From: "Axel Terizaki" Subject: [Eva][FanFic] - Reflections In Red ---Since Borderline Case can't post to RAAC. He asked me to do it. ---AxelT Reflections In Red --EVA fan fic by Borderline Case ======================================================================== Author's notes: In this fan fic I try to look at the world of Evangelion through the eyes of one of its most mysterious characters-- Ayanami Rei. The world and its events are always distorted somewhat when reflected off one's pupils, a fitting way to hint the turmoil of one's heart and how it affects the way one observes every little sign posted in all manners on the road of life. So I thought it'd be interesting to try to shape the world of EVA in red, the blood red of hidden desire that remains ever so calm under that cover of icy blue hair and features. Gomen, though, for I added quite a bit of Yui in Rei here--I feel that'd be the best way to explore her subconscious. Rei is the half-clone of Yui, and there's got to be more of Shinji's mother in her than just looks. Also I must note that I'm not a Rei fan--in fact she's hardly my favorite char -acter. And yet in my first fan fic I set out to try to understand, if just a bit, the pale girl in bandages. All Rei fans who wish to tell me what you think I've done to her here, please write and tell me before impaling me with the Spear Of Longinus. ======================================================================== Ikari-kun...that's what I call him. That's what I call the boy who hates with a passion best described in buried flames the man I owe my life to, the man who is his father. It's hard for me to call him a friend when we never really tried to be- friend one another--he because of his shyness, me because of my silent pain --but I know that's what he is. My first real friend, who cared enough to try to know me better, and not be pushed away by my silence. Maybe it was our common duty as EVA pilots, maybe it's the fact that the father he hated but didn't wish to hate was the one who treats me like his own daughter. Or perhaps it was a quality he had, for being gentle and caring despite his fear and self-pity. I've observed his relationship with Pilot Soryu, the Second Child. His kindness and her attitude are such a contrast to each other, the cool ocean against the hot sands under a blazing sun, and yet the sun was always there, never fading to leave both to cool forever and to allow the tide to carry them apart. This quality...why do I feel admiration, as the feeling of slowly learning to take pleasure in seeing something is called, with a mix of...pride? He is not a lover, like the kind friends of his find amusement in implying, but someone closer than that. It felt as though I knew him...from another place, another time...as if our souls have touched briefly before parting, have met each other wherever souls stay before beginning another journey into the world. Like a brother...or a son. My silence...my shield...and my link, my only reason for existing...the father of Ikari-kun, the Commander of NERV. I've heart-felt reasons to love him, to do what he wishes of me--and yet, I've reasons to fear him, as well as to hate him. All this runs so deep...is it me who's feeling this? Is the girl who lied naked but calm before a boy she hardly knew the same one that slapped him vehemently only a short while later for simply expressing his thoughts? Is the girl who cried in pain on the bridge before Unit 01 the same one who moved in front of it to protect it? I cried out because of mortal pain, this I know, but did I willingly suffer under the Angel's particle beam to protect...who? EVA Unit 01, so the mission would succeed, as Commander Ikari would have wished it, or its pilot, the son of his enemy? Which one? Or perhaps both? Am I a tool who experiences emotions wrongly because I don't know HOW to feel? And whose fault would that be? If it was because I was created not to know emotions like other humans, then am I one of them? I've always been alone...and even with my classmates, my comrades in the battlefield, with him, I was the one alone among the crowds. And whose fault is that? But if I couldn't feel emotions, how could I have smiled to Commander Ikari, and later his son? How could I have spoken with disdain to the Third Child when he tried to run away? How could I have told the Second Child that to pilot EVA, one must open her heart to it? How could the Fourth Child have sensed my thoughts for Ikari-kun, and how could I have hesitated in attack- ing his Angel-controlled EVA, as ordered to? And why then were so many hidden emotions spilled upon me, like tears that mingled with the downpour? A brown-haired woman, her face full of hatred as she...her daughter, trying in vain not to fall in line with her mother's fate even as she eyed me quietly with the same look of despairing anger. The Second Child, Soryu Asuka...her hatred, flung in all directions because of her own terrible pain, called me a doll, who placed its life into the hands of another with its own pale ones. I told her it wasn't so, because I knew that I wasn't one. I am... But what, then, am I? A girl who has emotions but doesn't understand them, a girl who has feelings but allowed them to be buried by orders and an undying sense of loyalty to the one who forced this painful existence of the worst loneliness upon her? A doll with submerged human emotions? A human with the coverings of a doll stitched tightly over her? Could I break away and become someone who's free, who lives knowing that the link to the living IS living? Do I wish to? Do I DESIRE to? How could I love and obey him? But how could I not? But if I could really, finally, understand... I watched her run off in anger, watched him turn to me with apologies ready even as his eyes asked permission to chase and calm her. I felt no jealousy--not because I couldn't but because I needed not to. We've known each other far longer than the time since we've laid our eyes upon each other, and I didn't need to have him by me always, just as a sister doesn't need her brother watching over her to know she'd be protected from harm, just as a mother didn't need her infant to tell her he loved her to love him back. I stood on top of a hill, the full moon, a symbol of cool purity as well as lonely sadness, rose to frame me against the night. I watched him go with a wave of his hand--I paused, then moved to wave back, but he'd already gone...and I know that, one day, I'd learn to live just for the joy of it, as hinted by the happiness and sorrow of those I hold dear deep in my heart. Shinji his kindness mingled with cowardliness; Asuka her confident smirk shadowed by her sadness; Touji his caring surfacing through his rough edges; and many others... I could learn, not imitate, those swirls of colors because I already possess them. They might be buried but they're not chained --they are my true link to humanity, when I learn to express them. And then I'd no longer need the moon to frame me in the darkness, for I would be able to frame myself with my individual feelings, a link that bounds me, gladly and willingly. ======================================================================== An air of hope added along the way, huh? I know many of you would think Rei incapable of such thoughts or feelings, and the truth is I myself wonder about it sometimes. But I also hope sincerely that all those Ayanami fans out there like her because the series did suggest her capable of being more alive, more human. And I do hope that's true, that she could one day become a person and not simply a pilot of EVA. As for those of you who hope Rei to always remain as she is, and never be able to open up and really LIVE, then I doubt you sincerely like her. All people need change, need "Completion"-- and those who don't, are really the dolls amidst human beings. My most grateful thanks to my pre-readers: Andrew Huang, the brilliant writer of some of the greatest EVA fan fics, two of which I've translated into Chinese. The English Shinji, one of the friendliest EVA fan fic writer I know, the true Lyn Anoulih of EVA:R as far as I'm concerned. Axel Terizaki, author of "A Child Of Love", the funny and lively sequel to the fan fic "She's *WHAT*?". Thank you reading. Sincerely, Borderline Case NOTE: I might want to write two more, each based on the two other pilots-- if you would like to pre-read them for me, thanks a lot and please write to yuan0001@ms9.hinet.net !!