2010-05-30 - This Discipline's So Rare So Please Applaud

Knowledge is power.

Latooni practically lives by that. If you understand something - really understand it, internalize it - you can understand what it has done and determine what it is going to do. But for all her attempts, she has not previously been able to understand Rei.

That was before. Armed with knowledge from Huang, Latooni got just enough information to be very, very dangerous to herself and others. At least she recognizes this, which is why she hasn't done anything with it, yet... and why she needs to talk to Rei. Urgently.

An EFA uniform stands out on an A-LAWS ship, but Latooni has very little else to wear that she feels is professional enough to visit a battleship with. At least she does not embarass herself by looking lost. She loaded the map onto her glasses before she came.

Eventually Latooni finds her way to Rei's quarters. She does not immediately do anything, pausing for several seconds to gather her thoughts - and probably psyche herself up - before reaching for the intercom. "Rei?" she asks, before letting her finger fall away.

There's a certain custom that's observed whenever someone comes to Rei's door aboard the Minerva. It's fitting with the sense of place, really. Rei, like Leo on the Shirogane, lives far removed from the central arteries of the ship -- but she takes Leo's out-of-the-way tendency even further, living in virtual isolation. Her quarters are at the end of a long corridor; Latooni stopped seeing other travelers a few turns ago, and her only company in this final stretch are a couple doors that apparently lead to supply closets, and the overpowering drone of the ship's guts working at their functions.

Nearly sixty seconds pass before Rei's door opens -- she doesn't bother answering via intercom. The girl looks like she hasn't gotten any sleep. She's wearing most of an A-LAWS uniform -- the greatcoat has been shorn, leaving her in the teal tanktop undershirt. Between that and the sky blue headband tied around her skull, quietly keeping her hair in check (a headband easily recognized as Noriko Takaya's by anyone who would recognize that sort of thing)...

...well, Rei's attire bears a less than subtle resemblance to the typical casualwear of Leo Stenbuck.

Rei's lip is injured. Minor work has been done -- there's still a swollen purple spot and a groove that marks where skin ripped. It looks like someone cut Rei's mouth, or more accurately, tore at it.

Rei is silent. She stares at Latooni with red eyes that, for all of their blankness, also seem rather tired. Apparently, the onus of initiating conversation does not fall on her.

Latooni Subota has drawn (or chosen) distant quarters before. She knows what it's like; it's comforting, in a way, to hear the ship around you - as long as you can shut it out when you sleep.

Latooni has to look down at Rei, just like everyone else, but it's not very far for her. She can look Rei in the eye, or at least glasses-to-eye. The injury is noted as she tries to determine what could have caused it, and gets a number of ideas, none of which are particularly likely; the outfit is also noted but there is little Latooni can determine from it.

"Hello," she says, a little lamely; this is how she sounds when she's put on the spot. But if she's already on it, there's no harm in pushing a little bit: "Rei, we need to talk, and you do not want this in the hallway. May I come in, please?"

A small amount of tension creeps into Rei's features while Latooni speaks. Looking up -- however small a distance 'up' is -- at the lavender-haired woman, Rei's mouth gently slopes downward at the corners, and stress shows at the corners of her eyes. It's not an incredibly expressive look, but it's fairly easy to figure out quickly:

Rei Ayanami did not understand a single word Latooni Subota just said.

The NERV emissary lets this uncomfortable silence linger for a few long moments after Latooni finishes speaking. Then she offers, quietly, in her native tongue: "Do you speak Japanese?"

All the same, Rei steps out of the way, allowing Latooni access, if only to be polite. The delay between this admittance and the actual question of permission seems to indicate that Rei would have done it anyway, especially after her own question.

Rei's room bears the touch of Excellen Browning. Everywhere. Stuffed animals sit on a tightly-made bed. Posters for magical-girl computer games and puppies and other adorable things are stuck up on the walls. Origami paper sits on the desk, along with a handful of books in various languages, primarily English, German, and Japanese; the English and Japanese ones are young-adult novels about romance and knighthood and that sort of thing, and the German books are about metaphysics. Origami cranes are scattered around various surfaces, with around nine hundred of them hung up on the wall in long garlands. There are also decorative paper hearts and that sort of thing.

On Rei's bed, her luggage is half-packed, folded clothes waiting to be placed into her suitcase.

Latooni Subota knows, right then, that something is strange.

Rei never seemed /comfortable/ in English, and she did have an accent, but she spoke it. Being completely baffled by it is new, and not something that should be happening. People don't forget languages like that, certainly not in the two weeks since she last spoke to Rei personally.

"Yes," Latooni says, in Japanese. "But not well. Would you prefer that I used it?" Regardless of what she says, she sounds skilled enough in the language; the words are all spoken properly, with relatively little accent, and her grammar is fine.

Only after that does she step in and look around. This is more familiar to her: less from Excellen, though she gets books from her, but posters from Garnet and Shine. The cranes are different, though, and - to be honest - she didn't think Rei had ever shown an interest in any of these things.

Latooni says nothing again for a long time. Not as long as Rei's pause, but a while. Then: "This is hard for both of us. I am sorry to bother you, but we need to speak. Were you packing?" She uses Japanese.

Rei stands to one side of Latooni, as if waiting for her to -- do... something. As the other girl looks around, Rei looks at her. It's like having a personal gargoyle. "Yes," Rei eventually responds, not specifying which question she's replying to. Probably both. And the fact that she says it in Japanese, well, that's a bit of a freebie.

Rei walks over to the bed, looking down at her luggage for a moment. It's as if she's deliberating whether or not to continue. Finally, she turns toward Latooni again. She still seems tired in a way that's hard to define -- like she's got weights tied to her limbs, and not in the way that wearing Noriko Takaya's headband would suggest.

"What do you need?" Rei asks, phrasing it as 'need' rather than 'want' rather deliberately. She doesn't sound put out or annoyed -- indeed, she barely sounds like anything at all, like the sort of neutral voice that computers have.

When Latooni planned this meeting - and she did plan it; she doesn't like leaving important things unplanned - she had expected it to go a certain way. There would be some conversation. It may not be pleasant, but she had a slim chance of getting really useful information and a better chance that something would slip that would allow her to find the information on her own.

But now that she's actually here, she's caught off-balance by the changes. Japanese, not English - which she speaks, but is not as casually fluent in as English or Russian. Rei's room. Rei herself. She isn't sure where to go from here.

It doesn't help that this is inherently a very awkward conversation to have.

"I need you to answer some questions for me," Latooni says, in a professional, even tone of voice. She looks at the luggage for a moment herself, then back at Rei directly. "You died," she says, which is not even a question. "Back then. Didn't you? Whatever NERV says."

Rei stops. It's not like she was doing much to begin with, but there's a pause in the air that can be /felt/, as if Latooni just hit freeze-frame on a remote control. Rei's stare is as sphinx-like as ever, but somehow manages to become even more inscrutable, as gears clearly turn in her mind.

Then, Rei's expression softens -- just a bit. 'Soft' neutrality versus 'hard.' A featureless, placid lake versus an iceberg. "Leo told you?" Rei says, sounding...

...well, who /knows/ how she sounds. It's not relieved; it's not troubled; it's not even affected. Rei keeps her own counsel, as ever.

"Leo told me. I didn't know if I believed him until recently." Latooni is just as honest now as she was moments ago; she has no real reason to lie about this and every reason not to. The stare, though... it's unsettling. Latooni takes half a step back.

And then Rei softens, and she feels that her inexplicable discomfort and fear were pointless. Sure, it's not exactly open, but she can take what she can get; it isn't as if she was all that much better at emoting. Latooni tries to relax, too. It is not something she is very good at. "I heard some other things, too, and not from Leo."

The pause is shorter this time, and as much for Latooni to make sure she is using the proper words as anything else. "I want to hear it from you, though. Did you die, then?" Or did something else happen, which Latooni can't even comprehend? The times don't add up. It can't be the near-miss NERV claims.

Rei doesn't blink, which makes even a relaxed stare from her fairly unsettling -- there's still a certain amount of intensity that comes from how /sustained/ her gaze is, how unrelentingly her red irises drill at their targets. Rei takes her time answering, again. She doesn't show many signs of deliberation -- or, she would, but it's safe to say that Latooni doesn't have the necessary experience yet to decode the Eva pilot.

She may not have the chance, either.

"Yes," Rei replies, finally, and keeps it at that. She doesn't feel the need to explain herself, apparently. Latooni didn't ask that, though. It's a yes or no question -- and Rei lays it to rest without so much as a twitch of her face.

Latooni Subota is not good at decoding the social cues of /normal/ people. Rei is a complete mystery; Latooni is dealing with it by treating her as if there were no social cues whatsoever, except on the rare occasion where one is obvious enough to get her attention through that.

Staring does not count as a cue that she can pick up on its meaning.

What she /wants/ to do is ask why she didn't tell anyone, why she kept that a secret - but that information is not actually as urgent as some of the other things she knows enough about to ask questions of.

"Rei," Latooni says, before she trails off. It's hard to work with what she has. "Rei, when you... go away..." She forces herself to ask the last part, without letting anything get in the way. "You meant you were going to die again. Didn't you? And when you're gone, Leo will - "

That one, she can't finish. She lets Rei do it.

Whatever Rei wants remains a mystery.

Rei sits down on her bed. She makes no invitation for Latooni to sit as well; if Rei's general uncaring disposition is to be believed, though, it may not really matter whether an invitation is given or not. By now, the pattern is clear -- a question is asked, and then Rei acts as if the conversation wasn't even happening for a minute or so, and then she answers.

Rei speaks again: "Yes," she says, once more failing to specify what she is agreeing to. Presumably the idea that she's going to die again.

Rei pauses a beat, and then continues. "Leo will ensure I don't come back," Rei says, as emotionlessly as a corpse. She just seems numb, like the blood had been drained from her already pale body.

Latooni Subota does not sit down. It makes her tower over Rei; she stands at a distance to avoid making Rei crane her neck up, or for her to get a crick from looking straight down.

She says nothing for a while, either. This conversation is, if nothing else, taking much longer than it needs to; both of them are prone to silences taking thiry or more seconds. Latooni uses one of them now. She takes the world's shortest pace while she's doing it: one step in each direction.

"Does he want to?" she asks, followed by, moments later, "Do you want to? Or is this something someone is making you do?" This is the important question, the one she came here to ask in the first place. Huang wanted to put her in protective custody so she wouldn't do whatever she was doing. Latooni wouldn't let him. Not without Rei asking her to.

Rei finally looks away. She turns her head to crane it down toward the luggage. Then her gaze trails down to the floor, and she breathes. It's not a sigh -- it's just a breath. But it might as well be one, given how quiet Rei is.

"I don't want anything else," Rei says, plainly. She then turns her crimson eyes upward, as if to underscore the point -- to meet Latooni's gaze and impress upon her that this is not something she's going to argue about. She also doesn't sound like she wants sympathy or pity. Rei talks about it as if it were as normal as wanting to buy a car.

"And Leo..." Rei finally falters. She trails off, not sure where to go for a moment. It takes her time to regain her footing and finish the sentence. "Leo has you now. He doesn't need a Rei anymore."

Latooni Subota's eyes cannot quite be met. She still has her heavy, semiopaque glasses on. But Rei tries, and behind them, Latooni looks Rei in the eye.

"Why," Latooni says, quietly. "Why do you want to throw away your life? Please, Rei. I am trying to help you." It doesn't sound like it, entirely. It could just be the prying of a nosy teenager. But there is something there, something that Latooni feels strongly about and that she only wishes was getting through to Rei. "If it isn't - if it isn't something you want to do, then tell me. I can help." She faked her own death once. She could do better, now. And she has no problem with opposing the EFA; she's helped cover things up before, things that would probably get her fired if they knew.

Her lips curl down, slightly. "Leo... I don't know about that. I do not know if I was the replacement." She doesn't /want/ to know if she is nothing but a replacement. "But this will hurt him. Even if he won't say it will."

Of course, it stands to reason that if all this were as simple as a teenager with a death wish, Rei could have hung herself in zero gravity ages ago and spared the entire Earth Federation all of this pomp and circumstance. But Rei seems content to leave it in those terms. She doesn't mention the coming armageddon, or the true extent of what she's begged, bullied, and guilted Leo into agreeing to do. Ask Rei no questions, and...

"I'm fixing a mistake," Rei says. It could be that she's keeping her answers simple because she can recognize Latooni's comparative lack of skill with the language. It's not like the other girl is inarticulate, but it's the difference between someone who's effortlessly fluent... and someone who's not. "I have all the help I need." But then, maybe she's just not one to mince words.

Rei looks away again. Her voice grows appreciably less cold. It's an issue of going from 'absolute zero' to merely 'chilly,' but it's a notable difference nonetheless. "You're not a replacement. He loves you." Rei sounds so certain in this that actual firmness sneaks into her voice, putting emphasis on that last sentence that was previously absent from her tone entirely. "He has since before I died. I knew about this, and he's told me to my face. I accept it. He will be happier with you."

That what Rei is doing will hurt Leo remains unaddressed.

Hanging yourself in zero gravity seems difficult.

Latooni's lips shift again. She might ordinarily be happy (if people could tell) based on that statement alone but everything else they are talking about is making that an impossibility. It's serious, more serious than two teenagers... being teenagers. So she doesn't comment on that.

"What mistake," Latooni half-says, half-asks. "Please, Rei. I came to make sure that you were not being forced to do this. But if there is something that needs to be done... do you need to die?" There is another pause while Latooni picks words, and then: "If you do, I will leave you alone. But people want to save you, if they can. When I first found out you were going to go away... I was told to put you under protective custody. For your own protection. But I will not, unless you want me to."

Latooni asks 'what mistake.'

Rei responds by extending her pointer finger, and slowly and deliberately aiming it at herself.

"I need to die," Rei says, coldly. "I shouldn't exist. The last one... the last one shouldn't have, either. But I can't do anything about my past. Only my present." She speaks slowly, with careful deliberation, and the emotion steadily drains back out of her voice. Taking about Latooni -- or, rather, about Leo -- got her worked up, by Rei standards. Now, she's calming down. "I don't want a future that wasn't mine to have anyway."

Rei stands up, and walks over to her little collection of books. She picks two of them up and looks between them, as if Latooni wasn't even there, for a long time -- not ages, but it certainly feels longer than it should. "If you had put me into custody, NERV would have had me out within twenty-four hours, and there wouldn't have been anything you could have done to stop them." Rei sets one of the books down. "More to the point, it would have called entirely too much attention to them, and it all would have been ruined."

Rei walks over to Latooni, and offers her the book. It's heavily used -- the corners are dog-eared, the spine is creased from being forced to stay open too much, and copious notes are visible in the form of various colored post-its sticking out past the pages' edges. It's by Hegel. The title translates to 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' -- but then, 'Spirit' in German is 'Geist,' so it could also be taken to mean 'Mind.'

While Rei is calming down, Latooni is getting worked up. She is at pains to hide this, but she cannot completely control herself; her breath catches, then she breathes a little faster. Her body tenses. Little things.

"I had thought they would do that," Latooni says, "and that is the other reason why I didn't. But if you wanted to leave them - you could. There isn't anything wrong with being a... clone." That was surprisingly hard to say, for her, and the next part is no easier: "I am a clone, too. The eleventh Latune." She uses the Russian word, and not the familiar 'Latooni' that she has been stuck with as a nickname. "The others are dead."

It is much easier to take a book. Latooni's German is worse than her Japanese is by a fair margin, but she's had to pick up a bit of it. She is going to have to look up Phaenomenologie later, though. "What is this?" she asks, meaning beyond the obvious: she can tell it's a book. She just doesn't know what the book represents, except apparently something that is important to Rei, judging by how much it has been used in the past.

Rei, too, is getting worked up, but it's a peculiar way of showing it -- instead of showing signs of agitation, she instead starts withdrawing further, shutting down like a computer. No wonder people always make cracks about her being like a robot.

Indeed, if Latooni's admission of clonedom is meant to engender sympathy... well, by all appearances, it fails. Rei looks completely unaffected by something that was obviously difficult to get out there. Latooni might as well have explained that she uses her hands to put her glasses on her face. "I'm sorry," Rei at least has the courtesy to say. She doesn't sound incredibly sorry -- she doesn't sound incredibly anything right now.

Her gaze moves down to the book, waiting for Latooni to take it. Rei takes a moment to consider the question. "Something I don't need anymore," she says. "If you truly wish to make sense of what will happen... this might help."

Latooni Subota does not aim for sympathy. But if she could show Rei that she was not alone... She still, after all this, does not really understand how the Reis work.

Latooni keeps the book with her. She does not open it, though. "Thank you," she says. "I will read it." If she can learn German well enough to follow it, anyway; she can tell just by looking at it that it is going to be complicated, beyond her actual ability to follow without assistance.

She takes a step back, looking as if she is going to leave, and then: "Will Leo truly be piloting your machine... afterwards? The Type Zero?"

Rei's notes -- on the post-its, and penciled in all over the margins -- are at least in Japanese.

When Latooni looks like she's about to leave, Rei apparently has had her fill as well. Questions asked and answered; book given. Rei returns to her suitcase and begins making sure she has enough clean underwear for the march toward death. Then Latooni asks the back of her head a question, and Rei turns to look over her shoulder.

"Unless NERV has found another Child to pilot it," Rei says, indifferently. "But I doubt it." She doesn't correct Latooni's appellation of the huge machine; it's barely important. "Zerogouki is a good unit. I know Leo will take good care of her." It's tricky, but there's a distinct reference to Unit-00(X) being personified, and personified as a female, at that. The 'Zerogouki' nickname is only part of it.

Latooni Subota's Japanese is good enough for conversation but not good enough to get subtle referants when she isn't expecting one. The nickname is unusual, but the instigation of femininity goes uncommented on and possibly unnoticed.

"... I understand," Latooni says, even though she honestly feels more confused now than she did when she came in. She knows more, but it doesn't entirely make sense to her. And why she was given, of all things, a /philosophy/ book... how can that possibly help her understand? Philosophy isn't practical.

She does step back this time, and head to the door - but before she opens it, Latooni says one more thing. "I didn't know you very well. I will still miss you. But if you need to do this..." Only afterwards does she mash the button that opens the door with her thumb.

The one thing Latooni will not take away from someone, not after her own life was controlled by the School, is the ability to choose what they want to do with their own. Even end it.

Rei watches Latooni go without comment. She audibly breathes again when Latooni says that she'll be missed. But that's about it. It's only after Latooni leaves that the Third First Child allows herself to react.

Still clutching handfuls of her clothes, Rei turns her head back toward packing, and tries to get on with it -- but for whatever reason, she can't. There's simply no willpower. So Rei, still clutching some of her laundry, slumps down to sit against her bed, on the floor. She drops the clothing carelessly, letting it come unfolded, and brings her knees toward herself. Her forehead rests against them.

That was too difficult, Rei thinks to herself. This is all too difficult. She's not sure she can do it.

But it's a bit late for that.