"Disgusting..."


"Pervert! Idiot! You - You - Schwein!"

"Asuka...I...I...I..."

"Sie versuchten mich zu töten! Sie... Sie... Mein Bett... An NERV..."

"Asuka... Why didn't you help me... I wanted help and you pushed me away...I had to... I had to..."

Asuka stared at Shinji.

"You... You have the GALL to say that? Shinji... You used me like some sort of cheap ecchi manga, and then you wouldn't save me and mama... We were eaten alive, Shinji! Do you even KNOW how that feels, Wonderboy? I was finally the best EVA Pilot in the world! I finally showed everyone that I could show you up, you stupid Pervert! And what happens? I get eaten alive, and you get to decide the course of mankind! Everyone loved you, everyone gave you everything, and all you can do is whine? How can you even THINK about looking to me that way? Go Drown yourself in the lake for all I care!"

Asuka turned and looked... away from the water. Away from the Unnerving sight of Rei-Lilith's half-head staring across the crater-lake that was once Tokyo-3.

Shinji stayed collapsed in a heap on the ground, sobbing like a fretful newborn.


"I'm not sure... Was this what Commander Ikari was trying to do? I was trying to bring Shinji to his EVA, and one of SEELE's soldiers clipped me. I was losing blood fast, I knew I wouldn't survive... then Rei Ayanami stood over me, and then I..." Misato blushed for a moment, "I was with Kaji. Then... I talked with Shinji, for a long, long time... Then I felt something like a horrible tearing, and I was back here, at the Command Center."

"Yes, Rei was here. There were... Thousands of Reis, and then I was floating in a sea. I think I remember seeing my parents... And Shinji... It's all a jumble, really," said Aoba Shigeru, brushing a hand through his long brown hair.

"Rei? I don't remember Rei, but Doctor Akagi was... where IS Doctor Akagi? Everyone else is here, but she's... not..." Maya's voice trailed off a bit as she clutched her pink pillow.

"I didn't see Rei either, I saw..." Hyuga Makoto blushed bright red, and trailed off for a moment, "well, whatever I saw, I was in that sea too, and... yes, I think I remember Shinji for a while... did we have to help him make a decision?"

"It's... going to take a while to sort this all out I guess..." Misato began, "What we need to do is find out what's happening! I don't see any UN Soldiers about, but we seem to have minimal power and... Maya, could you see if Magi is running? At least well enough to sustain life support? After we do that, we need to find out what's happening. I have a fridge full of beer back at my apartment, and I'd very much like to spend some time with it!"

She sounded confident, like a proper NERV Major... But NERV did not exist anymore. SEELE saw to that. Of course, who knew if SEELE existed anymore, in any proper sense? She still had no idea what Shinji had done. But if there were no Soldiers breathing down thier necks now, it might mean they had a chance for escape, and even for survival. They'd have to hope Maya could coax enough power from Magi to keep life support going, and that there was a route back to the surface not blocked by bakelite, dead bodies, or caved in rocks and metal. And then... What about Shinji... and the EVA Units... and if they had reformed from the... goo... who else had? What about Commander Ikari? Or even... Kaji?

Up above, on the higher command deck, something stirred.


Ayanami Rei could not say where she was, or even when she was. The Dream filled her mind with disjointed images, a rush of a thousand lifetimes' worth, it seemed.

She walked in across a peaceful landscape, green and fertile, an orchard of fruit trees framed by snow-capped mountains thrown into sharp relief by a blue sky cleaned to sparkling as if by a recent spring rain, yet there was naught but a few harmless puffy white clouds in the sky. But she did not have the form of Ayanami Rei, but rather than of a tall, awesome creature made of pure light, or that radiated pure light, and by her walked another like her.

At first, they seemed to live in Harmony, taking from the land what they needed, living in peace and bliss. But Discord crept into paradise. Sparks crackled, then arcs of lightning leapt between the two beings. Thunderclouds, wild and noisesome, crowded out the sky and obscured the mountains. Fire flew over the tops of the trees. The other figure sent his children after Rei, some walking, some flying, all of them powerful, so powerful. One... Two... Seventeen.

But she was the mother.

She tossed them all aside. Some she flung into the darkest reaches of space, some she buried far below the earth. Thier father, too, at the very bottom of the world. But before he went to his rest, he took up the lance, and plunged her into darkness.

And then, she slept, and her children began to populate the world. Centuries passed. She awoke, and her children returned to her, and to one, who united with the angels, was given the choice... He chose...

And now, Ayanami Rei stared across the water toward two figures lying on a beach at the opposite shore.


"What are you thinking of, Sister?" A Gentle voice sounded from behind her.

Rei cocked her head, and turned around. A Boy with unruly grey hair stood before her, smiling. He looked strangely soft against the backdrop of the head of Lilith.

"Nagisa Kaworu. Tabris, the seventeenth Angel. Are you not supposed to be dead?"

"I suppose I was, yes," Kaworu answered, "But Instrumentality has changed many things. I told Shinji that I was destined to live forever. When one is destined, even death itself may be at a loss. But now, there may not be a chance for Adam's children to ascend again for thousands of years, if not forever, and so I feel safe taking the opportunity my heritage, unique among my brothers, has given me, to return through the broken Instrumentality."

Rei stared at Kaworu for a moment, then nodded.

"So I ask you again, Sister. You seem lost in thought. What are you thinking?"

"Why do you call me Sister?" Rei asked.

"Is it not obvious, Sister? We are both players in an eternal drama, chess pieces or incarnations of weapons in a battle which started before the Angels and the Lilim first gained thought."

"I am no-one's puppet, seventeenth angel."

"This much is true. You've done well. You refused to give in to Ikari Gendo, and you delivered the fate of your children into the hands of one more willing to make the right decision than he. And yet, you cannot deny that great forces work themselves on you and in you, Ayanami Rei."

"My Children, Seventeenth Angel? I have no children. I have never even known a boy or a man in that way."

"But you do. You are Ikari Yui, and even more so, you are Lilith."

"Am I? I have never known who I am. For a time, I thought I might wish to be Ayanami Rei. But then I destroyed myself to save Shinji, and I was reminded again of my true purpose. But I do remember much that was once unclear. I remember destroying myself in the battle against your brother, so that Shinji might live. I even remember the old woman choking me, and the first battles with you and your brothers and your father."

"Yes, Just as I remember when you buried me with my father. I am Tabris. And yet here I am, in the form of a Lilim. You are Lilith, and yet here you are, in the form of a young girl named Ayanami Rei."

"It is a pity. I thought I wished to die, but then I believed I wished to be Ayanami Rei."

"Then be her. And I shall be Nagisa Kaworu."

"Just like that?" Rei raised an eyebrow.

"Is it not proper? The roles we played are fulfilled. I hear the spirits of my brothers chastising me for my failure, and yet it bothers me not. And as for you, Shinji released you. Lilith's children will find thier own paths, and not be rejoined to her, at least not for many more millenia."

Silence swept over the landscape again as Tabris - Kaworu - gazed over the Lake.

"Have we not lived these fifteen years as Nagisa Kaworu and Ayanami Rei? Think of it, Sister. We live in the hearts of that boy not as the first and the fifth children, not as Lilith and Tabris, but as Rei and Kaworu. That boy is our salvation. That boy can change our destiny. The Rei and the Kaworu who live in his heart now stand here on this beach."

"Shinji. I do not know how I should feel about him. Is he a child I must protect, or a boy I wish to love?"

"Perhaps it is both, Sister. I do not know. You are Lilith, for you carry a piece of her soul, and yet you are not. You are Yui, for you were sprung from her body, and yet you are not. But you are Ayanami Rei, and there is no doubt of that. Take comfort in this."

Now Rei joined Kaworu in staring across the water, and it seemed an eternity passed without a word.

"And as for Shinji?" Rei spoke first, "He looks lost."

"Yes. It is true. I feel so much love for him, my heart could burst, and so much sorrow as well. I suspect you feel the same way. His father left him alone when he was young, and never called on him again unless he could use him. Shinji grew up believing that to be the way of the world. If he could not please people, they would not love him. And thus he bottled up his pain inside, and though so many loved him: His Uncle, Katsuragi Misoto, Aida Kensuke, Suzuhara Toji, Ayanami Rei, Nagisa Kaworu, Even Ikari Gendo and Soryu Asuka Langley, in thier own ways, he could not believe it, or if he did, he believed it was only because he was of use to them as Unit 01's pilot. If he did not have that, he thought thier love would dissapear, and he would be better off dead."

"But he chose life, did he not? He chose to give people back thier destinies, did he not?"

"He did. And it was as if he broke through a wall. But beyond that wall, he saw only a larger labyrinth."

"And he cannot find his way?"

"He is still paralyzed in the shadow of his father. He waits for someone to take his hand."

"Then we shall, we who love him?"

"Yes."

"Then... shall we go to him?"

"We shall. But look at us, Ayanami Rei. We stand above the water as if it were solid ground. Are we not still spirits? Our bodies may return to us yet, but we have travelled farther along the paths of Instrumentality than most. So, to walk across the lake to him would do us little good. He and the second child would see us only as flitting ghosts."

"Then how, Kaworu?"

"He maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire... We shall descend into thier hearts. The second and third children are in need of us. They have both kindled lights in thier dark hearts, and we shall fan the flames."

Rei nodded. The two spirits dissapeared, and silence once again reigned on the far shore.

END CHAPTER 1