Author's Note:

Hello everyone,

Well this is a bizarre experience. I started this fanfic a whole four years ago and stopped midway through the second chapter, just one of an even dozen aborted fics from around that time. Midway through last year, while reorganizing my fanfic folder, I found it again and found some inspiration to start writing it once more. Just working on this once again is surreal, like returning to a house where I have not lived in years.

I had originally come up with this idea after seeing fanart of Misato as a fourteen-year-old EVA pilot. Details were added bit by bit, first before abandoning it, then after I picked it up once more. Somehow heavy metal (especially Ayreon) ended up in the mix, along with a healthy dose of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

I'm still not sure what sort of an upload schedule I will have for this fic. It will probably not be as regular as it was for Cybernetic Cabaret, since I have other stories I would like to write in tandem to this, but hopefully it will be at least once per month. I will also be uploading the next chapter directly after this one, to get the ball rolling a little quicker.

To the few of you that have read any of my other stories, welcome back. To the rest of you, I hope you enjoy what I've written. Please let me know what you think in the comments, reviews really do keep me writing.

0: Psychogenesis

Cold.

That was all she could feel within her and around her: cold everywhere except for the warm puddle beneath her.

Cold.

Katsuragi Misato lay crumpled on the floor by the elevator, bleeding out the last of her life deep within NERV headquarters. She knew she was about to die, but she did not mind. Shinji was on his way to the EVA launch bays, so there was still a chance he would make it out. She had done all that she could for him, all she could for humanity as a whole. Asuka would have to fend for herself, the way she always had. Then again, if the Human Instrumentality Project was actually occurring, perhaps none of it mattered.

Cold.

Misato still had absolutely no idea where Rei was, but that was not surprising. Whatever endgame Gendo Ikari had planned, Rei had a large part to play in it. Plots within plots within plots, she reflected. She could not be sure that even what she had been told was the truth. But none of that mattered now. Misato had played her part, and she felt too tired to go on.

Standing above her, she saw a spectral image of Kaji, glowing clearly even while the rest of the world blurred and faded. Misato smiled, content that this obvious hallucination would be he her final sight. With the last of her strength, she spoke to the apparition.

"If I'd known it would end like this, I would have changed the carpet like Asuka wanted. Still, I did good, didn't I, Kaji?"

As Kaji smiled down at her, his features shifted, and Misato realized that it was Rei standing above her. There was a smell—a strong smell. Blood? No, not blood, she realized, LCL. Her entire body smelled like LCL. Before she could react, she felt a rushing deep within her being and abruptly found herself floating in a dark void, the image of Rei exactly where she had been before.

At least she was no longer cold. She could no longer feel anything, as if her entire body had gone numb. In fact, she was not even sure she still had a body. Curious, Misato tried to move her arm, waving it between her face and the only source of light she could find: the Rei image. There was nothing there for her to wave. As if she had read Misato's thoughts, Rei's voice echoed through the void.

"The spatial awareness of the human body is an illusion created by the mind, based on an internal map and correlated with sensory data. Yet this awareness can persist in spite of the senses. Even if an external justification of this map does not exist, still the human mind believes it has a body."

So she had no body. That should have meant she had no mouth. But Misato found she could somehow form words.

"So then," she began, "I suppose I'm dead or something?"

The image of Rei was impassive. "How can you know if you are?"

"I was shot," she reasoned. "I was bleeding out, and suddenly I'm in a black void with no body."

Rei continued to stare at her, responding without moving her lips. "Why do you need to convince yourself then?"

Misato continued to think through her situation. Something about it bothered her. "If that's true, though why can I still think? My life came to an end back there. It's all over."

"Then why are you still here?" Rei asked. "You were shot. You died. There is nothing left for you but the end of your existence. And yet you are still here. How are you still able to think? What is holding you back?"

Misato floated for a long time, thinking. Finally, she laughed, "Maybe I have regrets? Something about my life I'm not happy with?"

"What would that be?"

This image of Rei was beginning to irritate her with her constant questions. "I don't know, maybe how I died?"

"Would you change it?" the girl asked.

"There was nothing I could have done to change it," she countered.

"Wasn't there?"

Misato stared at the Rei image. Expressionless, she stared back.

Abruptly, Misato had a body once more. She stood on the ground in the geo front, the shredded remains of EVA-02 a short distance away. Empty suits of clothing lay sprawled across the ground, soaked through with LCL. The lake had turned a faint orange tinge as the LCL flowed down into it. There was not a single living creature anywhere to be seen. Rei stood on the surface of the lake, staring up at EVA-02's remains.

"Was this outcome inevitable? Was there really no other way it could have happened? Each moment is the result of a thousand people making a thousand decisions. Gendo's decision. Kaji's decision. Shinji's decision. Rei's decision. Misato's decision. Had any of them chosen a different path, this event would have happened differently."

Images flashed before Misato, memories intermingled with fantasies. Shinji standing as the elevator doors closed. Kaji holding her in his arms. EVA-01 howling as it burst free from its restraints. The glowing form of Adam as she had seen it when she was fourteen. Eva-01 attacking the first angel of its own accord. Kaji helping her home after a night of heavy drinking. Asuka shouting "I hate everyone!" The sea of Rei clones in the Dummy Plug factory all turning to smile at her maniacally. Shinji smiling at her. Shinji, emerging naked from a pool of LCL. Nerv Headquarters filled with puddles of LCL and empty suits of clothing. Hundreds of images, flashing before her mind's eye so fast it was painful. Her entire life and more compressed into a heartbeat.

"I wish…"

"What do you wish?" The image of Rei asked.

Her voice gaining strength, Misato elaborated. "I wish I could have made more of a difference. I wish I hadn't gone through my life sleeping with whoever, just to feel wanted. If I could go back and do it over again, I wouldn't be that way."

"Then make it so."

Misato sat on the bench in a train car. At the other end of the car sat Rei, staring through the window. Outside was nothing but a white void. It seemed so empty. As she focused her mind, however, Misato found that she could see things in it: people and places, some real, some possible, and others pure fantasy.

Rei spoke, her voice reaching Misato as if she were sitting next to her.

"The world is shaped by the will of the mind that perceives it. Eternity is a single moment, and a single moment eternity. Imagine the world you wish, and make it so."

Misato mentally shivered with sudden understanding. "Wait, no. It can't be. This is…is this…Instrumentality?"

The image of Rei continued as if Misato had not spoken. "But be warned. Every wish carries its own consequence. Moving even a single pebble from its appointed place can cause an avalanche. Knowing that, is that still your wish?"

"I want to make a difference! I want to live a different life!"

The train car stopped. The doors opened. Taking a deep breath, Misato stepped off the car into the blinding white void.

As all that she was, all that she had been, melted away, Misato heard Rei's voice echo in her mind one last time, "Wisely done, Katsuragi-san. I will see you up ahead."