From: mew3point14@doramail.com (Daniel Snyder) "Once upon a time, there was a beautiful bride. She knew love, and she knew what it was to be loved. But she was proud, too, and resolved not to give herself to anyone. "On day of her wedding, she was dressed in her most beautiful gown and surrounded by everyone she loved. But she frowned, because she was proud and she had only half-chosen her husband-to-be. Although she knew him by the word of others, she had never seen his face. "'Smile and love your husband,' they all shouted, 'smile and love your husband.' And the longer she did not smile, the louder they shouted, and the more impatient everyone became. "Finally, she swallowed her pride and smiled weakly. In that moment, her bridegroom came to her. She saw him for the first time. "He was beautiful to look upon, and charming in his bearing. Willingly, she smiled then. Willingly, she married him. "What was the name of the bride?" -- "If the egg's shell does not break, the chick will die unborn. Now, we are the chick, and the egg is the world. If the shell of the world does not break, we will die unborn." Kaji stepped out of the elevator into the Dueling Arena. Dawn was breaking overhead. In the middle of the Arena, arranged like the hours on the face of a clock, were twelve Persian carpets. The designs upon them varied--paisley, stripes, knots. Kaji took the one on the far side of the elevator, a blue rug with gold trim and an Arabian ode written in the knots. He spoke to Maya, sitting on a red and green carpet at the five-o'clock position, as he seated himself. "We must bring about a revolution in this world...are we the only two present today?" "I'm afraid so," Maya said. She was scribbling notes on a sheet of notebook paper, not looking at him. "It...it can't just be you and me." Kaji shifted uneasily on his rug. "Where is everyone else?" "Touji-kun is still in the hospital," Maya began. She paused to note down the time, then continued, "And I couldn't get sempai to leave her room. But she's left me with some instructions for what's to be done. Nobody's gotten Misato out of her catatonia yet." "What about Makoto-kun?" "He had his first fix in a week last night, and he overdid it. He's in his room with DT's." Her tone was frank, as if a schoolmate with an addiction-born delirium was another part of the boarding-high-school experience. Maya concluded, "That leaves just you and me, kaichou." Kaji steepled his fingers. Although he was trying to look clever and secretive, he looked more like he was hiding from something. "Well, then...we'll just have to continue as closely to the original plan as we can." "Um..." Derailing Kaji's thoughts, Maya tossed an envelope over to where he sat. "Sempai and I were working on this last night," she explained, "and we put it in writing so you could see the whole thing laid out. We're going to start out by having a vote of no confidence in the current Student Council. For the elections, we'll have Ikari-kun run to replace Touji, and I'm sure we can convince Wakaba-chan..." Maya drifted off as Kaji tossed the envelope, unopened, back to her. "This is not part of the plan," he said flatly. "This is nothing like the original plan." "Er, yes. I know that. But," Maya came back, "we can't stick to the original plan anymore. It's just not going to work." "You don't know that, do you?" Kaji retorted, his voice rising. "I still haven't dueled with Shinji. We can still get Shekhinah back into our control." "I don't think we can! I've spent a lot of time with her...and I know, she's not the person we thought she was. She...she loves Ikari. She's honestly fallen in love with him, and he loves her. And we can't do anything about it." "The hell!" Kaji stood up from his rug and walked across the polished coquina floor to the edge of Maya's rug. "You know just as well as I do, Shekhinah operates on her own, with or without human interference...or emotion. Shekhinah is not human, Ibuki. And it is _wrong_ to talk about her as if she was a human being." "God dammit," Maya said under her breath, "I know what it looks like when two people are in love, and I know what I saw. If that isn't love, I don't know what is." "What you saw is of no consequence, do you hear? It isn't important!" Kaji marched towards the elevator, but stopped at the last moment to take a parting shot. "In a way, Maya-chan, you've actually undermined your own reason for being here. You've given me the impetus to challenge Ikari to a Duel. And you know what? I'm going to win. I'm going to win, and then just you and me--and your sempai, if you want her--are going to have control of Shekhinah, and we will revolutionize the world." He had gone long before Maya found her tongue again. "Kaji Ryouji," she muttered, "what are you doing? Are you really abandoning the people who got you to where you are today?" -- Sohryu Asuka Langley's face was an incongruity, its trauma had shaped it so unlike any real human face. All of the dead flesh, and then some, had been taken away by a surgeon's scalpel. So had the bones of her postorbital bar. The artificial skin that covered her wound was not stretched tightly, but carefully contoured to allow the remaining muscles in that part of her face to move as before. Thus, the left side of Asuka's face looked like so: a red crown of scar tissue, where the artificial skin met the natural, ran from the rear of her temple up across her forehead, down against the bridge of her nose, curved across the middle of her cheekbone and returned to the side of her skull. Surrounded by this crown was the false skin, colored peaches-and-cream and rubbery to the touch. Above and below her eye socket the skin covered muscle and bone. Along the socket, all of the tissue had been removed and the nerves cauterized. An inhuman trough ran from Asuka's nose to the side of her head. It was a trough of false skin and empty space; and it was only human nature to recoil in some horror from this aberration. Asuka did not look truly hideous. Her face, in fact her entire body, could be compared to an ocean with an island of monstrosity. If you could overlook the erased eye, the girl was still quite pretty. If you could overlook the erased eye. Suzuhara Touji was speaking to the right side of Asuka's body. "No, I'm not stupid. I was really worried about you. I couldn't help thinking about what would've happened if your optic nerve had gotten infected, and if you'd need some friggin' brain surgery or something." "You shouldn't have worried," Asuka said sullenly. "Hell," Touji began, then stopped and tried a different line. "Look, is this going to be like every other conversation we've ever had? Where we go back and forth about the most trivial shit on the planet and not speak to each other for another three months? 'Cause I'm fuckin' sick of that. Dammit, all I want to have is a normal conversation with you an' stuff." Asuka stared at her thumbs for a moment before she spoke. "Fine. A normal conversation. Pick a normal subject and we'll have a conversation." "All right." Touji pondered the mater before inquiring, "What are you gonna do when you get better?" "'Better'? Oh, that's a fucking normal question. I've been out of surgery for all of nine hours, I have no goddam IDEA what I'm going to do next! Look, maybe you don't get it, Suzuhara, I am fucking angry. I am fucking angry at the whole fucking world, and I am fucking angry at this entire school, and I am fucking angry at your so-called friend Shinji the Ripper, and I am fucking angry at you for treating me like I'm a defenseless little girl that needs a knight in shining armor to come save her. And I'm angry at a hell of a lot of other things that I'll figure out later." Pausing to take a breath, Asuka went on. "And as if my being angry was somehow normal, there's the fact that I can't see anymore. It's different for you, Suzuhara-baka-kun, because you've only lost motor organs. You're lucky. Me, I've lost the single most important sensory organ to any human being. I mean, one's gone, the other has 20/400 vision thanks to some incidental trauma from Shinji the Sniveling Blade. You know what this means? You have any fucking clue what it's like to read a cloud chamber photography by touch? God damn it, I have a fucking degree in physics that is utterly--hey!" Something hard and metallic ricocheted off of Asuka's face. The girl lurched off of her bed and reached out to where Touji had been seated a moment before--nobody was there. From across the room came the sound of laugher, a low, smug chuckle. Another coin smacked Asuka's face. It was unbearable. "Touji, you stop that this instant! How dare you make fun of someone else's handicap! Ow, that HURTS, you moron!" Asuka took a staggering step towards the door, stumbling against her blindness and her weakness from the operation. Another coin came, this one landing on top of her head. Humiliated, Asuka staggered towards where it came from, only to run into the table with her gut. The two fell to the floor, and the girl rolled off clutching at her sides. Touji laughed again. His victim was becoming disoriented. Asuka started crawling in his direction, but an expertly-tossed coin drew her into a bluff, and she smacked face first into the other chair. She grabbed for it instinctively, and the two clattered down in tandem. "You bastard," she said through tears of frustration, "Touji, you are an utter, utter bastard and I hate you forever." Two coins hit her at once, one in the face, one in the chest. "I am going to find you, you bastard," she snarled, " and when I do I am going to break your face and then shove it straight up your asshole." A coin hit Asuka's left breast. She felt him, she could smell him smirking from across the room. The young girl tossed the chair across the room, blindly, where it hit against the bare wall. "Damn it all." She broke down completely, lying prone on the floor, without even the strength to hit anything. "Why do you have to be so mean to me? What did I ever do to you? What did I ever do to you that meant that it was OK to pick on me, and drag me all through the dirt, take advantage of me when I...when I have nothing more to lose? Fine, you win. I'm fucking sorry that I treated you like dirt for the past however many years we've known each other. Is that good enough?" There was no reply. She kept going, searching like a pilgrim on the surface of the sun. "And I'm sorry that I was a bitch to...to Ayanami. Yeah. I am. I know that she's your friend and all...and I know that, however Ikari acts and whatever they do together, at least he gives her a good home and talks to her. You talk to her, too. You, both of you, were the two who found me the other day. I...I'm sorry that I haven't treated her like she was a real person. Ever since I've known her, I've always been like, OK, she can do her thing, I'll do mine, never the twain shall meet. I shouldn't have done that. I should have tried to be her friend, like you." Asuka fell silent. She listened for Touji. All she could hear was the sound of her heart. "What? What's the matter with you, Suzuhara? Isn't that enough? Haven't I degraded myself enough? Look, I'm not sorry for getting Ikari into the Duel. I'm not. I mean, look at what he did to Misato! And you, for crying out loud. You don't have half your body. I mean, I'm worse off than you, and Misato isn't coming out of her room...and so, I have a reason to be angry. If it hadn't been for Misato, I wouldn't have challenged him to the Duel. You know that. And Misato was just doing her job. If Shinji hadn't gotten drunk at that party Misato held...I mean..." She finally pushed herself up to a sitting position. "Touji? Where are you? You're just making fun of me, aren't you? You knew that Misato was the one who organized the party, and you're trying to have me trap her, right? Hello?" Minutes after she had begun, there was still no response from her audience. Asuka stood up, took a step, tripped over a leg of the chair that was right in front of her and landed squarely on her face. Across the room, Touji let out a short burst of laughter. "That wasn't funny!" Asuka snarled, struggling to her feet. From where she stood, she went on. "You're trying to make it sound like Misato and I tried to trap Shinji into misbehaving so we could have a Duel. Well, you're wrong. It's not like that at all. Shinji started getting violent, and Misato had to challenge him. It's the rules at the school. You know perfectly well, everyone has to take responsibility for everyone underneath them. And Shinji was misbehaving. That was that." "What were you talkin' to him about?" Touji said, breaking his silence. Asuka pricked up her ears. His voice had given him away--she knew approximately where he was standing. Revenge was almost within her grasp. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Rei-chan told me she saw you talking to him that night," Touji said again. Asuka nodded. She had pinpointed where the boy was standing, against the far wall about four meters from where she stood. "URUSEI, BAKA!" she shouted, charged, ran at full speed into the cane Touji was sticking out for her, tripped, and hit the wall face first with enough force to dent it. Asuka's muffled scream of agony and confusion was a pure animal sound, straight from the depths of her soul. And when it was out of her, she couldn't breathe with the dust of the shattered wall clouding her lungs. Gasping and choking, her face freshly cut open and her self- esteem gone, Asuka flopped out onto the floor like a fish hooked on a rake. "What'd you say to him?" the boy asked again. Desperately, Asuka reached out and grabbed at the thin air where his right leg had once been. The arm, and the girl, collapsed in defeat. "I'm sorry," Asuka said. "I was just tryin' to have some fun. It wasn't part of our plan. I thought...*cough* I'd just make out with him for a little while...I...also kind of was...just sorry for him. I didn't think he'd really been having any fun with you and Ayanami, and I wanted to show him a good time. I guess I pushed him too far. "I did it. I'm the one who did it all. I pushed Ikari into attacking me. It's my fault Misato's so messed up. It's my fault I've got a hole in my face, and I can't see, and I'm covered in plaster, and I think one of my fucking teeth just got knocked loose. I am so, so stupid it's not even funny." Asuka heaved a sigh. "You win, Suzuhara. I hate myself, and I hate you because up until a few minutes ago I didn't feel so bad about myself, and I hate the world for not stopping me before it all got so out of hand. And I don't hate anybody else anymore. Crap." Nearby, within her reach, Touji lowered himself onto the floor and began to talk. "I...lost it. One day, I just got so damn tired of not bein' able to do what I used to do that I wanted to die. That was the same day Rei-chan began to talk to me. S'funny, you should've heard her. She couldn't tell a story, it was like reading a newspaper article written by a five-year-old. But she talked to me anyway. And you could tell from her body language an' stuff, she really wanted someone to listen to her. I felt like I was somebody special." Asuka cleared her throat. "So what does that have to do with making me drive my face through the wall?" she asked. Touji shrugged his half-shrug. "I was mostly ad-libbing. I couldn't think of how to get you to talk about what was eatin' you up inside, so I didn't say nothing'." "And where'd you put your arm and your leg?" "Over by the dresser. I didn't want you to get ahold of 'em...I'd probably have to pay for new ones." The girl smiled. "You've got medical problems. I'm sick of lying on the floor with blood coming out of my face...if I say I don't hate you anymore, will you find the hostess call button and get the damned nurse in here?" -- It was a beautiful midday. The sun was shining in the blue sky. Students were eating their lunches outside, going to and fro, chatting with each other. Surrounded, kibitzing on the human condition, were the three Magi. "I wonder, I wonder...do you know what I wonder?" "What is a tribe?" "What is a state?" "What is a nation?" "What is a union?" "Maybe you don't understand. I really want to know, what are all of these things?" "To me, they seem to be unnatural creations of the human mind." "Each one subdivided into a kind of hierarchy by the participants." "And yet..." "...these are entirely artificial creations that exist only in the minds of the people." "The people can destroy them as easily as they can create them." "If the people decide that a prefecture does not exist, then the lines that outline it are gone for good." "On the other hand, the land of the prefecture will never disappear, no matter how many people pretend it's not there." "..." "..." "Well? Am I right? Or what?" "..." "..." -- "I would like to see you practice your kendo," Ayanami Rei said that afternoon. The next morning, Ikari Shinji woke her and took her up to the rooftop where he practiced. Rei stayed well out of his way, quiet and content simply to watch. Shinji had dressed in a pair of loose pants and his nightshirt from the night before. He stretched out, then practiced with his bokken. Within his first twenty swings he had put Rei out of his mind. His attention was on his form, not the girl. But it was a short-lived victory. Every time that he changed form, he became aware again that he was practicing under Rei's eyes. Shinji's co- consciousness, the violent desires that had grown and nurtured within him, were no longer separate from his own primary identity. The Duels and the strange kinds of support that he had found at Feuervogel gave him the strength to meld the two together. That melding was still incomplete. However much he could concentrate on the pure art form, he also knew that he was practicing an art of killing; and he knew the dark symbolism behind swinging a sword in front of a young woman. Shinji found more respite in the European fencing techniques. Holding his body in the unnatural shapes that the art required made it easier for him to set aside the symbolism. By the end of his practice, Shinji felt comfortable enough to assure Rei that she was welcome to watch him any morning. While he bathed and relaxed in the furo, she prepared their breakfast. A guest joined them for their meal. After emerging from the bath, Shinji let Kaji Ryouji into Akumafune Dormitory. The Student Council President was silent, only speaking to give thanks for the meal and to refuse anything more than a bowl of rice and a little soup. When he was done, he asked Shinji, "Have you heard about the upcoming elections?" "Um, no," Shinji replied. "Isn't it a little early in the year to be electing new people to the student government?" "You're quite right, it is," Kaji said. "But the circumstances are unusual. Two members of the Student Council, Ibuki-san and Akagi-san, are petitioning for a vote of no confidence. They're blaming the Student Council for causing 'civil unrest', that is, the Duels that have been going on." Kaji stopped abruptly, causing Shinji to look at him out of curiosity. The older boy was looking at him smugly, like a crocodile watching a bird standing on its snout. "Go on," he said apprehensively. Kaji coughed. "Well, as I see it, if even one person at this school doesn't sign the petition, I am still responsible for giving them the best government I can while I'm in office, wouldn't you agree?" Shinji considered the statement. Despite Kaji's predatory gaze, he went along with Kaji's line of thought. "I'm glad you agree. Oh, but I didn't mention. If the vote of no confidence is approved by three-quarters of the student body, we'll have a round of nominations, then the elections." "Uh-huh." "And, with our friend Touji in the hospital, he won't be able to serve. So," Kaji purred, abruptly too close to where Shinji sat, "rumors are circulating that you're going to be nominated for Secretary." Shinji let his food fall from his mouth. Pen-pen let his food fall from his mouth. Rei gasped with a mouth full of food and had a coughing fit. When the younger boy was ready to give him his full attention, Kaji told Shinji, "I'll be honest with you. Although we're not good friends at all, I didn't think you were interested in the position. So I've come here this morning to get it from the horse's mouth--are you planning on running for Secretary, Shinji?" "No!" he replied earnestly. "I'm not at all interested in the Student Council. I'm...not interested. I'll turn down the nomination." "Even if other people ask you to?" Kaji retorted. The predatory look on his face was sly and catlike, less reptilian. "Shinji, I know you're not good with crowds. Do you really think you can put everyone off? There's an easier way, you know. I have a way for you avoid even being nominated, and let me keep my position too. You scratch my back, I scratch yours." Shinji nodded. "What's going to happen?" "It's quite simple." Kaji stood up above Shinji, smiling in triumph. "I am going to challenge you to a Duel. And, I'm going to defeat you. Because I have to save you from the awful fate of having to get in front of a crowd and tell them you don't want anything to do with them." The shock of silence tore through the room. Shinji glanced at Rei for support, and then said to Kaji's knees, "You're not serious, are you?" "So what if I have an ulterior motive? The fact remains, my boy," he went on, "that you agree with my argument. And you'll fight the Duel now." "It is decided," Rei said, breaking her silence. -- Shinji staggered out from the catapult onto the flagstones of the arena. His seventh Duel had come, and he was still unable enter the Arena properly. The soles of his feet felt painfully cold. Shinji looked down and saw that he had forgotten to change out of his house slippers, and they'd fallen off of his feet in transit. Underneath him, the rock was a fine red the color of rust. The only light came from the pale full moon overhead. The moonlight was wrong: Shinji could see that the moon was unnaturally close. Or else, the Arena was unnaturally high up in the sky. Rei stepped to his side. As no time before, she paused to look silently into his eyes, the stare of a rabbit into the eyes of a fox, asking for mercy. Then she fell back against his side and her mouth gaped open wide. Lighting the Arena like a holy flare, the white light erupted out of her mouth. From out of the very middle, Shinji brought forth his purple and silver sword. "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ!" he said. Kaji drew his swords. In his right hand he held a sword with a fair- sized blade and a wide handguard, while in his left was a matching dirk. The two young men both opened cautiously. In their first pass, Shinji easily dodged Kaji's sword and parried the dirk from the outside, keeping the older boy practically at arm's length; but a glance at Kaji's face showed that the president was merely testing him, forcing him to reveal his strategy. "All right, out with it," Shinji snapped as they drew apart. "I'm tired of you people bullying me. I want to know why you're after Rei, and what I have to do with it." Kaji smirked, drawing en garde. "You? Don't flatter yourself, Shinji- kun. You're nothing but a little boy with unfortunate patrimony. It's the young lady that we want control over." He stepped forward quickly and slashed twice at Shinji's chest with his sword. The second pass Shinji clipped with the side of his blade, and lunged, hoping to break Kaji's rhythm. The dirk bent his blade aside, grazing Kaji's jacket. Shinji turned to the side and stepped, narrowly missing Kaji's counter. "What is Rei?" the boy asked. "Rei is nothing." "You're kidding me." "Ah, but 'Rei' is 'Nothing'," Kaji replied, still holding the all- knowing smile as his third weapon. "And it seems that zero is the beginning, so we've been told." He stepped up just to the edge of Shinji's comfort zone, the region of space Shinji could strike at effectively. Kaji tried circling right, but Shinji quickly stepped around to the side and lunged at Kaji's right breast. Kaji's fumbled block saved his Angel's Heart, but he sustained a cut to his upper arm that drew blood. He countered, stabbing at Shinji's hand with his dirk. The blade caught Shinji's grip, hard. Shinji withdrew, the psychological edge lost. Kaji took a few deep breaths, and shifted his grip on the weapons. "Who told you what you know? My father?" Kaji's eyes widened for a moment. "Eh? You know, I hadn't even considered the possibility. But no, Shinji, I don't think so." "Then why do you hate my father?" the boy shouted, pent-up frustration coming forth. Kaji ran forward. Two and a half meters from Shinji, he leapt up into the air, both blades drawn. Shinji drew up his guard, ready to block the sword, following the way Kaji held it and the older boy's path through the air. But it was the dirk Kaji used to parry Shinji's blade. There was no need to swing out the blade all the way. The young men collided, and as Shinji fell Kaji did nothing more than swing the pommel of his sword along Shinji's front. The Angel's Heart came loose and dropped off onto the ground. "Well..." Kaji said grinning, "it seems I don't owe you an explanation after all." And then Rei managed to say, "It is over." -- Ikari Shinji lay on his back, empty and emasculated. He tried to stop the moon in the sky. He watched it, silent and untouchable, the handmaiden of the tides, and tried by sheer force of will to keep it from advancing through the sky. If he could make it his own, somehow, he knew that the dawn would never come, and he would never have to look at his own shadow. The world would stay cool and calm forever. He would never have to see things as they were again. Day came to the Dueling Arena, by degrees: a lightning of the blue to black, then rose, and the Morning Star disappeared last from the sky, to be replaced in the heavens by the egotistical sun. The boy had failed. He made his way back to the place he lived to face another day.