Chapter Seventeen
My momentous disappearance wasn't noticed. It had been a quick affair, even with the shakes still lingering over my body. I emerged from the ground just in time to notice Rei leaving, and Shinji turning to look at me.
I gave him a nervous smile.
"A pity," I said, trying to remain neutral.
"Uh-uh," Shinji acquiesced.
"Well, it's your turn if I'm not wrong," I said.
And Shinji moved.
Now I had something to dread too.
If I counted the time spent, it had to be at least two weeks. How long until the next shake?
Would it simply be a continuous thing, once a day, or would it increase?
Would it mean my eventual death, or would it simply be a torture lasting 'eternity'?
Or what if the pain simply was there because I 'wasn't doing my job'? Maybe if I did it, the pain would not return no matter how long it took?
"Is something troubling you?" Shinji asked as we walked back home from school, well, he walked and I floated.
"What makes you say that?" I asked, wearily looking at the sky.
"You've been thinking a lot," Shinji said. "You always do that when you've got bad news and you don't want to tell them to me."
I chuckled. "Really now?"
"Yeah. You always shift your eyes," Shinji said softly. "What is it? It's about Rei, isn't it?"
I sighed and nodded.
Successful deflection start!
"It's...I don't really know how to start the explanation without telling you something earth-shattering."
And then I blinked. "Oh, of course. Uhm...are batting centers a thing here in Tokyo?"
"Misato showed us one," Shinji said.
"Good then!" I nodded. "Let's go there!"
"There's homework to-"
"Running away?" I teased, and his shoulders straightened up.
"No."
With a firm and resolute pace, we reached the batting center and Shinji paid for one hour of it.
"What's the point of this?" he asked as he gripped clumsily the metal bat. "I've never played before."
"Oh, it's simple," I replied. "Swing the bat in the air." I shrugged.
Shinji looked at me perplexed. "Have you gone mad?" he asked.
"Theoretically I should tell you 'hit the ball', but you know, I'm not expecting you to manage on your first try."
Shinji gripped the bat harder. "Oh really?"
"Yeah really," I replied, and pulled over the bat for my own amusement.
I swung it around, and grinned. "I'll feel it when it hits."
"You cheapskate," Shinji acquiesced.
"Cheapskate? Please!" I laughed and took aim. "I'm just using unused resources!"
Neither of us hit the first ball.
When the second came, Shinji managed to 'glance' it.
I still missed it.
If I did hit it, the 'soul' ball would emerge, while the real one would go wherever it was meant to go depending on whether or not Shinji hit it.
"So, what's this about?" Shinji asked.
"Rei's a clone," I said.
Shinji clenched the bat and took a swing, hitting the ball dead-on.
"A clone?"
"Yes, Of your mother."
The next ball passed in between us, Shinji not moving a muscle.
His eyes were closed as he gritted his teeth, and then he clasped hard on the bat. When the sound of the next 'whump' of the ball came, he opened them wide and screamed, throwing all of his weight against the ball in question.
He missed, but that didn't stop him from swinging the bat in mid-air and raging on.
I watched as he swung the bat until he had no more breath, and then threw it down on the ground, hitting it repeatedly.
And then he screamed some more.
The guy responsible for the batting center didn't even bat an eyelid. Shinji was the only customer, and the people apparently came into the batting center specifically to scream and let go of their emotions.
My other thought would have been the Karaoke, but I had the feeling Karaoke had camera feeds.
The batting center probably had less, if any, since it was in the open.
"He did it." Shinji stressed. There was no need to specify who the 'he' was.
"Of course he did," I replied. "And Rei's not only one clone. There are more. Think of her as a...flesh bag? Only problem, the 'soul' is a stunted thing, and, from what I recall, she has to regularly 'update' her experiences with the rest of the clones...I think," I murmured. "It was one the most unclear parts."
"It's disgusting," Shinji said softly. "Utterly disgusting."
"Rei's important to Gendo's plans," I continued. "That's why..." I grumbled. "I can't remember what else."
Shinji slammed the metal bat on the ground, before screaming out loud. "It's disgusting! Repulsive! Horrible! How can he do that and still act as if it were nothing!? What is he thinking!? WHY!?"
"Shinji..."
"Shut up!" Shinji yelled, throwing the bat in my direction. I remained quiet as it went through me. "He...he has me pilot the Eva and...and he has Mom and he...he what? He made a flesh bag with her corpse?"
Maybe I shouldn't have used the word 'flesh bag'.
Shinji retched on the ground, his legs weak.
"Disgusting," he muttered, and kept at it even as he was gently asked to leave the pitch because there was one such thing as 'too much' even while de-stressing.
I floated quietly behind him, and watched him walk eyes low.
"Disgusting. Disgusting. Disgusting."
He kept at it for a while, until he stopped once in Misato's apartment.
He fell face first on his bed, and brought his pillow over his head to stifle the noises from outside.
I sighed.
Well, he had taken it w-
I felt the bile rise once more.
It hadn't even been the end of the day.
It couldn't be...
I swallowed the nausea in the back of my throat, my body shaking as my vision doubled and lost focus before regaining itself.
I quietly fell beneath the floor and started to whimper.
The pain was...pain.
It was atrocious.
It didn't have a meaning, or a source.
It simply was painful.
It made me feel sick.
So sick.
It passed after only a few minutes, but they felt like hours to me.
Was this going to be a now continuous feature?
It really felt like it.
I ground my teeth.
This couldn't last forever, could it?
Shinji was a smart sport.
He kept glancing in my direction every now and then for the next week, but I was never caught.
Thankfully, since I floated behind him and he was the only one who could see me, I could easily spasm without being noticed, at least most of the time.
"You're hiding something," he said at the end of the third week, atop the school roof.
I shrugged. "I have no clue what you're talking ab-"
"I saw your reflection in the classroom's clock. You weren't looking good."
I scratched the back of my head. "You can see my reflections? Well...don't know what you're talking about Shinji. I'm all right. Today's the day the Angel attack anyway. So maybe we should..."
"I'm not going until you tell me what's wrong, Shade."
I looked at Shinji, and sighed. "It's nothing you have the power to change, Shinji. Let it be."
He clenched his fist. "Let me decide that," he snarled.
"Growing a backbone now of all times, Shinji?" I asked.
"Sticking close to a specter who can't keep his mouth shut for half a day tends to do that to you," he replied, defiant to the last.
What had I done.
I had given Shinji a spine.
I had to commit seppuku for this blatant act of-
And in that moment, the siren began to wail as Shinji's cellphone started to ring, and I felt another wave of incoming pain, and gripped the neck of my grey shirt. "Shinji, look," I began to gasp for air as the first pains settled in my bones, "It's...fine..see?" I tried a smile. "Come on...there's the Angel to..."
"I am allowed to make my own decisions," Shinji said, eyeing me with concern.
"Your concern is dully noted, but not required," I said. "The alarm is ringing! There's the Angel to fight...come on!"
"I have the right to be concerned about you!"
"No," I ground my teeth, "You don't. Of all the moments to grow a spine, why did you have to choose this one!?"
"We're friends," Shinji said with a nod. "And that's why, if I can help you, I will, and if I can't, then I'll find a way."
"Nice to hear, but again, you can't help me."
"Is it about the passing through?"
"Shinji..."
"It's about that, isn't it? The...the killing stuff. Since nobody else died..."
"I don't want you to. I can withstand the pain, really."
"So you are in pain!" Shinji screamed.
"Oh please...I can survive this. Really...answer the phone! The Angel's attacking right now, can't you hear the alarm!?"
"I don't care about the Angel if you don't answer me!"
"STOP BEING A SPOILED CHILD!" I screamed at him. "What do you think!? That I enjoy being in pain!? But I am meaningless! This isn't my reality, it's yours! If I die here, then I'll probably appear in another!"
"You don't know that," Shinji said in a soft voice.
"No, but it beats having you kill those around you." I replied. "I accept my fate. I can scream my hatred to the heavens, but I accept my fate. Leave me be...and go save your world, Shinji."
Shinji clenched his fist, his entire frame trembling as tears slowly fell down his eyes. He was about to speak, but in that moment, the door of the rooftop barged open and Misato came through in a hurry.
"Shinji! Why didn't you pick up the- are you crying?"
"Go," I said. "I'll be right...behind you."
Three weeks.
That was probably the maximum amount of time.
It was a blur, Misato drove recklessly, and Shinji kept his hands clenched firmly.
I ended up floating softly behind Shinji in the LCL cockpit as the Eva came online.
"Hey," I said through gritted teeth. "Do me a favor."
Shinji gripped the Eva's handle tighter.
"If these are my last moments..." I whispered, "Then show me how a hero fights and wins the day."
I began to pull on my shirt, as the pain seemed to simply be burning through my skin, my bones, my innards.
I could feel the agony as molten metal course through my veins, and I did my utmost to keep the screams inside my throat.
The Angel was a phallic shaped thing with two floating energy ribbons.
"Ha..." I chuckled. "It looks...like a dick with a ribbon around it. Is it...fitting...that I see this...last?"
"Shut up," Shinji hissed. "You're not going to die."
The Eva launched itself at full speed, the prog knife already out.
"I'd rather die than stay in this type of pain for eternity, you know," I ground out. "And don't you dare Angst over me. There's nothing bad going to happen. Heck...I'll just..." maybe. Maybe not. "Go to another...place. Yeah, another reality. I did tell you it might happen."
I noisily began to spew out blood.
Damn, was I leaving a mess.
I curled on myself, the cramps on my stomach tightening beyond belief.
"It's too soon!" Shinji yelled. "There's a lot you still haven't told me!" he screamed.
It hurt.
"That's life," I tried to say, through the gurgles of my retching. "Hug...Asuka...sometimes...just to...show you care...and..."
Everything hurt.
I could feel the Eva suddenly lunge forward, as Shinji screamed while the Evangelion roared.
The next moment, the energy like ribbons of the Angel slammed against the Eva, but Shinji held the contrast of strength and simply screamed higher.
My vision began to cloud.
"Do me...proud...man."
The Eva didn't seem to care about the energy ribbons, and gripped them in return, delivering a vicious headbutt and slamming its large teeth down on the neck of the Angel, the AT-Field utterly trashed without regards. Shinji must have been hurting a lot from the exchange of blows, but he didn't seem to care.
He viciously stabbed the Angel with the prog knife, again and again, tearing it to shreds until he reached for its core.
That was the last thing I saw of Shinji.
Him, smashing the core apart with the prog knife, screaming.
The pain suddenly disappeared.
And I was back in the darkness.
So...I wasn't dead.
I exhaled loudly in relief, and began to look around the pitch-black darkness.
So...
I made someone trust me to the point where me leaving hurt them.
Or I had them kill the people around them.
Or... another thing I hadn't found out, but that if left undone for more than three weeks since the start...
Resulted in one week of pure agony, until a final 'end' that brought me back into the darkness.
I wanted to punch something.
Or someone.
I tried to move my neck, but I realized I was bound.
I frowned.
Bound?
My limbs didn't respond.
Slowly, I heard the sound of music.
"Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide,
No escape from reality."
And I opened my eyes.
I had my Ipod in my ears.
And I was looking down on a bespectacled kid with green eyes, a lightning scar on his forehead, and in what appeared to be a room beneath the stairs.
I could hear the loud rumbling of large and heavy feet above us, and then the loud thumping sound.
"WAKE UP!" Dudley Dursley screamed.
Harry's eyes snapped open at my sight.
I remained silent.
I removed the earphones from my ears, and said in a calm and controlled voice.
"Hello Harry," I smiled. "And congratulation. You are a Wizard."
I was brutally going to murder the ROB.
Whoever he was.
Wherever he was.
Whatever he was.
I was going to grip him by the neck and smash him on the ground. Repeatedly.
And then, I would force him to read every bad clichè fanfiction ever to have been birthed.
From the very first to the very last.
// You can (not) Save. A Hero Rises. Family Murder.
