2022-10-16: Torpedo

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<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.

A red blinking beacon crosses the sky like a firefly, shrouded in the city's light haze of pollution, filtered through the dirty haze of an apartment window.
Tired blue eyes mark it as she tracks it. The eighth Angel had taken a toll upon them all, her most of all. Her worldview had become the Wall of Jericho, all It took was a single blow of the horn for the cracks to form, destined to come tumbling down tonight.

"Feeling lonely shouldn't bother me," She speaks, muted, her head upon her pillow. She shifts, and there is the susurrus of grass beneath her. "So, I'm weak..." She continues, "...what now?"

There was the impulse to leave her resting place and go to her, there was the knowledge she would find her, cling to her – and that right now she wanted that.

It was a futile struggle against two warring impulses, because now that it bothered her, she didn't want to be any longer.

Eventually she rises off the bed, the feeling of tatami mat intermingled by the crunch of her bare footsteps against greenery. In an oversized yellow T-Shirt, a pair of red and white striped panties, she moved to the traditional sliding door.

And opens it, the inertia of the moment finishing off what's left of the Wall, not even the foundation was left.

Footsteps upon the grass take her to the edge of the Futon, propped up near the edge of a cliffside overlooking Tokyo-3.

As she lowers herself down, back-to-back, against her. Just the sensation, the warmth of the two touching at the smalls of her back, as she lays over the covers enshrouding her.

'Don't turn around.' Comes to her mind, but that feels wrong. Why wouldn't she want her to turn around? Why wouldn't she want her to cling to her right now?

"Hey, four-eyed crony. Just... let me stay here for a while. If you do, I'll give you special permission to keep calling me..." Princess? No, that's not right she called her name in the last battle. "... Asuka. And I'll start calling you..."

Catty Four-Eyes? Baka _____?

No, neither nickname fits. Why does she need a nickname for her at all?

"... Akane from now on." 

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Akane wears the same button-down white uniform shirt she always wears, with the same bright ribbon. As Asuka settles in next to her, a small, playful smirk crosses her face.

"Feeling kinda lonely, huh? ... yeah, I don't mind," she says, planting her hands to her sides and slightly behind, leaning into Asuka and letting Asuka lean into her in turn. "You aren't the only one right now, actually. I have a pretty rough time after these things, usually." It's unusually intimate from her, to admit that -- the barriers seem to be down, here, now, in this space.


"Sheesh, she's got kinda weird memories... it's like none of these add up on their own," Akane murmurs to herself. "Not to the kinda thing I'm looking for, anyway. Stapling something together is fine, but... she's had a pretty weird go of it."

Akane brings her knees in a little tighter, looking out from the top of the sluice gate. Alexis observes mutely.


"So, like -- you didn't hear this from me," she starts, "but they're saying this might be the last one. I'm still a little skeptical on that one, myself, but..." She chews at her lower lip -- then thinks better of it and pulls a box of tomato juice out of her bag. Pulling the straw free, she gives the box a brief shake and then pops the straw in, takes a breath, and brings it to her lips.

Taking another short breath and then sighing it out, she finishes, "I don't wanna rush you or anything! But we might have to figure out the next step in our lives after this one." She's building toward a question, here, in fits and spurts:

"Any ideas on what you're gonna do next?"

<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.

There's no comment at first about her loneliness. Akane feels that intense pride she holds as like a barrier now, even with her defenses about letting other people nearby. She is lonely, but she can't admit it. She wants to be touched, but can't bring herself to touch back.

Akane can lean into her, and Asuka will hardly react, like it's some stubborn chicken game that she doesn't. Yet Akane might get the sense in this space, that it's Asuka that is actually clinging to her.

Her eyes slide to the empty space across a grassy cliffside right beside the sliding door. Her mind sees nothing incongruent about this intermingling of scenery. The emotions just feel so similar, so right for this moment, that it doesn't matter if it's one memory or two.

"Really? You?" At first it seems like her mind is working towards some inconsistency, however it relaxes a moment later. She hardly knows anything about how her mind works. If she decides to share this with her then maybe it's just this moment. "I wouldn't have guessed, given how you are... but I guess that's why you cling to everyone like a barnacle."

There's no harshness to the word barnacle, not like it's an insult, just that she doesn't know how to communicate to people in any other way. Asuka at this moment just seems relaxed. Few people have ever seen her this relaxed.

What Akane says next disrupts that relaxation so completely. Asuka doesn't turn around to look at her incredulously. She actually just takes her on her word. This girl knows so much, she's full of secrets and mystery. "...What?" The word sounds so hollow, so weak, so vulnerable. And Akane will notice the moment she subtly curls upon herself.

"Just two? All of that, for two..." There's this crack in her voice, but it's not just her voice that's breaking.

All that pain, all that suffering, all that hard work. Did they even need her to defeat Jehudiel? Jophiel? "... what was it all for?"

There's this nasally noise, this sniffling, this rasp and there's a soft shake of her auburn hair, "It doesn't matter. I can't exist without Eva. If that was the last, they'll send me back to Germany."

There's a finality to her voice, a finality of the grave, "It's over." There is no doubt whatsoever in her what her fate will be, just this pathetic despair.

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

"Haha, you got me," Akane concedes, with a slightly vague wave. "After stuff like this everyone usually goes to suck and die alone. Kinda hard to cling when no one wants to hang out with you." She doesn't sound upset, either; she laughs it off, and says, "I like this kinda thing a little better."

Then she gets a nice, solid hit on Asuka. She's feeling scared, isolated, and like she's going to remain that way no matter what happens in the situation. Akane couldn't ask for a better feeling to work with; if ever she has a chance to make Asuka understand her...

"If it's true," Akane says, slightly hedging as Asuka starts to break down so quickly, "they were probably thinking of pointing us at some other problem at first, but now it looks like we're too expensive for that." She doesn't turn around quite yet -- she doesn't want to put that much pressure on Asuka.

Reaching up and scratching at the back of her neck, she makes an offer. This one she knows Asuka won't accept on its face (or at the very least, if she does Akane's very, very lucky indeed). "Why not just ditch? It's what I've been planning on from the start if things got weird. Getting a new identity isn't even that hard... it's a little spendy and it takes a lot of time to get to the asteroid belt with civilian craft, but hey!" It's at this point that she turns around... and notes, with a smile, "You said I had to let you stay there. Didn't say I had to stay facing the other way~" 

<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.

Suck and die alone? Is that what she's been doing all along? With her doll?

Akane hedging doesn't in fact make her feel better. Isn't that what the Black Knight pilot was telling her? That after they destroy the Angels they'd just be pointed to oppress people? However, the statement that they're too expensive...

... she already knows that. The Shikinami Series project was shut down years ago. Because of its expense even if she was the success story.

Wasn't she?

And the Evangelions are not cheap to run, why would that ever be a viable option for any other operation that wasn't an existential threat?

She's still making those nasally noises like she's falling apart, but doesn't quite understand the next step, like she's never been here, to this point.

It's doubtful that Asuka has ever cried once in her entire existence, save perhaps that moment with Anti, it's like she doesn't know how to get there right now, for something so basic and human.

'Why not just ditch?'

'It's what I've been planning from the start...'

"From the... start?" And that gets Asuka to actually shift and turn over which with Akane now facing her backside, that blue eye of hers falls upon her. This is something she never talks about, it's too dangerous. However...
... what's the point of holding back? She's a goner anyway. "You've been considering-" The thought changes mid-stride, "Aren't you like me?" She whispers, and again her mind feels like it's working in fitting Akane Shinjo into the 'Makinami' box. And it holds up, for now, as she assumes right away the answer is 'yes'

Then she actually looks away again, eyes darting along the grass that makes the border to the Futon they're laying atop.

"Don't we... owe it to them, to stay? They.. created us. We wouldn't exist if not for them."

For all of her defiance and anger, there had never been true rebellion in her against NERV, she wouldn't be their good little doll, but she also can't imagine life, existence without them.

"I'd feel like some kind of ingrate if I just... left."

That's such a strange word to hear from Asuka, that she has the concept of gratitude at all. Yet there it is, she has it, if only for the fact that she exists at all.

"You don't think they have the right to just... do whatever they want with us?" 

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

I'd feel like some kind of ingrate if I just... left.

That stings -- and it stings in lots of ways. It's enough to very nearly make Akane pull out of the dream to save her own feelings, but she can't -- not quite. She stares off for several seconds, her awareness wavering between layers of the dream.

So this is why she was so up in arms about Rikka, Akane reflects. If it were just that, she could deal with it, she thinks; this line of thinking hurts, but... it's not the only thing in play.

When someone gives you a purpose (world), you really ought to be grateful for it. Running away from it, and from them... it's an abdication of responsibility and an admission that you are, at heart, an ungrateful brat.


Akane's awareness shifts further away from the dream, further away from Bujack. She looks up and to the side... behind herself...

... Alexis is there, as always. "Hm? Is there something the matter with the kaiju?" he asks, in that doting way he does.

Akane doesn't answer him, save to say, "No. Just planning."

It's fine. A big world is too much for her to handle... and the safety offered by Tsutsujidai and Akane is Akane's highest priority, too.


"Yeah, I'm a lot like you, actually," Akane says, suppressing the self-loathing that saying that brings out in her. "But I don't think that matters in a situation like this. Even if someone created you, you're still your own person. You can make your own decisions."


Ugh.


"They don't get to just dispose of you like trash once you've fulfilled your purpose or proven too annoying to make do that."


UGH. She needs to get this on an easier track or --


"And even if they do... running away is just kinda doing it for them, right? It saves them the trouble of having to do that," Akane continues -- and finally she starts to feel like she's stabilizing. "If they're attached to you or whatever, and you retreat, it's pretty much the same as if they threw you away."


Nope. It's bad again.



"Other people's feelings are messy," she settles for. "But... yeah. It's fine to run away if you don't have a purpose anymore." Her lips curl up in a smile, and she fully turns around now, resting her hands gently on Asuka's shoulders. "I'll figure this stuff out so you don't have to. If you're not comfortable taking the initiative, just let me do it until you figure it out~"

<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.

Asuka listens, while looking away from her. This conversation is just as uncomfortable for her as it is for Akane in many ways. She thought at least at the end of her tenure killing angels she'd get told she did a good job before the end, it feels like with just two under her belt she doesn't even deserve that.

It was all for nothing.

They could have done it with all the others, and even non-Eva pilots. All of them working together would have made short work of Jehudiel, all of them would have overcome Jophiel without an issue.

The moment Akane says 'You're still your own person' she grows more still. And there's this air of incredulity about her. However, despite how rude Asuka can be most of the time, how belligerent, she doesn't interrupt her.
Not even as she places her hands on her shoulders. It's something she allows without complaint.

"Our own people?" She echoes, "We're not people we're... we're things, made to kill other things, in the shape of people." It's so strange to her, that Akane Shinjo could come to the conclusion that she's her own person. What gave her that kind of gall? It's kind of admirable in just its sheer boldness, to lay claim to humanity like that.

"No matter how far we went. Section 2 would hunt us down. We're dirty little secrets you know, and they don't leave loose ends. If someone examined us... it'd be bad for them."

However, it's clear she's thinking about it, despite it all. She doesn't want to be like her sisters, she doesn't want to be disposed of, she just never thought there'd be another alternative in the end.

02 278 fully expected to end up the same as all the rest, the fact that she might not never occurred to her... but...

And now, it's time for her to turn over, within the grip of her hands, fully facing Akane Shinjo, those blue eyes and bedhead intermingled with the occasional blade of grass messily sticking out of her auburn red hair just looking at her, and immediately taking her up on that, to let her handle everything, to let her take the initiative...

"You're right. I don't have a purpose anymore, without Eva."

She admits, here and now to her face.

"But..."

The word itself might bring pain, as she searches those reddish pink eyes, and now, for once she does lean towards her, as if seeking something in her...

"...I don't know how to live without one. I have to have... something I'm putting my all towards."

There's this empty look, caught in the midst of the existential crisis Akane Shinjo has brought unto her.

"If I come with you... what's my purpose?" 

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

As Asuka seeks something in Akane, Akane is more than happy to provide just that.

"Something you're putting your all towards, huh... something only you can do." Akane grins... and meets that with a wink from behind her blue blockers. She brings a hand up -- cautiously -- to Asuka's hair, looking at the bedhead --

-- and plucking a blade of grass from it.

"Your purpose if you come with me is..."


So this is why she was so obsessed with the idea Akane had hurt Rikka by pushing her away from her purpose. She's barely holding onto hers, Akane realizes, a little distantly.

If a purpose is that fragile for Asuka though -- and if she so desperately craves a new one... it's kinder to give her one.

Akane slumps forward a little over her tablet. Her eyes shut for a moment. She feels like she's thirteen places at once and yet none of them.


"... to let me figure it out!" She sounds like she's teasing, at first -- but her expression is more serious than the usual range of playful giggles and winky faces. "I know that doesn't sound like it's much, but I guess what it really means is --"


Asuka wanted Akane to make something whose purpose was...


"To love me," Akane says, looking utterly serious. "I don't care if it's romantic or not. It might be the love of a yappy little puppy, even! You can choose that for yourself..." She leans forward, pressing her forehead against Asuka's.

"Just love me with all of your heart."


Akane can already feel her spirit trying to run away down the train tracks.


The dream feels like it's pressing down on Asuka -- and perhaps on Akane, too. The world begins to shift under both of them -- but it's slow, steady. It doesn't take too long, though, before they find themselves in a different place -- an endless blackness cut through with red and yellow and green in perfect, clean lines.

"That's not so hard, is it...?" Akane asks, with less tenderness than she'd had before.

<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.

There's an empty look in Asuka's eyes right now, bereft of her purpose. Fully believing that she'll be taken into that room like all of the other Shikinami Series were after they failed to pass muster. The experiment is over, the Angels are dead, just because she was a success there is no need to keep her around.

There's only the smallest ember of hope that Akane might have an answer for her. At first it's clear that '... to let me figure it out!' Isn't nearly enough, there's a small sound from her. Like this is simply one of her games in a serious moment for her. However, she then clarifies, and turns serious herself.

"To love you?" There's this subtle widening of her blue eyes, as Akane presses her forehead against hers, feeling the pressure and the heat, there's even a subtle pink blooming on her cheeks. And Asuka listens to the forms of love that she can offer her.

Academically, Asuka knows what love is. She's even gotten pretty good at picking it up which teenagers love which, from observing people. It's not her favorite activity, she hates it, because they are so casually human, whereas its so hard for her to pass, it took years of effort.

And she's so envious of them all. Because on some level, she knows she wants it, she knows that she wants to be loved like that, to love herself.
... but she's not human is she?

Neither is Akane. She asks if that's so hard, with less tenderness before, and there's a sense of welling shame in Asuka.

"I don't know how."

Asuka tells her, after a moment, in this moment not even having her shield of pride. There's no pride left. She doesn't deserve it, after only two Angels, one of which she faltered against. What is there to be proud about? She shouldn't even get a 'good job' before her end. She's so raw, so vulnerable, not even the thinnest, most fragile shield protecting the core of her feelings.

"I know what love is, but I've never loved anyone. And no one has ever loved me. I've devoted my entire life towards becoming the best Eva pilot in NERV."

And she failed at even that, because the girl in front of her has bested her every time the two have competed so far. And she's done it casually.

"But..."

Is Akane truly asking the impossible of her? Can she love her? Can that be her purpose? However, there's a fading sense of despair from her. Despite her uncertainty, Asuka has figured something out.

Those blue eyes of Asuka's look into Akane's reddish-pink with a sense of determination, of conviction, of resolve.

"...I'll put my all into figuring out how to love you, if you let me."

If nothing else, Asuka Shikinami Langley is a very hard worker in all things that she does, but especially when it involves fulfilling her purpose. 

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

"It sounds like we have a deal," Akane agrees, staying right where she is as the dream and everything else crumbles around them, now fully plunged into the loveless void within a kaiju.

Despite affirming that Asuka's purpose is to figure out how to love her, Akane pulls out of that intimate contact. Drawing up to her full height, she pulls Asuka up with her -- to stand.

"So -- figuring that out is going to be a pretty long process," Akane continues. There's a faint... anesthetized feeling at the back of Asuka's head. It's not strong -- but it's present. And, honestly... it's not unpleasant by any stretch. Even if Asuka struggles with positive feelings, this... must be what they feel like, right?

And if those feelings happen to be missing some important texture, some essential themness... how is she going to notice, anyway?

"For now, we're going to start with figuring out how to get over here!" 'Here' -- Tsutsujidai. Obvious. She paces a little -- though one of her hands remains on Asuka's shoulder, even as she keeps moving. Resting there, it takes on the character of a single-armed embrace simply as a result of her movements. "I'll have a place all set up for you. ... you seem pretty smart, so I bet you won't mind if I jump you up to second year high school with me, either."

Akane -- ever the grand strategist (... not really), adds, "I think you ought to find a way to make yourself annoying to pick back up, too. Can't be too careful, if they really do want to throw you away once they're done with you!"

She wraps around Asuka as she walks around her -- coiling, like a snake around prey. "... isn't 'Akane' a nicer name than 'Bakami'?" she teases, her lips so close to Asuka's ear that they brush against it.

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