2010-07-03 - Journey to the End of the Night

Asuka Langley Sohryu is headed to the NERV showers.

After her last encounter with an Angel, Ritsuko increased the number of sync ratio tests performed on the redhead. Maybe it was because she thought there was some relationship between Asuka's intimate encounter with the Angel and her suddenly increasing sync ratio. Or maybe because they couldn't take any chances with the Angels progressively increasing in strength and intelligence.

Whatever the reason, Asuka didn't care. She had spent most of her stint in NERV complaining about how terribly BORING these tests were, and how she had wasted a perfectly good day she could have spent with Mr. Kaji surrounded by LCL. Those complaints came to a halt with the last Angel encounter. Asuka was just happy that NERV didn't appear to be throwing her to the wayside just yet.

She drops her duffel on a bench and begins to unzip her plugsuit. She really hates these things. Sure, she might look good in it, but it was so tight, and she always felt so /gross/ in it!

The plug suit is abandoned on the floor, right where she stepped out of it. Asuka steps into a shower stall, turns on the shower, and for a long time, stands under the stream of water.

The long standing session is interrupted by two sharp raps on the door of the stall. That's certainly weird -- usually the scientists can at least wait until she's done showering to bully her into the next test session. Maybe it's that /new/ girl -- the crazy one with the librarian glasses and the slutty skirts and who does she think she is, anyway?! Or maybe it's that /bitch/, Rei, finally emerged from her medical cocoon or wherever they've been keeping her -- who else would have so little tact as to knock on someone's shower stall door while they're trying to wash?!

"Asuka? You in there?"

That's not the voice of Mari /or/ Rei -- that's that /other/ new pilot! The one who was being a dick all over the radio on the last mission -- who didn't even start piloting his Evangelion until people yelled at him!

What could /he/ possibly want with Asuka, especially /now/?!

"I think we need to talk," Kaworu continues, his voice as smooth as silk, sounding like every bishounen fantasy come true.

Asuka sighs loudly--making sure that the boy-pilot on the other side of the door stall can hear it and know how very inconvenienced she was by his visit--then turns off the shower. Why did he have to show up /now/, all of all times? She was just about to lather up, too.

Asuka snatches her towel from where it hangs, then wraps it around her. She's dripping all over the floor, but she doesn't care--she fully intends on getting back in the shower once that /other/ pilot's been sent away, anyway!

Asuka still stands on the other side of the stall when she finally opens her mouth to speak; she knows well from her encounters with Shinji that all guys--barring perhaps Mr. Kaji and Johnny--are no-good dirty perverts, and this /boy/ has done nothing so far to prove otherwise. If anything, coming into girl's showers to deliver a message lends credit to the idea that he's just as dirty and perverted as all the other /boys/ she knows.

"What could /you/ possibly have to discuss with /me/?" she demands. Clearly, someone's still bitter about their exchange the week prior.

The door to the stall emits a broad, gentle sound -- unmistakably that of Kaworu leaning against it. Looking down, his feet can be seen. His back is to the door, and one ankle is crossed over the other, as if he's getting comfortable.

Maybe he doesn't intend to let her /out/.

"About Shinji," Kaworu replies casually, with a sort of off-handed lightness that suggests that this is not particularly important -- that they're just shooting the breeze, a little bit of, you know, girl talk or something.

"Because, hey, listen," Kaworu says, still sounding relaxed, "I think that... it's not a very good idea if you keep hanging around him. Talking to him. Being in his life. You know?" Kaworu says this as if he were asking her if he could borrow a pencil.

"So stay away from him." Suddenly Kaworu's tone is darker, tighter, colder -- more menacing.

Asuka does not particularly enjoy being told what to do. She'll suffer through it--occasionally--if it's orders, but this isn't orders. This is just another sixteen-year old trying to /order/ her around. Who did he think he was, anyway?! She was here even longer than he was! If anything, /she/ should be the one giving orders!

Asuka, however, doesn't pick up on this dark, menacing tone; to her ears, Kaworu sounds like a jealous friend.

"What are you, Shinji's /boyfriend/?!" Asuka doesn't know how close to the mark she is. "You can't tell me what to do, anyway. I'll hang out with Shinji if I want to!"

Asuka drops her towel; it's clear from their current exchange that this might take awhile--and as much as she'd like to engage in a verbal parlay with a boy in a shower stall naked, she'd rather be dressed if it's going to take awhile.

Asuka pulls a shirt over her head. "Besides," she says, smugness in her voice only matching the smugness of her grin. "Shinji's going out with /me/. We even went on a date after the Angel fight last week."

When Asuka asks if Kaworu is Shinji's boyfriend, the most response she gets is a slight chuckle -- more an emphatic breath than anything else.

But then things get serious. A date? With Shinji? And they're going out? This news clearly has an effect, because it's about a minute before Kaworu does anything. Long enough for Asuka to get dressed, certainly. Maybe even dry off a little. But then, without fanfare, the door to the shower stall opens.

The doors are locked from the inside.

Kaworu, wearing his school attire, which looks so much like Shinji's -- minus the yellow undershirt -- steps into the stall and shuts the door behind him. His face is grim, and he exudes nothing short of quiet hostility. He looks like a bastard byproduct of all three of the 'classic' Eva kids. The fashion sense is Shinji's, even if Kaworu is so man-pretty that he makes it look /good/. The look of the boy himself, with his snow-white skin and evil red eyes, is pure Rei.

But the anger that pours out of him is one hundred percent Asuka.

Eyes the color of blood meet the redhead's. "I'm not going to tell you again," Kaworu says flatly -- so emotionlessly that it could never be in doubt that he's threatening her.

After that chuckle, Asuka turns away from the stall door and continues to get dressed; she might as well just go back to Misato's place and shower there, now. At least she won't have to deal with any interruptions from any weird pale-skinned, pale-haired freaks in that place.

The silence endures for so long that when she finally slips on her sandals, she's sure that Kaworu's went off to bug someone else about their relationship with Shinji. But it's in that moment that Kaworu opens the door and steps in.

Surprise registers on Asuka's face on a moment, but it quickly turns to anger. Did he think he could just step into a girl's shower like this and give her orders and /expect her to obey/?! If he does, then he's /sadly mistaken/!

"What, /you're/ still here?" Her eyes dart to the door lock before turning back to Kaworu's face. She remembered locking that thing, so how did he get in here, anyway?! "I'm not interested in anything you have to say," she says. "If you don't want me hanging around with Shinji, then maybe you should talk to /him/."

"Do you remember when Leliel burned your eyeball out of your skull, you bitch?"

Kaworu's tone gets colder with every syllable, and the impending sense that something awful is going to happen is nothing but enhanced by the way he keeps pacing forward. In the shower stall, there's not much room for him to do so until someone's up against a wall.

"I'm going to tell you a secret, Asuka. Listen up. I'm Leliel's big brother and what he did to you is just the /start/ of what I can do if you so much as look funny at me. I told you, respectably, like a human being, to leave Shinji alone, to stay away from him. And you're either too stupid or too suicidal to have /agreed/ to a /reasonable request/."

Kaworu is not backing off. Kaworu's eyes are wide with muted anger. Kaworu does not seem human right now. He seems larger than he really is, as if he fills more space than just what his body occupies. "You know who else is a sibling of mine?"

Kaworu's hand shoots up to grab Asuka by the red, red hair. "The one you're so jealous of. Rei. Maybe now you can figure out why everyone thought she was so much more /special/ than you."

Anger and humiliation shoot up Asuka's body as Kaworu reminds her of Leliel. How could she have been so stupid to fall to an Angel like that?! And how did he know about that?! He wasn't even around to know what had happened! There was no way that NERV personnel would have given a children access to classified files about an Angel attack--least of all, a newbie like /him/!

And then she gets her answer, and fear rises into the mix. She attempts to push it back--to continue the confident facade she had orchestrated since childhood--but a glimmer of fear can still be seen in her eyes, in the curve of her frown as he presses her against the stall wall. He could be messing with her, but if he was, then how did everything he say make so much /sense/?

And Rei--she was right to hate her from the beginning! That little bitch Rei had been deceiving them all this time!

When Kaworu's hand reaches for her hair, she attempts to pull away, but the stall's too small and there's just too much of her hair. It's the first time Asuka regrets keeping her hair so long.

"I don't care /what/ you are," she says, though she does care, because she wouldn't be afraid if she didn't. "But I'm not going to let you lay a finger on Shinji!"

If what he's saying really is true, and he and Rei really /are/ Angels, then she's got to warn everybody. She might not be piloting an Eva right now, and maybe she can't kill someone in hand-to-hand combat while wearing a tank top and a pair of inappropriately short-shorts, but she's got to do /something/. If she doesn't get away, then who knows who else will be fooled by this con artist and his littel sister?

She pulls her arm back and attempts to punch the pretty boy, right in his pretty face.

Asuka's fists may have worked fine on Rei, but Rei also didn't put up any resistance. This is not the case with Kaworu. The silver-haired boy lets his lips form a cruel little twist of a smile as Asuka swings, and her fist strikes--

--an AT field.

Suffice it to say, that's a pretty painful proposition. And Kaworu's cruel little smirk blossoms into a grin, and he laughs.

"Asuka! You're supposed to be a genius!" Kaworu chides. "Did you really think I would have told you all that stuff..."

The grip on her hair tightens, and Kaworu's eyes gleam with malice.

"...if you had any chance of leaving this room under your own power?" Kaworu doesn't even wait for the question mark to be dotted in that sentence before he makes his move. It's a pretty brutish one, but Angels have never been known for their finesse. Utilizing his grip on her, he swings her head toward the wall of the shower. Not the stall partitions, but the /wall/.

And when Asuka strikes out, her knuckle hits the AT Field--/hard/. Kaworu's AT Field is stronger than the others she's encountered before. The other Angels had weaker ones; sometimes, they were pliant. But not Kaworu's; his was built. So when her fist finally strikes it, it's akin to hitting a bare wall with her fist.

Asuka hears a sharp crack, and her eyes, wide with shock, suddenly water with pain. His grip around her hair suddenly tightens, and he thrusts her against the wall in one sweeping movement. Pain rips through her body for the second time in seconds.

She's dizzy now, and a little disoriented, but even through that she knows one thing: he really is going to kill her if she doesn't do something.

But how can she break through his AT Field like this? They had difficulty penetrating the last few Angel's AT Fields with just top-of-the-line equipment. How is she supposed to stop him with just her legs and her fists?!

And Asuka, a girl whose pride would keep her fighting even when the odds are against her realizes something:

She can't win.

The most she can hope is to get away.

So instead of standing after Kaworu's assault, she succumbs to it. Instead of fighting the urge to collapse, she lets her body fall limp; she shuts her right eye.

And if Kaworu lets go of her, she's going to run for it.

Kaworu lets Asuka go. Maybe he's just trying to scare her. Maybe it's all one big ruse. Maybe he wants her to run away shouting 'Kaworu's an Angel and Rei's an Angel and he beat me up in the shower and...' so the NERV doctors already concerned with Asuka's progress can finally use this as an excuse to sack her and stick her in a padded white cell.

Like her mother's.

The boy Angel waits for Asuka to run for it -- and then he suddenly pulses his AT Field again, projecting it outward in a mathematical bliss of light and geometry. Standing so close to Asuka, the AT Field shimmering into existence so sharply -- like a knife cutting through perception -- is like being hit by a Neo Buick. The goal is to once again slam Asuka toward the wall and keep her from getting away.

She really, really can't win.

"I warned you," Kaworu says, grin fading, as if he's not really taking any joy in this anymore. "Don't try to run. You're only going to make it worse if you try to run. In fact, if you're a good girl and you don't run, I promise not to kill you."

Kaworu backs this promise up by kicking Asuka a couple times.

"Think about it, Asuka. If you died, who would they give your mother away to?"

Asuka's body slams back against the wall, the pressure of the AT Field pinning her against the stall wall. She's having a difficult time breathing now--half because the sudden force of the field knocked the wind out of her, half because the pressure of the field is making exhaling difficult.

The pilot of Unit-02 squirms uncomfortably where she stands, her eyes still fierce even despite her visible discomfort. Not run? What was she supposed to do, then?! Kaworu wasn't just going to let her go--he had said that much already.

He kicks her, and she falls. And while grounding her would be enough for some people, he still continues, her body quaking involuntarily with every strike. And when he gives her that last, final kick, she coughs from the impact, sending a spatter of blood across the tile.

She hates him. With every fiber of her being she wants him to die. But it's clear that she can't do that right now; not in this condition, not in this form. If she were in her Eva, then this wouldn't be a problem at all--she's sure of it. Because mama would be right there with her.

She can't die here. There's no way she's going to let anyone else take her mama.

"If you're not going to kill me, then what /do/ you want?"

Kaworu kneels down, over Asuka. His face is impassive. He's no longer having much fun -- this is more like work, and not even enjoyable work. For all of the cruelty he is performing... its remains a performance, the act of someone who knows full well that they are no sadist.

But it's already gotten to this point, and so Kaworu has no choice but to go further. His hand comes down to touch her face -- his fingers are soft and delicate, like a woman's, but with the strength of something far more masculine. "I told you you brought this on yourself, Asuka. I don't want you dead. I think you should only kill someone if you hate them... or if you love them. And I neither hate nor love you. You're just... in the way."

Kaworu lets go of the girl's face, and sighs loudly. This is draining to him -- that much is obvious. He acts as if he were being made to put up with manual labor. That beating Asuka up may inconvenience /her/ doesn't even appear to occur to him.

"So I just need you out of the way for a bit."

Then Kaworu's fist raises, and with clinical efficiency and brute industrial power, he goes to work.

Until the job is finished.

There were any number of injuries that Asuka had incurred during her duration as pilot of Eva Unit-02. Their shared connection meant that any injury Unit-02 suffered, she suffered as well. The stronger the connection, the more intense the injury.

And while she has suffered any number of injuries inside of her Unit-02, the worst she experienced were from outside of the unit she piloted. In the outside world, there were no AT Fields to protect her from physical injury, just as there was no mama to safeguard her from emotional harm.

"Nn!"

At first, she refuses to give in, arms crossed in front of her in defense; from time to time, she reflexively attempts to push back, only to be met once again with the familiar force of Kaworu's AT Field.

She swears in German as the force of his strikes bring her arms closer and closer to her body; red welts give way to blue. The stream of swears finally stops when he splits her lip, though her single eye still gazing up at him says everything she can not.

She hates him. Even if he doesn't hate her, she hates him with every fiber of her being.

She recalls dimly in this time pommeling Kaworu's so-called sister, and for one brief second, wonders if this was how she felt when she struck her in the apartment she and Shinji shared with Misato. And in that one second before her eyes flutter shut, she feels bad for having done it.