A Friendly Visit
WHO: Shinji Ikari, Haman Karn
WHEN: Monday Evening
WHERE: IPA HQ
WHAT: Shinji and imprisoned Haman have a talk about why she attacked Tokyo-03.
WATCH FOR: Another bad guy trying to bloister Shinji's self esteem, Shinji Tries To Figure Out Why He's Piloting version 2.4, Yet more Gundam wartime philosophy
EDITS: Spelling.
It's been two days since the last time Haman spoke to anyone, she refuses to talk to her guards beyond simple expressions of thanks for them bringing her food and water. She just sits, staring at the wall across from her, perched on the small bed in her cell, dressed in her formless prison greys. Without her sleek black gown with the cape, without her custom violet normal suit, without her makeup, she seems somehow smaller, less dangerous, just a normal human girl. Until one looks in her eyes and sees that fierce spirit biding it's time, studying, plotting, planning with a fevered glint of hostile intellect barely contained by the energy field serving as the bars for her cell.
Shinji Ikari has no idea why he's here. Okay, yes he does, but he doesn't want to admit it. The Third Child is in his "uniform"-a loaner in UN royal blue, complete with funny gem-tie-thing. He's wearing this because it makes him feel a little less terrified of that barely contained hostile intellect, and because his cheapass dad didn't bother to give the four Special Children an actual non-plug suit uniform.
And it just, Shinji supposes, wasn't right to talk to your sort-of enemy in a school uniform. Shinji shyly steps into Haman's view, after about six minutes of standing just outside of it indecisively, and abruptly sits on the cold, metal chair in front of the cell.
He looks at the floor, not speaking for a long while. Its kind of awkward.
Haman Karn turns to look at the pilot who defeated her, who crushed her elegant machine beneath his gangly giant. "Come to gloat?" She pauses for a moment, regarding the young man with an expression devoid of pity. "Considering it's you out there, I would say not. Were it your red-headed fellow Child I would expect gloating. But she has yet to come visit me. Perhaps she's ashamed that you took me down and not her. The quiet one came. She said a few insightful things and then left with Amuro Ray."
She stands, rising from her bed and stretching, raising her hands above her head and arching her back a little. "So, if you did not come to gloat and show off the fancy medal you almost undoubtedly received for taking me down, why did you come Shinji Ikari?"
Ikari the Younger still sits there, for a few more minutes, staring at the floor. He doesn't really say anything, though Hannibal..err, Haman can probably notice his right hand 'twitching', squeezing in and out of a fist methodically. Or choking something.
"That kind of thing...doesn't interest me." Shinji says in his soft, weak voice, "I'm...a draftee, not a soldier. I don't get...any pleasure from piloting the Evangelion." This is probably a lie, but it may be a necessary one for Shinji to remain sane. "I came..."
Shinji looks up, finally, catching the girl's strange eyes with his own, "...to ask why, I guess."
Haman Karn walks up as close as she can to the 'door' of her cell, so close the energy created a static field making some of her hair stand up a bit. "Why I came to attack you? I came to test your skills, to see what kind of power you had. Not your machine, but you as a person. Believe me when I say I never would have attacked the school. Killing innocents does not interest me. It was merely a threat."
She doesn't blink as she continues. "For sometimes the threat of violence can be just as, if not more, effective then the actual act of violence itself. That is what people tend to forget. The greatest weapon on can wield is fear. Fear controls us. We don't give in to our impulses because we fear the consequences. We fear the legal repercussions. We fear the religious implications. We fear what friends will think of us. We fear the disapproval of our parents and loved ones. Fear binds us more effectively then chains or bars or energy fields. Fear is tool that can be used to accomplish anything or the shackles that keep us from ever achieving what we want but are too afraid to admit. Do you understand?"
Shinji pauses for a second...honestly taking this in. He thinks a lot about these things, you see. "I don't..." Another uncertain pause.
"...I think you would have attacked the school." Shinji says. The accusation is as shy and quiet as Shinji is, but insistent in the kind of way that Shinji only shows on rare occasions. "You use that k-kind of threat way too often...some part of you r-really wants to do it. Maybe just to p-prove you're grown up enough to take that many lives."
"You're a child. I never n-noticed before...you're p-probably around my age, aren't you." The Third Child closes his eyes, again, "I'm not sure if I understand what you say you believe...but I think I understand you, Karn. You're...a lot like me, aren't you."
Haman Karn grits her teeth and looks away, trying not to betray her sudden anger at being called a child. She's not a child, she's an adult. She was a child when Char came into her life but then she lost her parents, then she lost Char, then... then responsibility fell on her shoulders and she had to give up being a child. She forces a callous grin to slip over her face, though the unshed tears remains in the corners of her eyes. "I am nothing like you Shinji Ikari."
She turns back to look right at the young pilot. "I am a leader, you are a follower. I forge my own destiny and the destiny of my people. You believe that your destiny is a path that others have lead you down."
She chuckles darkly and reaches up to brush some of the soft, pink hair from her eyes. "I used to fear defeat Shinji Ikari. It was my worst fear of all. I told myself once I would rather die then face defeat and humiliation. But you defeated me. You humiliated me. I may face trial for what I have done. I may be sentenced but I have already conquered my greatest fear by living it."
"Can you face your greatest fear? Can you stand to fail? Can you admit that you are scared? Can you admit you enjoy the power of commanding a massive machine of destruction? A machine that could destroy your enemies and give you power over those who torment you? Or will you continue to deny that it gives you pleasure, that feeling of power and live as the tool of others until you die?"
Oh shit. She did not...
How did she...
Shinji's eyes /contract/, becoming tiny, angry little blue dots in a sea of white as Karn's words cut through him. Perhaps its Haman's similarity to another person he knows that's an angry child screaming she's an adult and terrified of failure, perhaps he's disturbed at her claim that he not only humiliated her, but /helped/ her, perhaps she's just hitting a nerve. Maybe he just hates the bitch-Haman's Newtype senses would probably just pick up flashes of something angry and animal, a train station, and gratuitous amounts of blood. Or coolant fluid. "You r-read my mind. That's how..."
Shinji stands up, fists shaking, "...adults, Karn, don't need to do what you do to try and make everyone afraid of you." The Third Child takes a step forward, eyes narrowing. "So...it didn't matter if it was me...you just wanted...someone to fight? Or what? Why Tokyo-03? Why not one of t-the others? Why /me/ Karn? And why are you d-dragging my friends into it?!"
Haman Karn says, "Because your friends dragged themselves into it by interfering in the war between Zeon and the Federation. Because they came to my world and decided to take sides. They should learn to mind their own damn business if they do not want wars that do not concern them to spill over into their worlds."
The young Newtype stands a bit prouder as she speaks, her own rhetoric bolstering her beliefs. "I learned my lesson though. I have learned many lessons from my defeat at your hands. I have learned not to target the innocent, even in an idle threat. I have learned that there is true strength in numbers. It's too bad that I learned these things at the cost of my own life."
She leans closer to the energy field again, leaning down to look the young Eva pilot right in the eyes. "You do know what happens to 'war criminals' right? Even in civilized societies, they are executed. I will die for what I believe in Shinji Ikari, they will put me to death for my believes and actions. Will you die for the convictions of another? Or are you brave enough to live for what you believe is right? Sometimes death is the easy way out. The hardest thing is just to live. And I don't intend to take the coward's path.""
Oh, she's throwing the numbers back in his face. "Hey, even /with/ Blancmanche we were still outnumbered. Or did you think we missed your two little friends out there?" Shinji says...and stops, as he realizes what he's doing. He looks at his hands, a little afraid of the fact that, for a brief second, he cared that Haman Karn was saying that he cheated in a duel of honor.
Shinji sits back down, hands shaking in spite of his desperate efforts to not show weakness in front of an enemy he, somehow, knows he will face again. Maybe because she just said she's going to break out. "I didn't do it for the Federation...and I don't do what I do for NERV, either."
"...I don't know /why/ I do it." Shinji admits. Its a strange kind of intimacy he's feeling right now. "But...if I don't...then the people I care about will die. I guess...its the only way I.../can/ help some of them. You're right, in a way. I'm weak, and awkward, and not worth very much...the only thing I have going for me is that my kind of crazy and EVA-01's kind of crazy m-matches up." It doesn't feel like much of a reason, Shinji thinks, but it has a leg up on his first one. "And it doesn't m-matter what path you take, Karn. Because people like you exist in the world...but so do people like Misato Katsuragi. So its still worth...trying to do the right thing, I think."
Haman Karn says, "I am doing what I believe is right Shini Ikari." She turns and heads back to her bed, sitting down and staring at her knees. "I'm protecting a little girl who believe in me more then anything else in the world. I'm protecting the legacy and memory of her family, who were killed in war. I'm protecting an idea of freedom, an ideal of a better tomorrow for my people. I'm protecting the people I have been entrusted to defend because no one else can. You might not understand that... or maybe you do better then I can ever know."
She looks back over to her enemy. "Just know that I believe my path is as right as yours and will do anything to defend those I am charged with protecting. Anything at all. I truly wish we were not enemies. I wish these bars and our ideals did not separate us. You are special Shinji Ikari. Special beyond your ability to pilot the Eva, special beyond what you mean to the adults who use you. There is no other Shinji Ikari on the face of the world. You are unique and only now do I realize what a loss it would be to your world if you were to die without ever getting to know Shinji Ikari."
Shinji Ikari winces, as if she just stabbed him in the chest. For a second, it looks like Shinji's going to...scream, or cry, or maybe both. No one in his entire life has /ever/ said anything like that to him...
"Some people have gotten close." Lil'Shinji says, sadly, "Daddy even...but in the end..."
...The shuddering stops, abruptly, and a resigned look creeps back into Shinji's eyes. Eventually, it'll just stop leaving. "...you're manipulating me." The Third Child sighs, a little, shaking his head. "D-do you really think...you can protect people by teaching them to hate other people? I...guess I don't understand that. I can't understand that at all."
Haman Karn leans back against the hard steel wall of her cell, closing her eyes as she does so. "Hate makes one feel strong. It's not the noblest means to a good end, but it's often the most expedient. Fear is easily twisted into hate and hate is ever so much more easily used then fear. Two sides of the same coin really. They both control, they both spring from the same well deep inside the human spirit. The same place that creates love and hope. It's just that love and hope are so very hard to create in large numbers of people. Especially when the enemy attacks and destroys your dreams. Then you are left with lots of fear and hundreds, thousands of voices screaming out for vengeance. You may not comprehend this but the Federation hates Zeon and my kind more then we hate them, they fear our potential and thus seek to destroy us. We did not start this war. We did not ask for what they did to us. We merely wish to survive and carry on into the future. There will be time enough for love and hope when we are guaranteed survival.”
Shinji Ikari shakes his head. "Its running away. This kind of thing...I /know/ what hate feels like, Karn. I...can't pretend I don't." A little bit of that hate slips out-the little Dutch boy's sleeping at the job, perhaps, "Thanks to /your/ attack on Von Braun. Do you know...its been worse since then? You took away the last bit of s-security I had..." Shinji realizes he's rambling, and shakes his head.
"It is harder...to do things without hate, and murder, and revenge. That's the sort of thing strong people do, though, I guess, because its worth it." Shinji shrugs, a little. "But I'm j-just fifteen. But...hate just...exhausts me. It makes me f-feel sick." Ikari actually hangs his head at this...jeze, is he sorry for not living up to Haman's expectations, or something?
Haman Karn looks out past the energy field. "Good. Let it make you sick, let hatred make you want to run away. Hatred isn't a good emotion, it's useful but not positive. Even I know that. And... I know you won't believe me but I am sorry about taking that last bit of security from you. I do not hate you Shinji Ikari. I only hate the IPA that you ally yourself with because it has allied itself with the Earth Federal Forces. I wish you could believe me... but I know that you won't. No one will. Because I am the enemy and the enemy only exists to be defeated, destroyed and killed. Right?"
There's another pregnant pause.
Finally, "I don't hate you either, Karn." Mostly, Shinji thinks, because the way he hates isn't...he doesn't hate /people/(liar) he hates /moments/. He and Unit-01 just hate everything that lives for a while, and calm down and feel guilty. Maybe. Either way, Shinji seems sincere. "If you were hinting at escaping...I don't know how I feel about that, but its...stupid. Another person dead doesn't solve anything."
Shinji stands back up, sticking his hands in his pockets. "I'll stop you, though." Ikari the Younger's eyes flash with that strange steel he gets from time to time, when he's not too anxious to feel anything but afraid. "Because...as bad as our side can get...we don't threaten to blow up schools for a grudge match. Next time...just send a letter or something. It takes a while to get the Eva ready." This may, or may not, be a feeble attempt at humor.
Haman Karn chuckles slightly. "I understand. If there is a next time, I will not threaten innocents, I will not attack civilians. Military targets from now on. You have my word, the word of Haman Karn, Regent of Axis, Servant to Mineba Zabi, Leader of Neo-Zeon. Next time we meet, it will be honest combat."
Shinji Ikari gives Haman Karn a 'I am pretty sure you're full of shit.' look. Shinji's actually pretty sassy once you get past the gnawing fear of personal contact.
"...okay." he says, though, not wanting to look a gift Gundam in the mouth. "I won't say I'm looking forward to it, but..."
But, the fact squirms in his gut like a fat, poisonous slug, I sort of am. "...but I'll be there. See you." Shinji turns around, beginning to walk away.
Haman Karn says, "Take care of yourself, Shinji Ikari. And take a little time for yourself each day, get to know yourself before you wake up one day and look in the mirror to see a 20 year old stranger looking back, a person who you do not know at all."
"I'm pretty sure I'm not the sort of guy I'd want to get to know that well." Shinji half-mutters, half-quips. If only not to give her the satisfaction.
WHEN: Monday Evening
WHERE: IPA HQ
WHAT: Shinji and imprisoned Haman have a talk about why she attacked Tokyo-03.
WATCH FOR: Another bad guy trying to bloister Shinji's self esteem, Shinji Tries To Figure Out Why He's Piloting version 2.4, Yet more Gundam wartime philosophy
EDITS: Spelling.
It's been two days since the last time Haman spoke to anyone, she refuses to talk to her guards beyond simple expressions of thanks for them bringing her food and water. She just sits, staring at the wall across from her, perched on the small bed in her cell, dressed in her formless prison greys. Without her sleek black gown with the cape, without her custom violet normal suit, without her makeup, she seems somehow smaller, less dangerous, just a normal human girl. Until one looks in her eyes and sees that fierce spirit biding it's time, studying, plotting, planning with a fevered glint of hostile intellect barely contained by the energy field serving as the bars for her cell.
Shinji Ikari has no idea why he's here. Okay, yes he does, but he doesn't want to admit it. The Third Child is in his "uniform"-a loaner in UN royal blue, complete with funny gem-tie-thing. He's wearing this because it makes him feel a little less terrified of that barely contained hostile intellect, and because his cheapass dad didn't bother to give the four Special Children an actual non-plug suit uniform.
And it just, Shinji supposes, wasn't right to talk to your sort-of enemy in a school uniform. Shinji shyly steps into Haman's view, after about six minutes of standing just outside of it indecisively, and abruptly sits on the cold, metal chair in front of the cell.
He looks at the floor, not speaking for a long while. Its kind of awkward.
Haman Karn turns to look at the pilot who defeated her, who crushed her elegant machine beneath his gangly giant. "Come to gloat?" She pauses for a moment, regarding the young man with an expression devoid of pity. "Considering it's you out there, I would say not. Were it your red-headed fellow Child I would expect gloating. But she has yet to come visit me. Perhaps she's ashamed that you took me down and not her. The quiet one came. She said a few insightful things and then left with Amuro Ray."
She stands, rising from her bed and stretching, raising her hands above her head and arching her back a little. "So, if you did not come to gloat and show off the fancy medal you almost undoubtedly received for taking me down, why did you come Shinji Ikari?"
Ikari the Younger still sits there, for a few more minutes, staring at the floor. He doesn't really say anything, though Hannibal..err, Haman can probably notice his right hand 'twitching', squeezing in and out of a fist methodically. Or choking something.
"That kind of thing...doesn't interest me." Shinji says in his soft, weak voice, "I'm...a draftee, not a soldier. I don't get...any pleasure from piloting the Evangelion." This is probably a lie, but it may be a necessary one for Shinji to remain sane. "I came..."
Shinji looks up, finally, catching the girl's strange eyes with his own, "...to ask why, I guess."
Haman Karn walks up as close as she can to the 'door' of her cell, so close the energy created a static field making some of her hair stand up a bit. "Why I came to attack you? I came to test your skills, to see what kind of power you had. Not your machine, but you as a person. Believe me when I say I never would have attacked the school. Killing innocents does not interest me. It was merely a threat."
She doesn't blink as she continues. "For sometimes the threat of violence can be just as, if not more, effective then the actual act of violence itself. That is what people tend to forget. The greatest weapon on can wield is fear. Fear controls us. We don't give in to our impulses because we fear the consequences. We fear the legal repercussions. We fear the religious implications. We fear what friends will think of us. We fear the disapproval of our parents and loved ones. Fear binds us more effectively then chains or bars or energy fields. Fear is tool that can be used to accomplish anything or the shackles that keep us from ever achieving what we want but are too afraid to admit. Do you understand?"
Shinji pauses for a second...honestly taking this in. He thinks a lot about these things, you see. "I don't..." Another uncertain pause.
"...I think you would have attacked the school." Shinji says. The accusation is as shy and quiet as Shinji is, but insistent in the kind of way that Shinji only shows on rare occasions. "You use that k-kind of threat way too often...some part of you r-really wants to do it. Maybe just to p-prove you're grown up enough to take that many lives."
"You're a child. I never n-noticed before...you're p-probably around my age, aren't you." The Third Child closes his eyes, again, "I'm not sure if I understand what you say you believe...but I think I understand you, Karn. You're...a lot like me, aren't you."
Haman Karn grits her teeth and looks away, trying not to betray her sudden anger at being called a child. She's not a child, she's an adult. She was a child when Char came into her life but then she lost her parents, then she lost Char, then... then responsibility fell on her shoulders and she had to give up being a child. She forces a callous grin to slip over her face, though the unshed tears remains in the corners of her eyes. "I am nothing like you Shinji Ikari."
She turns back to look right at the young pilot. "I am a leader, you are a follower. I forge my own destiny and the destiny of my people. You believe that your destiny is a path that others have lead you down."
She chuckles darkly and reaches up to brush some of the soft, pink hair from her eyes. "I used to fear defeat Shinji Ikari. It was my worst fear of all. I told myself once I would rather die then face defeat and humiliation. But you defeated me. You humiliated me. I may face trial for what I have done. I may be sentenced but I have already conquered my greatest fear by living it."
"Can you face your greatest fear? Can you stand to fail? Can you admit that you are scared? Can you admit you enjoy the power of commanding a massive machine of destruction? A machine that could destroy your enemies and give you power over those who torment you? Or will you continue to deny that it gives you pleasure, that feeling of power and live as the tool of others until you die?"
Oh shit. She did not...
How did she...
Shinji's eyes /contract/, becoming tiny, angry little blue dots in a sea of white as Karn's words cut through him. Perhaps its Haman's similarity to another person he knows that's an angry child screaming she's an adult and terrified of failure, perhaps he's disturbed at her claim that he not only humiliated her, but /helped/ her, perhaps she's just hitting a nerve. Maybe he just hates the bitch-Haman's Newtype senses would probably just pick up flashes of something angry and animal, a train station, and gratuitous amounts of blood. Or coolant fluid. "You r-read my mind. That's how..."
Shinji stands up, fists shaking, "...adults, Karn, don't need to do what you do to try and make everyone afraid of you." The Third Child takes a step forward, eyes narrowing. "So...it didn't matter if it was me...you just wanted...someone to fight? Or what? Why Tokyo-03? Why not one of t-the others? Why /me/ Karn? And why are you d-dragging my friends into it?!"
Haman Karn says, "Because your friends dragged themselves into it by interfering in the war between Zeon and the Federation. Because they came to my world and decided to take sides. They should learn to mind their own damn business if they do not want wars that do not concern them to spill over into their worlds."
The young Newtype stands a bit prouder as she speaks, her own rhetoric bolstering her beliefs. "I learned my lesson though. I have learned many lessons from my defeat at your hands. I have learned not to target the innocent, even in an idle threat. I have learned that there is true strength in numbers. It's too bad that I learned these things at the cost of my own life."
She leans closer to the energy field again, leaning down to look the young Eva pilot right in the eyes. "You do know what happens to 'war criminals' right? Even in civilized societies, they are executed. I will die for what I believe in Shinji Ikari, they will put me to death for my believes and actions. Will you die for the convictions of another? Or are you brave enough to live for what you believe is right? Sometimes death is the easy way out. The hardest thing is just to live. And I don't intend to take the coward's path.""
Oh, she's throwing the numbers back in his face. "Hey, even /with/ Blancmanche we were still outnumbered. Or did you think we missed your two little friends out there?" Shinji says...and stops, as he realizes what he's doing. He looks at his hands, a little afraid of the fact that, for a brief second, he cared that Haman Karn was saying that he cheated in a duel of honor.
Shinji sits back down, hands shaking in spite of his desperate efforts to not show weakness in front of an enemy he, somehow, knows he will face again. Maybe because she just said she's going to break out. "I didn't do it for the Federation...and I don't do what I do for NERV, either."
"...I don't know /why/ I do it." Shinji admits. Its a strange kind of intimacy he's feeling right now. "But...if I don't...then the people I care about will die. I guess...its the only way I.../can/ help some of them. You're right, in a way. I'm weak, and awkward, and not worth very much...the only thing I have going for me is that my kind of crazy and EVA-01's kind of crazy m-matches up." It doesn't feel like much of a reason, Shinji thinks, but it has a leg up on his first one. "And it doesn't m-matter what path you take, Karn. Because people like you exist in the world...but so do people like Misato Katsuragi. So its still worth...trying to do the right thing, I think."
Haman Karn says, "I am doing what I believe is right Shini Ikari." She turns and heads back to her bed, sitting down and staring at her knees. "I'm protecting a little girl who believe in me more then anything else in the world. I'm protecting the legacy and memory of her family, who were killed in war. I'm protecting an idea of freedom, an ideal of a better tomorrow for my people. I'm protecting the people I have been entrusted to defend because no one else can. You might not understand that... or maybe you do better then I can ever know."
She looks back over to her enemy. "Just know that I believe my path is as right as yours and will do anything to defend those I am charged with protecting. Anything at all. I truly wish we were not enemies. I wish these bars and our ideals did not separate us. You are special Shinji Ikari. Special beyond your ability to pilot the Eva, special beyond what you mean to the adults who use you. There is no other Shinji Ikari on the face of the world. You are unique and only now do I realize what a loss it would be to your world if you were to die without ever getting to know Shinji Ikari."
Shinji Ikari winces, as if she just stabbed him in the chest. For a second, it looks like Shinji's going to...scream, or cry, or maybe both. No one in his entire life has /ever/ said anything like that to him...
"Some people have gotten close." Lil'Shinji says, sadly, "Daddy even...but in the end..."
...The shuddering stops, abruptly, and a resigned look creeps back into Shinji's eyes. Eventually, it'll just stop leaving. "...you're manipulating me." The Third Child sighs, a little, shaking his head. "D-do you really think...you can protect people by teaching them to hate other people? I...guess I don't understand that. I can't understand that at all."
Haman Karn leans back against the hard steel wall of her cell, closing her eyes as she does so. "Hate makes one feel strong. It's not the noblest means to a good end, but it's often the most expedient. Fear is easily twisted into hate and hate is ever so much more easily used then fear. Two sides of the same coin really. They both control, they both spring from the same well deep inside the human spirit. The same place that creates love and hope. It's just that love and hope are so very hard to create in large numbers of people. Especially when the enemy attacks and destroys your dreams. Then you are left with lots of fear and hundreds, thousands of voices screaming out for vengeance. You may not comprehend this but the Federation hates Zeon and my kind more then we hate them, they fear our potential and thus seek to destroy us. We did not start this war. We did not ask for what they did to us. We merely wish to survive and carry on into the future. There will be time enough for love and hope when we are guaranteed survival.”
Shinji Ikari shakes his head. "Its running away. This kind of thing...I /know/ what hate feels like, Karn. I...can't pretend I don't." A little bit of that hate slips out-the little Dutch boy's sleeping at the job, perhaps, "Thanks to /your/ attack on Von Braun. Do you know...its been worse since then? You took away the last bit of s-security I had..." Shinji realizes he's rambling, and shakes his head.
"It is harder...to do things without hate, and murder, and revenge. That's the sort of thing strong people do, though, I guess, because its worth it." Shinji shrugs, a little. "But I'm j-just fifteen. But...hate just...exhausts me. It makes me f-feel sick." Ikari actually hangs his head at this...jeze, is he sorry for not living up to Haman's expectations, or something?
Haman Karn looks out past the energy field. "Good. Let it make you sick, let hatred make you want to run away. Hatred isn't a good emotion, it's useful but not positive. Even I know that. And... I know you won't believe me but I am sorry about taking that last bit of security from you. I do not hate you Shinji Ikari. I only hate the IPA that you ally yourself with because it has allied itself with the Earth Federal Forces. I wish you could believe me... but I know that you won't. No one will. Because I am the enemy and the enemy only exists to be defeated, destroyed and killed. Right?"
There's another pregnant pause.
Finally, "I don't hate you either, Karn." Mostly, Shinji thinks, because the way he hates isn't...he doesn't hate /people/(liar) he hates /moments/. He and Unit-01 just hate everything that lives for a while, and calm down and feel guilty. Maybe. Either way, Shinji seems sincere. "If you were hinting at escaping...I don't know how I feel about that, but its...stupid. Another person dead doesn't solve anything."
Shinji stands back up, sticking his hands in his pockets. "I'll stop you, though." Ikari the Younger's eyes flash with that strange steel he gets from time to time, when he's not too anxious to feel anything but afraid. "Because...as bad as our side can get...we don't threaten to blow up schools for a grudge match. Next time...just send a letter or something. It takes a while to get the Eva ready." This may, or may not, be a feeble attempt at humor.
Haman Karn chuckles slightly. "I understand. If there is a next time, I will not threaten innocents, I will not attack civilians. Military targets from now on. You have my word, the word of Haman Karn, Regent of Axis, Servant to Mineba Zabi, Leader of Neo-Zeon. Next time we meet, it will be honest combat."
Shinji Ikari gives Haman Karn a 'I am pretty sure you're full of shit.' look. Shinji's actually pretty sassy once you get past the gnawing fear of personal contact.
"...okay." he says, though, not wanting to look a gift Gundam in the mouth. "I won't say I'm looking forward to it, but..."
But, the fact squirms in his gut like a fat, poisonous slug, I sort of am. "...but I'll be there. See you." Shinji turns around, beginning to walk away.
Haman Karn says, "Take care of yourself, Shinji Ikari. And take a little time for yourself each day, get to know yourself before you wake up one day and look in the mirror to see a 20 year old stranger looking back, a person who you do not know at all."
"I'm pretty sure I'm not the sort of guy I'd want to get to know that well." Shinji half-mutters, half-quips. If only not to give her the satisfaction.