Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ In the Dark Room ❯ First Exposure ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

 

 

In the Dark Room: First Exposure

 

By Midnight_Cereal

 

 

Doctor Ibuki did nothing to stem the steadily rising tide of mistrust Asuka was developing when she handed the girl Mariko Buick's permanent identification card. Not bothering to ask why she was the last of the three pilots to perform a synch test, or why the doctor hadn't just given Mariko the damned card when she was practically sitting in Maya's lap, Asuka instead wordlessly received the laminated rectangle and marched towards the lockers. Damned Shinji, making her promise to not chew the woman out.

 

Asuka then had the pleasure of taking the coldest shower of her entire life, coming away with the knowledge that Nerv now shut off the hot water after seven-thirty on a random day of the week in order to save an extra buck. Oh, the joys of downsizing.

 

Passing the rebuilt Nerv pyramid, on the tram up to Tokyo-3's top-tier residential district, and now stepping off the elevator on her home floor, the German looked down at the plastic I.D.; Mariko always smiled back, her dark eyebrows arched, green eyes squinting slightly but reflecting genuine hospitality behind an Asian face with faint Caucasian characteristics, and freckles, lighter than Hikari's. Mariko's long haphazard bangs were parted on her forehead, while the rest of her hair was messily engineered. Longer than Rei's? Yeah, but just by maybe an inch.

 

Mariko was pretty. Not dangerously drop-dead ravishing, but good-looking in her own right.

 

Instead of being greeted with the smell of food or even a bleepin' hello, the faint sound of running water welcomed her. This in itself did not surprise Asuka; Shinji occasionally waited to get home before taking a shower. Why wait so long to take one, though? The whole place probably wreaked of LCL now, thanks Count Dorkula. No sign of the new girl though, which was fine with Asuka, who was beginning to regret giving the American permission to ask her about her life:

 

“Wait, you're an American citizen, too? I thought you said you're from Germany.”

 

“I am from Germany. My dad was a Marine Corporal in Ramstein. All my schooling and most of my family was off-base. So I'm German.”

 

“It's just weird. Being a citizen and all, and not even visiting the states.”

 

“I never said I didn't. I spent two years and a few summers there when I was younger.”

 

“Where?”

 

“Spotsylvania.”

 

“…wait, where?”

 

“It's in Virginia.”

 

“The furthest east I lived after I moved from California was Tennessee. I liked it there. The lady I was staying with was a coach with the basketball team in Knoxville, so I got to sit in on all the practices. I got some pictures if you want to see them.”

 

“Ah, so you're a Lady Vol, huh?”

 

“…wait, a what?”

 

“Never mind.”

 

That particular conversation covered nationality, favorite and second favorite foods, the time you were sickest in your entire life, why Asuka allowed Shinji to wash her undergarments if she thought he was a pervert, and why Asuka thought Shinji was a pervert.

 

That was a long conversation.

 

She flicked on the light in Mis-Mariko's room, greeted by a small cardboard cube squatting on the mattress, English scribbled on its sides. Why was her stuff still packed? It had been a week and the girl only had eight boxes. All of Misato's things had been taken by a distant cousin that lived in Osaka, years ago. Not giving it another thought, the Second Child walked over to and placed the card on a low desk next the western-style bed. Mission accomplished, she turned to the door to tackle her next assignment: Grub. She couldn't expect Shinji to make dinner everyni-

 

And then suddenly everything in her field of vision shifted left, and she tried to compensate by leaning right. Her foot caught something so she tugged, but it tugged back and she crashed unceremoniously to the floor. The box on the bed came with her, its contents spilling as it tumbled. Not knowing what happened at first, and then realizing, she tried not to cry.

 

It wasn't her fault. It wasn't her fault. Just a little brain damage. Could've been much, much worse. Nothing to cry about.

 

Get up and fix this. Nothing's wrong with you.

 

So she went about the business of re-boxing Mariko's things, picking up a CD wallet and some VCD's. A pair of old Puma's, a deflated basketball, a sports bra with the words `Rocky Top' across its front. Great. Now I have to wash my hands. Tattered, tan hiking boots and a jacket that said `Lady Vols' in bright, big orange cursive across it's back. A large red photo album.

 

Asuka peered longest at the last item, and then put away everything else before she hefted it onto her lap and settled on the bed. She hesitated before opening it. Why? Why would Mariko care if she looked at her pictures? What photographer in their right mind would be angry that someone wanted to look at their pictures? So Asuka looked.

 

People. Individuals, couples, groups. Mariko was in half of them, cheesing as hard as them. One particular girl came up often -Hispanic with vibrant hazel eyes behind silver rims- and she and a younger Mariko flashed toothy grins. They had an arm around each other at a beach in bathing suits, in someone's bedroom in pajamas, a multitude of others. Then those pictures stopped.

 

Places. A vast rocky desert, the full spectrum visible on the far horizon. An elderly couple posing in front of a similar arid landscape. A towering skyline shimmering in the noonday sun, its luminescent nighttime counterpart with glowing fingers reaching for their dim distant brothers beyond the black void. It was Chicago, Asuka realized.

 

An arena from its rafters, the stands awash in a sea of orange. Mariko's green eyes peeking from underneath her black mop at the bottom of exposures with really tall women. Green mountains and small vehicles snaking through them on black top. Japan.

 

Mariko the preteen laughing with another young girl with short brown hair in front of a Ramen soda machine at a rest stop. The couple again in shorts and tees on a tropical beach. Okinawa? Nirai-Kanai? The girls were now yukata-clad and kneeling before a small garden at a Ryokan. Finally, just Mariko, thirteen maybe, her arms and legs blurred by motion as she sprinted, her hair whirling about her as she looked back at something. Leaf over.

 

The pictures on the next page were considerably worse.

 

Asuka looked at the first picture as a whole. Then she squinted at the adult woman in it, sleeping. But something was off. Asuka studied her peaceful countenance, which was partially obscured by her haphazard hair. Finding nothing, she drew her eyes away from the face, to the woman's jaw line, and then past her ears, down to her neck.

 

Her neck. Twisting, twisting, folds in the skin from turning past the point of…

 

She wasn't asleep.

 

Before she let it fully hit her, Asuka tore her eyes away from the woman to the picture on its right. A man looked back and beyond her with a glassy leer, his lips pulled from his teeth in a mockery of a smile, oblivious to the gaping catastrophic tear in his ruined trachea…

 

Look, look below him. She shuddered.

 

A wire, long and rusty and barbed was coiled around another man's damaged neck. The flesh there was purple, as was his cracked lips, out from which lolled a pink tongue. The cold that had been steadily diffusing from Asuka's bare feet to her buttocks became real when it touched her lower spine and his wide eyes grotesquely bulged out at her from his bloated face.

 

He faired better than a woman below him, who had no eyes. Yet she wept dirty red tears from those empty, bloody sockets, smearing her cheeks with streaks of brown grime.

 

And then another woman, no, a teen maybe, and this was the worst so far, because she was completely and utterly unmarked. Nevertheless she drifted on her back in a deep red pool enveloping every corner of the exposure. Her eyes were closed, but Asuka knew that behind those silver rims were vibrant hazel irises. Leaf over.

 

The pictures on the next page were considerably worse.

 

“I don't particularly like those. They always remind me of what an amateur I am.”

 

Her heart nearly exploding in her chest, Asuka stood and spun in one motion to stare wide-eyed at the door. Mariko stared back in a black sleeveless top and shorts, draping a towel over her bare shoulder. Regret was plain in her small sad smile as she raked a hand through her damp, slicked-back hair. “But you know that's not why I didn't want you to see them. Right?”

 

“I thought you already took a shower.” She was cold. Cold all over. But she could think, could grasp at reasons, any reason other than the most obvious, why the Sixth Child, who so easily befriended everyone she met, the girl with the honest, innocuous smile, had portraits, more than a dozen, of grisly death masks.

 

Mortician's daughter?

 

“You took yours there? I don't know how you could stand it, Asuka. That water was ice cold.”

 

“I can't stand how it smells. LCL. It's like blood. It gets everywhere. Where's Shinji?”

 

Webmaster for a sight for gruesome murders?

 

“Yeah. Blood does get everywhere.”

 

“Maya gave me your permanent I.D. I put it on that table over there. Where is he?”

 

Freelance photographer? Who the hell would pay for those?

 

“Thanks, Asuka. I was getting tired of having to show that temporary badge with the picture on my permit. I look so stupid in that pic-”

 

“WHERE. THE FUCK. IS HE?!”

 

“This is my fault. I should've been more careful. I shouldn't have left them out, even in the bottom of that box. We should all learn to be more careful. You know?”

 

Mariko brought her hands up as the Second Child flew at her, and then doubled over from the force of Asuka's blow to her stomach. The red head savagely kneed her on the point of Mariko's hip, causing the teen to spin off balance as Asuka blew by her.

 

Find Shinji. Make the bitch talk. She needed to make her ta-

 

A hand clamped onto her wrist just as she had passed her own room at the other end of the hall. Then, with colossal strength, it stole her momentum and reversed it, pulling her off her feet and into an elbow which crashed into her sternum with astonishing force. Asuka stumbled back as the hand let go, but refused to crumble, wheezing and blinking back tears as she forced herself to stand, and then charge.

 

Mariko wasn't smiling anymore.

 

Asuka swung viciously. Mariko blocked the hook with effortless speed. The veteran pilot, now in full warrior mode, was unswayed and folded her extended arm into an elbow aimed at the taller girl's temple. In a blink Mariko shifted her weight to force the strike downward as her other arm quickened Asuka's descent. The German reacted instinctively, her free arm clasping around the back of Mariko's knees as she let herself sink to the floor before exploding upwards, bodily lifting Mariko from her feet. Leaning forward and pulling the Sixth Child's legs inward, Asuka drove her into the floor with a feral scream.

 

The Second Child stood, towering over Mariko, glowering down at the girl even though her green eyes were screwed shut from the force of the impact. “You're going to tell me he's alive,” Asuka growled venomously as she crouched over the girl she saw through a red haze. Her breath has heavy, shaking with exhaustion and adrenalin and a hatred she hadn't allowed herself to feel for a long time. Far too long. “or he's not the only one that's dying today.”

 

The eyes snapped open.

 

“He's alive.”

 

Mariko's arm shot up and grabbed the collar of Asuka's blouse, pulling her into a savage head butt which connected with the red-head's cheekbone. The blow brought Asuka to her knees as the hand slid from her collar to her neck, and it stayed there as Mariko rose from beneath the kneeling teenager. It stayed as Asuka felt herself being lifted once more to her feet and stumbling backwards, and the fingers at the end of it hardened as she was driven against and nearly into an apartment wall. Her lungs became flattened bellows.

 

“Asuka…we need to talk.” The voice was so kind, pleading, like a girlfriend finally finding the courage to speak out during an intervention. She was being half-dragged now as she struggled against Mariko's vice-like grip, oxygen beginning to return to her. “Do you promise to talk this out with me?”

 

“You promise to throw yourself into that damned crater if I agreeeeEEAHHH!!” Asuka flew backwards and clipped the back of the sofa as Mariko released her. She cart-wheeled like a rag doll over the furniture before crashing into the coffee table, which predictably gave way. Magazines scattered while a glass filled with vegetable juice spilled onto her, the sofa, and the carpet.

 

“Please, Asuka. Don't get up. Don't make me hurt you. Please…” She had not heard Mariko as she walked over, but there she was.

 

Asuka tried laughing, coughed instead. “Stop that. You sound pathetic. How am I going to get this shit out of my shirt?” She wiped some drink off of her bruised cheek before realizing it was too hot and viscous to be vegetable juice.

 

Why? Why was she given gifts, actual honest-to-God gifts -a genius-level intellect, an aptitude to learn new things with astonishing ease, athleticism, blossoming effortless beauty- only to be presented at every turn, every corner in life, with things that were designed to strip her of dignity? Things that met her staggering humiliation with alien indifference…

 

“I don't want this to end badly. Please, Asuka, listen”

 

…or with kind, cloying, patronizing words?

 

“I DON'T NEED YOUR PITY!”, and the glass flew from her hand with a velocity she did not know she was capable of generating. By the time it had shot through some dirty pots and pans and shattered against the back of the range, the other girl had ducked and fallen upon her, wrenching Asuka's arm at an unbearable angle.

 

A thin hard arm coiled around Sohryu's slender neck, the crook of the elbow pinching her windpipe. Even as a kaleidoscopic burst danced on her shut eyelids, the suffocating girl thrashed like a shark on the back of a clipper. Mariko just squeezed harder. They stayed like that for what seemed like hours to Asuka. Hours kicking, fighting for enough leverage to turn her head not even to breathe, just to bite her, hurt her. But Mariko denied her and applied more pressure from a well of strength so deep it might as well have stretched into hell.

 

“Thank you. Thanks, Asuka.”

 

For fucking what? That was when Asuka realized that at some point she had stopped kicking and stopped resisting. She could breathe easier.

 

“I know that what I've done, it's not right. I'm not crazy. I destroyed all those people. I know one was too much. Wouldn't think that I cried for all of them, but I did. I-I know I'm sick. But…” A hiccupping laugh then emanated from Mariko. “…but if I'm sick, that implies I can get better, doesn't it? Right?” That laugh again. “I'm not crazy.”

 

Mariko Buick, congratulations. You have completely destroyed your credibility even as you attempted to build it up.

 

“You…” began Asuka, voice raspy. “…you actually believe that you're not crazy?”

 

“Fine. Think what you want, whatever helps you sleep-”

 

“It will help me sleep when the nice big orderlies pump you full of valium and haul your crazy ass away in a thick-ass straight jacket!”

 

“NO!” Mariko's forearm tensed against Asuka's neck. “No…you want me to be honest, Asuka? Upfront with you? I'm selfish. The most selfish person I know is talking right now. I want to live. Really live. What kind of life is that, getting better while I'm locked away from the world? How many pictures could you take of a padded cell? I can get better on my own. I can do it here, and though I didn't want you involved, you are. I'm sorry,” The Second Child felt Mariko's chin brush her ear as she shook her head, “but not sorry enough to turn myself in.”

 

Asuka lay still now, her breathing slowing as she became more confident by the moment she wasn't going to be brutally murdered. Tonight.

 

“You can help me if you want to,” the taller young woman whispered. “Maybe you could…I've never met someone that graduated college at thirteen years old.”

 

“Well, I've never met a homicidal lunatic that takes pictures of the people she's just gutted like a fish.” Her cheek was burning now, throbbing. “And my degree was in applied math, not psychology…or exorcism.”

 

“Fair enough. You don't have to help me,” Mariko answered. “Don't do anything, then. Either way. I like you. You and Shinji, I like you two a whole, whole lot. You've been kind to me, even though you two had every reason in the world not to take me in, to ignore me. I don't forget kindness, ever. Truly good people, they don't forget kindness.”

 

Silence from the subdued girl.

 

“Don't make me kill you.”

 

And the whole pressure had suddenly lifted at once. As Asuka calmly rose, she stared at Mariko Buick and saw the young woman in an entirely new and sinister light.

 

“I'll go get something for your cheek,” said the thing that was Mariko Buick. She began to turn as her wholesome grin returned tentatively at first, and then leapt to full force. “Asuka, where'd you learn to fight? No one's ever been able to get under me like that before.”

 

“I'm home! Sorry I didn't cook dinner, but picked up some rice noodles down near the par-oh what the hell happened…here…”

 

They looked at Shinji, who was assessing the damage from the typhoon that had apparently hit their apartment exclusively. Now he was looking back at them, mouth still agape, the plastic bags sliding from his slack fingers. Asuka wondered what they must have looked like to the boy. Both were panting heavily, clothes in disarray, Mariko's damp bangs obscuring her wavering, panicked green eyes…

 

This is it, she knew. He's going to ask the wrong questions and get noble, and then she's gonna bleed us like stuck pigs.

 

Asuka gave a start when Mariko suddenly began speaking.

 

“Miss Asai's dog got in here and…phew! You wouldn't think Checkers could move like that, but something got into that animal.”

 

Quick thinking…you psychopathic butcher. As Mariko turned to point at Asuka the American sucked in air, and much to Asuka's dismay, she could not tell whether it was from exhaustion or panic. “We tried to get her out of here but she just kept running and she had whirled on Asuka and she ended up slipping and she hit her cheek as she fell on the table…”

 

You're rambling. You're babbling. You're sinking…

 

Shinji looked skeptical. “Checkers…did all this?” He left the bags and stepped forward into the living room.

 

“Yeah!” Mariko responded too quickly and with way too much enthusiasm. “Yeah…something spooked her…and I-I wouldn't come in here just yet, there's broken glass in some places, and-”

 

“Little Checkers…did all this?” He leaned so he could see into the kitchen. He was frowning now.

 

Just please let this go…

 

Mariko just threw her hand up and gave a small hiccupping laugh. “Hey, I was surprised, too! S-Sometimes, you just never know how an animal's gonna react, you know?”

 

“I remember once,” Shinji began, “when I was walking past Miss Asai's door when she was coming out to walk Checkers, I startled that little thing and it just started yelping and choking itself on its own leash, it was pathe-”

 

“THE BITCH WAS IN HEAT! OKAY?” Asuka finally roared as Mariko involuntarily took a few steps back. Debate over. For a moment, the girls stood in the middle of the room while Shinji stayed frozen at the threshold.

 

“I'll get the broom,” he said, putting on some slippers. “Mariko, can you help her with her cheek?”

 

“Sure.” Mariko stepped to just behind Asuka and tapped her shoulder. Asuka's skin crawled, but she knew better than to flinch. Following Mariko into the bathroom, the sound of clinking glass shards dimmed with the closing of the shoji.

 

“Where's the hydrogen peroxide, Asuka?”

 

“There's some rubbing alcohol up there somewhere. Hydrogen peroxide's for pussies.”

 

Mariko made a noise as she found the bottle of disinfectant. “I'd expect you to say something like that, you know?” Her movements were swift as she dabbed a cotton swab with the liquid.

 

The Second Child saw her reflection shrug as she stared at the mirror, letting her wounded cheek bleed itself into coagulation. What's another scar? “It seems we both know more about the other than we ever wanted them to know. If that makes sense.”

 

Mariko's movements slowed. “It does.” She approached Asuka with the swab. “I hope we can be friends still.”

 

The alcohol stung.

 

End of First Exposure

 

A/N: Uh huh. The tagline makes just a little more sense now, doesn't it? If you got this far I thank you, whole heartedly. And yes, I know this chapter was short. I know. I know. It's the shortest of all thirteen chapters, actually, but that's only because the scenes in First Exposure were the oldest, most developed ideas I had for the entire story; I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Well, that's a lie, but by the time I actually wrote it, chapter four was fat free.

 

Acknowledgement: Mariko's (first) name is my salute to a character in my favorite fanfiction of all time, (the now defunct) Transpacific's Ill Met By Starlight, another darkfic, written by Mike Loader and Susan Doenime. Trust me, it makes a weird cosmic sense that Mariko seems to be pretty strong… anyway, a Google search on the story's title should bring it up, and by extension the link to their old website; many of the stories they and other excellent writers have posted should still be accessible. Nearly all of them, including IMBS, are Ranma