2023-09-30: VOYAGER
- Log: VOYAGER
- Cast: Shinji Ikari, Mari Makinami Illustrious
- Where: Tokyo-3
- OOC - IC Date: September 30th, U.C. 0097
- Summary: "Travel improves the mind wonderfully, and does away with all one's prejudices."
Shinji Ikari takes his leave of NERV, and all the misery lingering in it. But someone is waiting to see him off on his new journey.
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Shinji glowers at the triple waste bin nearby what used to be his home in Tokyo-3. Burnable--recyclable--trash.
"The Commander had to make the decision he did! If he hadn't, you and everyone would've died!" one of the bridge crew members had pleaded with him.
Shinji Ikari hadn't cared. The Dummy System had powered down, and he still had 102 seconds of active power in Unit-01. As he'd just coldly explained, that was plenty of time to go on a rampage through the Geofront after what his father had forced his hands to do. So, stone-faced, he'd presented an ultimatum:
"Don't make me angrier than I already am."
He doesn't have much with him. Shinji had packed only his essentials in a single duffel bag. The black-and-white hoodie that Kaworu had brought him from the Moon, he'd pulled its hood well over his head. Underneath, he wears a blank T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. After two years of living in this city, Shinji has acquired a surprising amount of stuff. That first summer, when his birthday had some around, so many people had shown up to his surprise party--some of them people he barely knew--and gave him presents. It had been overwhelming at the time, but he'd been deeply touched. All the more so because Misato and Kaworu had been the ones to organize it. Most of that stuff, he's now left behind.
"Don't you make excuses at me!!" Shinji had snarled. Anchored to his rage, Unit-01 stomped a foot repeatedly on the peak of the Geofront's pyramid, as if it were nothing more than sand and they could bring the whole thing down. "You exiled Kaworu-kun to Jupiter! You got Ayanami killed! You made ME kill Asuka!! You don't give a damn about the world or me or anyone! You're nothing but a control freak! No wonder Mother died! Better that than be with an evil man like you!!"
"Increase LCL pressure to maximum allowable levels. I don't have time to deal with a tantrum," Gendo had stated coldly.
The next thing Shinji knew, the liquid all around him--usually so inoffensively present that he frequently forgot he was in liquid--shot up in intensity like a punch to the face, except to his entire body. As his consciousness faded, he hissed out his grudge and frustration.
Kaworu had told his father he'd been making a mistake, and had been sent to detention--not just to detention, but all the way to the Moon to then join the Jupiter expedition. Had he known what would happen? Had his father exiled him for trying to prevent it? What had Kaworu known? What had Gendo known? What had he not known, and what had he simply not cared about?
Shinji doesn't know. Shinji might never know, at this rate. But, in this moment, he's convinced himself he doesn't care about that either.
"I'm disappointed in you," Gendo had growled at Shinji, glaring at him from across the red-and-black of his office, behind his desk. He'd listed Shinji's crimes and sentenced him to his own exile: immediate discharge from NERV.
Once, very recently, Shinji would have been crushed by those words. Now he only met that glare with one of his own and turned his back.
"Running away again?" his father challenged him. "We'll no doubt never see each other again."
"Good," he said curtly, and left the oppressive room.
He lifts his SDAT in one hand, eyes narrowing as his lips thin. The SDAT had once been his father's. He'd thrown it away, and Shinji had recovered it. It had been his tool to soothe himself and hide away from the world when he needed to, but also a way to feel closer to his father. Just looking at it now makes him feel sick. And his phone...
"Even if you've been struck from the NERV rosters, the surveillance will continue, and your actions will be restricted," Misato had told him on his way out of the apartment. Shinji hadn't looked back at her, though, until she held out his phone with her unbroken arm. "...You forgot this. Tohji and Kensuke left several messages. They're worried about you."
He peeked just slightly over his shoulder, just enough to see what she meant. Even so, he hadn't accepted it, nor had he spoken.
"Honestly, maybe the fate of humanity and the world isn't important to me, either," Misato continued, an edge of desperation in her voice. "I may hold the post that I have now, but originally I joined NERV because I wanted to feel closer to my late father. Just like you becoming an Eva pilot because your father needed you. So I pinned my hopes and dreams onto you. I know they must feel like a weight around your neck. I know that you're disillusioned. But, I still want you to know--!"
She'd nearly died, and already she was discharged. So she could return to her duty. And here she was saying all that. When she reached to grab his hand, he'd stepped past the threshold of the apartment they'd lived in together for the past two years, out of her reach.
Asuka had lived there too with them. But now she was gone.
Misato hadn't chased him. She'd simply hung her head. "...Rei came into the Geofront with Commander Ikari that day. They'd come directly from her apartment. He'd been there with her, waiting for you, to join them for the party."
"That doesn't matter anymore," Shinji had replied, cold and even. "Ayanami's gone now. There's nothing that could possibly bridge us together anymore."
"Shinji-kun--"
And he had shut the door in her face and left.
Only a block or two away, only five minutes later, Shinji thrusts the SDAT into the teeming trash can. It only barely makes it in, knocking the lid back but not quite shutting it. Who cares. It's not Shinji's problem anymore.
He pulls the hood down further against the late September chill, jerks the strap of his duffel bag harder, and turns to walk away.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
People must forget to go on living. But some things you must never forget.
Shinji Ikari considers the SDAT that once belonged to his father. Like so many things in Gendo Ikari's life, it had been discarded when he no longer had a use for it. It's the simplest way to describe it, at least, in the face of a man who seemed to throw everything away.
You keep what's important inside you.
Once again, the SDAT finds its way to an inconsequential fate, awaiting disposal in a trash bin already overstuffed with the discard of humankind.
Shinji Ikari manages to get several feet out before a shadow casts itself over that bin. And long, slender fingers touch across the familiar surface of a tool used to block out the outside world. They rest there, as if they could feel the memories lost inside that simple piece of electronics.
The lid is properly shut by the time a low whistle cuts through the air several feet behind Shinji, to draw his attention back to the place he just left behind.
"Hey, Puppy Boy."
The voice is undoubtedly a familiar one by now, but one that's lost the airy tease that so often accompanies it. It's not necessarily a gentler thing, but... calmer. More mature, somehow.
Shinji need only look over his shoulder to find her waiting for him there next to that now-closed trash bin: dressed in a pink jacket, with a gray sweater and white-button up beneath it, blue slacks and shoes, Mari Makinami Illustrious looks a little more adult, somehow. A little more crisp. It's undercut only by the twintails she still wears, her headband with their interface units perpetually in place at the top of her head as it cocks to the right, accompanied by the slow lift of her left brow.
"Going on a trip?"
In her right hand is tucked a simple, rectangular package.
Her left looks - seems - empty.
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Prepared to leave the city that he'd lived in and protected for so long, Shinji has no intention of looking back. This time, he intends to leave for good.
"Hey, Puppy Boy."
But he'd never expected to hear that voice, either.
He swivels around out of sheer surprise, and sees none other than Mari Makinami Illustrious there. He blinks, owl-eyed, at the sight of her. She does seem more grown-up somehow. Meanwhile, he still looks like a middle schooler. He never did hit his growth spurt, or if he did, it was laughably insufficient. He's maybe, what, a couple of inches taller than he was at fourteen? And he still looks like a child in the face, too. People don't bully him for it at school--Tohji and Kensuke make (made) sure of that, even without his status as Evangelion pilot--and no one commented on it back in NERV, either. But seeing Mari now, he feels pointedly reminded of it.
His eyes lid.
"No. I'm leaving," he says curtly. "Aren't you supposed to be leaving, too?" The now ever-present anger simmering inside him starts to boil: "If you were going to be here, why weren't you here yesterday?"
It might be unfair of him. But maybe if she'd been there too--
No. His failure's his own. Rei and Asuka are both dead. Because of him. Because he got there too late. Because he couldn't do his one job right.
The one he's angriest with most of all is himself.
But right now, in this second, Mari presents a convenient target to lash out at.
He really is still a child. But he can't bring himself to care about that, either. He just wants to make someone else hurt as much as he hurts right now, and here someone is.
If you keep what's important inside you, then maybe what isn't important needs to gush out--like the LCL from Asuka's punctured entry plug.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
No. I'm leaving.
"A journey, then."
It's strange, maybe, how calm Mari seems. She always is the one to strike the look of someone unaffected by the endless events and tribulations of life; someone who glided through it as easily as a professional skater might glide effortlessly across their chosen rink.
Even now, it hardly seems any different. She smiles at Shinji, even as she answers that curt preamble before the young man's bitter salvo. The glint of light off her ever-present red-rimmed glasses don't seem to obfuscate her gaze, but enhance the clarity of those sharp blue eyes as they stare at Shinji. And yet...
... she doesn't pounce upon the nigh-perpetual middle schooler. She doesn't delight or enthuse or engage in any of the other eccentrics that so have so often left him flustered. She just offers that calm, smiling remark...
... And then falls almost obligingly quiet as Shinji unloads the rest of his wrath upon her.
Why wasn't she here yesterday?
That blue gaze hoods. Her smile fades. Her stare drifts, pointedly, towards the trash bin.
"Because I failed them," is her answer, as simple as it is vague. Her fingers clench brief around that package. "I failed Vanilla Bean."
Her smile returns, a touch bitter. "And I failed her highness... again."
Her gaze returns back to Shinji. And the tone she offers him isn't accusatory, isn't angry or hurtful. It's almost...
"We both did."
... commiserating.
And that might just make it worse.
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
A journey. Shinji wouldn't say that either, but he doesn't bother to argue semantics with Mari. She lacks her usual airy, teasing vibe, but that's only natural. It had better be natural. If Mari were teasing and happy-go-lucky now, Shinji would really be angry with her. Even just her effortless calm, her serene smile, nettles him. It reminds him of so many adults who shrug off the horrible things that've happened, who shake off the monumental losses he's suffered, by claiming the sacrifice had to be made. To protect the world.
Like he told Knight: who gives a damn about the world, if Asuka isn't in it? If Rei's gone? If Kaworu's been sent somewhere he'll never see him again?
Mari would have fallen into that last category too, except here she is, like nothing happened.
But...
Because I failed them. We both did.
It's like a knife between the ribs. Shinji can tell that's not how Mari means it, but it feels that way anyway. His sullen hostility twists into an anguished grimace as tears well up in his faded blue eyes.
We both did.
He turns sharply away, hunching over himself as he shoves his hands into his hoodie pockets. It's fleece-lined; it'll keep him warm, no matter how cold the coming days get. The front is white, emblazed with the black words 'LIGHT SIDE'; the back is black, emblazoned with the white words 'DARK SIDE.' Each of them have a lunar symbol marked on the upper right. It fit well then, and fits well now.
The night Kaworu had given him this hoodie, he'd also given him advice about Asuka:
Someone who's never had someone to catch them will be loathe to let themselves fall. If you want her to fall towards you, you must show her you're prepared to catch her, every time, no matter what.
...He didn't catch her. He tried, but Guy's Hell and Heaven hadn't been able to pierce all the way through the Angel's A.T. Field. And whose fault could that possibly be but his own?
He scrubs at his eyes with one sleeve. "But you're staying," he mutters, shoulders hunched, voice bitter. He's tempted to accuse Mari of not caring, but... even right now, he's not prepared to lash out that much.
Mari isn't like his father. Even if she's constantly surprised and frustrated him, she's also never been anything but kind to him. He doesn't really know what kind of relationship they have, and he's never had the courage to call her anything more intimate than 'Makinami-san,' but... he doesn't hate her. He's never hated her. And for as adult as she sometimes looks and acts, he knows ("knows") that she's really a child, like him.
They're both Evangelion pilots. If there's anyone in this world who understands his pain, surely it's her.
And at the same time, if there's anyone who could never understand his pain, it's her. Because she wouldn't have hesitated.
Shinji hangs his head.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Shinji's expression drawns in towards a grimace. Tears well at the corners of his eyes.
Mari watches with that calm, bright blue gaze, until the very second he pivots away from her.
Her left hand tucks into the pocket of her jacket. Fingers shift beneath fabric, like they were fiddling with something.
But you're staying.
Mari looks at the words 'DARK SIDE,' etched in white at the back of that black half of a sweater. Her eyes shut.
"Yep," is all she offers at first. As simple as ever. As infuriatingly vague as it is straight to the point. "I'm Jupiter-bound tonight. This is..."
By the time she makes her stumbling arrival onto Toumi, it's already well into night time.
She's dressed in her plugsuit, but it's already too late.
Behind red-rimmed glasses, she stares at the devastation that still lingers as NERV Retrieval and Recovery swarm the premises.
Her eyes widen. And slowly, fractionally, they tremble shut.
"... Can I have a moment?" she asks the figure at her side. They nod, simply, and let her be.
She approaches the lingering corpse that was once Evangelion Unit-03. She kneels beside it. Offers hushed words. Her fingers curl against her thighs.
By the time helicopters pass over the area again, there is no one there.
"... all I had time for."
A second passes by in silence. Her eyes open again.
"We don't usually get the amount of time we really need. So I figured I should put the time I do have to the best use I can."
Her gaze shifts, past Shinji, towards the direction of the station beyond. Her hand slips back out of its pocket; the right shifts the packaged contents it holds lightly between its fingers.
"I'll go to Jupiter. If I die there, I die there. If I survive, I'll come back." She could say she has to. And part of her might feel that way, too. But, the truth is...
"Because I want to."
So why is she here, then? Why is she making use of her time like this? To try to convince Shinji to stay? To persuade him into remaining in Tokyo-3, where he'll inevitably be dragged back to his Evangelion, somehow?
"It's okay, you know," she says suddenly.
"To run away. When things feel like they're too much, when you need to be anywhere else but here... it's okay to not be here.
"It's okay."
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Shinji of course has no idea where Mari has been between coming down from Orbit Base and approaching him right now. He can't know that she went to the retrieval site, to say some last words to Unit-03. But to know that she's spending the last little time she has before she's flown to the stars is weirdly comforting.
She lived with Rei and Kaworu; Asuka was... Shinji's not sure what they were to each other either, but at the very least they were special to one another. Anyone could tell that--even him.
Maybe she wouldn't have hesitated, but her grief ought to be the same. Settling in on that point of commonality, his hostility ebbs enough for him to listen.
"I don't understand," he murmurs. "Ayanami, Asuka, you, Kaworu-kun... You're all so prepared to die for--" He purses his lips. He slowly shakes his head. "...You're all worth so much more than that. I don't understand how that's something you could want."
The obvious answer, of course, is because it's for the world. But now more than ever, Shinji finds he just doesn't give a damn about the world. Over and over, that keeps getting used as an excuse to commit atrocities.
Is that why she's here? he suddenly wonders. To drag me back? To make sure there's someone to protect the world from the Angels while she and Kaworu are gone? Fat chance. I'm not welcome even if I did want to go back. And I don't.
And he's opening his mouth to say as such when--
It's okay, you know. To run away.
This time, when his tears well up, they come too hot and fast for him to wipe them away before they can fall. For a moment, he lets them, biting back his sobs, instead uttering only the faintest of broken breaths. When eventually he rubs them out, the anger has gone, but the bitterness has redoubled.
"He'll never appreciate you," he mutters. "He said it himself. Any part of an Eva can get replaced--including the pilot. Why even bother with any pilots anymore? They've got that Dummy thing now. The Evas will all be perfectly under his control now. No need for tantrum-throwing kids, so just throw them out." He half-turns, neither facing towards or away from Mari, his expression bleak. "...Asuka was right all along. I'm not cut out for this. I never was."
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
They're all worth more than that.
Mari Makinami Illustrious' gaze softens, a look obscured briefly by the glint of artificial lamplight off her glasses.
"They are," she agrees easily, sincerely. "They deserve to have a world where they can choose the life they want.
"And so do you."
But she knows...
They're not there yet.
Rei, who thought her life was replaceable. Asuka, who thought this was all she deserved. Kaworu, who was resigned to his fate.
And Shinji...
Shinji deserves this chance too, even if she knows the end of the road this journey of his will lead to.
Tears well up and spill from his eyes. He half-turns into a state of uncertainty, both facing towards and facing away from Mari, depending on one's perspective. Twintails bob as her head tilts, watching Shinji as bleak words spill from his lips, as moisture still stubbornly clings on his cheeks where he tried to rub away the vestige remnants of his tears.
Any part of an Eva can get replaced--including the pilot. Her expression tinges with sympathy, and even if she doesn't answer the thrust of what he says - not yet - she does feel compelled to answer that. Her smile is a sad one as she says, simply,
"I'm afraid there's no replacing the necessity of the human heart, Puppy Boy."
Stated like a certainty.
She takes a step forward. Half-facing her, half-facing away, he might hear the sound of soles on concrete approaching. He might not. He might see her growing closer from his peripherals. He might not.
But even if he does, it's a sudden thing, how in one moment they are apart--
-- and in the next, they are connected, by a single hand laying over his shoulder.
"... It's customary to see someone off, when they're going on a journey," says Mari. "I didn't want you to go without someone to to to tell you." That it's okay. That...
"You need to go. You need to see the world outside of NERV. If the world doesn't matter to you, you need to find out the things that do. Find someplace where you're not needed."
Find someplace where you're wanted.
"You need to learn a thing or two about life. You're not NERV's Puppy anymore."
Her right, free hand lifts, and offers out that package it was holding towards him.
"So find out who you are when you don't have that. With your own eyes, on your own two feet."
Thick, rectangular. Swiftly wrapped in brown paper -- something improvised when there was no time for something more formal. It looks like... a book?
"... It was Vanilla Bean's. But it's something I think you should have."
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Deserve, huh. Strong words. But it's just like Mari to say something like that and mean it. Like Kaworu, she's always so certain of everything. But Kaworu secretly felt the same way about a lot of things that Shinji does. It was a distressing thing to learn about him, even as it brought the two of them closer--as it taught Shinji that Kaworu wasn't as effortlessly perfect as he seems. That he's not just someone to admire, but someone he can share his heart with. Mari... Shinji doesn't really understand her heart. He learned a little more about her during the camping trip back in August, but she's still largely a mystery to him.
But Rei had said that her usual demeanor was an act. And Mari likes fighting, wants to go on that mission to Jupiter. Shinji doesn't really know what that means. But there's probably something about her that makes them the same in some way--beyond caring about the rest of their fellow Eva pilots, that is.
All that aside, he huffs something close to a laugh as she mentions the necessity of the human heart. It isn't a joyful sound. "Tell my father that," he mutters, casting his eyes down. "Not that he'll listen to you."
He does hear her approach. He does spot her in his peripherals. But he doesn't try to move. For better or worse, he does trust her--like he trusts Kaworu, like he trusted Rei and Asuka. When Mari lays a hand on his shoulder, he tenses but doesn't shrug her off. "It's not really a journey," he mumbles--but then Mari goes on, and he peeks up at her. The things that matter to him... Asuka mattered to him. Rei mattered to him. Kaworu matters to him...
Misato matters to him. But he can't matter to her, and she can't matter to him, without the spectre of NERV--of the Evas and the Angels--looming over both of them. Maybe that's true for all his fellow Children, too.
For an instant, he's glad Zoia and Eisen and Alloy were all sent back to their home countries. If the Angels all come here, they can live in safety.
Then Mari holds out a package. He furrows his eyebrows at it, then looks at Mari unsmiling. He doesn't accept it, though--not until she mentioned who it used to belong to.
"...Ayanami's?" he echoes, in his own way. Slowly, he lifts his hands and takes it. Slowly, he undoes the wrapping. Slowly, he peels it off whatever's inside.
The hoodie he's wearing now was a gift from Kaworu. In his bag, he has a set of kitchen knives that were a gift from Asuka (this will almost certainly get him in trouble at some point, but that hasn't entered his mind) and a journal, once blank, now brimming with mundane exchanges now too precious for words, that was a gift from Rei. And now this, a gift from Mari...
He reads the cover. Perhaps cracks it open and flips through the pages.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Tell my father that. Not that he'll listen to you.
Mari smiles. There's a lack of joy in Shinji's laugh. There's a hapless quality in her smile.
It couples well with the way her shoulders lift in a shrug as she says,
"That can't be helped! Gendo-kun's only ever listened to one person."
Gendo-kun. It's casual, the way she drops that name in so familiar a way, positioned just before her approach, just before her hand finds Shinji's shoulder -- just before she demands his attention be put upon that book. It's a thing easily lost in the moment, but it is there. Gendo-kun.
A name with history behind it.
Shinji takes the package, only after the echo of that other, familiar name. The wrapping peels with the steady ply of fingers.
She stands alone in the dining area. It looks like a moment frozen in time.
The table is set and ready for guests.
A plain white tablecloth is draped, undisturbed, atop it.
A bamboo plant holds its place as an unappreciated centerpiece.
Two chairs have been pushed out, abandoned by necessity.
And at the edge of the table...
Long, slender fingers rest on the hard cover surface of a book as Mari Makinami Illustrious closes her eyes. She saw her reading that book more often than any other.
"I'm sorry, Vanilla Bean..."
The door cracks open. The dining room is empty as agents from Section 2 sweep the place that was Rei, Kaworu and Mari's home to secure any sensitive material.
The book is already gone.
THE HAPPY PRINCE
AND OTHER TALES
The title of the book reads simply on its hardcover, covered in simple filigree and decorated by a single symbol beneath. An old hardcover edition, from the vogue of print eighty or ninety years ago. The story is older, from a resident of what is now the AEU: Oscar Wilde.
The book is aged. But it looks even further worn still, especially along the spine; the sign of constant use.
"A book's only as good as the meaning you get out of it. It's the same with a journey." She keeps using that word, despite Shinji's insistence to the contrary. But at least, she says it unobtrusively. And in the moment -- she says it with specific purpose.
"I don't know what meaning Vanilla Bean got out of this book, but I think it was important to her. It was a treasure.
"So, I hope you can find meaning in it too. Not hers -- but your own. If you can promise me that... I can see you off without regrets."
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Gendo-kun? It is very casual, bizarrely so, and Shinji's startled into staring at her. Is it just Mari's way of being irreverent, as she so often is? Gendo-kun. Like he was her subordinate, or otherwise younger than her. It's almost funny.
Shinji can't bring himself to laugh. He doesn't try to ask after the history. Mari probably wouldn't tell him, anyway.
Instead, he looks at the book he's received. It's pretty, and ancient, and well-worn. He recognizes it, for he's seen Rei read this before from time to time. The Happy Prince and Other Tales... Though Shinji is far from happy now, he clutches it to his chest. He hasn't read it before, and he doesn't know if or when he'll be able to read it in the future. But if it was important to Rei, then he'll keep it safe.
"Thank you," he says quietly. Of all the Children--or at least, all those who were still in Japan until recently--he understands Mari the least. But one thing he does know about her is that she's always done her best to elevate the rest of them. Even now, it's clear to him that that's what she's trying to do.
So when he looks at her with exhausted eyes, it isn't because of her. "I can't promise you that," he tells her, soft and blunt in equal measure. "I'll keep it safe. But I can't possibly know if I'll find any meaning in it. I don't even know if I'll ever read it. I don't--"
His voice breaks then, and he takes a moment to wrestle with tears.
If it's something she treasured, he doesn't know if he can read it without remembering her and grieving all over again.
His eyes fall to the ground again-- "...Sorry to disappoint." --and then avert entirely. "...You and Kaworu-kun always thought more of me than I actually am."
A pause. And then Shinji breaks out into his first, open sob for the conversation.
"First he lost Gridman and now he's lost Ayanami. He's all alone now and he doesn't even know it yet," he utters in between rolling streams of tears. "It's not fair! It's not fair! It's not fair." He sobs and hiccups and doesn't bother to wipe at his face now. It'd get his sleeve completely gross with tears and snot at this point, and he doesn't want to do that to something Kaworu gave him. Kaworu's given him so much. He's given him--
"D-did you know he's in love with someone? Not Gridman. Not Ayanami. Someone who left him and broke his heart," Shinji burbles. "I don't know who it is or what happened but I hate her. H-he started dating Gridman and Ayanami to try to move on, b-because I begged him to think about his own happiness for once, and now he's alone again. And it's all m-my fault."
I hate her, he says... That single word probably tells Mari far more than anything else in this admission. But in a moment, it no longer matters, because ultimately Shinji looks her in the face, utterly wretched. "I'll p-promise. I'll read this cover to cover and I'll f-fine some kind of meaning. So promise me too. P-promise me you'll keep him from being alone," he begs. "I j-just don't want him to b-be alone."
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Shinji looks at her with a broken stare. Exhausted, disillusioned. Lost. He denies the promise she requests, but she takes it in stride, her now-freed hand falling to her side.
He can't promise it. He can't bring himself to commit to reading it.
He doesn't want to. He doesn't want to remember.
She doesn't insist on it, even as he rebukes the promise. But she doesn't offer assurances that it'll be okay, either. She meant what she said: it's okay to run away when things grow to be too much.
But in the end, you need to be able to come to terms with why you did on your own.
So when he keeps going - when he talks about how she and Kaworu see more in him than there truly is - she tilts her head fractionally to the right. She doesn't say anything; there's no time in that brief lull before the walls break down completely. But the way her features gently sculpt into a look of skepticism says all that words would never have had the space to in that moment:
'I don't believe that for a second.'
And in the next, the dam breaks.
Shinji sobs, and between the wet hiccups come a tidal wave of regrets. She watches as he puts so much on himself that couldn't possibly be tied to him, and then...
D-did you know he's in love with someone?
... I hate her.
"..."
The faintest tilt of Mari's head catches the artificial light of Tokyo-3 just right, obscuring her gaze within that illuminated reflection.
She listens, as he sobs, as the young man leaving laments that Kaworu will be all alone without Rei and Gridman. She listens, as her hand squeezes a bit more tightly around his shoulder.
And she listens, as he makes his offer - even as she turns him around out of that indecisive mid-point until he is turned fully towards her.
She's taller than him still, by a good handful of inches. It makes it easier to draw him closer, until she's wrapping him up in a sudden hug that urges him to bury his face against the warm gray of her sweater and muffle those sobs against the soft wool fabric.
In any other circumstance, this might easily become one of the ways Mari would fluster Shinji. Here, though, it lacks that. It only offers the warm feeling of a proverbial shoulder to cry on. Support, for someone who needs it -- from someone close. Like having a big sister to rely on.
"I know," is all she says at first. Because she does know. Better than Shinji, it's clear to her. "The world's not very fair. It can be downright cruel sometimes, Puppy Boy. And Lilim can be even crueler... even when they don't realize it. Don't blame the person he loves; Tabby Cat can't help who he loves, anymore than you can. Remember that."
He might make a mess of her sweater; she doesn't seem to care. In the moment, this is what's more important. Her arms squeeze around him, hands lost in the sleeves of her sweater as they link together at his back.
"I won't let Kaworu Nagisa be alone. And I won't let myself be satisfied until he's happy."
That promise comes to her with ease. Because it's something she wants to do.
Because it's something she's been working on, longer than Shinji could ever know.
"It's a promise, Shinji Ikari. But if you want to fulfill your promise to me..."
And here, she pulls away. Her right hand falls back, tucking into her jacket pocket to produce a little, simple hankie, embroidered in pink, to offer to Shinji. Too late for the state of her sweater, but. She knows her priorities.
"... you need to leave, now. And you can't come back until you've found it."
Meaning. A world outside NERV.
"I'll be here for Tabby Cat. No matter what. So do this for me."
And in turn... maybe she can get that much closer to fulfilling her promise to Shinji, too.
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
It is an arrogant thing, to take on blame for things that aren't your fault. Doing so means claiming ownership and power that aren't yours. Shinji doesn't think of it like that, though. He just sees how his own failures hurt others and assumes that any part of his connection to someone brings them pain. He hates himself, after all. Of course he does nothing but bring misery to others--even though that's not true.
She doesn't argue with him, either, and though she might give him that skeptical look, it doesn't register before the dam breaks. Even if it did register, he just doesn't believe it. He can't.
He also can't return her hug. But that, at least, is for a much more positive reason: hugging her back would mean letting go of the book he's promised to cherish. He instead does the only other thing he can, which is accept the embrace and cry himself dry into her shoulder.
It does make her feel like a big sister. Or something like that. Rei had felt like some sort of family, too... some kind of sister, though he could never pinpoint older or younger. That was never something he'd ever verbalized, but the feeling had been there. It wasn't because of the bond she had with his father. It was entirely the bond they shared with each other.
But he can't do anything for Rei anymore. He can't do anything for Asuka anymore. But maybe he can do something for Kaworu, still, through the one last link they share.
'Lilim.' Kaworu's always using that word too. Shinji doesn't know what it means that Mari uses it too, and he's in no state to think about it. He might some other time--about that, and her gentle chastising not to blame Kaworu's love.
He knows Kaworu would say the same thing. He knows because he already has. But Shinji just can't bring himself to forgive anyone who hurts Kaworu... including himself. Especially himself.
Still, Mari makes her promise, and that makes things... better? Easier? It's hard to quantify. But it lets his sobbing peter out. When she pulls away and gives him a little pink hankie, he accepts it and blows his nose and cleans his face as best he's able. He's still puffy-eyed, red-faced, and miserable, but at least he isn't actively leaking.
"I was going to leave no matter what. And I wasn't planning on ever coming back," he murmurs, voice thick and tired. "But okay. It's for you."
He'd honestly rather do it for Mari than because of his father, anyway. His miserable expression tinges embarrassed as he offers that hankie back. But only a tinge. It's a gross mess, just like him, but he knows that's not going to bother her.
Ultimately, that reassures him most of all.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
I was going to leave no matter what. And I wasn't planning on ever coming back.
"I know," she says again, and she says it like that'd be fine too, if it was the choice he came to. And yet...
I know. I know you weren't planning on it.
Somehow, the 'but' seems to linger, implied and unsaid, on the air.
Ultimately, it's a little, niggling thing that easily fades into the background its resigned to as she takes the mess of her hankie back with the easy pinch of her fingers around that tear- and snot-stained fabric. True to form, she's unperturbed by it, both her hands finding the comfort in the pockets of her jacket as she steps back.
"Good," she ultimately decides; despite the pain, despite the misery of what has happened, somehow Mari still manages to smile and smile genuinely despite it all. "It's important to set out on a new journey on the right foot."
She takes another step back. Her brow arches in perfect time to her invocation of that word journey again. Her chin tips up, indicating over her shoulder.
"My future's calling me, and I shan't be late," she begins. "... And you shouldn't, either. You've got a train to catch." She half-turns... and then pauses, looking back at Shinji, the glint catching at her glasses.
"... A bit of advice for a puppy still not quite used to how big the world is outside his pen: don't be so eager to throw the weight of the world on your shoulders while you're out there," she offers as her final counsel. "Tabby Cat, Vanilla Bean, the Princess... they all made their choices. Remember that. Respect that."
And with that, she turns, her right hand lifting out of her pocket to offer a wave of parting as she begins to make her exit.
"Bye-bye for now, Puppy Boy. I look forward to seeing what kind of man you've become when we meet again."
Her left hand wraps around an SDAT weighted by age and history, tucked into her jacket pocket.
When. Not if.
"... I'm sure the Princess will want to see, too," she murmurs to herself, allowing herself a fond, if sad smile as she goes.
<Pose Tracker> Shinji Ikari has posed.
Makinami-san really is a good person, Shinji reflects, watching her as she takes that handkerchief with aplomb and even smile about it all. She'll be a better friend to Kaworu-kun than I ever was.
Even if she does keep insisting it's a journey. But Mari wouldn't be Mari if she didn't insist on being so positive. That, too, is strangely reassuring. He doesn't know what kind of foot he's starting out on, right or wrong, but at least she's coming away from this conversation satisfied.
Shinji hugs the book in his arms a little tighter, now that he has two arms to clasp it with again. ...He'll start reading it soon. He has to, now that he's promised.
He doesn't say anything about catching any trains. It honestly doesn't matter what train he takes as long as it leads him out of this godawful city, so he can arrive at any time at the station. It's not like he's eager to ride any kind of train, either. But when Mari pauses and offers her that advice, he meets her eyes.
"..." The look on his face is far from certain. But it's clear he's listening, and that her words won't soon leave his thoughts.
So when she turns and leaves, he watches her back for only a moment longer before he turns and leaves, too--and in his steps, there is a subtle assurance that wasn't there before.