2010-03-01 - People Are Afraid to Merge on Freeways in Tokyo-03

TOKYO-03

REI AYANAMI'S APARTMENT

NOW

Word spreads quickly amongst the Children of NERV, no doubt because they're all crammed into the same classroom. With one notable absence: Rei Ayanami has simply not been attending class for the past week. This happens occasionally, usually a sign that something's gone horrifically wrong in an Eva fight or even more horrifically wrong in an Eva test, something like that. And indeed, just last week, Yazan Gable nearly killed her by ramming his shipbreaking swords /into/ Eva-00's entry plug. Somehow, miraculously, she survived. But she's been barely spotted anywhere since.

Now, in her apartment, Rei Ayanami considers the state of things. Her broken haro is gone -- vanished, somewhere or other, presumably taken. Every picture of herself and Leo Stenbuck, also gone. Things have been moved around. A box of bandages that was once by the desk is now at the foot of the bed. Gendo's glasses are not where she normally leaves them. The place feels askew, as if an invisible hand has altered its geometry subtly.

What few clothes Rei owns are being packed into a duffel bag. She doesn't need more than that. The clothes are currently laid out on her bed -- school uniform, plugsuit, various underwear. A diamond necklace. Gendo's glasses. Rei herself is wearing a distinctly new uniform -- grey and fascistic, with a long greatcoat and shiny black boots.

Clearly, Rei Ayanami is going somewhere, and not intending to let anyone know.

Stupid Rei. Just because the two of them were in /NERV/ together, the homeroom teacher had /her/ drop off her homework! As if having to listen to everyone pine over poor Rei for the better part of a week wasn't punishment enough, she was stuck playing delivery girl! She just couldn't stand it!

Rei, Rei, Rei! It always had to be her! Why was everyone so upset about what had happened to her? It was her own fault! If she hadn't been so careless, she wouldn't have gotten hurt, and there'd be no need for Asuka to spend her afternoon delivering notes.

Photocopies and worksheets clutched in hands, she frowns at Rei's door. Her assignments aren't fitting through the mailslot.

Asuka knocks on the door. Assignments rolled up in hand, she folds her arms over her chest, and lifts her nose in the air. She doesn't want Rei thinking she was doing this for her of her /own/ accord!

The door, when knocked, proves what a careless owner it has -- it simply falls open, as Rei hadn't bothered to close it all of the way. And so, the full scene can be witnessed -- Rei Ayanami, clad in a strange uniform, stuffing her plugsuit into a duffel bag now that the glasses and diamonds have been safely tucked away inside.

The girl turns to regard Asuka. Rei has always emanated a certain coldness, like she operates just to the left of the reality everyone else is experiencing, and has never made too much effort to bridge the gap. But this time, that sense is magnified greatly. It's as if Rei has never seen Asuka before -- red eyes study the other young woman as if struggling to recall why they seem so familiar.

Finally, though, a name is put to the face: "Asuka," Rei says, calmly and quietly.

Asuka turns her head at the creak of the door cracking open. She left her door open? What sort of idiot was she?

Asuka pushes the door open and then, with much bravado, swings her arm still brandishing the papers towards the girl. If Asuka noticed Rei's hesitation, she does not seem to show it.

"Your make-up work," she says, eyes narrowing on the girl. For someone who was nearly killed earlier in the week, she certainly doesn't show it. "If you're better, you shouldn't inconvenience everyone like this! Go back to school!"

That's paragon of empathy, Asuka Sohryu Langley speaking.

Rei stares at the papers that are slung her way, eyes the color of blood slowly settling on the dead trees. Her gaze lingers there for a long, quiet (perhaps uncomfortably so) moment. Again, Rei finally speaks, and her voice is small, but firm in its way. "I won't need them," the First Child intones.

Rei turns away from Asuka and finishes packing the duffel bag, stuffing her plugsuit in and drawing the zipper up with a loud squeal. "I'm leaving. I won't be able to attend school any longer." Rei delivers the news in a way that's so matter-of-fact that she sounds bored with her own words before they even leave her lips. "I'm sorry that you went to all of the trouble for nothing." Rei doesn't sound like she's really sorry.

Slinging the bag over her shoulder, Rei turns back around and faces Asuka. "I'm not leaving NERV, however." As if that needed to be especially clarified.

"What?! You're LEAVING?!" Unlike Shinji, Asuka doesn't seem at all disappointed; though a part of her is happy that she won't have to see Girl Wonder every day at school, another part is furious that she, the teenage college graduate, has to continue attending junior high when Rei /doesn't/.

And Rei's response only serves to agitate Asuka even more. Her fingers tighten around the roll of classroom assignments in hand. Then suddenly, she swings her arm outward.

"Why do you get to stop going to school, and /I/ don't?!" It's not fair! She gets to have a boyfriend! She gets to have sex with him! And she gets to leave school for whatever reason because she's the Nerv Commander's /FAVORITE/.

Why was /she/ the favorite? Asuka excelled in every way this stupid doll /couldn't/! It just wasn't FAIR!

The sole reaction Rei affords toward Asuka's dramatic swoop of her arm is to lean back slightly (a matter of centimeters, if that). She doesn't blink. Maybe she was expecting a violent reaction. Rei's face remains an expressionless mask -- if she's troubled by Asuka's reaction, or delighted by it, she lets neither show.

"I've been reassigned to assist the A-LAWS task force," Rei explains, her tone calm and analytical -- but in that way perhaps coming off a bit pedantic, which is sure to rub Asuka exactly the right way. "Evangelion Unit-00 is to aid A-LAWS as heavy ordnance against extraterrestrial and domestic threats. I am to continue piloting it." Rei recites these facts as if they were printed on a cue card over Asuka's shoulder.

The blue-haired girl stares at the furious face of... well, her 'friend' is a bit of a misnomer. Her colleague is more like it. In any case, Rei watches Asuka's eyes as she speaks. "I am only terminating my participation in our school because it's a necessity. I'm sure I'll have to continue my education in some fashion while part of A-LAWS." Rei might as well be writing in the margins: 'So long, sucker!' with that flat tone of hers.

"The A-Laws?!" Asuka's heard of them--the elite military force of the Earth Federation Alliance. Hands trembling with anger, she clentches the papers in her hand almost impossibly tighter.

Then suddenly, she flings her arm out again, sending a stream of paper fluttering to the ground in a pile of white.

"You almost get yourself killed and you get to join the /A-Laws/?!" She clentches her hands at her side, her fists trembling with anger. "It's not fair! I'm the best pilot in NERV! My sync ratio is higher than yours! It's higher than /Shinji's/! And they choose /you/ to join the A-Laws?!"

Rei suffers the tantrum, as she always does -- it's a skill one has to learn when existing in any proximity to one Asuka Langley Sohryu. Everyone has their own coping mechanism -- Shinji just cringes and mewls, but Rei weathers it, as casually as waiting for a bus.

Then, when Asuka's protests are made clear, Rei thinks for a moment. This entails no actual physical change -- she just stands there, and blinks the once. It may be the first time she's blinked in the entire conversation. She glances around at the papers scattered everywhere, then up at Asuka.

"Perhaps," Rei offers, in a tone of voice so eerily even that it couldn't possibly be an attempt at consolation, "I am simply the most expendable."

Asuka needs little convincing. Perhaps she needed the consolation--she needed to reaffirm that she was better than Rei, A-Laws recruitment or not. No matter how convincing her confident facade may be, underneath the obnoxious attitude is a withering ball of insecurities. She can't stand to see others have opportunities she doesn't; she can't stand the idea of someone being better than her at anything.

"That's right!" Asuka nods firmly. It's the first time Asuka has likely ever agreed with the Eva-00 pilot--as far as she can remember. "Of /course/ you're expendable! If you were of any value to NERV at all, they wouldn't have pawned you off like that!"

Right?

Rei, meanwhile, is completely fine with other people getting opportunities, with letting others move beyond her. That's just how life is. That's what she knows, and that's what she's used to. She blinks again, and accepts Asuka's abuse as if it were a warm breeze.

"Possibly," Rei Ayanami replies, shifting her bag on her shoulder. "In any case, it was the decision of Commander Ikari, and I respect it as such. His reasoning remains his own, but he's always proven a sound leader." There she goes. /Sucking up/ again.

After her brief praise of Gendo Ikari, Rei begins to walk forward, stepping forward and attempting to sir-sum-vrent Asuka. Whether or not she can make it past the hateful little redheaded dynamo is anyone's guess, mind.

"Who cares what Commander Ikari thinks?" she snaps, folding her arms over her chest defensively.

Asuka cares, but she'll never admit it. It's not fair--why does he like Rei the best? /She's/ the prodigy! The girl genius! The one with the highest sync ratio! But his eyes were always on Ayanami!

Asuka turns as Rei passes her, her tone a mixture of smug and disgust; her expression shifts to reflect that. "Even after nearly dying, you still follow orders like a doll!"