Аннотация: Rei came to visit Shinji. Shinji is thinking out loud about wars.
"Shinji, Rei is here!" Misato's voice came from the hallway.
"Well, let it pass! I'm just finishing up." I quickly stirred the salad I had just made and wiped my hands on a kitchen towel. Ayanami entered the kitchen.
"Ray, are you hungry?"
The first one looked at me with her trademark indifferent gaze.
"Have you had dinner yet?"
"Yes, Shinji."
"And with what?"
Fast food.
That's what I thought. Well, no, we need to stop this immediately...
"Ray, this is not food," I said authoritatively. "Here, I've made a salad, and you can have dinner with us."
"All right, Shinji."
"Then sit down at the table, let's start now... Misato, will you be there soon?"
"Now, I'm just going to watch the series!"
Ayanami sat down at the table, and I began to arrange the plates with tonight's dinner. Katsuragi and I will have noodles with cutlets, and Rei will have a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers. As far as I could remember, she was a vegetarian, so the dishes I was used to were inaccessible to her, and I didn't have time to cook anything else - I had to get out of what was in the refrigerator from the first raid on the supermarket.
"You eat, Ray- it's delicious and healthy. Pilots must eat healthy and nutritious food in order to be in good shape... You don't eat meat, do you?"
"No, Shinji."
So, I remember everything correctly...
"It's clear... But in any case, you have to stop eating what you used to eat. You'd better eat with us, okay?"
"That's settled, Shinji."
***
"So, let's get started..." I picked up a reference book on the world history of wars from the table. It's a hefty thing, by the way - you can kill with such a treatise. "Let's go in order - first we will study the ancient wars, so that the knowledge is, so to speak, in a complex... "
"Shinji, why did you call me your sister?" Ayanami suddenly asked me.
"Em... It's quite an expected question, but it's still extremely difficult..."
"You see, Ray..." I began, gathering my thoughts. "I said that because I really consider you my sister."
"Why?" Ayanami asked, sounding discouraged.
"Well, first of all, you look a lot like my mother, literally the same person as her. If it weren't for the color of your hair and eyes, I would even say that you are her. I know it's impossible, but still... Personally, I just don't believe in such coincidences - there are no such coincidences. And secondly, my father is your guardian, and this is obviously not for nothing... I know him, he is not one of those people who will do good deeds without any benefit or necessity.
"Commander Ikari is a good man" Rey suddenly declared.
"Well, yes," I chuckled skeptically. - If he actually managed to leave me, his son, then he is certainly a good person, just a darling... You fucking bastard..." I finished with a sudden burst of hatred.
Bang! A slap instantly burned his left cheek.
"Fuck!" I'm already stunned. "Ray, what the fuck?!"
"Don't you dare talk about Commander Ikari like that," Ayanami said in a flat voice, lowering her hand. But her eyes were blazing with real anger, and her face was pink-you have to think other people would call it "purple."
"Well, not a damn thing..." still in a state close to shock, I managed to squeeze out.
So much for the Snow Maiden, so much for the lack of emotions and reactions to external stimuli... Are there devils in a quiet pool, nichtwahr? Damn, she didn't give me a hard time - my sister's hand is going to be very heavy. Just like that, you forget about the same series for a minute - and hello hot! The younger one, I remember, also got a slap in the face for his father at the time, so I also got my own in accordance with the new "scenario".
"Okay, that's settled, I won't talk about my father like that anymore," I replied obediently, exhaling briefly after a moment of thought. Damn, it's still not very pleasant to be punched in the face... "I understand that this is unpleasant for you..."
"Yes, Shinji, I hate it," Ayanami replied sharply.
You've got something on your mind... It's fine, it's fine - the process has started, the first stage of "defrosting" has begun...
"Okay, no offense," I said good-naturedly. "Back to business?"
"Okay, Shinji," Rei seemed to calm down.
"That's great," I said with a smile. "Come on, sit down at the table, if you have any questions, ask them right away..."
I sat down next to her (right on the table), opened the book in front of Ayanami from the very beginning (it's good that it's big, colored and with pictures), cleared my throat and began the lecture:
"So, Ray. Since the most ancient times, mankind has been at war..."
"Why?"
"I'm sorry, what?" - I lost my way.
"Why are people fighting?"
So think about how to answer such questions - it's painfully reminiscent of a conversation with a small child. It's an elementary question, but it's much more difficult to answer than, say, "what is the correlation value in this case?". The last time I encountered this at uni, one of the teachers asked the most deadly questions, such as "what is temperature?" or "what is wind?". And after all, it seems to be the most elementary concepts, but sometimes there just aren't enough words to explain...
"It's a difficult question, Ray," after some thought, I replied. "And I don't think anyone in the world knows the exact answer... War is an incomprehensible and wrong thing, very wrong.... It's wrong to kill other people, whether for money, resources, ideas, or faith, it doesn't matter. You can't do that. But people still fight and kill each other. For the sake of the same resources, money, ideas, faith... There are always those who think that war is an easier way to solve problems than peace. War is inherently repugnant to human nature, but at the same time it is an integral part of human civilization. We have been fighting since the beginning of the world, we are still fighting, and we will fight in the future - nothing will change us. And there's nothing romantic or sublime about it-just pain, dirt, and blood. You can't enjoy war, you can't love it, you can only prepare for it. Damn, what kind of monstrous things am I saying?.. Okay, then... War is like a lantern, someone immediately finds himself in the light, and someone in the shadow. In war, everything is simple - here you are, here are your friends, here are your enemies. This is good, this is bad, this is right, and this is not - everything is more difficult in peaceful life...
"Does this mean that what we are doing is bad?"
I stopped and thought a little. But Rey really hit the nail on the head: War is bad, we fight, we do bad things... Should we stop? No, never! Wars are not the same - there is a difference between them, there is!..
"You know, Ray... War can be different. Even with all this filth, there is, say, a difference between a righteous and an unrighteous war. Protecting yourself, your home, your family and friends is the sacred right and duty of any person. This is a righteous war. Our confrontation with Objects A... Yes, they are not human, we do not understand what they need, whether there will be more attacks and when it will all end... But they have invaded us, our home and our world, and we have every right to defend ourselves with all available forces. There are no forbidden techniques in such a confrontation: when your conscience, honor, life or happiness are on one side of the imaginary scales, and the lives and well-being of hundreds, thousands, millions of people are on the other, there can be no choice. Either we are the enemy, or our enemies - there is no third option. Our lives, the lives of the Evangelion pilots, and all the soldiers fighting the Object A Facilities are just garbage compared to millions of ordinary people. We were chosen to protect others, and we have a huge responsibility for others... We, who possess the most advanced weapons on Earth, by a strange whim of fate were called not to destroy, but to preserve. We are the guardians. And now those who speak out against peace and tranquility are our enemies from now on and forever, no matter who they are - people, Objects A... It doesn't matter, because we keep the peace, Ray, we keep the peace..."
I fell silent, a little devastated by this unusually long speech coming from somewhere deep in my heart. A silly, pompous, but no less sincere speech.
"You know, Rei..." I continued, looking away, not so much to Ayanami as to myself. Of course, what I'm saying is pompous, pretentious, hackneyed, and banal, but there's nothing I can do about it. After all, I'm not a philosopher, politician, scientist or thinker - I'm just an ordinary person, of which there are billions. I don't know how to speak in an original, beautiful, interesting way, I just say what I think. These are my thoughts, these are the thoughts of normal people, and it's no wonder that they are so similar for all of us. But many people still forget these simple truths, and then... ah!.." I waved my hand hopelessly.
"I've always wanted and at the same time been afraid of being in a real war - I'm a little crazy, but I seem to be quite sane, so this just couldn't help but frighten me. But now I'm at war, and you're at war, Ray, and we need to do something about it... There are some things that you can't look at calmly, sitting back... There are some things that you need to act on, act on, motherfucker..."
I smiled a little.
"You know, Ray, I really don't like such long speeches - I get sick of my own pathos and banality. But there's a lot of banality in life, Ray, we're all wildly banal, and originality is kind of weird... We are ordinary people, no matter what. We, like millions of other people before us, love and hate, rejoice and grieve, live and die... We are not the first, we are not the last - all this has already happened, and it has happened many times. Heh-heh-heh... You probably don't understand much of what I said here right now, but try to remember it anyway. Someday, maybe not now... Of course, not now... But in time, I think you'll understand what I mean... Please, Ray, remember my words, and maybe someday you'll remember them, and they'll help you make the right choice... Okay, Ray?
""Yes, Shinji," Ayanami answered me very quietly. "I'll remember what you told me."
"That's good..." I sighed and fell silent for a while. "Okay, yeah... Let's get back to our main topic. Let's start, perhaps, with Ancient Egypt - it was the first country with a regular and professional army. It was then, in my opinion, that the tactics and strategy of warfare began to be born..."