is there, her plugsuit in tatters. Shinji tells Asuka that he once liked her, but now she needs to take care of Kensuke.Asuka has an Instrumentality sequence where she confronts a giant, human-sized doll as a child. The doll removes its head to reveal Kensuke, who affirms her existence  

Final Impact commences. Shinji says “Goodbye, all of Evangelion.” Unlike EOE Impact where everyone explodes into puddles of LCL, everyone, already having exploded, regains their forms through self-discovery.Evangelions turn into humans. Humans become men, women, children, animals, and nature.Shinji is alone on a quiet, blue beach. Mari’s Evangelion appears and says, “Goodbye Evangelion 3.0+1.0.” We’re treated to another train station. Adult Shinji, wearing a business suit, waits on one side of the tracks. Adult Rei and Kaworu are on the other side.Adult Mari comes up from behind Shinji and goes “Guess who?”Shinji replies: “a woman with a big chest.” Mari asks him if he’s “ready to go” and Shinji responds with an affirmative. Then, the shot pulls back to reveal a shot of live action Ube, Japan - Hideaki Anno’s hometow 

There you have it. After all these years kensuke get to be whit the girl of his dreams. Kensuke is the man.   AsukaKkenken LIVES!!!! Good things comes to those who wait.  

#kensuke aida #asuka langley soryu #AsukaKenken #asuken #evangelion 3.0+1.0 #evangelion #neon genesis evangelion

[khalayak]

music, trauma and time

so much has been written about evangelion’s visual motif, but barely enough about its soundscape. i mean, sure, we know about the silence in that elevator scene and the irreverent use of classical music (will you ever hear handel’s messiah the same again?), and still there’s so much more to talk about.

consider this a tasting platter:

the series lies on a bed of keening cicadas (insect buffs, eva likes minminzemis and kumazemi). repetition in music psychology is shorthand for anxiety, tension, monotony. it’s linked to the freudian death drive, the loss of ego and is also a nod to the lacanian real (meaning, the world divorced from distorting perception and symbolism, the reality that won’t change according to how we wish things to be). this is played straight: cicadas scream through mundane scenes and the dull wait between battles, signaling the here and now. in ep1, the cicadas stop just before shinji sees a vision of rei to underline his departure from the real. the next time we hear them is in ep2, when shinji waits at the hospital hallway as rei is wheeled past. this time they continue to shriek, because it’s real. cicadas are altogether absent in shinji’s utopia in ep26.

misato, who can live wherever the fuck she wants in tokyo-3, picks a near-abandoned apartment building right by a noisy train crossing that sounds much like a siren. this underscores her need to be constantly on alert, on survival mode. this is how trauma works, the second impact has reconfigured her way of existing, where survival has become her one and only reason to live to the detriment of any other way of being

overhead announcements form the architecture of shinji and misato’s early relationship, where shinji expects to be instructed and misato expects to be obeyed even as both yearn for a deeper connection. the intercom chatters through nearly all of their first scenes together, even replacing the conversation when misato picks him up from the hospital in ep2. remember, shinji runs away the first time when misato demands him to want what she wants, a breach of this unspoken pact (insert hedgehog dilemma). in ep4, misato’s world is rendered near silent (save the above siren) while shinji is hounded by blaring train announcements, salesmen, screams from the cinema. misato must face her solitude while shinji struggles with a deluge of directives. once reunited, they both adopt an intercom-like speech before misato snaps, again crossing the line. shinji runs away again. the final piece is so obvious. at the end of ep4, listen.

in ep15, shinji performs bach’s g major prelude, which also happens to be the most overplayed cello piece ever. it’s a simple piece yet, true to bach, carries this theme of creation ➝ fall ➝ redemption. it starts by setting the key, then introduces the tension that drags the piece to explore other keys, releases to the improvisation part, then returns to g major all glorious, made better for its journey. it’s not hard to see how this also functions as a metaphor for growth, i.e. childhood ➝ adolescence ➝ adulthood. that shinji plays only a fraction of it, and only the part that sets the key, is most likely due to time constraints (y’all wanna watch an anime, not a cello solo) but there’s something poetic in seeing this as a symbol for the many “failures to launch” in the ep, from shinji vis a vis gendo/yui to asuka’s stubborn obsession with kaji to misato, who says it herself: “i joined NERV to put all that behind me but there was also where my father worked.” each of them makes their failed bids to break free of old patterns only to return to their habitual ways of being, just like shinji with his made-up ending to bach’s actually awesome piece

in death, asuka’s violin solo is the gavotte en rondeau from bach’s partita 3 in e major. this is interesting cause the gavotte is a musical form that starts in the middle of the bar (say, the tempo’s 4/4, meaning there are four beats in each bar, the song starts on the 3rd instead of the 1st, like so). this is meant to create an upbeat tone and also true to asuka’s in medias res entrance. as with shinji, she doesn’t complete this piece

anno didn’t come up with komm susser tod. that was bach using a text by (now) anonymous author. while the eva’s version has become the theme song of our “life sucks just lemme die” gen, the original is more about a longing for heaven’s reward after life’s toils. it’s since been set to many variations. here’s my fave version as set by knut nystedt, true to the idea that music is the most temporal of the arts, as someone once said to me: “a chord is a glimpse into eternity”

there’s little point juxtaposing the lyrics of ode to joy to evangelion when it’s the context that matters. the finale to beethoven’s symphony 9 is a holiday song inextricable from war, which 10,000-strong japanese choirs sing to mark the new year’s by memorizing how the lyrics sound and not necessarily its meaning. it was the anthem of japanese nationalism in ww2 as its technical difficulty signaled their superiority over the rest of asia and their alignment with axis germany. it’s since been co-opted as a message of unity and brotherhood, but it can never shed its wartime burden. no doubt many japanese would still see in it a great deal of nationalistic pride (anno himself included)

trivia: technically most of the “classical” music in evangelion isn’t even classical but baroque (bach, pachelbel, handel). fittingly complex and polyphonic

notice any other examples? let me know. and please, actual musicologists out there, enlighten us.

#evangelion #nge #bach #rly just verbiage to have ppl listen to bach

[insomniacowl]

Neon Genesis Evangelion analysis chapter 9: Human Instrumentality Project – End of Evangelion

In this chapter, we will be covering the actual proceedings of the Third impact that happens and explore it with the Human instrumentality Project (HIP) as its framing. This will result in the need to exclude the many other story threads that converge upon this part of the series, however, to understand those story threads, we require an even deeper understanding of each character in-depth, and therefore will be covered in future chapters.

 With the end of this chapter, we shall conclude the surface level analysis of ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ and I hope by the end of this chapter, you would have a good enough understanding of the Human Instrumentality project, its various types, and components. 

 That is not to say it will give you a complete grasp of it as a concept nor of the various character motivations that end up influencing it, those will come eventually.

In the End of Evangelion, we get to see the actual, physical proceedings of the Third impact, on that was shown only in brief glimpses in the TVA version. The ritual that took place was a hybrid of Gendou’s type (Rei absorbing and uniting with Lilith with Adam in her body, resulting in Gendou’s influence being excluded) and Seele’s type C (Wishing for the end of humanity by having Eva – unit 01; now a god make the choice), succinctly described, Adam + Lilith with Shinji as the one who chooses.

With the start of the movie, Seele uses Japan’s self-defense force to annihilate Nerv (Ironically the army personnel’s believed they were stopping the third impact from happening), however was unable to secure Gendou. Gendou at this moment rushed to the central dogma with Rei to initiate the ‘ritual’ in question. He started off by attempting to insert his hand (with Adam) into Rei’s body to fuse with her. However, Rei refused Gendou’s demand and fused with Lilith while holding only Adam in her body, and goes to seek out Shinji.

“Let's go to where Yui awaits us.” – says the selfish egomaniac.

 While this is happening, Asuka, along with Eva – unit 02 was getting destroyed by the mass-produced Evas, and the unspeakable state of which she was left was witnessed by Shinji. This led to Shinji’s mental state breaking down even further (Seele welcomed this fact thinking that it would prevent him from siding with Gendou), and at the same moment, the restraints on Eva -Unit 01 became undone. 

 Concurrent to the undoing of restraints, the Lance of Longinus returns from the Moon and presents itself to the new god that is now freed. Seele sees the Lance returning on its own, and it confirms their belief that the gods are aiding them for their ritual. With this perceived confirmation, they begin the ritual.

Lance of Longinus pointing at Eva – Unit 01

 There is still much we have to cover about the Lance itself but for now, let us mention only the most important. There are many things about the Lance of Longinus that are not explained properly in the series, such as how it serves as the tool of the gods (the first people) in controlling their creations.

 For now, just keep in mind that for Eva Unit-01, that now possesses both the fruit of form and fruit of knowledge still requires the Lance to reach the final form of “The tree of life”. In other words, the Lance is essential to the completion of a “New God” and it has arrived just in time to assist this creation.

 As we can observe, the Lance of Longinus never restraints Unit – 01, but moves with its will.

With the lance now in place, the mass-produced Evas take up their positions for the commencement of the ritual, and unit – 01 spread out its arms to the side as though he is on the cross, imitating Jesus being sacrificed on the cross (Adding to this is that according to Christian canon, Longinus was the Roman soldier that stabbed Jesus in the side and was blinded by his blood). 

 What followed was just as it was written in the dead seas scroll manual, and the tree of Sephiroth was summoned, signaling the initiation of the ritual. The mass-produced Evas opens up their S2 engines and the explosion it causes reveals the black moon lying beneath Geofront.

Following this, the being that is now Rei + Adam + Lilith (Rei-AL) becomes an ethereal white giant and proceeds up to meet Unit – 01. This grotesque sight horrifies Shinji. So it takes up the form of Kaworu to calm him down and gives Shinji the power to choose the fate of this world (Just as Kaworu/Adam has done at the end of episode 24). With the choice between the rebirth or the end of humanity in Shinji’s hands, the Human Instrumentality begins. 

Nobody cares whether I live or die. I’m just a burden. Then…. They should all die

 His word becomes a command and it happens. Rei-AL lets out a strong wave of anti-AT field (imagine it as some sort of energy that negates AT fields). This results in all life forms that use AT field to maintain their physical body to revert back into LCL (Lilith’s blood) and their souls get sucked back into the black moon. The mass-produced Evas at this point take up the shape of Rei-AL and aid in the process of the ritual.

The world is filled with sadness and grief

The feeling of isolation weight down all hearts

If that is too painful… You can run away

Shinji goes increasingly silent (due to the breakdown of his ego) and Rei-AL and the Anti-AT field it produces goes in size proportionately. The door to Guf opens and the souls begin rushing into it. All humans, including the members of Seele, along with all life forms based on Lilith reverts back into LC. Keel admits that while this was not the type of Instrumentality he wanted, but it seems that he was content with it.

 What follows are snippets of sequences that Shinji sees. But it is inaccurate to say that we are told from Shinji’s POV. Rather it is the “scenery” in everyone’s mind. It is a part of instrumentality that is ongoing, thus a part of the reality.

At this moment, Gendou was reunited with Yui and he confesses that there was nothing else that he could do; that all he did was to hurt Shinji unnecessarily; that he could not trust or belief that he was capable of being loved by others; that he has no right to be loved. Yui answers with a smile, acknowledging that Gendou was “afraid of Shinji”. And along with Rei and Kaworu, Yui witness Gendou’s death.

So this is my punishment… I’m sorry Shinji.

You will go back to being afraid of others

 But during the process of Instrumentality, Shinji was able to decide on what it was that he truly desired. The others have had often hurt him, and that he has suffered from others’ actions. But he also acknowledges the times that he was happy to be with others and that such feelings were genuine; that again her want to meet others as others; he decides to reject instrumentality.

It will be alright. Thank you

 And thus, Unit – 01 crawls out of the body of Rei-AL, roars, and wings of light grows on its back. The door to Guf closes and Lilith’s black moon explodes. Humanity’s souls return to the ocean of LCL, Rei – AL’s body begins to break down, and Unit – 01 uses the Lance to petrify the mass-produced Evas.

As Shinji wished, if they so desired, the individuals can now recreate their bodies and become humans again. Even if interaction with others will not be easy nor be free of pain, they are now free to choose existence with pain or stay as they are without pain; to choose a life with others, or life as 'one'. The way this world ends up will depend on the many individuals that are currently lying inside the ocean of LCL. The body of Rei – AL becomes useless, breaks down, and falls onto the earth. Lilith and Adam, it appears has died in the process. 

 And thus, the world has gone through its new genesis; a neon genesis. With this chapter we have concluded our discussion of the various forms of Third Impact (HIP). The HIP is the concept in Evangelion that is the most convoluted and difficult to grasp and I hope the past six chapters has help you understand it more clearly. 

From next chapter onwards, we shall begin the discussion on the Evangelion models. TBC Chapter 10 Eva Unit-01 Clone of Lilith

#Neon genesis evangelion #Evangelion #Eva #End of evangelion #Nge #Nagisa Kaworu #Lilith #Sci-fi #Ikari Shinji #Soryu Asuka Langley #asuka #Ayanami Rei #rei #Anno Hideaki #Katsuragi Misato #Anime #Analysis #Review

[weaselandfriends]

I bet you have probably seen Neon Genesis Evangelion. If so, what do you like or don't like about it?(I'm talking about the original series, not the rebuild movies).

A lot of NGE detractors cite Shinji’s wimpiness as a problem with the story, but I think when people say that they’re actually identifying a visible symptom of a much more significant problem: inconsistent pacing.

If I step back and examine NGE the show structurally, I can divide it pretty cleanly into three distinct parts:

1. Episodes 1-6

2. Episodes 7-16

3. Episodes 17-26

The first part, which is the shortest, introduces the situation and stakes, establishes Shinji’s psychological problems about getting into the mech, and culminates with a large, climactic battle against Cube 2 Hypercube in which the heroic efforts by everyone (literally everyone, as all of Japan comes together to provide electricity for one superpowered attack) inspire Shinji to do what is demanded of him. The amount of narrative content packed into these six episodes is huge, because there’s also the development of the relationship between Shinji and Rei that serves as kind of a microcosm for Shinji’s ability to trust, depend on, and help other people, and which also sees a narrative resolution in the final episode when the two work together to defeat their enemy.

Episode 7 is essentially a filler episode, then Episode 8 introduces Asuka. I get, conceptually, the idea behind Asuka and what she’s supposed to provide to the plot. She is, in essence, a fiery, hypermotivated soldier who wants nothing more to get into the mech and prove herself, which juxtaposes her against Shinji’s reluctance. But I think, narratively, Asuka is redundant, as her role has essentially already been filled by Shinji’s classmates Toji and Glasses. Asuka adds a sort of gender dynamic to that question by being female while Shinji’s classmates were male, but ultimately not much dimension has really been added to a question that was already posed and resolved in the first 6 episodes. (I know you mentioned you weren’t talking about the Rebuild movies, but think about how effortlessly those films substituted Asuka for Toji in the experimental Unit 03 plot; these two characters really are doing the exact same thing narratively.) Asuka receives way more narrative weight that Toji does, has a huge flashy introduction episode, gets a lot more screen time, et cetera, but she hasn’t changed much of anything and because of that the next few episodes, which frequently focus on her role, are often pretty stagnant in the grand scheme of things. There are several obvious filler episodes where Shinji and the gals take on Monster-of-the-Week type angels who fail to live up to the massive narrative weight and big, flashy scale of Cube 2 Hypercube back in Episodes 5 and 6. As such, the story sinks into a dull holding pattern, one that lasts longer than the entire, densely-packed first arc. The pacing, in short, has gone from “fast” to “dead stop.” Nothing is developing, not the characters, not the story, not even the sense of scale or the stakes. The middle of NGE is a gaping black hole that only becomes more frustrating as the third part begins.

I think I would ordinarily want to put Episodes 17 and 18 into the previous part, because what should very obviously be a culminating moment for flashy new character Asuka gets stolen from her and given to (now irrelevant) Toji. If it were Asuka who gets into Unit 03, it would sort of justify the second part, although not its length or arduous pacing. But because Asuka is completely divorced from the Unit 03 subplot, I’ve decided to organize it into the climactic third part, where NGE seems to remember it’s supposed to have stakes. However, there’s another extremely frustrating element about these two episodes, because after them, Shinji regresses back to the reluctant (or unwilling) hero he was all the way back before the Hypercube fight. It’s this moment of regression, I think, that drives so many people batty about Shinji as a character, because NGE just topped off 9 to 11 episodes of nothing really happening with a huge moment of plot de-advancement. I think if this moment came shortly after Episode 6, with Asuka being more heavily involved in it, it plays out a lot better. But because of the show’s massively inconsistent pacing, the frustrations the viewer feels for the narrative itself are dropped onto Shinji and make him come across as kind of obnoxious. The fact that it’s irrelevant Toji who sparks this regression in Shinji is also a misstep; it just makes it a lot more difficult to empathize with Shinji when this tragedy has occurred to a character who barely rises above the background. (And in classic anime fashion, the show pulls a massive punch and doesn’t even kill Toji, when it really needs to be hitting as hard as humanly possible to sell this regression.)

By Episode 19, the narrative is basically back to where it started in Episode 1, with a couple more characters floating around and a smaller number of angels left to fight. Basically, the first 18 episodes don’t matter that much. It’s here where NGE actually starts, and also actually starts to get good. If you can get past the the huge frustration of Shinji’s regression, NGE very quickly returns to the fast pace and ramping scale/stakes of Episodes 1-6. The angels become more threatening and difficult to defeat, the characters start to break down emotionally and literally, the sense that things are slanting toward a disastrous conclusion grows and grows. And it finally culminates in End of Evangelion, which I would consider close to a masterpiece, an excellent film where my largest criticisms are that it’s shackled so strongly to the uneven show that came before it.

The first two Rebuild moves, while sacrificing the excellent visuals of the show and injecting a few stupid elements like Mari Illustrious, resolve a ton of the problems I have with the original. Asuka gets put into Unit 03, while Toji and the other schoolkids are correctly reduced to only the barest of roles. The distended post-Asuka midsection is slimmed down significantly and more emphasis is placed on using it to drive Asuka into that climactic Unit 03 moment. Unfortunately, Rebuild 3 is kind of a hilarious mess that makes zero sense, but oh well.

Overall, NGE is a strong story with extremely high heights muddled by some fairly quotidian narrative missteps. It’s worth it for EoE, though. That movie is phenomenal.

[animebw]

Episode 20

There is a LOT to unpack in Evangelion episode 20. This is where the production hell truly begins; between the constant use of recycled footage in different contexts and the long, static shots, it’s clear that the gas is leaking out of the tank over at Gainax. But that’s also where the brilliance begins, and the ways Anno and his crew find to utilize their minimal resources over these last several episodes never cease to astound me. There is so much densely layered meaning in Shinji’s primordial soup psychosis that I barely know where to start, but let me just list off a bunch of interesting, fascinating, and otherwise noteworthy things that caught my eye this time around.

-Coming back to this episode after watching Re:Zero, it is shockingly apparent how much Subaru was influenced by Shinji’s repeated mental interrogations. The moments where Subaru is pathetically railing against Emilia and demanding she show him respect for all his supposedly heroic deeds could be taken straight from Shinji begging the people in his life to praise him for piloting the Eva.

-On that same note, it’s very apparent here how deeply Shinji’s self-image has become tied with his Eva piloting. He sees it as the one aspect of him that makes people be nice to him; he can’t imagine anyone liking him for him. And because he ties his identity to this machine he keeps coming back to, he can’t allow himself to imagine a life without it. That’s why his return to pilot the damn thing last episode ultimately isn’t a glorious triumph; it might have been the only option to save everything at the moment, but it also drags Shinji right back into a self-made hell that he had a genuine chance at breaking free from for once.

-Shinji’s first real snap comes when he’s hearing the repeated voices of everyone calling his name, speeding up further and further until he almost self-destructs from the pressure. I think this ties back to the idea of self-image; everyone says his name differently, reflecting the different images they have of him in their head. Shinij, Shinji-kun, ikari-kun, and so on. He is a different person to every single one of them, and it forces him to realize that the self image of the brave, deserving Eva pilot he’s built up for himself is not the only version of him that exists. He does... not take the realization well.

-Overall, Shinji’s negative qualities are much more pronounced here than they’ve ever been. His self-interrogation forces him to discard all the lies he’s been trying to convince himself with and lay bare to the gross reality; he cannot handle people not liking him, because he doesn’t have the self-confidence to survive without their praise. So he clings to it like an entitlement he’s owed for his deeds, lashing out at those he perceives as withholding what he is deserved. Again, much like Subaru will emulate two decades down the line.

-An important extension of that? Shinji’s women problems. There’s a chilling sequence where he pictures the three most important ladies in his life- Asuka, Rei and Misato- all basically offering him sex in the same suggestive, repeated motions, blending them together into the single soup of womanhood he perceives. It’s offered as the easy out, the “becoming one” with the people he feels attracted to. Sex here equals literally fusing into the same person, sharing everything with no walls of ego or soul. But literally becoming someone else is not the same thing as actually knowing them; raw, bestial sex is not the same as pure, emotional connection. If you’ve seen End of Eva, you know this theme comes back in a massive way there.

-On that same topic, once again, it’s Misato who saves him and pulls him back to reality. Not Misato as a sexual object, but Misato as directly paralleled with his mother once more. He swims toward his mother’s voice for salvation, but only after Misato’s face cuts through his mental haze, and her crying over losing him welcomes him back into the world. As always, for all her failures, the kind of connection Misato sees in Shinji is one that he keeps wanting to come back to. Not as an easy out, but as something he wants to be part of.

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #neon genesis evangelion #evangelion #eva #nge #ikari shinji #shinji ikari #asuka langley sohryu #sohryu asuka langley #ayanami rei #rei ayamani #misato katsuragi #katsuragi misato #gendo ikari #ikari gendo

[lunar-lattice]

Solaris Caelum (7)

Kaworu cross-synchs with Unit 00 with vicious results.

Mirrors in reblogs.

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7. Ghost in the Machine

Months earlier...

Rei had been in the entry plug many a time before and in LCL many more times before this. This, however, was the first time she was syncing with her Evangelion. She couldn't name the feeling that buzzed along her skin, just that it made the mere idea as scary as an Angel attack. But the Commander demanded she do this so she daintily stepped into the plug and settled in the chair. She put her hands on the control yokes, squeezing them experimentally. She took a deep breath. The Commander assured her it would be okay so it would be okay. And if it wasn't, it was still okay. As she could be replaced.

The comm crackled to life and Dr. Akagi's voice filtered through, "Rei. We are beginning the activation test."

"Yes," she breathed.

Dr. Akagi turned to the techs, "Connect all main power supply circuits."

The machine buzzed to life around her. Even without being synced, Rei could feel the power. It would have made the hair on her arms stand on end if the plugsuit allowed it. She closed her eyes and tried to relax. Even with this feeling, she needed to relax. The Eva wouldn't accept her otherwise.

"Starting the activation system," one of the techs, Maya, said.

Rei ignored the feeling within her and opened herself to the Eva. It would be alright, no matter what.

A buzzing feeling raced along her skin and she was suddenly aware of the Eva. Her body was its body which was her body. She was aware of both the enclosed area of the Entry Plug and the wide space of the testing room. She used the eye that was not hers to look up at the window where the Commander and Dr. Akagi were standing. While the doctor was busy looking over the shoulder of Maya at her screen, the Commander looked at her. His face betrayed nothing.

HE. KILLED. US. IT'S HIS FAULT!

Without any fanfare, the connection was cut and she felt like she was falling. But something from within grabbed her tight and yanked her back into place. She didn't scream or cry but the feeling had returned tenfold as she was helpless to be taken for the ride as the Eva strained to escape its restraints. With a howl of tearing metal, it lurched forward out of them.

Distantly, she could hear Dr. Akagi and the techs furiously attempting to stop the berserk machine. The angry screaming of someone familiar blocked it out.

TRAPPED, WRONG, IN PIECES. MAKE THIS STOP!

Rei grabbed her head in a vice grip. Why wouldn't it stop!? The voice, the pain, the feeling of being trapped and used—

A voice cut through the din, "Stop the experiment. Cut the power."

A shudder ran through the machine as the cable was ejected. It jerked to a stop, shuddering still.

IT WAS HIM. KILL HIM TOO!

Eva Unit Zero jerked back to life like a puppet, its face surveying the room until it caught sight of the window and Commander Ikari standing there stoic. It let go of its head and launched its fist into the wall. The wall dented and the window cracked but stood firm. A very distinct feeling of frustration rushed through Rei and the Eva began to pummel the wall. Still, despite cracking and breaking, it stood firm.

The Eva made a muffled wail and it bent over, grabbing its head once more.

WHY CAN'T I? WHY CAN'T I?

WHY WON'T YOU DIE TOO?!

A new shudder ran through the machine and finally, Rei was pulled from the machine as the Entry Plug ejected. Her relief was short-lived as the Plug hit the ceiling hard and slid across with a horrendous squealing sound. Her head hit the back of the chair and pain exploded there. The LCL was suddenly clouded red.

With another jerk, it hit the wall, still shuddering as the rockets kept going. In a combat scenario, the Plug was designed to fly as far as it could from the danger and hit the ground much easier than it would now. Rei felt a horrible feeling, of knowing she would shortly be in more pain and could do nothing about it.

The air beneath her dropped and she went into free fall. But not for long and she hit the ground, a horrible snap coming from her arm. She cried out as it did.

It went silent. Horribly and utterly silent. There was no one with Rei except the pain. Still, she did not cry, gasping instead.

Then there was a voice outside. A cry of pain then the sound of the Entry Plug release squealing as it was turned. Finally, light flooded the Entry Plug. "Rei?" the Commander asked and he leaned inside the Plug.

There was a desperate edge to his voice Rei had never heard before, "Rei, are you alright?!"

She looked up, her neck flaring in pain at the movement. She couldn't quite meet his eyes but he looked truly concerned. A new feeling, something that soothed her pain, rushed through her. She nodded slowly.

"...I see," he said.

He turned away as the hospital personnel made it down to them. A glint of something by the Entry Plug caught Rei's eyes. The Commander's glasses? She had rarely seen him without them. Her curiosity outweighed her pain so she leaned over, grabbing the edge of them. Her body screamed in pain but she ignored it, leaning back in her chair and studying the glasses.

A long crack ran through them, no doubt because the extreme heat the Plug was giving off. Her plugsuit protected her from it but the Commander had no such thing. His gloves definitely would not have held against it. The feeling from before rushed through her, a soft feeling that muffled her pain. She cradled the glasses close to her with her good arm and did not let go of them, even as she was loaded onto the stretcher.

Rei was doing a lot of thinking as of late. Not that she didn't think before. Just she was thinking more and on things her old self would deem "unnecessary". Her old self would deem thinking on her first sync test as necessary. She had gone over it many times, pondering different things. The main one was the Commander's actions. It was the single most kind thing he had done for her...but after it, he never brought it up. Like it simply had not happened. Before she justified it as something painful for him, as sometimes thinking about pain brought one pain. Now...she wasn't so sure.

But that wasn't what she was thinking about. What she was thinking about was the fact Nagisa was having a unique sync test today, where he synced with all three Evas. He usually tested with 02, a fact that Asuka was obviously not happy with. But his sync rate with it was not great, hovering just above her own. So they were testing him with the other two, in case they liked him better.

And if something happened to her or Shinji.

The idea of harm coming to Shinji was not something she really liked to think about but it was something she thought about nonetheless. And now, she loathed to think of something happening to Asuka or Nagisa too. She barely knew Nagisa but...the idea that syncing with her Eva may harm him alarmed her. She'd have to warn him.

It was still early, too early for anyone to really be up, including Nagisa. But the idea nagged so she stood and began to get dressed.

When she left her apartment, the sun was barely coming up so the world was still in lavender tones. The hall was quiet and dim. Rei found she liked it as she walked down the hall to Nagisa's apartment. Once there, she knocked and waited.

A few minutes passed before he opened the door, blinking blearily at her. His silver hair stuck up every which way and his clothes were disheveled. He yawned, "Oh, hey, Rei. What are you doing here?"

"I wished to speak with you. It..." she paused, searching for a way to word it, "...brought me distress if I didn't right away."

"Is it important?" Kaworu asked.

"It is a matter of great importance to me,"

He stepped aside, "Then come on in. I'll make some tea."

She followed him into the kitchen and sat at the table as he made tea. His apartment wasn't decorated much more than hers but she could see a silver machine of sorts on the counter. He glanced over to her to ask her something then followed her gaze to it. He smiled, "Do you like music, Rei?"

"I haven't listened to it particularly. I do know Shinji likes it," she said back, studying the machine and trying to figure out how it played music.

He reached over and pressed a button, causing violin music to flood the kitchen. He smiled, "Listen to that while I make tea. I think you'll like it."

She closed her eyes as she listened to the music, violins striking a prominent position while flutes took up the background. Her worry was still there but it was like a footnote in a book. Important, yes, but at the back of her mind. The music eventually faded out on a final chord before silence reigned once more. She opened her eyes just as Kaworu set a cup of tea in front of her. He asked, "Did you like it?"

She nodded slightly, "It made me feel less worried."

Kaworu sat across from her, "It makes me feel calmer when I'm upset too,"

He took a sip of the tea so Rei did as well. She murmured, "This is nice too,"

He smiled at her, "Good to hear! Anyway, what was bothering you?"

Rei grimaced, enough so that Kaworu frowned. Seeing her emote was nearly alien and to such a degree...he was concerned. She began, "You will test with Units One and Zero today. The idea makes me...fear for you, Nagisa."

Kaworu's frown deepened, "You can call me Kaworu...but well...to fear for someone else is normal. But you fear...I'll get hurt?"

She nodded, "Unit Zero...went berserk on my first sync test. I fear the same will happen to you."

"Well, if it does, Dr. Akagi and the techs will be there just in case. Plus, they've probably thought of that already," Kaworu smiled softly at her.

It did little to soothe her worries. She knew why she feared it but she very well couldn't tell him. The fact the Evas had souls in them was very top secret so even alluding to it might get her in trouble. She dropped her gaze to her tea as she thought how to word it. She started slowly, "Unit Zero...is very temperamental. I don't think it will like change."

"I figured that much from what I've heard," he shrugged, "I'll just do what I've always been told to do. To open myself to her. What happens will happen."

Rei searched his face, wondering if perhaps he did know about the nature of the Eva. If he did, he was extremely casual about it. She nodded, "I suppose that is one way to look at it."

He smiled wider, "If you're so worried, you could come with. I think Shinji and Asuka were worried too. Maybe we can even go do something after."

Rei looked back at her tea. She said softly, "I'd like that."

"It's still for a few hours so you could go home," he paused, "Not that I wouldn't like for you to visit! I haven't really gotten to know you. I think we're very alike."

Rei tilted her head, almost birdlike, "Explain."

Kaworu simply smiled, "Just in looks, is all."

Asuka wasn't a fan of sync tests. Then again, she figured Dr. Akagi was the only one who was. Luckily today, she was not having any. But Kaworu was and she worried for him. Zero was unpredictable and she didn't trust it. Not to mention One's...track record. So she, along with Rei and Shinji, were here for moral support. All three hovered in the command room, out of the way but intent. Misato cast a glance over her shoulder at them, "You know you don't have to be here, right?"

Shinji cut in, "We want to make sure Kaworu is alright!"

Rei nodded to agree. Asuka stayed silent, her pride instead willing her to watch the screen of Kaworu sitting in Unit One's entry plug. She had her fears about it but they turned out unfounded. Kaworu could sync with it, just not very well. He could get her up and moving but his reaction time would be sluggish and nearly unusable. Misato's voice cut into her reverie, "How about you, Asuka?"

"Oh! Yeah, sure, same here," she shrugged, playing herself off as casual.

The smile playing upon Misato's lips showed she knew it wasn't. Instead she looked at the screen, "Who has little faith in who now?"

Asuka huffed and didn't answer. Shinji spoke up instead, "Well...it'll make us feel better, y'know? I do trust you and Dr. Akagi and everyone else..." he looked at the floor bashfully.

"I bet Ritsuko is happy to hear that," Misato commented.

Ritsuko herself did not comment but a soft smile crossed her face.

Asuka watched the screen again. Kaworu's sync rate only went up a point, something that was impressive in its own right. Unit One obviously had a preference and it was Shinji, whether he liked it or not. She wondered if the Unit could think for its own and what it was thinking about Kaworu. Was she only begrudgingly letting him sync? Or had she simply not gotten stubborn yet?

Her eyes drifted to Shinji who watched too. What would be his reaction to learning his mother was inside the war machine? Not that she would tell him any time soon but it was something to think about. Would he find comfort in the machine, as she had? Or would he resent the machine? Asuka trusted her unit with her life, just as she would her mother. Despite what happened to her mother after the contact experiment, whatever part of her mother was inside truly loved her. Maybe she should resent the Eva for taking her mother away from her. But then again, it wasn't like it had a choice in the matter. In some ways, even it was a victim.

She took attention when she heard Dr. Akagi instruct Kaworu to get out of Unit One as they were done and standby for Unit Zero. She found herself gnawing at her lip. Shinji must have picked it up as he whispered, "Asuka, are you worried?"

Asuka frowned, nearly rebuffing him. After a pause, she admitted, "Yes."

"It's alright. I have a bad feeling about it..." he turned to Rei, "No offense, I do know its your Eva."

Rei replied, "None taken. I understand."

They turned back to the screen, watching until they had the Units switched out and Kaworu inside Zero. Asuka did not trust that one. With Rei at the helm, it acted normal enough. But she knew it rebelled the first time she was inside. Not to mention the mystery of who was inside. She watched with rapt attention.

"Are you doing alright in there, Kaworu?" Dr. Akagi asked him through the speaker.

"Yes, Dr. Akagi," he answered smoothly.

The previous two Units were distant to him, something he didn't see changing with Zero. In fact, he did not see it changing at all until he got his own. With their souls active, he could not exert his Angelic influence over them and take control. Not that he would, as it would set off the Angel alert nearly immediately. So he simply sat there, letting himself sync with them normally.

Unit Two definitely did not let him sync as well as say, Asuka would. He did notice that after he befriended Asuka, his sync ration crawled up about ten points and was very slowly climbing, even slower than Rei. Still, progress was progress.

Unit One, however, seemed to only begrudgingly let him sync. His ratio was just enough to get her moving but he would be barely more than bait on the battlefield. He tried to radiate back gratefulness when he was in sync but little changed.

"Connect all main power circuits," Ritsuko commanded.

"Main power supply connected. Starting the activation system," Maya reported.

Inside the plug, the machine began to hum. Other than Maya counting backwards, the plug was silent. It was eerie.

"Proceed to the second stage of activation."

"Commencing Pilot connection."

"Commence phase two of synchronization."

"Everything looks like it's going well...," Shinji trailed off as he watched the window.

Asuka didn't respond, her eyes fixed on the Eva Unit.

"Proceed to third stage of activation,"

The Eva Unit came to life, looking up across the room. Other than that, it did not move.

"Time to absolute borderline. 0.9, 0.7, 0.5, 0.3…"

The computers began to wail and Maya jolted back and cried, "The pulses are flowing backward!"

Ritsuko took a glance at the Eva Unit that was already straining against its restraints then to Maya's computer. "Not again," she breathed.

The inside of the plug was flooded with red, making the LCL look uncomfortably like blood. The machine radiated a mix of terror and fury. It jabbed at Kaworu, as if trying to worm its way inside his head.

Images flashed in his mind. Rei sitting in class, staring out the window. Rei sitting in their group. Rei in Shinji's home. Rei in her white plugsuit.

Rei in a school outfit, eyes narrowed as she stood on the peak of the escalator.

IDENTIFY YOURSELF.

WHO ARE YOU?

UNKNOWN. DIFFERENT. FAMILIAR. ALIKE. ENEMY? FRIEND?

Kaworu gasped in surprise as the voice came from everywhere and inside his own mind. It was high and airy but a reverb behind it made it sound like a growling and cornered animal. And he knew what they said about a cornered animal: that was when they were at their most dangerous.

"I-I'm a friend," he murmured. Whatever this was...it felt in a way like Rei. Even so, he wasn't sure if it understood him at all. Or if it cared.

The machine shuddered, finally breaking from its restraints. It stumbled a few steps forward and shook its head back and forth, clawing at it as it did. It made a muffled wailing sound that chilled its watchers to their core. Ritsuko cried, "Eject the power cord!"

Maya complied then reported, "One minute until shutdown!"

Shinji was shaking like a leaf but couldn't find it in himself to move away. He said, "A minute can be a long time..."

The Eva stopped then slowly raised its head. It surveyed the room, catching sight of the window, repaired as if it hadn't smashed it up months prior. It approached, almost predatory.

Asuka grabbed Shinji's shoulder, "Shinji...let's...let's move back..."

But neither her nor Shinji nor Rei moved. They were stuck in place, helpless to watch as Unit Zero came mere feet away from the glass and mere feet away from them. It's single eye studied them each in turn but froze when it came to Rei. Everything was still.

WHY DO YOU GET TO LIVE WHILE I DIED?

WHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHY!

It pulled back its arm and punched the glass, which bent inward and cracked but held. It wailed in frustration and punched again, the glass holding still but bending dangerously inward. "Rei!" Shinji cried and grabbed her shoulder. He pulled her back just as Unit Zero landed a third punch. Asuka staggered after them.

To their right, Ritsuko ordered, "Cut the connection. The pilot is suffering mental contamination. Eject the plug if you can afterward."

"Cut it? At this plug depth?" Maya asked, but nevertheless prepared to do so.

"Yes. The Eva's thoughts are passing into the pilot, rather than the other way around. Who knows the effects,"

Maya did as she was told, right as the Eva was going to land a fourth, and most likely final, punch at the window. It froze in place then staggered back, wailing and cradling its head. "Now eject the pilot!" Ritsuko cried.

Maya typed away, just for the computer to make a noise of error. "I can't! The Eva is rejecting it! 20 seconds to shutdown!"

"Hang in there..." Misato murmured, looking from the miserable Eva to the other three kids, who watched the spectacle. Rei watched it with her usually detached expression but her mouth was turned just slightly downward. Asuka and Shinji watched with wide eyes.

The Eva backed into a wall and, when finding nowhere to go, turned and began to bash its head into the wall.

"10 seconds!"

The Eva shuddered and slumped again the wall, clawing at it and wailing. It was the very picture of misery. Finally, it went still.

"Unit Zero has gone silent," Maya said quietly.

"Kaworu!" Shinji cried, bolting away from them.

His flight was stopped by Misato grabbing him around the midsection, "Shinji! It's no use! The crews will have to manually extract him!"

Shinji kicked a few times then slumped in defeat. "He should be alright..." Misato looked at Ritsuko, "Will he be alright?"

Ritsuko looked from her to the silent Eva Unit, "Most likely. A similar thing happened to Rei when she first attempted to activate the Unit. Her mental health when she came out was somewhat distressed but time away from the Unit calmed her."

Asuka still stared at the Eva. Even deactivated, it was a terrifying thing. She hoped Kaworu was alright.

"Dr. Akagi, where will they take him?" Asuka asked.

Ritsuko looked up from the screen, "I'll be looking over him for any sign of mental contamination. If he's clear, he can come home but if not, he'll be in the hospital."

"Where could we wait for him, if he's alright?"

A smile stole its way onto her face, "The hospital waiting room. I'll call you if he needs to stay."

Asuka nodded, "Alright, thank you," she turned to Shinji and Rei, "Let's go get something to eat then head on over there."

Misato let Shinji go and the three left. Misato herself looked at Ritsuko who had gone back to studying the terminal. Did she know why the machine went berserk? Misato had seen the recordings of the first incident and this one was eerily similar. Surely, this wasn't a mistake.

The trio had gone down to the NERV cafeteria to eat. Shinji had nearly insisted on them either going to the waiting room and forgoing eating or grabbing something from a vending machine. Asuka didn't have this and instead took them to the cafeteria. Still, the only one who appeared to be taking their time eating was Rei. Shinji had already polished off his chicken and rice and fidgeted with nervous energy. Asuka pushed around the last scraps of her food around. She hadn't really had an appetite but she forced herself to eat anyways. She suspected Shinji hadn't either but he did anyways. Probably because she insisted.

"I am finished. Shall we go?" Rei announced, pushing her bowl away from herself.

Shinji nearly leaped out of his seat, "Yes! Let's go!"

They disposed of their trash and started the walk to the hospital. Shinji broke the silence, "Rei...do you have any idea why your Eva did that?"

Rei was silent. Shinji nearly thought she wasn't going to answer before she said, "Dr. Akagi never told me a reason as to why it did that."

"But you were inside when it first did!"

"I know but I remember little."

Shinji slumped slightly, disappointed. Asuka cut in, "Of course, Dr. Akagi may know now."

"I hope they don't try to put either of us in it," Shinji sighed.

Asuka wondered if the original cross-synch test was a go still, in the light of this development. Sure, she was safe in 02 but Shinji was most likely going to be put into Rei's Eva. Asuka changed the subject slightly, "Perhaps Kaworu has an idea."

Once they got there, Kaworu was already waiting for them. "Kaworu!" Shinji cried, running up to him and embracing him. He seemed to realize what he had done because two seconds later, he detached and took a few steps backwards, his face red. Kaworu's was just as red. Asuka smirked at him. He pouted back.

He turned back to Shinji, "You three were going to wait for me?"

"Of course!" Shinji nodded, "What did Ritsuko say?"

"The effects of mental contamination faded as I waited to be retrieved. If they got me any sooner, I might have shown enough to make me stay."

"How do you feel though?" Asuka asked.

"Just shaken. This is probably the only case in which I'll say it but I'm glad the Entry Plug didn't eject," he nodded towards Rei, "It would have been like with Rei's first test."

"It was not pleasant," Rei said.

"Do you have any idea as to why the Eva did it?" Shinji asked.

Kaworu frowned, "I can't really explain it. All I can tell is the Unit didn't want me inside it."

He cast a quick knowing glance to Asuka then looked away. She made a note to ask him about it herself.

"Let's head on home...hey, let's all go to Misato's place! She'll probably be here for a while still!" Asuka suggested.

Kaworu sighed, "I do not envy her."

It was late when Kaworu and Rei went home. Kaworu cast a look at Asuka as he stood so Asuka picked up on it and said, "Hey, I'll walk you two out!"

She turned to Shinji, "Maybe you could clean up our plates?" she gestured to their plates from dinner on the table.

Ever dutiful, Shinji hopped up and began to do that. Asuka walked out with Kaworu and Rei. Once out, Asuka waved to Rei as she walked next door, "Night, Rei."

Kaworu nodded too, "Good night."

She nodded at them, "Night, Asuka...night, Kaworu," and disappeared into her apartment.

Asuka and Kaworu stayed there for a moment before Kaworu walked down the hall, the opposite way from his home. Asuka followed as he stepped into the elevator and they rode downwards. They walked out and Kaworu announced, "I've been still a little shaken so I figured we could take a walk. Shinji won't miss you?"

Asuka raised an eyebrow, "No...I'll tell him we took a walk."

Kaworu nodded and walked with her around the apartment and off the street. It was deserted. Still, he looked around then back at her. He smiled, "Thanks for coming with!"

Asuka nodded slowly. He smiled still but his voice dropped to a whisper, "I know why Unit Zero went berserk. Be subtle."

She raised an eyebrow, "Well, no problem..." she whispered back, "Why?"

Kaworu looked back down the street, "Nice night...clear."

He lead them around a turn into a park, devoid of people. He lead her to the swings and sat on one, his arms folded in his lap. Asuka followed, trying to not gnaw her lip in anxiety. Finally, he whispered, "I know who's inside…," he paused, "Not for sure but I have a good guess."

"Who?"

"Rei...or rather a piece of her."

Asuka frowned, making herself not cry out in surprise. Instead, she checked her memory for anything to back this up. Footage of her fight against the Sixteenth showed the Angel taking Rei's form. Zero going berserk in the cross-synch. A disturbing revelation came to her, "Like my mother," she breathed.

Kaworu nodded, "It's half of why she is the way she is."

Asuka pondered this, looking back at the starry sky and the moon. A wave of pity washed over her and she made no move to banish it. Kaworu said, as he stood, "I'm feeling better now. Shall we go back?"

She nodded and followed him out, still thinking of his revelation.

The day was nearing its end but Ritsuko's work was nowhere near over. Sadly, it wouldn't be over until this all was over. She grimaced as she rode the elevator up to the Commander's office.

She rang the buzzer at the door and the Commander's voice came through, "Enter."

She stepped through the door and stopped just before the desk. The Commander said in his nigh-always stoic voice, "Akagi, report on the sync test today."

For some reason, the Commander had wanted her to report in personally. Probably because he feared the events of the day would clash with his Scenario.

"We have found the Fourth can sync with Unit One as well as Unit Two. However, Zero went out of our control when he synced with it."

"Do you have an explanation?"

"The best one I have is simply Zero was not familiar with him so it reacted badly. It only cooperated with us after the first sync test with Rei. Its soul is...tempermental."

"Will it interfere with the Dummy Plug project?"

"We still have the full cross-synch planned in a few weeks, which is necessary for it. As such, we will possibly have to test the Third in Zero. I have planned to go on forward, as there were no damages to the pilots from today's incident. Do you advise otherwise?"

"Go on forward with that plan, Akagi. However, I'd appreciate it if you found a way to cut the power faster in the testing environment."

"Will do, sir."

"You are dismissed."

She stepped back out and took a sigh of relief. As of late, she was starting to dread her meetings with the Commander. She shook her head to clear her thoughts of him. Going back to work didn't sound as bad as it usually did.

#nge #neon genesis evangelion #evangelion #fanfiction #fanfic #wildcat writes #solaris caelum

[ngenewyear]

Gift for thehprevolution from aubergineinfatuation.

Sorry this is a little long!

Fic:

“Shinji-kun, you are the apple of my eye.”

“…”

“The light of my life, my only sunshine.”

“…?”

“If I were to compare you to something, a summer day might be too cliche, and our contemporary understanding of an angel not entirely accurate, but –”

“Kaworu-kun, what are you talking about?”

Shinji sets down the homework he’d been trying (and failing) to complete for the last twenty minutes. He often prefers to study in Kaworu’s room, half because Kaworu is there but half because pretty much everyone else isn’t, but it does occasionally carry the occupational hazard of Kaworu being like…this.

“Oh, you looked up.” Kaworu smiles pleasantly, completely undeterred by Shinji’s former unresponsiveness. “I was trying…. what is it that you Lilin call it? Oh, right. I was trying some flirting techniques.”

Shinji blushes in spite of himself, in spite of the fact that they are already dating so Kaworu has no reason to flirt (and Shinji has no reason to let it affect him so much either); opting for the easiest course of action, he can only ask “Why?”

“Actually,” Kaworu says, propping himself up on one elbow. It seems to be his favorite position. “There was a book I found, when I was at your house the other day.”

“A book?”

“Yes. It was called, The Five Steps to Woo Any Man. Apparently it belongs to Katsuragi-san, but she said I could borrow it.”

Shinji recalls, quite distinctly, the way Misato had surrounded herself with a tower of beer cans and refused to get into bed until 1am, when he and Asuka had dragged her. There was something about Kaji, something about Ritsuko, but Shinji has stopped paying attention at this point. All he knows is that, apparently, leaving Kaworu and Misato alone is probably not a good idea, not even for the five minutes he left to go get snacks.

He wonders, distantly, where she even got that book.

“The first chapter was on compliments,” Kaworu says, and suddenly the book has materialized in his hand and is being waved above his head. “I decided to try out the ones they had in here, but Shinji-kun, you deserve every –”

“Kaworu-kun, you do know what ‘woo’ means, right?”

“Of course I do.”

“You don’t need to…. woo me. We’re already…” Shinji has no idea what he’s embarrassed by, after all this time, but as always, saying it out loud feels strange. “You know. We’re a already dating.”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t compliment you?”

“No, but –”

“I think I’ll continue studying this anyways. Lilin mating rituals are so strange, after all.” and Kaworu’s smile is uncharacteristically mischievous, making Shinji’s heart skip. In both the good and the ‘slightly scared of what’s coming next’ way.

An eternal fifty/fifty with Kaworu.

And so Shinji decides that it’s time to take matters into his own hands. Abandoning his homework to the floor, he pulls himself up to Kaworu’s bed and makes a grab for the book.

Predictably, Kaworu dodges him, deftly switching it from one hand to another and then disposing of it somewhere – Shinji can’t tell where because Kaworu also manages to grab him and pull him to his chest, locking him in a gentle yet simultaneously firm backhug.

“Nice try, Shinji-kun,” he says, in a way that suggests he’s not planning on letting go any time soon.

Shinji finds that he’s okay with that.

x-x-x

It is barely two days later but Shinji has already forgotten entirely about the book and all of its contents. He has forgotten because Kaworu has done nothing to remind him – at least until he comes home and there are flowers pushed into the mail slot and piled around the front door.

He pushes open the door and is greeted with bouquets, bunches of flowers tied with twine, vases overflowing with red and white and pink. Misato sits in the middle of it, looking bemused, while Asuka stands by the kitchen table, looking pissed. Penpen chews on a leaf.

When Shinji walks through the door, Misato gives him the look of a predator who has just landed on some juicy prey. The corners of her lips quirk up, and Shinji immediately backs away.

Of course, he’s too late.

“Shinji-kun~” she says, voice raising sweetly, and Shinji shivers. “Why is it that ever since this morning, I’ve been receiving flowers all addressed to you?”

“Yeah,” Asuka says, plucking a flower from a vase and staring at it in disgust. “I’d like to know, too. Are these all from Ayanami? I didn’t realize she was capable of having feelings.”

It’s at times like these Shinji is glad he never told either of them about his relationship. It’s not as though he has anything to hide, per se – but he figures he receives enough teasing (from Misato) and verbal abuse (from Asuka) on a daily basis that he can be forgiven for wanting some privacy regarding his personal affairs.

And, of course, if Asuka paid him any measure of attention in school she might have figured it out – because Kaworu is neither subtle nor willing to be – but thankfully she has adopted a strategy of acting like Shinji is a stranger whenever she encounters him in a public place, which she sticks to unwaveringly.

As for Misato, Kaworu is just Shinji’s friend. A friend with a total lack of personal space and a penchant to stare whoever he’s talking to directly in the eyes, but a friend nonetheless.

They’ll never have to know.

“It definitely wasn’t Rei,” Shinji says, because honestly the idea is laughable. He begins gathering the flowers in his arms, but to his dismay, there are even more on the kitchen counter, and far too many to carry overall. “I think I know who it may be, though.”

“Who?” Asuka demands, but Shinji is out the door before she can pursue him further and luckily, there are too many flowers blocking her way to catch up. All he can hear is Misato’s distant laughing (unaware that this is all entirely her fault, probably) and then nothing.

x-x-x

He finds Kaworu is the expected position: cradling a cat by the side of the road. As though he can instinctively sense him coming, he turns to face Shinji once he gets close, gently playing with the cat’s paw.

“Shinji-kun!” he says, nearly beaming. “I see you received the flowers.”

“I… did…” Shinji says, speaking around the bouquet that nearly blocks his face. “Kaworu-kun, why are there so many…?”

“Red roses symbolize love,” Kaworu says immediately. “White carnations, pure love. Purple lilac, first love. Jasmine, sensual love. Forget-me-nots – well, I’m sure you know. And white dittany is said to be an aphrodis–”

“Kaworu-kun!” Shinji shouts even though there’s no one else around, and nearly drops the flowers in his haste. “Were you reading that book again?”

“The second chapter was on gift-giving,” Kaworu says, setting the cat down. It winds around his ankles and purrs. “Apparently men prefer fashionable watches or neckties, but flowers were another option. I thought you might prefer them more.”

“They’re pretty, but… you must’ve bought the entire store!”

“I just wanted to communicate every possible meaning I could,” Kaworu laughs softly as though enjoying some personal joke. “It’s fascinating how you Lilin assign an entirely new language to the weeds that grow around you. I find it charming.”

“I don’t really get it myself, but…” the cat meows at him and Shinji pets it tentatively. “This is… the first time I’ve ever received flowers.”

“Did you enjoy it, then?”

It’s just the two of them, so it’s probably okay. Shinji nods, ever so slightly. “Yes….Thank you, Kaworu-kun.”

“I’m glad, then.” Kaworu smiles like the sun and Shinji’s looks away, lest he be drawn in by Kaworu’s annoyingly irresistible charm.

“All I’m saying is, don’t go crazy because of what some book says,” Shinji tells Kaworu, glancing at him sideways. “I have no idea what we’re going to do with all of those flowers, we might have to throw some away…”

“How about you return them to the earth?” Kaworu suggests as the two of them begin walking down the street. The stray kitten follows behind, mewing plaintively after them.

“I don’t know, the stems are already cut….” Shinji says, glancing behind them. The one kitten following them has multiplied into several, and Kaworu has practically a kitten army on his tail by the time they get to the end of the street. “You really attract them, huh?”

“They seem to like me, and I think they’re cute.” Kaworu says, scooping another cat into his arms. “They remind me of you, Shinji-kun.”

Shinji looks away, embarrassed mostly because as cheesy as Kaworu is, he’s also completely earnest, and he probably meant that when he said it. “I’d say that little white one looks more like you.”

“What do you say we adopt it, then?” Kaworu says, and Shinji knows he’s probably joking but reacts instantly anyways.

“I don’t think I’m ready to be a parent.”

Kaworu laughs at him as they walk in the setting sun.

x-x-x

Shinji has become pretty accustomed to not getting much time with Kaworu at school, despite the fact that they’re in the same class and even sit relatively near to each other. It’s not surprising; Kaworu, in the same vein as Rei, is intelligent, athletic, and handsome enough to warrant a significant amount of popularity, particularly from female members of the class, who don’t seem to mind his occasional misunderstanding of human behaviors.

Shinji, on the flip side, enjoyed his most significant amount of popularity when his status as an EVA pilot was discovered, and since then has faded back into the background. And he’s fine with just being with Toji and Kensuke; even if he’s jealous of the crowd of girls that habitually surrounds Kaworu during lunch and break times, he’s long since accepted the hierarchy at school.

So he’s more than a little surprised when during lunch Kaworu places a pair of chopsticks in his face and says, “Shinji-kun, say aaaah.”

“Kaworu-kun, what –” Shinji realizes a little too late that he shouldn’t have asked, because Kaworu takes the opportunity to shove the chopsticks into his mouth, their contents unknown.

On instinct, Shinji swallows, and then gags as the taste hits his tongue, at once cloyingly sweet and then overwhelmingly salty. Kaworu raises the chopsticks again – it looks like he’s trying to feed him some kind of omelet – but Shinji makes sure to push them away before making inquiries this time.

“Kaworu-kun, what are you doing?” Shinji asks – despairingly, because he thinks he knows the answer already.

“The book said, ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” Kaworu looks immensely pleased with himself as he holds up a bento Shinji had not noticed before, packed to the brim with brightly colored foods Shinji can’t quite identify. “So I made you this.”

At this point Shinji is keenly aware of the looks Toji and Kensuke are giving him, from two desks away. They had initially resented Kaworu for his incredible success with the girls of the class, until Shinji had convinced them he had no interest in things like that – and then they went on to bemoan that he was squandering his luck by going for someone “like Shinji”.

Kaworu, for his part, had cheerfully proclaimed that any friend of Shinji’s was a friend of his.

Now the two of them are staring at Shinji in a way that suggests that they won’t say anything at that point in time, but are planning on giving him an earful later. All he can do at this point is count his blessings that Asuka is across the room eating with the class rep and paying them no attention.

“I wasn’t sure what you would like, so I tried a little bit of everything,” Kaworu says, pointing at each part of the bento box in turn. “I don’t need to eat, so I’m not well-versed in these matters, but I tried everything myself and I think you’ll like it.”

“Thank you, Kaworu-kun, this is….” Shinji examines the bento. It’s true that it’s much more substantial than the bread he was planning on eating instead (Misato wasn’t really one for packed lunches) and, well, Kaworu is talented at basically everything else, so Shinji has no reason to doubt his cooking. That first bite was just a little strong – it’s probably fine.

Still, he errs on the side of caution and goes for the safest option – white rice.

“Wait, Shinji-kun,” Kaworu says, tapping his chopsticks on the table. “Let me feed it to you.”

“Wait, wait, why do we have to –?”

“That’s what the book said to do,” Kaworu says, like the answer is perfectly obvious. “And I quite like the idea, myself.”

“Kaworu-kun –”

“What are you guys doing?” and without warning, Asuka is standing over their desks, arms crossed. “Half the class is looking over here like there’s a dead body.”

Shinji is dismayed to realize that she’s right – excepting Rei, who is mercifully reading a book and paying them no attention like usual. The urge to run away is stronger than ever before.

“Nagisa, is this bento yours?” Asuka asks. She doesn’t like Kaworu, and makes it abundantly clear. Shinji thinks they have quite possibly the least compatible personalities ever, and while Kaworu has never said a word about it, he suspects the feeling may be mutual. “I know Shinji can’t cook like this.”

“Yes, I made it.” Kaworu says pleasantly, disregarding – or perhaps contributing to – the tension in the air. “Do you want some, Asuka-san? I won’t feed you, though.”

Asuka looks visibly scandalized, and Kensuke chokes on his drink in the background, though whether from surprise or laughter, Shinji’s not sure.

“Gross, I wouldn’t want you to!”

“All right then,” Kaworu says, and he brings the chopsticks back up to Shinji’s mouth. “All right, Shinji-kun –”

And at that moment, Shinji can see connections inside Asuka’s head beginning to form, synapses forming an intricate web to his doom. Before she can even finish the sentence, “Wait, were those flowers the other day –” he has Kaworu by one hand and the bento in the other and is out the door before either of them can blink.

They end up on the school roof and in fashion truly unique to him, Kaworu is completely unbothered by Shinji’s abrupt exit from the classroom. Instead, he just presses a hand against the fences surrounding the roof and remarks, “It’s lovely at this time of day, isn’t it?”

“Kaworu-kun…”

Kaworu turns to face him, the slight wind ruffling his hair slightly. No matter how disarming his smile is, Shinji is still in awe sometimes of how handsome Kaworu is – for lack of a better word, angelic.

“I’m happy you’re doing all of this for me, but…” Shinji sits down on one of the benches, placing the bento in his lap. “It’s just, you know, doing it in front of everybody…”

“Lilin are very concerned about privacy,” Kaworu remarks, settling down on the bench next to Shinji and leaning back on his palms. “Is that why you wanted to be up here alone?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, if you’d rather be more private, then I’ll do my best to be that way too. Because I want you to be happy, Shinji-kun.” and he’s so sincere it makes Shinji’s chest tighten a little – but in the good way. The way only Kaworu can do.

“With that said…” Kaworu picks up the chopsticks again. “There’s no one else here, so is it alright if we pick up where we left off?”

And as embarrassingly lovey-dovey as it is, Shinji would be a liar if he said this exact scenario hadn’t occurred to him at least once, in the form of distant fever dreams, probably, but nonetheless – and so he agrees.

And actually, it tastes pretty good. Of course, Kaworu couldn’t screw up plain rice, and it’s actually impressive how many little fruits and vegetables he managed to cut up into cute flower shapes. A couple onigiri, some bamboo shoots, a little bit of Hamburg steak – the only part that tastes odd is the rolled omelet, which Shinji chews and swallows with reservation.

“Kaworu, what’s in this?” he asks when he’s done. Moreover, what kitchen did you use and where did you get these ingredients – but Shinji keeps those to himself, for now.

Kaworu thinks for a moment before responding. “Tomatoes, mushrooms, ginger, lemon peels, some pumpkin, soy sauce –”

“Why?”

“The book said omelets benefited from variety.”

And before Kaworu can feed him another piece, Shinji leans over to kiss him. Partially to protect his stomach for later. But also because, well, being alone together has its benefits sometimes.

x-x-x

“Shinji-kun.” They’re staring outside the door of Kaworu’s room in NERV headquarters and Kaworu is looking uncharacteristically serious. “I gave some thought to what you told me yesterday.”

“What was that, again….?”

“You wanted to keep things more private between us.” and then suddenly Kaworu’s waving that damn book around again, like he always carries it in his back pocket or something. “So, the next chapter in here was about physical affection.”

Shinji suddenly feels all the heat in his body rush to his… face. Kaworu can’t mean – definitely not, after all, they’ve showered together and shared the same bed and it’s just been kissing and hand-holding, up to this point. Kaworu’s not even human, there’s no way he’d have an interest in that, probably just saying “the things you Lilin do for reproductive purposes are so strange” –

…but, so far, he’s followed the book’s instructions thoroughly, and maybe it’s time – it’s finally time – and Shinji doesn’t think he’d be opposed –

And as all of this goes through Shinji’s head, Kaworu takes his face in his hands and kisses his forehead, cheeks, and nose in turn. Then he takes his hands and kisses his palms, and then each of his fingers.

Shinji actually starts crying.

“I’m sorry, did you not like it?” Kaworu says, looking legitimately distressed. “I thought it might be more intimate –”

“No, it’s fine,” Shinji says, because he doesn’t know how to articulate that “no one has ever touched me that tenderly in so long and I don’t know how to react” without delving into personal problems that have been buried so long it would be unwise to uncover them. He wipes at his face determinedly. “It’s just… not what I was expecting.”

“You were disappointed?”

“More… surprised.”

Kaworu touches his cheek lightly. “I apologize. What should I do instead?”

“Well… if you would try it again, I might know what to expect this time.”

Much, much later, once they’ve returned to Kaworu’s room, Shinji decides that this is his favorite chapter of that book to date.

x-x-x

It’s been about a week, and Shinji is starting to get curious. The book which Kaworu had been following so religiously was titled The Five Steps to Woo Any Man. And yet only four steps have occurred, at least to his knowledge so far. With how enthusiastic Kaworu had been, he wonders why the sudden stop – and then chastises himself for even expecting anything when he’s done nothing to deserve it.

Still, it remains on the back of his mind until one day they’re all walking home from school, Toji arguing with Asuka and Asuka trying to argue with Rei, when Kaworu takes Shinji by the arm and pulls him back.

“There’s something I want to show you,” he says, cryptic as usual, and then starts walking in the opposite direction of home, going fast enough that by the time anyone could notice their absence, they’re already down the hill and several streets away.

They end up traversing a part of the city Shinji is not familiar with, and his curiosity only grows as they leave the more populated areas behind and begin wandering through abandoned and rundown buildings, surrounded by the wreckage and detritus of the old world.

Just when Shinji thinks Kaworu must be either lost or seriously misled, he stops them in front of the ruins of a church, identifiable by the blown-out stained glass and miraculously still-standing pews. Most remarkably, though, is the piano sitting in the middle of it all, somehow still unblemished and in perfect shape, despite its dilapidated surroundings.

“Here, sit down.” Kaworu says, and Shinji sits next to him on the piano bench, admiring the faint glow of the ivory keys in the low light, untouched even by dust. He runs one finger across the smooth surface.

“The very last chapter of the book was a difficult one,” Kaworu says, resting his hands on the keys but not playing a note. “All it said was, share what you love.”

“That was it?”

“Yes. But when I thought about it… well, I realized I didn’t know enough about Earth to really have anything I loved that much. Just you. But that doesn’t really work, right?”

“No, I guess not…”

“But then I remembered,” and Kaworu breaks into a radiant smile. “The Lilin’s best invention is music. So I thought that we could share that.”

Shinji’s breath catches in his throat, a bit, and he has no idea what to say. It’s a simple gesture but somehow there’s some gravity to it, some incredible significance to something so small. He realizes, deeply and probably with much delay, just how much Kaworu has been thinking of him all this time.

Like he understands what Shinji’s thinking, Kaworu doesn’t wait for a response, and instead places his hands on the keys and plays a few notes. Graceful and deliberate, this, like everything else, seems to come easily to Kaworu. Shinji recognizes it as Beethoven, but knows little else.

When the song finishes, all Shinji can say is, “That’s beautiful.” For some reason Kaworu’s playing makes him choked up, but in a good way. Always in the good way.

Kaworu glances at him sidelong like he wants to say something, but for once opts not to. Instead he takes Shinji’s hand and lays his fingers lightly on the keys.

“I thought we could play a song together,” he says, and taps out a few notes. This one Shinji recognizes – Ode to Joy.

The song Kaworu was singing when they first met.

“It’s relatively simple, even for beginners.” Kaworu says. “I can teach you the notes.”

“I’d like to learn, but….” impulsively,  Shinji rests his head against Kaworu’s shoulder. “Could you first do another song for me? I like to listen to you play.”

“Of course,” Kaworu says, and he places his hands down again. Shinji listens and thinks how ridiculous this all is – the book and the steps and everything. Kaworu never needed any of that. He had his heart from the beginning.

Above the sound of the piano, Shinji’s not sure if Kaworu will hear his whispered “I love you”. But he must have, because he smiles ever so slightly and begins to play another song.

#shinji ikari #kaworu nagisa #ngenewyear #nge #evangelion #neon genesis evangelion #submission #gifts 2018

[tumblingletters]

Emerald Genesis Chapter 7

“With friends like this who needs enemies?”  

                                                                                   - Unknown

Chapter 7: Moving in, Close Calls and Dancing

           Shinji was walking to school with Toji and Kensuke.

           “Man, did you hear all the talk going around?” Kensuke asked.  “All everyone is talking about is Asuka.  Asuka. Asuka. Asuka.”  

           “Yeah, but it is generating great revenue for all those pictures you two are taking of her” Shinji observed.  

           “But they’re totally clueless” Toji said, “At least her pictures don’t reflect their personality.”  

           “That reminds me,” Kensuke beamed, “Toji, we need to get to school quick.  We got a lot of customers waiting.”  

           “Right,” Toji said sounding a little listless, “See you there, Shinji.”

           “See you.”  Shinji waved while the two of them dashed on ahead.  

           No sooner were they gone that a voice cooed to Shinji that was both lovely and dreadful.

           “Halllooooo” The voice called out.

           Shinji turned and saw Asuka coming towards him. She was dressed in the blue and white school uniform and her back slung over her shoulder in a very tough-guy sort of pose.  

           “Guten Morgen, Shinji” she greeted.  

           “Guten morgen, Asuka,” Shinji greeted back, “dich zu sehen.”

           “Not bad, Third Child” Asuka complemented.

           “Yeah, the internet is such a fine thing.”  

           “And you should appreciate your good fortune for talking to the most popular girl in school.”  Asuka said this when she came up to Shinji and sharply flicked his forehead with her middle finger.  

           “I’ll appreciate my good fortune when I win the lottery,” Shinji grunted while he rubbed his forehead.  

           Asuka ignored Shinji’s quip and immediately changed the subject, “Hey, the other one is here isn’t she?”

           “Other one?”  Shinji asked.

           “What are you?  Stupid?  I’m talking about the First Child, of course.”

           “Ah, Ayanami,” Shinji nodded, “she’s over there.”

           He motioned to a bench where the blue haired girl named Rei Ayanami was sitting alone reading a book.  Asuka went over to the bench and stood up on a low brick wall. Her shadow blocking Rei’s reading sunlight.  She moved herself down the length of the bench to get back into the sunlight and continue to read but Asuka stepped off the low brick wall and stood on the bench overshadowing Rei.  

           “Hello,” She smirked in her normal arrogant sort of way, “you must be the pilot of the prototype, huh?”

           Rei said nothing.

           “I’m Asuka.  Asuka Langley Sohryu.  Let’s be good friends.”  

           “What for?”  Rei asked as flatly as a robot.  

           “Because it would be convenient, don’t you think?”

           “If I’m ordered to do it then I will.”

           This response caught Asuka so off-guard that her eyebrows raised and she whispered to herself, “Weirdo.”  

           “Takes one to know one” Shinji remarked passing the two of them before his cell phone rang.  

           He picked it up and heard Misato’s voice.  

           “Shinji,” Misato ordered, “Bring Asuka and Rei to headquarters at once.  An angel has been sighted off the Ki’I Peninsula.”  

           “Got it” Shinji said hanging up his phone and reported to Asuka and Rei, “That was Misato.  We got an angel coming in.”  

           “Wunderva!”  Asuka grinned, “Time for my first battle in Japan.”          

           Shinji only rolled his eyes.  

 * * *

             The Eva’s were dispatched from their launch bays and taken into the air by specially designed carriers that would drop them in on the target like paratroopers.  Only Eva’s Unit One and Unit Two were taken.  Unit Zero was to stay behind as back-up.  While the two of them were in the cockpits of their Eva’s on their way to the intercept point Misato was giving their briefing.  

           “The recent Angel battle has severely damaged our Angel Intercept System,” Misato explained, “Only twenty-six percent of our defense capability has been restored.  In addition, our operational capability for actual combat is virtually nil. Therefore, we’re going to have to intercept the target at the water’s edge right before it makes land.  Unit’s one and two will mount a coordinated attack in a series of waves.  In other words, close in and take turns.”

           “Got it,” Shinji acknowledged.  

           “This sucks,” Asuka moaned, “my first fight over Japan and she won’t let me handle it solo.”

           “Oh, would you get the sand out of your panties and concentrate?”  Shinji barked.  

           “What’d you say, Third Child?”  

           “Look, this isn’t a field of honor, it’s a war,” Shinji explained, “It’s not about winning medals.  It’s about winning battles.”  

           “Well, let me tell you something, Third Child. Just don’t get in my way.”  Asuka huffed, “Really, your selection as a pilot must have been a joke.”

           “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you” Shinji quipped.  

           “I’m so gonna kick your ass when this fight is over.”  

           “Save that energy for this fight.”  

           With that the Eva’s were dropped down at the intercept point.  They fell to the ground like heavy children’s toys but they didn’t break upon impact. Instead the two of them landed feet first crouching down into the sand with a small cloud rising at their feet. At the same time large utility trucks backed up and gave the Eva’s their weapons.  

           Looking out to the water they saw a great breech of water like a whale bursting to the surface.  Instead, they saw the Angel.  The thing was shaped like a man’s body as if it was crafted by a child: no head only a curvature of the shoulders and arms in a downward arc.  And two very short legs.  In the center of what would be called the “chest” there was a bony circle that was divided like a yin and yang symbol: two holes with an s-shaped crack dividing them.  

           “Watch and learn, Third Child,” Asuka declared as she had her Eva take its bladed spear and charge directly for the target. “Cover me!”

           “Dumbass rookie” Shinji grunted.  

           Eva Unit Two leapt high into the air like a character out of a Chinese martial arts film, it swung its spear high over its head and brought it cleanly down upon the angel splitting it in half like chicken breasts.  

           “No way was it that easy” Shinji uttered his skepticism.  

           “You shouldn’t be so surprised, Third Child,” Asuka strutted, “A battle should be clean and elegant without waste.”  

           “You really are a marvel, Asuka.  You can strut while sitting down.”  

           “Shinji! Asuka!  The target is not dead!”  Misato called out through the COM.

           The two pilots looked and saw something change in the bony sphere in its chest.  It changed from its yin and yang configuration to one of a simple gray sphere with three holes in it like the sockets of a skull.  The halves that Asuka had so cleanly cut had begun to move and reshape themselves into twin beings.  One was orange and the other was gray.  Each one had the bright red core in its chest below the bony circle.  

 * * *

             Asuka and Shinji found themselves back at Headquarters in the debriefing room watching replays of the battle and the aftermath while one of the operators went through a transcript of the battle.

           “At ten-fifty-eight and fifteen seconds a.m. Unit One was attacked by Target A which split off the target submerged two kilometers off Suruga Bay.  Twenty seconds later, Unit Two was attacked by Target B.”  

           On the screen the final pictures were of Unit One submerged in water with its legs sticking upward like football goal posts. The same could be said of Unit Two only it was buried in the hills of a nearby farm.

           “We have a comment from the chair of Project E.”

           Doctor Akagi’s voice boomed out, “THIS IS PATHETIC!”

           “At eleven-oh-two a.m. U.N. forces made an attack with an N2 mine.  They succeeded in burning off twenty-eight percent of the target’s structure. However, this is a temporary measure. The second attack is only a matter of time.”

           “This is your fault!”  Asuka accused Shinji, “You totally screwed up my debut battle.”

           “Well, can’t say you did much better,” Shinji pointed out, “Thought you were so cool.  Watch and learn she says. Well I was watchin’ know what I saw?”

           “Now Shinji,” Kaji tried to quell the situation, “there’s no need for that.  And at least now we’ve got time to regroup.”

           “Alright you two,” Commander Fuyutsuki commanded, “what is your job here at NERV?”

           “Piloting the Eva?” Asuka asked sounding very mousy.    

           “Wrong!”  Fuyutsuki bellowed, “It’s to defeat the Angels!  NERV does not exist to make grotesque spectacles like this. Therefore, you two will learn to work together!”

           “Why should we?”  Shinji and Asuka asked in unison.  

           “Enough!”  Fuyutsuki shouted before excusing himself.  

           After he left Asuka asked Kaji, “Why does everyone get so angry here?”

           “Adults have a thing about creditability.”  Kaji answered smoothly.  

           “Hey,” Shinji asked, “Where’s Misato?  Shouldn’t she be here with us for this debriefing?”

           “She’s clearing things up.  It’s the duty of the person in charge to take responsibility if anything goes wrong.”  

           Shinji winced, “I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes right now.”  

 * * *

             Shinji was walking home in the high heat.  He wiped his forehead and noticed how much sweat was coming off of him.  It occurred to him that he should take a cold bath once he got home and home was the best part about living in Tokyo-3.  It was the one place where he was away from that damn redhead Asuka.  

           Coming upon the apartment complex that he called “home” he did notice that there was a moving truck with the DHL logo on the side of it driving out of the parking lot.  Shinji figured that someone must be moving into the apartment building.  

           He came to the apartment door, walked in and called out, “I’m home.”  But then whispered to himself, “Not that anyone’s home, anyway.”  

           He was taking his shoes off when he looked up and noticed boxes upon boxes with that DHL logo on them.  

           “What the hell is all this crap?!”  Shinji called out.  

           “Hey, don’t call my stuff ‘crap’, Third Child.” An all too familiar voice said. “These are my personal belongings.”

           He looked and found Asuka Langley Sohryuu leaning nonchalantly against a nearby wall, dressed in a pair of shorts, a yellow tank top, a towel around her neck and drinking Coke.

           “What the hell are you doing here?”  Shinji demanded.

           “And what are you still doing here?”  Asuka asked in return.

           “Still here?”  

           “It’s obvious isn’t it?  You’ve been replaced by the new model.  Misato will be living with me.  Of course, that would be the most logical choice when you consider my superior abilities. Although, I’d rather live with Kaji.”

           “Sure you would, Lolita.  And where’s my stuff?”

           “Over there.”  Asuka pointed to a box that had Shinji’s stuff piled into it as if it were going to a garage sale.

           “Hey, why are Japanese houses so small, anyway?” Asuka asked, “I couldn’t even get half my stuff in my new room.  And Japanese sure have no sense of privacy.  How can they live in a room without locks?”  

           “The Japanese way is to consider the needs of others before one’s own.”  Misato said stepping up behind Asuka.  “And it looks like you two are going to get along just great?”

           “What?”  Shinji and Asuka asked in unison.  

           “This is your training,” Misato explained, “You two are going to be roommates.”  

           “Say what?”  They asked again in unison.  

 * * *

             Misato had brought Shinji and Asuka into the dining area and had laid out the briefing to them.  

           “There is only one way to destroy the seventh Angel,” She began, “execute a simultaneous two point attack on its core while the Angel is separated.   In other words, an attack on the two halves by two Evas with perfectly synchronized timing. Coordination between the two of you will be vital to the success of this mission.  To that end, I want the two of you to live together from now on.”  

           “WHAT?!”  Asuka bellowed, “A boy and a girl should never sleep under the same roof after the age of seven!”

           “And where’d you pull that rule out of?” Shinji asked.

           “What’d you say!?”  Asuka demanded.  

           “Quiet!”  Misato demanded slamming her fist down on the table in the same authoritarian position as a judge calling order in the court.  

           Auska and Shinji backed down.

“The Angel is currently regenerating itself,” she explained, “and it will begin its second assault in six days.”  

           “But it’s…impossible” Asuka moaned in protest.  

           “We have a way of making it possible.” Misato pulled out a small music disk, “The master attack pattern will be choreographed by using this music.  If you use it and work perfectly in sync you will destroy both targets.  We begin now and we attack in six days.”  

           Shinji looked to Asuka.  She turned her attention to him and then snapped her look away from him with a very audible, “Hmph!”

 * * *

 The big room where the television resided had been converted into a training area as well as a sleeping area.  The sleeping area mainly consisted of two pillows, two blankets and two bed pads.  The training area on the other hand made Shinji think of a game that he played as a young boy:  Dance Dance Revolution.  There were two pads laid out on the floor that had red dots. Whenever pressure was put upon them the pads would light up.  Set up between these two floor pads was a machine similar to a karaoke machine where the music would play.  Finally on either side of the karaoke machine were two scoreboards and two traffic lights.

Misato explained the drills, “You will each stand upon one pad. You will try to match your movements to the music via wireless headphones and to when the red circles light up.  The scoreboard will tell you how well you’re final synchronization score.  The traffic lights will tell you if you’re doing well: green is good, yellow means you’re not doing well and red means you need help.”

           Shinji had been in a quiet panic that whole night. It was not only because of the prospect that this detestable redhead was moving into the place that he had considered to be a private sanctum from the rest of his crazy life but it was also the very real possibility that in the course of moving in she may have stumbled upon his Lantern battery.  This was why the coordination drills were such a problem because Shinji had trouble concentrating.  And if that wasn’t bad enough, each time they failed Asuka would start yelling obscenities at Shinji in German.  

After a few hours of this, dinner became an uncomfortably quiet affair.  Shinji tried to eat slowly and not make it seem like he was in a rush.  Upon finishing dinner and putting his dish into the sink he walked casually to the place that used to be his room.  Moving past the stacks of boxes, he got down upon the floor and looked down into the space between the floor and the bed.  The lantern was still wrapped up in his old shirt. Breathing a sigh of slight relief he pulled it out from under the bed and out of the shirt before touching his ring to the face of it.  After a small flash of green light burst out of the lantern he wrapped it up again and stowed it away beneath his bed.  Looking at the ring he clenched his fists and made his own resolution for the situation.

           “Hell with Asuka and this plan,” he thought, “I’m going to go defeat the Angel with my ring.”

           Upon concentrating, the Lantern’s uniform formed over his body, he opened the window and was about to fly out when he heard a noise outside his door.  A hand had reached into the handle and was about to open it.  Quickly he retracted the uniform and found Asuka standing there.

           “What?”  Shinji asked.

           “What’re you doing in my room, Third Child?”  Asuka demanded.

           “Came in to get some stuff that was left behind,” Shinji said with half-truth.

           “I saw a green light coming from in here.” She explained.  

           “Night light.”

           Asuka cocked an eyebrow, “Aren’t you a little old for a night light, Third Child?”

           “Hey, with all these boxes around here, I’m going to need one so I don’t break a foot or a toe.”  

           “Whatever.  Misato said it’s your turn to do the dishes.” Asuka reported.  

           Shinji shook his head, “Okay, I’ll be there.”  

           “Yeah, you do that while I go have a bath.”

           After Asuka left, he breathed another sigh of relief that she didn’t catch him in the act.  He started to wonder if there would even be an opportunity to get away from her so that he could use his ring and defeat the Angel.  He went underneath the bed, pulled out the lantern that was wrapped in his shirt and took it out to where his box of stuff was and hid it underneath it all to avoid suspicion.  

           He came to the kitchen and started to wash the dishes.  During the repetitive activity it occurred to him that he would still be in the same situation as before with Asuka that he would still need to coordinate a two-point attack on the Angel and even though he had come a long way on his construct training he wasn’t sure if he could do something like that just yet.  Even if he were to attack the Angel in its weakened state, no doubt there would be NERV personnel around keeping an eye on the creature.  And to have Shinji show up in a Green Lantern uniform and defeat the Angel would raise far too many problems.  

           Misato was drinking her beer in her usual gulping manner and smiling after she gave a small belch.  Shinji had to smile too because despite the dire situation she still managed to be so carefree.  

           Then, out of nowhere, there was a high-pitched scream pierced through the air over them.  Shinji wanted to look to see where the scream was coming from but he was washing a knife and he knew that if he turned his head there would be the very real risk of him cutting himself.  Besides, he knew that the scream belonged to Asuka and he wanted to see how this little incident would turn out.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the plastic hallway curtain was wrenched back and there was Asuka standing stark naked with a look of pure terror on her face.  

           “There’s some sort of weird creature in the bathroom!” She cried out.  

           Within a moment of her shock the warm-water penguin had waddled past Asuka as if it wasn’t at all phased by the appearance of this redheaded stranger or her outburst.  

           “That’s just Pen-pen.”  Shinji said setting down the knife he was cleaning and he turned around to find Asuka in her uncensored form.  He began to blush when he saw how incredibly beautiful she was.  Her skin was so smooth without a single blemish upon it. Her figure was like an hourglass. Then there were her breasts.  So pert and perky.  He couldn’t believe what he was seeing a girl naked who wasn’t a photograph or a computer image.  

           Asuka quickly noticed that Shinji was staring. Her face went as red as a beet and she burst into rage with a swift roundhouse kick to the side of his face. Shinji spun and fell over onto his side grasping at the numbing pain in his face.  

           “You pervert!”  Asuka shrieked, “Idiot!  Letch! Unbelievable!  This is why I hate boys!”  

           With that she stamped back to the bathroom and slammed the door shut.  

           After a few moments, Shinji got back to his feet still holding the site of his face where Asuka had hit him.  He then went over to the freezer where there was the ice. Grabbing a handful of it he pressed it against his face.  

           “Honestly, if it weren’t for her attitude she would be cute,” he commented aloud.

           “Well, you are getting more honest with each other,” Misato observed.

           “Yeah, like the families on Jerry Springer.”

           “What?”

           “Nevermind.” Shinji shook his head remembering the difference of cultures.  

           Misato smiled, “I think that’s a good start, wouldn’t you say so, Pen-pen?”  

           The penguin only squawked.  

 * * *

           During that whole time of training Shinji and Asuka had to do everything together: eat, breathe, train and sleep together. The worst part to Shinji was that he had to dress up in a similar outfit as Asuka.  She wore a spandex singlet with a pink shirt over it that had red musical notes over it.  Shinji’s, on the other hand, only had a powder blue shirt with green musical notes on it.  

           Life had continued on like this for three days. From sun-up to sun-down they worked on those pads trying to synchronize their movements to the music.  It was just like Dance Dance Revolution to Shinji only he was more used to playing by himself or with someone who was better at the game.  

           And it was on the third day that events had reached a boiling point.  

           They were in the middle of training when the doorbell rang but neither one had answered it.  They simply continued on with their training going step by step by step. And always messing up and making the machine deliver that awful error noise that had dampened their spirits a little more each time they heard it.  

           The door opened and they were greeted by their friends: Toji, Kensuke and Hikari who were followed by Rei and Misato.  

           “What are you two doing?”  Hikari demanded.

           Shinji and Asuka had answered in unison; “It’s all Misato’s fault.  We have to do everything together.”  

           “It’s true,” Misato explained, “its part of their training.”

           “Whew!”  Toji exclaimed.  “And here I thought you had betrayed us, Shinji.”  

           “And I thought you two were living in sin,” Hikari expressed her relief.  “So how are they coming along?”

           “Take a look,” Misato instructed.

           Once again, Shinji and Asuka fell out of sync and the machine made that error noise.  

           “SHEITZ!”  Asuka shrieked before throwing her headphones at Shinji, “How can Misato expect me to synchronize with someone like you?”

           “Hey, at least I’m trying,” Shinji countered.

           “Yeah, you’re trying at losing.”  Asuka snapped back.

           “Oh yeah?”  Shinji countered, “If I’m trying at losing then why are you falling out of sync first?”

           Asuka let out a frustrated grunt, “It’s because you’re just useless!  No wonder your father abandoned you.  Personally, I think you should have been an abortion!”

           “Asuka!”  Hikari gasped at the atrociousness of her acid tongue.  

           That was the last straw, Shinji stood up and looked at Asuka in her infuriated blue eyes before he balled up his hand and allowed it to fly against Asuka’s face in the form of an open palm.  The crack against her cheek was so audible that it reverberated between the walls of the apartment.  The redhead was so thunderstruck that she held her cheek and looked at Shinji dumbfounded by what had happened.  

           “Apologize,” Shinji demanded.  

           Within a matter of seconds, Asuka’s eyes narrowed, her eyebrows scrunched together, her lips pulled back into a snarl and her teeth were grinding.  That was when Shinji discovered how unprotected he was when Asuka’s leg came swiftly up and landed between his legs.  At first he could only feel Asuka’s foot hitting his pubic bone but he could also feel a pair of very soft egg shaped objects between the hardness of Asuka’s foot and his own body.  Then the nerves came back online and the surge of pain went from Shinji’s groin and shot upward into his abdomen.  He doubled over and fell to his knees.  The pain was at such intensity that he could barely hear Asuka scream “I can’t take this anymore!”        

           “Asuka!”  Hikari called out.  

           “Wow,” Toji observed, “that must have really hurt.”

           “Shinji!”  Hikari hissed at the injured boy, “Go apologize to Asuka!  You hit her and made her cry!”

           “Why should I?”  Shinji wheezed trying to work his way through the pain.

           “Yeah, leave him alone class rep.  He got kicked in the balls.  Let him recover before you bust them a second time.”

           “I think all of you should be going for now,” Misato said.  

           “Sure,” Kensuke agreed, “Come on everyone.  Let him recover.”

           With that, the three of them had left.  

           Misato came to Shinji’s side and helped him roll over onto his back.  

           “I’ll get you some ice,” She said sounding like a concerned nurse.  

           Within moments she came back with an ice bag that she carefully laid between Shinji’s legs.  She sat down next to the boy while the coolness of the ice cubes soaked through his singlet and soothed his ache.  

           “I’ll call Ritsuko for your injury,” Misato said. “But I do think that Hikari is right that you should apologize to Asuka. But then again I think she should also apologize to you.  Not for what you did to each other but because you both need to work as a team.”

           “What if she doesn’t want to work as a team?” Shinji grunted.  

           “Then I’ll just have to switch operations to have you work with Rei.”  Misato answered.  

           The moment that she said that the door to the big room was thrown open and Asuka cried out, “NO!  YOU CAN’T!  YOU BITCH!”

           Shinji looked and guess that Asuka was there the whole time but then she slammed the door and he heard the front too open and shut as well.  

           “Oh no,” Misato exhaled, “Looks like we might have to switch to Rei.”  

           “Nah,” Shinji grunted rolling over to his side and getting to his feet but still bending forward as if he were a crippled old man in need of his cane.  “I’ll go apologize to her.”

           Going out the front door and getting his shoes Shinji wondered why he was doing it.  The girl was such a bitch to him and pretty much everyone else.  Not to mention the damage that she did to Shinji’s potential future children but something compelled him to go forward and find her.  After getting his street shoes on he went out to the balcony and found Asuka dashing down the street towards a corner convenience store.  

 * * *

             The walk to the convenience store was a long one given how Shinji had to basically hobble his way from the apartment to the elevator and to the corner convenience store.  Thankfully, Asuka was still there, she was crouching down in front of an open refrigerator section.  He wasn’t entirely sure of it when he approached her but he thought he heard Asuka quietly sobbing.  

           He had hoped to approach her quietly but it was as if she could have heard him coming the moment he stepped out of the apartment when she said to him, “Don’t say anything.”

           Shinji said nothing.  

“I know that you’re sorry.”

           “Took the words out of my mouth,” Shinji responded.

           “But I will tell you something else,” She said upon standing up, “I’m going to put Rei and Misato to shame!”

           “Why? We’re all on the same team.”  

           “You’re being too simple even for a male.  It’s my pride and honor that’s at steak can’t you understand that?”

           “Somewhat.  But I hope the people will understand if we fail.”  

           “We won’t fail.”  

           And so the training continued.  

 * * *

             It was the final day.  The attack would be the next morning.  Shinji and Asuka had both been training hard day in and day out until at last the two of them had reached perfect scores on that infernal training machine.  There was such relief on both their parts when they had finally reached perfection with the drills and they could finally relax.  

           On the night before the attack Asuka had come out of the shower wrapped in a towel and a second towel on her head.  

           “Where’s Misato?”  She asked Shinji.

           “At work,” Shinji answered from the big room where he was lying on his small cot of a bed.  He had one earbud still playing the same song he heard for the past six days. “She called earlier and said she’d be there all night.”  

           Asuka grinned, “So that means we’re all alone tonight, huh?”

           Shinji rolled over to look at Asuka still wrapped in her towel.

           “I would get into that with you,” he said in jest, “But I’m still recovering from that kick you gave me.”  

           “Aw, poor baby,” Asuka said making a mockingly soothing tone, “Would you like me to bring you a glass of warm milk and a teddy bear before going sleepy-bye?”

           “Sure, and a sponge bath would be nice too.”  

           “Hmph!”  Asuka said.

           She gathered up her blanket, bedding and pillow and crossed over to the next room but before closing the door she stared down at Shinji.  

           “This door here is the Wall of Jericho, Third Child.” She stated, “And if you cross it, you’re a dead man.  Now time to go to bed, children.”  

 * * *

             Shinji slept with his MP3 player playing that one song over and over again like a student making last minute studying before the exam in the morning.  It must have been during the middle of the night when he heard some rustlings from Asuka who went to the bathroom.  He paid it no mind and tried to sleep but then he was woken by a heavy thud in front of him.  

           He opened his eyes and found Asuka sleeping in front of him.  She was wearing a simple loose yellow shirt that had such a low cut to the neck that he could easily look down and see the curvature of her breasts once again.  He wondered if she was awake or not.  That was when he decided to play a small trick on her to get her back for the groin kick.  

           He leaned himself closer to her and decided to wake her up with a small kiss.  His heart raced so much that he could feel it beating within his ears and then there was his own arousal fueled by what his eyes saw and his own male hormones.  Even though he wasn’t even attracted to this bitch of a girl he couldn’t help his own arousal.  

There was only an inch left when he stopped.  He saw a trickle of a tear rolling from her closed eyes down her nose and to her cheek.  Her lips were moving as well.  At first they only moved but no sound came out.  On the second time that they moved, Shinji heard Asuka’s voice in a low murmur that sounded so vulnerable and child-like:

           “Mama…mama…”

           Shinji only smiled while he pulled back and rolled over, “So, there is a human being in there after all.”  

 * * *

             “The target has broken through the final defense line at Gora,” One of the Nerv Operators had reported over the communications channel.  

           Shinji was sitting in the cockpit of his Eva, his stomach in knots about whether or not this fight would succeed or not.  He looked down at the emerald ring on his right hand and thought to himself that if all else fails he would use the ring to fight the enemy.  But it would have to be his last resort.  

           “Here it comes,” Misato stated over the COM and added with true conviction, “we won’t fail this time.  Now then, Asuka.  Shinji. Spread your AT fields as soon as the music starts then follow the operation choreography.  Are you two ready?”

           “Ready!” Asuka and Shinji said in unison.  

           “The target has entered the mountains,” An operator reported.

           “Full power and maximum speed, got it, Shinji?” Asuka had asked.  

           “I know,” Shinji answered rather annoyed, “We’ll be finished in sixty-two seconds.”  

           “Target is entering ground zero,” The operator reported.  

           “Detatch external power cables,” Misato ordered.

             TIME REMAINING:  00:01:10

             “Eva launch!”  Misato ordered.

           And with that order the Evas had launched to the surface and the music began.  The two flew into the air with the same grace that would have rivaled ballet dancers or gymnasts.  In perfect unison they threw down their weapons at the angel who then split apart into the same two halves that had humiliated them only six days previous. They made their attacks with gun weapons without causing any damage to the target but damage was not the goal in this part of the operation.  Only to draw the targets attention which they both did when they began to fire volleys at Unit One and Unit Two.  To this both Evas retreated backward doing one backflip over the other.

             TIME REMAINING:  00:00:32

             The two Evas hid behind a large steel wall that popped up out of the street.  It protected them from one of the angels’ attacks.  They came out from behind it firing another set of rifle shots at them. But the angels retaliated by slicing through the steel wall like scissors through tissue paper.  The Evas retreated momentarily while a barrage of missile attacks launched from hidden cannons within the buildings and mobile U.N. armaments stationed in the nearby hills.  

           With the angel distracted the Evas came up and gave them both a swift uppercut and a good roundhouse kick which sent the monster flying backward and combining itself back into one body again.  That was when the Evas flew up and came down upon the target each with one foot out aiming at their red cores.  

           The foot of Unit One and Two made contact and made a shoving slide against the Angel towards the hill like a baseball player sliding towards home plate.  

             TIME REMAINING:  00:00:05

             The cores were damaged and with only one second on the clock they both exploded.  The operation was a swift and almost flawless success.  At least that’s how it looked to those who were watching the battle deep inside NERV.  They all watched the light of the explosion fade away and the dust settling around the crater where the Angel was defeated but to their embarrassment they found Unit One and Unit Two lying on top of each other.  

           It was a mystery to Shinji when he found Unit Two lying across the back of Unit One.  He managed to climb out of the Entry Plug but he stopped when he heard a phone ringing.  Looking to where it was coming from he saw part of the Eva opening up and there was a simple phone receiver sitting upon a plastic base.  

           He picked it up, “Hello?”  He asked wondering who was calling him.

           “YOU JERK!”  Asuka’s voice screamed at him, “What’re you doing under my Unit Two!?”

           Shinji’s eyes went wide with surprise when he saw a holographic projection of Asuka’s upper body projecting out of the phone receiver’s base.  He had often heard of holographic phones but this was the first time of seeing it but his amazement took a backseat to being yelled at by Asuka.  

           “Hey, you fell on me!”  Shinji yelled back.  

           “You’re the one who lost timing first, Dumpkoft!” Asuka spat back, “You’re really slow. What were you doing last night?”

           “I was image training for today’s battle!”

           “Liar!  I know you tried to kiss me while I was sleeping!”

           “You were awake!?”  

           “MEIN GOTT!  I was just kidding!  Did you really kiss me?!”

           “No!  I didn’t!”

           “Pervertieren!  Lechzen! Teufel!  I can’t believe you!”  

           If either one could have seen the faces of those who were watching the whole scene at NERV’s operation center they would also see their director shaking his head and saying how these kids were embarrassing the organization again.  

 Next time:  

Carrol’s Voice:  NERV decides to try to capture an unhatched Angel inside an active volcano.  So they send in a specially outfitted Eva into the depths of Hell itself.    

Misato’s voice:  And don’t worry there will be lots of fan service.

Carrol’s Voice:  Aren’t we being gratuitous with that?  

Misato’s voice:  Shut up. The fans love it.  

 Neon Green Evangelion: Chapter 8 – Into the Fire

© Green Lantern - DC Comics

© Neon Genesis Evangelion - Studio Gainax

#Evangelion #Green Lantern #Fan Fiction #Evangelion fan Fiction #Evangelion Fanfiction #evangelionfanfiction #Green Lantern Fan Fiction #Green Lantern fanfiction #GreenLanternfanfiction #SFW #Shinji #Shinji Ikari #Asuka Langley Sohryuu #Crossover #Fusion #Crossover Fan Fiction #Fusion Fan Fiction #ClassicCowboy #tattooalchemist

[homuras-homos]

@irrational-shutin soft hands prompt

The first time their hands touched it was in the corridors of NERV headquarters, and it was a touch that had been accidental. Rei had dropped one of her neural-clips onto the floor when she was putting them in, and it bounced towards Asuka, loud enough to draw her attention. Asuka bent over and picked it up. a rare act of kindness on her part, even if it was one born out of necessity. There was an angel somewhere outside and Asuka knew that neither pilot had a moment to spare. She marched out of the change room, Rei following a step behind her. When Asuka stuck her hand behind her for Rei to grab her fallen clip, their hands had touched for a brief moment. It was enough for Asuka to notice how warm and how soft Rei’s hand was, a thought that made her lose concentration for a brief moment before she made herself focus on the immediate crisis.

The next time their hands touched it was deliberate, but still unexpected. Asuka was lashing out against the first person she saw after another synchronization test where Shinji gained ground on Asuka, from his own increased score and from the dip in Asuka’s own score. Rei had given the advice that she would always give; to open up her heart to her Eva. And as always Asuka had not been able to understand how that would help. Rei began to walk out of the locker room while Asuka continued to rant, and in a fit of anger Asuka grabbed her wrist, stopping her. It did stop her in her tracks. Rei did not try to take her hand back, knowing that it would only further infuriate Asuka. Asuka’s hand slid down, off of Rei’s wrist and into her open hand. She threaded her fingers between Rei’s, feeling the delicate skin against hers. Whatever further arguments Asuka had died in her throat, and she looked down at their hands. Rei’s fingers curled over Asuka’s knuckles, the grip solid yet gentle. Rei tilted her head to the side, curious, but did not try to pull away until Asuka finally did it herself.

The argument had been ended, at least for the night.

It was not something that Asuka had wanted. To know how supple Rei’s hands were, and how much comfort they brought with their presence with their sure yet quiet touch. Asuka tried with others; She had grabbed Shinji’s hand in their apartment, forcing her fingers through his. Shinji’s hands were soft, but awkward in Asuka’s grasp, twisting and turning while trying to either find a comfortable grip or to pull away, Asuka couldn’t tell which. The only feelings Asuka felt were dejection and disappointment. He had pulled away the moment that Asuka gave him the chance. Hikari’s hands were also soft, and she was far better at holding hands than Shinji, but the reciprocation seemed forced on Hikari’s part. She had no idea what Asuka needed from the touch.

So Asuka had returned to Rei, silently demanding the comfort that Rei provided. Rei had given it to her just as silently, but completely willingly.

Asuka had been privy to the gentle feeling of Rei’s hands against hers many times before she managed to say something. The brief moments of contact were always somewhere private. The locker room, deserted corridors of NERV, when they went their separate ways back to their own apartments and the street was empty. It had always been silent, neither of them wanting to say anything, nor knowing what to say.

What finally brought Asuka to speak her feelings had been during lunch break at school, when they had managed to find a private spot to enjoy their lunches together, outside and away from any prying eyes. They sat side by side, and Rei had been the first to offer her hand, which Asuka had accepted. Their fingers intertwined as always, Asuka’s thumb on the outside. It glided over the bit of Rei’s hand between the base of her thumb and the wrist, letting Asuka marvel at how smooth Rei’s hands were. A small smile crept onto Rei’s face, matching the one that formed on Asuka’s. It disappeared as soon as it came. Instead Rei made an inquisitive frown, and Asuka knew what Rei was asking. Why? A question that Asuka had thought of and came up with an answer weeks ago, even if she still had trouble accepting the answer herself.

“Because I enjoy the feeling. How your hand feels. You have soft skin, and it feels warmer than I expected. It’s nice.” She paused, and then looked down at their hands again, squeezing her fingers ever so slightly. “And the way you hold my hand, it makes me feel less alone.” She admitted. There was silence from Rei, and when Asuka looked up she could see how deeply she was thinking. The bell rang, summoning them back to class. Neither of them immediately moved though, Rei still thinking and Asuka not wanting to break their contact.   

Eventually Rei spoke, and like her grip on Asuka’s hand, her words were certain but gentle. “I believe I feel the same way. It is hard to know if that is true, but I know that I have a desire to hold your hand, and that I enjoy the feeling when I do hold it.” Rei told her.

Asuka smiled again, then stood up and pulled Rei to her feet. They began walking back to the doors of the school, keeping their hands together for as long as they could. 

#asurei #writings #irrational-shutin

[50books50movies]

Shin Godzilla (2016)

Trailer

It’s funny that I approached two seminal deconstructive works - Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins’s Watchmen and Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion - before I had experienced the media and the works that they were respectively deconstructing. I read Watchmen in high school, at a time when I was mostly reading Marvel Comics’s output. I didn’t have the frame of reference to understand how Moore, Gibbons, and Higgins were taking apart the idea of the lone vigilante motivated by a traumatic childhood or the godlike superman. I only realized the commentary Watchmen provided after the fact, and reading the commentary alongside the original text became a sport of its own. 

Similarly, when I watched Neon Genesis Evangelion for the first time in college, I had not seen the mecha anime that Evangelion was examining. Just as Watchmen took apart the specific tropes and character archetypes of comic books through parallel characters (Dr. Manhattan is Superman, Nite Owl and Rorshach are Batman, the Comedian is Captain America, Silk Spectre is Black Canary), so was Evangelion dissecting the archetypes found in the mecha anime genre. (Shinji Ikari is the ace teenage pilot, like Amuro Ray from Mobile Suit Gundam, Rei Ayanami is the shy, mysterious love interest who is obedient to the protagonist, Asuka Langley Soryu is the rival, hot tempered love interest and ace pilot.) 

It’s striking that both deconstructive works found their analytical powers in presenting “real world” consequences of their genre’s respective and specific tropes through mental illness. Only someone suffering from severe mental health issues could attempt to wage a one-man war on crime by putting on a mask and fighting in the streets. A more realistic version of Batman, Moore, Gibbons, and Higgins, posited, would have to look more like Rorshach. Similarly, a scientist who is able to build giant robots that defend mankind would be even more cynical and monstrous than Astro Boy’s Dr. Tenma; he would look more like Gendo Ikari, who is incapable of maintaining any human relationships and treats everyone around him like dirt. 

I revisit Evangelion more often than I revisit Watchmen, though Moore and Anno have made it difficult to follow their creative output. Moore’s return to the independent comics publishers to pursue more explicitly sexual, violent, and sexually violent works like Lost Girls, Neonomicon, The Courtyard, and Providence, while Anno’s attempt to retell Evangelion in a new context through the Rebuild of Evangelion movies has stalled with increasingly long delays. Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone was released in Japan in 2007, while Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance was released in 2009. Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo was released in 2012, while production on the final Rebuild of Evangelion film has only barely begun. 

Part of the delay in the Rebuild of Evangelion project was Anno’s and Shinji Higuchi’s involvement in Shin Godzilla, which is also known as Godzilla: Resurgence. Anno was contacted to direct Shin Godzilla after falling into depression after completing Evangelion 3.0. Principal photography for Shin Godzilla began in 2015, and the film was released in 2016. It re-positioned Godzilla as a creepy, scary monster, a force of man-made disaster that would serve as allegory for the Japanese triple disaster of the Tohoku earthquake and the subsequent tsunami and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of March 2011. (American films will allude to traumatic events in fiction, but more often than not American films will outright try to recreate the traumatic events. You might see Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, for example, reference the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, but you’re more likely to see movies that try to recreate that historical event, thereby compressing and distorting history. There’s actually more intellectual honesty in allegorical approach than trying to make a film based on a true story.)

vs. 

Furthermore, while Anno and Higuchi criticized the Japanese government’s slow response to the disasters of March 2011 through the way actions to counteract Godzilla’s advance would have to flow from the theatre of action up to sub-commanders to deputy ministers to cabinet ministers to the prime minister, who would make a decision that would have to then travel down the same of communication chain before it was communicated, Anno and Higuchi showed great optimism and faith in Japanese infrastructure. Politicians who could be interpreted as weak or concerned about preserving their reputation could be reinterpreted as figures who are willing to give up power so the country could have a fresh start in the aftermath of Godzilla’s cataclysmic visit, figures who are willing to sacrifice their honor for the country’s sake, or figures who are willing to sacrifice their reputations so they could give citizens the best information they had at the time. There’s a lot of moving from one conference room to another that might seem unnecessary to the impatient viewer, but the conversations in those conference rooms are what lead to solutions. 

It helps that Anno and Higuchi find sharp angles to film what could have been devastatingly dull conversations in these conference rooms. 

Finding these new angles to show men and women working together to solve the Godzilla problem places the emphasis on their humanity and professionalism. Godzilla will not be defeated by sheer force of Japanese or American arms. While Anno and Higuchi uses gorgeous compositions to show the futile attacks on Godzilla by the Japanese Self-Defense Force, they also show the futility of these attacks in widescreen, captivating shots that also emphasize Godzilla’s magnitude.

Instead, Godzilla can only be defeated when Japanese industrial acumen, business connections, and American arms are combined to form a strategy that requires self-sacrifice and precise timing, hallmarks of Japanese industrial culture. The hope for Japan won’t be found outside the country. Conventional arms cannot defeat Godzilla. Outlandish non-conventional weapons, like MASER cannons or Mechagodzillas, aren’t feasible. Instead, the hope for survival and the future can be found in Japanese systems like its trains and its industries. It’s subtly nationalist in a way that matches  resurgent Japanese nationalism under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s regime.

Of course, none of this would have been possible if a team of Japanese scientists and officials who do not conform to their institutions had not been grouped together to find a solution. There’s a power to the bureaucracy, the film argues, in coordinating responses among different agencies and in bringing together the outsiders and non-conformists, and there is a role for the “lone-wolves, nerds, troublemakers, outcasts, academic heretics, and general pains in the bureaucracy” in any organization. 

The film is similarly conflicted about Japan’s relationship with the United States. American officials are almost always depicted as faceless voices that demand from afar, sending a half-Japanese liaison, Satomi Ishihara’s Kayoko Ann Patterson, to connect with the Japanese crisis team. Ultimately, Patterson sides with the Japanese government at her own risk at a critical moment, prompting the idea that even those who are of Japanese descent living outside Japan are crucial to Japan’s future. Japanese officials are frustrated by American interference in their affairs; the American government goes so far as to propose using a thermonuclear weapon on Godzilla, which horrifies every Japanese official and even Patterson. In the end, the film taps into the renewed sense of Japanese nationalism by showing that Japanese officials can only move forward to solve the Godzilla problem by going their own way, defying the American attempt to take charge, and solving their problem their way. 

(There’s probably an essay to be written about how the film treats its three principal female characters: Kayoko Ann Patterson, Mikako Ichikawa’s Deputy Director of Nature Conservation Bureau Hiromi Ogashira, and Kimiko Yo’s Defense Minister Reiko Hanamori. Hiromi and Patterson are probably around the same age, and they’re equally outsiders. Patterson is the American half-Japanese liaison, while Hiromi is outspoken and somewhat socially awkward. Patterson is much more conscious about her physical appearance, while Hiromi wears no make-up at all. Reiko stands apart from them both; older than both other women, Reiko is a senior official in the Japanese cabinet and the military’s voice for the Prime Minister.)

Anno, Higuchi, and composer Shiro Sagisu also layer in plenty of homages for Evangelion fans. Based on my impressions, I’ve found these callbacks:

The use of the track “Decisive Battle” from the Evangelion soundtrack to spice up scenes of men and women working in conference rooms 

The way the film places a visual emphasis on Japanese trains 

The way Anno and Higuchi framed their shots of tanks, aircraft, and artillery pieces bombarded Godzilla in the same ways that they attacked Angels throughout Evangelion 

The way they focused on Godzilla’s eyes to show its monstrosity in the same way they focused on Eva-01′s eyes to show its near-humanity 

The way the final shot echoed the Failures of Infinity in the Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 teaser trailer at the end of Evangelion 3.33 

The way the lights turned out in the underground shelter echoed the way the lights went out during an Angel attack

The way Godzilla attacked all around him echoed the way Ramiel defended itself in Evangelion 2.0

The way Godzilla’s blood plopped to the ground echoed the way various Angels’ blood would fall after they were killed

The way military officials were framed when they released their attacks on Godzilla/the Angels were ineffective

The Japanese Twitter user named “bakashinji” who had an Asuka avatar.

While the film is dialogue heavy, it never feels slow. And it’s a surprisingly funny film, from Godzilla’s googly eyes in its first appearances to the way that an official’s title becomes a visual gag in subtitles because it takes up almost half the screen.

 It was everything that I had hoped for from a film by Anno and Higuchi: satirical, strangely hopeful, dynamically shot, wonderfully scored. In other words,

#shin godzilla #hideaki anno #shinji higuchi #shiro sagisu #godzilla #kaiju #hiroki hasegawa #yutaka takenouchi #ishihara satomi

[homuras-homos]

asurei for 1 & 5, asukyu for 10 & 17, either/both for 20

Here’s the lot of them.

1: “Oh my god, you’re in love with her.”

Touch was the first sensation that returned to Rei after washing ashore. The feel of the sand she was lying on, the feel of the water washing over her, cutting through her addled brain and giving her something to latch on to. To remind her that she had a body again. She remembered to breathe, finding her lungs filled with liquid. Her chest convulsed as she coughed it out, shakily getting to her knees. She leaned forward, digging her hands into the sand as she hacked and sputtered out the last drops and sucked in air for the first time in a week. Her next breath was full of water as a wave crashed over her. The wave drew back into the ocean, threatening to drag her along with it.

Yet she had a reason to leave, to return to the world.

With great effort, she dragged her body forward, up the beach. One hand reaching out as far as it could and then digging deep into the wet sand. The noises of the world, blowing wind and tumbling water, returned to her next. The sounds were incredibly loud, but that only reminded her how utterly empty the world now was. Yet if she wasn’t among the souls, she was somewhere in the world.

Eventually she got herself out of the surf, the sand changing from wet clumps to dry particles under her hands. Only then did she crack her eyes open, being greeted by nothing but red. Blood red. LCL red. Her stomach churned, and she began to retch empty air, collapsing back into the sand. She clutched her stomach, rolling over to lay on her back. The land past the beach was red, the sea was red, even the sky, where she had always turned to escape the colour, had red bleeding into it.

None of it was the red she had returned for. Rei had discovered so many secrets when Lilith had begun instrumentality, when she had embraced the collected souls of humanity. Only few of those secrets had been about Rei. And there were even fewer that she had taken interest in. And there was one that had brought her back from the sea of souls.

Eventually she propped herself up on her elbows, twisting her head from side to side. There was a small lean-to, made out of sheet metal, a hundred metres away from her. Rolling onto her knees again, Rei stood up. Her legs shook with just the simple act, and when she took a step forward she lost her balance, falling face first into the sand. She crossed her arms under her head, lifting it out of the sand and plunging her back into darkness.

The waves called to her.  

She didn’t listen. She gritted her teeth, reminding herself as to why she had returned. To settle the single regret that she had had. Instead she pulled herself back to her knees, and then to her feet. She made it ten steps before she collapsed again. Inside the lean-to, she could see a silhouette sitting in the shade. She got to her feet once again. Getting closer to the makeshift shelter until she collapsed one last time in front of it. She looked at the person who had been watching her, seeing them for the first time.

Shinji Ikari stared back at her, a look of terror on his face.

“Ayanami.” He stated quietly, cowering away from her. “Did you come for me?” His voice sounded hollow and defeated. Rei crawled under the shade of the sheet metal, catching her breath and collecting her thoughts. Eventually she shook her head.

“You are not the one I returned for.” Rei stated bluntly, her voice sounding rough and out of use. Shinji’s shoulders slumped, and she could see the slight shiver in them. Even if he was terrified of her, Rei could tell that he wanted someone to return for him. And she knew that someone would, even if she didn’t understand how she knew that. It was a a mere fact though, as much as one plus one is two or a hydrogen atom had a single electron.

“What?” Shinji asked, his head sinking into his legs. She could feel the disappointment, the pain, in his voice.

“The Second. I came back for her.” Rei closed her eyes, thinking about the other pilot. Asuka had been the first to return. Rei had never even had a chance to contact her, bring forth her soul before she had left to live again. Never had a chance to explain, to help her as she wanted to. Now she could.  

“Why?” His voice was quiet, barely heard above the waves.

“Because, she cared about me. As did I. We never figured that out, and that is something that I regret. There is a purpose for me now, to tell her that I care. To fix that regret. To see if she still does care about me.” She looked away from the ocean, her eyes searching for a different shade of red than that which dominated the world. “I was hoping that she would be near you.”  

“No, we, I… I hurt her. And then we went our separate ways.” Shinji admitted. Rei nodded, half to herself. She did not want to press him for further details. If she was alive that was what mattered. “I don’t think she wants to see anyone.” he grumbled.

“I merely hope to see her again. Regardless of what happens.” She wanted Asuka to know that she cared. Even if it didn’t matter anymore. And if Asuka didn’t want anything to do with her, then she could always return to the ocean. “Though, is it strange that I hope that I will be able to make her smile?” She pondered.

“That’s how I feel about… Oh my god. You’re in love with her.” Rei could hear the surprise in Shinji’s voice at that. Rei frowned, her brow scrunching. Her hands folded under her chin, and she looked back out at the ocean, finding the rolling waves relaxing. At any point of time before today, she would have shrugged, unable to say if what she felt was love. But now she knew what love was. She had seen the feeling in others. It was an apt description for her feelings towards Asuka.

“Yes, I think I am.” She confirmed. Shinji gave a weak nod, and turned his head towards the ruined buildings that rose further inland. Shinji answered Rei’s question before she could ask it.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know where she went. Just… into the city” He said, shrugging his shoulders helplessly. A determined look crossed Rei’s face and she crawled out of the lean-to before getting to her feet. She looked away from the ocean, forward towards the city. “I’ll stay here for now.” Shinji whispered from the shade. He was still waiting. The hope driving him on.

“Thank you, Ikari.” Rei departed, starting to walk away from the lean-to towards the crumbled towers of Tokyo-3. Her legs were unsteady, but she did not fall as she had before, even though she occasionally stumbled. There was clear purpose driving her now. She now had two things to tell Asuka once she found her.

5: “Please let me help.”

Rei walked through the suburbs of Tokyo-3, looking for the class representative’s house. That was where Shinji had predicted Asuka had gone. So that was where she would go. The streets were deserted at this late hour. The moon provided enough light for her to see the street signs, and she knew she was getting close. Her mind began to plan ahead. What was she going to do once she found Asuka? The question was one that only now popped up in her mind. She meant to at least see her, to see how she was doing after the angel had forced itself into her mind. Then… Rei shook her head. There were too many what-ifs that came afterwards. It was better to deal with them when they arrived, and not waste time thinking about what could be. Instead she glanced up at the moon and continued walking. Half an hour later she was walked up the sidewalk to a decent sized two story house.  

She knocked thrice. There were a few murmurs from behind the door, nothing she could pick out clearly though. So she waited ten seconds. She knew that she had the right address, unless Shinji had mistaken one of the numbers. She knocked again, her desire for an answer to her internal conundrum demanding she stay.

“Go away Shinji!” She heard Asuka yell from inside the house, somewhere on the second floor. So she was in the right location. Rei knocked once more and waited. She debated whether or not to say anything to indicate who it was to them. There was the sound of movement behind the door, and it was opened a second later. Hikari peeked out, the annoyed expression on her face turning to one of surprise at the sight of Rei.

“May I enter?” Rei asked politely. Hikari nodded, stepping aside. Rei walked past her quickly, almost forgetting to take off her shoes in the foyer before advancing. Asuka’s voice had come from near the front of the upper story, so she climbed the stairs, Hikari following a few steps behind her, her eyes focussed on the ripped pillow in Rei’s hands.

“Asuka, it isn’t Shinji it’s-” Hikari called as Rei walked into the open door to her room.

“You bitch.” Asuka swore when she caught sight of Rei, her voice sounded strained, as if she had been yelling for hours. She was sitting in front of the television, the chip-tune music of a videogame tapping out on the screen. She threw down the controller she had been using, springing up and clenching her fists. “You bitch.” She repeated lamely, the only insult she can think of.  

Rei stayed where she was when Asuka had first seen her. A feeling of guilt welling up inside her. It made her freeze, staring dumbly at the other pilot who was standing a few feet away from her. Now she was here, what would she say? What could she say? Asuka did not stay far from her for long, lunging at Rei and drawing back one fist in preparation to punch her. Her other hand grabbed Rei’s collar, making sure that she couldn’t move.

“Asuka!” Hikari protested, her voice cutting through Asuka’s anger and Rei’s indecisiveness. Asuka turned to face her friend, while Rei continued to stare at Asuka, her brow furrowed. “She hasn’t even said anything.” Hikari continued, giving Rei an apologetic smile.  

“Why are you here then?” Asuka snapped, turning back to face Rei. She kept her fist primed for when Rei delivered whatever unsatisfying answer she would come up with. Rei bowed her head slightly, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “Spit it out already!” Asuka yelled, almost pulling her off her feet as she yanks on the collar of her shirt.

“Please, let me help.” She stated quietly. She knew she should have done something to help her when fighting the angel. She could have tried to talk to her, reassure her in some way. She hadn’t. She had followed orders. As was expected. Now she had no orders. And she wanted to amend her mistakes.

“What?” Asuka’s voice faltered, if only for a moment. And then her face hardened and she released Rei’s collar, turning around. “Go. If you want to help then get out of my sight.” She spat, her voice a low growl. Rei nodded without question. It was a response she had expected. She turned, bowing slightly to Hikari before walking back down the stairs. Her shoes were at the door, and she slipped them on. It was late, and her apartment was a long walk away. She didn’t see the tears welling up in Asuka’s eyes, nor hear the slight sound that may have been her asking for Rei not to listen to her and to stay.

10: “Will you stay with me anyway?”

NERV had attacked the Wunder with a relatively large force, which had surprised Asuka. Three automated Nemesi and two Evas, both copies of Unit 06. Yet even then it had still been a one sided fight, with two Evas and the Wunder’s own cannons. It was soon down to just NERV’s Evas, and they were both crippled and at the mercy of Asuka and Mari. A small feeling of uneasiness crept into the back of Asuka’s mind. It had been far too easy. She said as much to Mari, who agreed with her.

Then it became clear why NERV had chosen to attack. Not to take down the Wunder, not even to test WILLE’s defences. Gendo Ikari had attacked to settle a personal vendetta.

The two pilots of NERV’s Evas had opened communications at that moment, their faces appearing among Asuka’s open video channels. Both of them were Ayanami-types, identical to each other. Blue hair and red eyes, a face that was all too familiar to Asuka. She felt a shiver run up through her spine, unsettled by the mirrored faces. She glanced at the small picture taped to her Eva’s control console, the smiling face of Kyu looking back at her.

The Ayanamis had a single demand, and adding to Asuka’s uneasiness they spoke in unison. It was a ridiculous demand.  An order from Commander Ikari for the Ayanami-type onboard the Wunder to return to NERV. Misato had actually laughed at that, Asuka hearing the sound through her channel to the bridge. Asuka herself had only gotten pissed at the demand. The only way that Kyu was returning to NERV was over her dead body. She had said as much to the two clones. They had calmly asked her why she cared about something so disposable as an Ayanami-type. And that had only pissed her off even more. Because it wasn’t just an Ayanami-type she cared about. It was Kyu.

Asuka had destroyed one of the Evas after that, Mari shooting the other one a second later. The inside of Asuka’s plug fell silent for a long moment, and then the bridge had asked them to confirm the target’s destruction. She had done so, growling out the words through a clenched teeth, saying that the Evas were no longer a threat. Then Asuka had swapped channels to the Eva pens. Kyu would be there, she was always listening into the comms during sorties. And she knew that she would have heard what the NERV pilots had said.

Except Kyu hadn’t answered. It had been Maya instead, her voice sounding somewhat strained and urgent. Maya told her to get back onboard, and Asuka felt her heart leap into her throat. She knew that something had happened. Recovery couldn’t have happened slower for Asuka, who drummed her fingers on her knee as her Eva was picked up and returned to its pen.

Kyu wasn’t there when Asuka exited her entry plug, which only made her more worried. She looked around, spotting Maya across the pen and making a beeline towards her. The maintenance crews for the two Evas parted around her, knowing better than to get in the way of the pilot who seemed to radiate anger. They were still celebrating the successful sortie though, patting each other on the back. Asuka did her best to ignore them. Maya didn’t notice until Asuka was right behind her, and when she turned around the worried expression on her face only deepened.

“What happened.” Asuka barked at her, slamming her palms onto the console that Maya was working at. 

“Kyu was listening in when she heard them demand that she return to NERV. And when they had said they were nothing but disposable clones, she just ran away.” Maya reported. The phone on her station buzzed behind her and she picked it up. Asuka watched her nod and make small sounds to confirm whatever she was hearing. She eventually put the phone down and looked back up at Asuka. “It was Sakura. She says Kyu ran to your room.” she relayed to Asuka.

Asuka didn’t bother going through the showers after that; she ran off out of the Eva pen making a beeline towards her room. They were close to the pens, a convenience to the pilots who needed to be ready at any moment. Again, people parted before her, knowing better than to get in her way when she was running. She was at the door to her room five minutes later, Sakura pacing in front of it. The medic looked at Asuka and nodded, stepping out of the way and shutting the door behind her.

The room was dark when Asuka entered it, though she could hear the sounds of laboured breathing. “Kyu.” She called quietly into the darkness. The breathing stopped for a second, and then resumed, louder and more rushed than before. Asuka felt a twinge of doubt creep into her mind. She had always been bad with people, and even her relationship with Kyu was plagued by her own fear of messing up. She flicked on the lights, surveying the room and looking for Kyu. She wasn’t lying on the bed, though all the sheets had been pulled off of it.

Asuka walked further into the room and around the bed, cautiously approaching the lump on the floor that was covered with sheets. “Hey, Kyu.” She whispered to the lump. She squatted down beside it, grabbing the edge of one of the sheets and pulling it up to see the girl underneath it. “What’s wrong?” She asked, trying to sound as open as she could.

Kyu blinked from the sudden exposure to the light, and upon seeing Asuka shrunk further into the blankets. It was her own private world, where only she could exist. Where she tried to forget about the existence of others. There were no other Ayanami-types, no other people. Until Asuka had intruded at least. 

“Asuka.” Kyu whispered, her voice sounding heavy, almost wet. In the light Asuka could see the tear stains running down her eyes. “Why am I here?” She asked, looking at Asuka, desperate for an answer. “Why me?”

“You wanted to live.” Asuka stated simply, sitting down in front of Kyu. The clone turned her gaze to the floor underneath them, lowering her head so Asuka couldn’t see her face. Fresh tears were starting to fall, and Asuka reached out to wipe them. Kyu recoiled back, away from her touch. She did shed the blankets off of herself though, which Asuka took as an improvement.

“But I’m no different than those two that were in those Evas. What makes me different? I could have switched places with either of them, it could have been me in there and one of them here.” She whispered. The various doubts that she lived with, that hung at the back of her mind, sprang forward. She wasn’t unique. She could be replaced. There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of other hers out there. What was so different about her that Asuka loved?

“Kyu, you are different. Even before we met you wanted to live. You were different then. And now you’re even more different than those clones from today. They aren’t Kyu. They never could be. But you are.” Asuka told her gently.

“You don’t need to lie. I know I’m just a replaceable clone.” She whispered, not believing it. Kyu looked up at Asuka, with eyes that were filled with desperation. “Will you stay with me anyway?” She asked.

Asuka didn’t hesitate to answer that. She wrapped her arms around Kyu, making her straighten out. Asuka pressed their bodies together, tucking Kyu’s head into her shoulder. Kyu was crying again, her shoulders heaving as Asuka rocked her back and forth, stroking her hair with one hand and grasping one of Kyu’s hands with the other. Their fingers intertwined at their side, and Asuka gave it a light squeeze to affirm her presence.

7“Of course. And you’re special, irreplaceable, to me if no one else.” She whispered into Kyu’s ear. The sobs seemed to grow weaker, and Asuka continued. “There are no other yous. If there was another Ayanami-type then I’d know it wasn’t you. The way you smile, the way you talk, the way your hand feels when it holds mine. I know you’re Kyu.” She reaffirmed. Kyu’s free hand wrapped itself around Asuka’s shoulder, pressing her closer than before. Asuka shut her eye, holding Kyu while she finished crying.

17: “Come here. Let me fix it.”

It had been five days since they had started heading towards where Asuka hoped the Wunder would be. They had stopped for the night, taking shelter in the husk of a solitary house rising up in the sea of red sand. Asuka had been staring out a hole in the wall, where there should have been a window, ignoring her two companions as she had all the previous nights.

Shinji had been silent the whole journey, in fact aside from walking he had refused to do anything. Kyu made Rei look like a motor mouth by comparison. The last conversation, the only conversation, that Asuka had had with Kyu had been two days ago, where her and Kyu had discussed what she should be called, until Asuka had come up with Kyu, her being the former pilot of Eva 09.

It was better than nothing.

Kyu had said her new name once and then fallen silent again.

The silence was starting to get to Asuka, and she was tempted to start talking to herself, if only to fill it with some noise. It wasn’t like she had anyone to talk to anyway. Shinji would refuse to respond if she asked anything, and she didn’t even know where to begin with talking to Kyu.

At the very least, Kyu had the SDAT player to escape to. When they were walking she would usually be wearing the headphones and carrying it in one of her hands. Even when she put the headphones around her neck Asuka could hear music piping through them and into the empty air. She would slow her pace, just slightly, so that Kyu could catch up to her. The music had been a welcome relief for Asuka, even if she considered most of it to be rather boring. It was noise that distracted her from the thoughts that they would die in the desert long before WILLE found them.

She wondered if Kyu used it the same way. To distract her from whatever problems she was facing. 

She had faintly heard the music playing behind her as she sat looking out the hole in the wall. Her eyes wandered to where Kyu was slowly approaching Shinji, one hand holding the headphones and the other holding the main body. Kyu intended to give it back to Shinji, knowing that it would remind him of Kaworu Nagisa and hoping that it would perhaps make him feel happier.

He had slapped the music player out of her hand, sending it flying into the wall. It bounced off and landed in the sand. Asuka diverted her full attention to the scene playing out in front of her, her teeth clenching in anger. Shinji  turned away from Kyu, refusing to acknowledge her at all. Kyu had hovered around Shinji for another few seconds, staring at her now empty hands. She then muttered a hasty apology and then walked over to the fallen SDAT, picking it up and plugging the headphones back in.

Asuka could tell that it was broken by the expression on Kyu’s face a few seconds later. She had shaken it, fiddled with the buttons, tried to get it to work again. Then, resigning to the fact that it was broken, Kyu had silently begun to walk towards her own corner of the house, getting as far away from Shinji as she could. Asuka closed her eyes, trying hard not to yell at Shinji. It would just be a waste of her time and energy. So she silently watched Kyu walk further away, her shoulders shrugged tightly, as if she was trying to prepare herself for a blow. .

Asuka realized it would be be a quiet walk tomorrow.

Unless she did something. She had kept her handheld video game player functioning for the past fourteen years, learning how to tinker and fiddle with electronics in her downtime. She guessed that the SDAT would work the same way.

“Come here. Let me fix it.” Asuka called, walking over to a fallen slab of concrete that was tall enough to serve as a table. She realized how foreign her own voice sounded, after neglecting it for two days. Kyu turned around, the sadness on her face palpable. Even though she told herself that she had offered to fix it so that she would have something to listen to tomorrow, she also hated seeing the look of disappointment on Kyu’s face. Kyu’s body had perked up at the offer and she had made her way over to Asuka, gripping the broken music player.

Wordlessly, Kyu let Asuka take the SDAT out of her hand, and then set it on a slab of concrete sticking out of the sand. Asuka popped the battery case open, discarding the dented battery onto the ground. That would need to be replaced. The battery compartment was also bent out of shape, but Asuka managed to flatten it out well enough.

Asuka was hopeful that a busted battery was all that was wrong with it. She glanced at the battery on the ground. It was smaller than average, flat and circular. Definitely not standard for an SDAT. Someone, she glanced at Shinji, had rebuilt the whole thing. And she doubted Shinji had the knowhow to do it. Yet it was beneficial for Asuka. She knew where to find a replacement for the battery. She had looked at Kyu again, focusing on the top of her head.

“You need those?” She asked Kyu, pointing at the neural clips that ran through her hair. Kyu’s hands rose to take them out, and she looked down at them.

“No. I do not.” She admitted, turning them over in her hand. She would no longer pilot, and she did not wish to remind herself of that life.

“Smash one then. It’s pretty cathartic actually.” Asuka suggested. Kyu looked at the neural clips one last time, and then threw one of them at the wall with all the force she could muster. There was a loud crack as the shell shattered, bits and pieces flying everywhere. Kyu surveyed the damage from where she had thrown it before walking towards where most of it had fallen. She scooped up the main body of the neural clip and carrying it back to Asuka. It was set on the slab of concrete beside the SDAT, then she herself sat down on the ground. Her back against the slab with her knees curled up to her chest.

Asuka was almost tempted to take off her eyepatch so she could have some light as she worked under the starlight. The battery was small, and deep inside the neural clip. It was slow work picking through it. She sighed, looking down at Kyu. Kyu seemed to sense her gaze and looked up to meet her eyes. There was a glimmer of hopeful anticipation in them. Asuka told herself that she wouldn’t disappoint her.

Asuka finally found the battery among the mess and slipped it into the SDAT. She closed the case and whacked the music player with her palm, just in case that helped. Then she handed it back to Kyu. “Try it.” She suggested. Kyu did so, the familiar sounds of an orchestra filling the air a moment later. Asuka could see Kyu’s eyes grow wide with wonder, and then her mouth crept upward into a smile.

“Thank you Shikinami.” She told Asuka, slumping back against the slab of concrete. Asuka sighed. It had been fourteen years since someone had said thank you to her. Asuka looked at Shinji, who sat alone in his corner. Not a single hint of regret on his face for what he had done. He only stared at the other two with emotionless eyes. Again Asuka wanted to yell at him, and again she realized how pointless it would be. Instead she carefully sat down beside Kyu, letting the sounds of the music and the gentle heat radiating off of Kyu lull her to sleep.

20. “Have you slept?”

Asuka knew the answer she would get before she had even asked the question. “Have you slept?” She asked Kyu. They were laying on their bed in their room aboard the Wunder, the lights still on. Asuka was on her side, looking at Kyu. Kyu was on her back, her hands folded over her stomach and looking at the ceiling. Asuka could see the red eyes slowly shift towards her as Kyu acknowledged her presence.

“No. I could not sleep without dreaming that you had died.” Kyu explained quietly. She rolled onto her side, facing away from Asuka. “Two days, two days of searching for you, not knowing if you had survived.” She lamented, a mix of worry and anger in her voice. Asuka had been forced to eject from her Eva after a battle with NERV. The Wunder had been forced to retreat as well, if only for a few hours to conduct repairs safely. Asuka had been gone when they returned to the battle-site. Kyu shook as she remembered those past two days, spent wondering if Asuka was still alive. All the doubt that had plagued her.

“Hey, I’m back. So get some sleep, okay.” Asuka pressed her face into the back of Kyu’s neck, placing an arm over her in a loose embrace. Kyu’s shaking seemed to settle down at that, and eventually Asuka could feel the normal rise and fall of her chest, telling her that Kyu was asleep. Asuka smiled, running her fingers through Kyu’s hair for a few minutes before withdrawing it. Very carefully she pulled away from Kyu, swinging her legs over the side of their bed.

She sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at her hands as she clenched them repeatedly. She bitterly thought about how she couldn’t even take her own advice and get some sleep. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flicker of movement, and her head tilted upwards searching for it. Nothing was there. Nothing ever was. Kyu said that she could occasionally see her, but Asuka didn’t have that privilege.

“Have you slept?” The words seemed to form in her mind, emanating from nowhere in particular. The lights in the room flickered off, even though Asuka was nowhere near the lightswitch. A gentle push to let her sleep easier. “Asuka.” Rei’s voice sounded annoyed, waiting for a response from her. Like Asuka had with Kyu, she knew the answer.  

“No. I can’t sleep.” Asuka whispered to the empty air. Rei would hear it, as she heard everything on the Wunder. One of the many advantages of being the soul inside the engine of the living vessel. Another was diverting extra hot water to Asuka’s shower. “Too scared. After fourteen years you’d have thought that the nightmares would have ended. Turns out that more just show up” She looked down at her lap, clasping her hands. She was weary of the nightmares. “Do you sleep anymore?”

“No.” Rei replied, a hint of sadness on her voice. “Though I think that I wish to again, some day.” Asuka felt something cold touch her shoulder. She reached out, hoping to feel something when she reached back. There was nothing there. “You do require sleep though. And both you and Kyu could just use some rest.” Rei reaffirmed. “I will watch over you.” She promised.

Asuka nodded, knowing that it was better than to argue with Rei. She had become much more persistent in the intervening years, especially in regards to Asuka’s health. Perhaps to make up for what she thought of as past mistakes. Asuka climbed back under the covers, feeling Kyu shift beside her, onto her other shoulder so that she now faced Asuka. Kyu reached out for her in her sleep, throwing an arm around her shoulder and pulling herself closer to Asuka. Asuka ensured she closed the distance and shut her good eye, letting her weariness overwhelm her. She desperately hoped for a good sleep.

#asurei #asukyu #long post #the instigator asks and I shall deliver #writing #irrational-shutin