“Who’s that?” Rei asked. “Someone famous for dying stupidly?”
“Whether it’s stupid or not depends on your point of view. He was one of the three great tragedians of ancient Greece. He was killed by a tortoise that fell out of the sky onto his head.”
“What?”
“The tortoise had been caught by a crow or an eagle that was flying overhead, and the bird was looking for a good rock to drop it on to break its shell open. Aeschylus was completely bald, and there’s a famous story that the bird mistook the tragedian’s bald head for a rock to split the tortoise open with,” the major said. “Tragedy is the flipside of comedy. Take it as you will. It was a death even he might have written. But the point is that the way he lived his life isn’t as known to posterity as this little anecdote about his death. He was a man of great rank and social status, so don’t you think he would be remembered more for that?”
“All that was just someone else’s way of valuing him. That had nothing to do with how satisfied he was with his own life,” Rei said.
“But why do we concentrate on the way he died rather than on how he lived? The way you die never goes the way you expect it to. There’s an element to it that’s beyond human knowledge. Besides, it’s not like dying is something you consent to.”
“Everyone dies, regardless of rank or class. Living life without realizing that is meaningless, and I don’t want to live a meaningless life.”
“Memento mori,” the major said. “Remember your mortality. Rei, you really have changed, haven’t you?”
“I don’t think it’s easy to live a life that you can agree to, but I’m trying my best to.”
“Even while you keep saying ‘Not my problem.’”
“I’ve never had any regrets before and I don’t have any now.”
“And yet you seem unable to face the thought of death. Isn’t that another way of saying that you regret the way you’ve lived your life?” Major Booker asked. Rei answered him coldly. “You’re right. I may have been wrong. Living a life without regret doesn’t mean you’ll be ready for death when it comes for you. I understand that. I just never thought about it before.”
“I see,” said Major Booker, nodding. “That’s how it is. No matter how often you claim something isn’t your problem, there are always some problems you have to accept. That’s reality. It’s common sense. The same goes for death. No matter how often you say ‘I’m not going to die, and I don’t care about death,’ death is still coming for you. People normally live with that as a fact of life, but your way of life wasn’t normal. You lived as if saying ‘I’m not going to die’ meant you really weren’t going to die. Of course, one day reality is going to kick that worldview in the ass. It wasn’t the JAM who taught you that. It was your trusted Yukikaze, wasn’t it? You were ready to be killed by the JAM, but Yukikaze wasn’t—”
“And now I don’t want to sit back quietly and get killed by the JAM. Or by anyone else, for that matter.”
“Of course you don’t. I know exactly what it is that you’re worried about,” the major said.
“And what’s that?”
“Rei, you sense that you might end up being killed by Yukikaze. That’s something you haven’t faced until now.”
“I don’t think that Yukikaze betrayed me, and I don’t expect her to. Yukikaze still needs me, even now.”
“That’s fine if you’re immortal. There’s no problem at all, then. The thing is, you’re human. If you die, you can’t come back to life and there won’t be a spare body ready for you to use. You don’t have an equal relationship with Yukikaze,” the major said. “That’s the thing you just can’t accept. This isn’t a question that lies on the emotional plane—of whether she betrayed you or whether you think she did, Rei. That’s common sense. Yukikaze is a machine, so she has no emotions. There’s no room for it in your relationship with her. If Yukikaze killed you out of hatred, you could accept that. But if she’s going to kill you, she’s just going to kill you. It won’t be like a gun accidentally going off and killing its owner, because Yukikaze isn’t a simple device like that. She possesses the barest seed of self-awareness now, and you don’t know how to handle the idea of being killed by something like that. You came back here to seek out Yukikaze because you’re looking for an answer.”
“You’re saying that I came back here to be killed by Yukikaze? That’s ridiculous. You’re wrong—”
“No, I’m saying you came back so that you wouldn’t lose to her. You want to understand Yukikaze as an adversary in the struggle for existence. You don’t have to win, just not lose. When you do lose, you want to accept your death as an honest loss. If you can accept it, it won’t seem like a loss to you. Rei, up until now, you’ve lived your life in a completely selfish manner, never thinking of other people. In that respect, you haven’t changed a bit.”
Rei had decided that none of it mattered—seeing his fellow planes getting shot down, the Earth captured by the JAM, or even the extinction of the human race. That was a question he had to settle within himself. This man thought that, as long as he himself didn’t lose, it was okay. That was true then and that was still true now.
“So what?” Rei replied.
“Figured you’d say that. Now I’m relieved. I wouldn’t want to talk to you anymore if you’d changed that much, because I’m a bit like you. I have my own thoughts about Yukikaze now—she’s a threat, an enemy on the same level as the JAM. She’s a competitor in the struggle for existence.”
“I’m not afraid of Yukikaze.”
“No, you’ve embraced the seed of fear within you. You’re now beginning to realize that Yukikaze is an independent being separate from you. The meaning of that is, for the first time, your relationship with her has been equalized.”
The old Yukikaze had been like a part of Rei, not a separate entity. He never thought she’d betray him, any more than you’d expect your right hand to betray you. But, of course, that wasn’t reality. The incident when she’d been shot down had taught Rei as much.
“Psychotherapy isn’t going to settle the question of what the optimal relationship between you and Yukikaze would be, or what its meaning is,” Major Booker said. “That’s a matter for philosophy because, in the end, you’re asking about the meaning of life. You’ve always had questions about that. Is there any meaning to human existence or not? If there is, then what is it? If there isn’t, then why do we go on living lives without meaning? I have some sympathy for your naive feelings. That’s why I like to be around you, as a friend. Your problem with Yukikaze is my problem too.
“The thing is, fighting the JAM is taking everything I’ve got, so I don’t have time to answer that question with you. For now, if I can’t conceive of Yukikaze as being on our side, then I can’t work out a strategy to use against the JAM. You’re going to have to deal with that one on your own, Rei. Right now, you’re being proactive in thinking about how to answer it, and in that way, you have changed.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Speaking as both your commander and your friend, I want you back in Yukikaze’s cockpit as soon as possible. You don’t need the psychological counseling aspect of your rehab program anymore. It’s a waste of time. The SAF can’t spare you time to fool around on the ground. Train hard and get your body back up to full strength. That’s an order. You’re dismissed, Captain Fukai.”
Rei saluted and left the office. Major Booker watched him leave, then flipped through the documents relating to Rei’s rehabilitation spread out over his desk, searching for the section indicating which doctor was in charge of it. Rei didn’t need any more psychological care. He had to speak to the attending physician about that. He understood Rei better than any doctor could. Booker wouldn’t just dismiss the opinion of a specialist out of hand, but he was the one with ultimate responsibility. The doctor’s opinion was merely there for reference. The full responsibility was his to bear.