White. It's probably the first thing she saw when she was born, and it threatens to be the last. His hands tighten around her throat and squeeze, fingers strained into boney cords with the desperate strength she has only seen surface against the Angels. I won't be killed by a man like you, she wants to yell, to push Shinji away from her and reclaim her position top her fragile pedestal of confidence, and yet she knows that pedestal is no longer there, washed away by the sea of knowledge that was Instrumentality.
Instead, Asuka raises a shaky hand, somehow bound in bandages as white and pristine as the sand that clings to them, and trails it down the side of his face. The pressure on her neck vanishes immediately, replaced by the sound of quiet gasps and the burning of his tears upon her delicate skin. She wishes them gone; they slide off her cheeks and are lost, indistinguishable from the rest of the salt-soaked sand.
His sobs are soon lost in the rushing of the waves and the empty void of the sky. Slowly she fixes his eyes on his distraught face. She would contort hers had she the energy, but she is still reeling from the memories of a thousand others; instead she says, "How disgusting."
Nothing more needs to be said. The sounds of the blood-red sea speak for the only humans yet alive. Asuka closes her eyes, an impatient sigh melding with the Third Child's ragged sobs, and lets sleep take her.
The next time she opens her eyes, Asuka notices the moon hasn't disappeared from the sky. It hangs ever-present like a pale, unmoving, sickly imitation of the absentee sun. Some time between dreams, Shinji gathered enough energy to shove himself again onto his back, where he has collected himself into a ball of knees and elbows. Asuka has not moved since she let her arm fall back to her side; her glassy eyes reflect the violet sky, marred by the red spray of blood that circles the empty landscape like a devil's halo.
No other bodies have risen from the crimson waters, not that Asuka can see. Occasionally she notices Shinji's eyes flit away from the lapping waves and climb the ridges of one of the many headless, petrified statues dotting the horizon. Each time, his brown irises halt and waver before the shoulders of the stone giant, flick up to its stump of a neck, gaze upon nothing, and return to the deceptively peaceful ocean. Asuka watches this pattern with an apathetic fascination, the movements of his eyes like the slow ticking of a clock, until finally she feels her strength has somewhat returned and sits up.
The Third Child does not spare Asuka a glance, but continues to stare blankly at the shore. Only when her iron grip settles on his shoulder does he acknowledge her presence, and even so, for the briefest of moments. Asuka ignores this, asking, "How long have I been asleep?" Shinji's shoulders rise and fall, prompting his counterpart to scoff. The thin line of her mouth curves into a frown. "So what are you so busy staring at?"
Shinji swallows and open his mouth, working it like a fish on land, before words begin to spill out. "He's... got to be here," he mutters, digging his heels into the sand. "Mother said that anyone could come back if they had the will."
"Stop speaking nonsense," says Asuka, her voice flat. "Who are you talking abo- oh." Her sentence fades out as a vision of silver hair and red eyes and an unfamiliar face dances through her mind's eye.
"If anyone else comes back, he'll be first." The fabric of Shinji's pants wrinkles under his grip. "Any day. He'll be here. I know it."
Asuka narrows her eyes, a sudden fury surging through her bones and bidding her to stand. "You disgust me, Third Child," she snaps, and tears her gaze away from the sea. Opposite the red waves lie the ruins of the Fortress City, dead and empty like the only other soul on the beach. "I can't stand this anymore," she says, stomping away. The white sands retreat from the black soles of her plugsuit as she departs, Shinji offering no protest, not even bothering to watch her go. Asuka doesn't look back, either.
She walks for what feels like hours, until her plugsuit is scratched and tattered from scraping against hard concrete and protrusions of metal. Some time during her mindless journey, Asuka thought she would look for food: but the buildings she encounters are all heaps of rubble, and she doesn't really feel hungry, anyway.
Occasionally one pile of shattered concrete protrudes higher than the rest, and Asuka meanders over in its direction, only to find that the building is unfamiliar and she cannot recognize her torn surroundings. This pattern repeats itself over and over, leading her past the gaping hole that drops away into the Geofront, past the unrecognizable ruins of the First Municipal Junior High, until as she wanders the rusting train tracks, she finally sees something she recognizes.
The building is, impossibly, relatively intact. Some of the upper floors and the roof have crumbled away, leaving an open, jagged tooth of a building reaching toward the sky. Asuka runs toward it, jumping over fallen struts and racing up the large mound of concrete that has formed against the side of the structure.
A quick punch from her good hand shatters the glass of the window closest to her and allows her entry. Asuka clambers in, her plugsuit shredding as it catches against the broken crystal edges, gouts of flowing red that drift to rest on the colorless cement.
A quick glance around the room she has entered tells Asuka all she needs to know, and that her lone uncovered eye has not failed her. She brushes past the eerily familiar arrangement of kitchen cabinets and hallways and steps out onto the empty square balconies. The elevator has collapsed along with the roof, but a quick inspection of the perimeter reveals an intact staircase, reaching skyward until it terminates in a drop back to the ground floor. Asuka ascends, vanishing into the halls of the ninth floor.
The door to Misato's apartment stands ajar. The beer-can towers have returned, no doubt constructed out of Shinji's absence and her own comatose state. The air is stagnant and heavy despite the sliding glass door having been broken in, a stark contrast to the eerily light atmosphere outside. As she advances, she kicks a beer can aside, and its rattle echoes through the empty rooms. The noise is harsh against her ears, which have not heard the screech of metal for an ageless time, not since the teeth of the MP Evas dug into Unit-02.
Asuka shudders and moves past the solemn living room, coming to the dark hall where she once resided. She looks down at herself, at the tattered remnants of her plugsuit that cling persistently to her body, and decides that a change of clothes is in order. She scours her closet for something appropriate. Skirts swish over her shoulder to land with the sleeveless blouses in a shapeless pile, and at the very back of the rack she discovers a pair of blue denim jeans. A red shirt and a matching jacket lie nearby, draped atop an innocuous black case.
Asuka draws the bundle of clothes and hard leather closer, running her fingers across the dusty surface to brush off the cobwebs. A pair of gleaming brass clasps glitter up at her, their unmarked surfaces begging to be touched. Her hands move of their own accord, opening the case, and a startled gasp escapes her lips as she beholds the familiar instrument inside. She reaches down, her clothes forgotten, and takes the construct of wood and wire into her hands. A thumb brushes over the strings, and a perfectly tuned peal escapes into the silence.
The violin is lowered back into the case, but only for as long as it takes Asuka to rip her plugsuit at the right wrist and pull the material off her hand like a glove. One hand goes to the neck of the violin, the other grasping at the bow as she lifts it to her shoulder. With a deep sigh, she begins to play, the familiar strains matching the unfamiliar, jerky movements of her arms. The halting music, and the motions that birth it, slowly ease themselves into a slow but persistent flow. Asuka reaches for the name of the piece like she once grasped toward the sun, and it touches her mind with a gentle softness not typical of an epiphany. Air, she thinks, by Bach.
The last strains of music fade away, startling Asuka, who did not realize her eyes had drifted shut or that the song still vibrated at the tips of her fingers. The bow, barely a feather-weight in her hand, rests against the strings as she launches into a repeat performance, the notes trickling through her fingers like grains of sand upon the beach. The cool wood floor presses itself to her thighs as she sinks into a sitting position against the wall.
She plays there, in the dark and shadows of her old life, the same lonely melody over and over; no variations or wanderings surfacing once she establishes the movements of her hands. Eventually the familiar vibrations begin to change, and Asuka opens her eyes to watch the bow pass before them. She blinks, for a moment unable to process the fraying ivory strands. Each pass over the strings kicks up more, and it is with a sense of faint regret that she lowers the bow and violin. The sudden lack of music rings hollowly in her ears. To fill it, she whispers, "It would be a waste to leave this behind," and lays the instrument against her bedroll.
Her gaze darts back to the clothes scattered on the floor, and her shoulders sag, as if some invisible, immeasurably heavy burden has settled upon her. She falls back against the floor, her arms splayed, hair fanning out in a fiery wave around her head as her eye stares up at the ceiling. Memories of a time long gone whisper at her from the cracks, and she shuts them out one by one, fighting this outpouring with one of her own.
The ground beneath Asuka bucks suddenly, the walls rumbling as the structure opposite where Asuka lays crumbles away. Dust falls from the walls and ceiling, spreading a thin grey sheen over everything. Asuka bolts upright, pushing off with both her arms, and is thrown against the closet door for her trouble. She manages to make it to her feet before the shaking stops. A final, far away roar rocks the building, and then the great concrete beast falls still and silent.
It takes another few moments for Asuka to realize that everything has stopped, and the only things quaking are her knees. She glances over her shoulder, at the clothes and the violin upon the bed, and takes them up in her arms. As she pads down the hallway, a pale ghost of skin and red, she stops at the door to the bathroom. No doubt the plumbing has been disrupted, but still she leaves her belongings on the counter and approaches the tub.
No water flows from the dimly glittering taps. Asuka leans back, sighing, and realizes she had used her bandaged hand to work the handles. A fierce pride leaps through her limbs, and with it a need to prove something to herself, to the world. Her right hand tears away at her left, clawing at the cocoon of bandages encasing her arm. The strips unwind and crumple to the floor in a grisly heap as Asuka lifts her arm, whole and unmarked and nearly glowing in the dim room. She shouts with triumph, her mindless ecstasy driving her to the mirror over the sink, both her hands working with feverish care at the gauze over her eye.
The last of the wrapping falls away. The darkness gives way to fuzzy shapes. Asuka's fingers grip the sides of the sink, trembling with an unhealthy force. She stares into her eyes in the mirror, her lips pulled back and teeth bared savagely; she pays no mind, only stares into her own maniacal gaze. "That... idiot," she hisses, her shoulders beginning to quake as she pushes closer, the edge of the sink digging into the flat of her belly. "He can't do anything right. That idiot was- played god; he fixed my arm, but he couldn't fucking fix my Gott verdammt eye!"
The mirror shatters with a blow of fists. Asuka lowers her arms to her sides, ignoring the steady trickling of blood from her knuckles. She reaches for the bandages that once swaddled her arm and wraps them around her head, around her only imperfection, an eye flat and brown and ugly like dried blood. "I would have been better off without it," she huffs, brushing shards of mirror off her clothes. Once again she gathers them beneath one arm, careful not to drip blood on them, and squeezes the neck of the violin.
A trail of splattered red leads through the halls and down the stairwell. Her plugsuit snags on the glass of the window that she uses as her exit, and Asuka tears it away in frustration, leaving behind the tattered remains of the upper half of her plugsuit. She quickly substitutes it with the shirt and jacket. The plugsuit is ripped free and thrown casually over a shoulder, a bobbing red flag drifting carelessly down the empty streets. Asuka walks away, not turning back as she traces a path to the beach, not even when with a great cry of suffering, the apartment complex finally gives out and collapses in on itself. She calmly raises her shirt to shield her mouth and nose from the cloud of debris and dust that overtakes her, and continues to follow that horrible white visage back to the beach.
As she walks, she feels the texture of the asphalt suddenly change beneath her feet. Asuka looks down; a red-haired ragdoll stares happily up at her. Her face twitches but otherwise does not move, and she grinds her heel down, separating the head from the shoulders. With a vindictive snort, she kicks it aside, stuffing flying in her wake.
Once on the beach, Asuka kicks her way free of the plugsuit and changes into her jeans. The denim is rough against her skin, not like the smooth material of the plugsuit, but she'll be damned if she has to spend the rest of her short eternity in a decaying reminder of her own failures. Both parts of her old combat uniform go flying, flung into the ocean of souls. A wave passes under them, carrying them out further, and before long they sink beneath the glittering surface of the red sea and are gone.
The beach stretches in each direction as far as the eye can see. To the right, not far down the shore, is a small two-man boat, sails raised yet slack, bobbing uselessly in the shallow water and the absence of the wind. To the fore is a fallen god. To the left, beyond sight, is a pitiful shell of a man who rejected godhood. Asuka does not know how she knows this, but she feels she could learn to find him no matter where on earth she was; the thought both amuses and sickens her.
She starts left, anyway, plucking on the strings of her violin as she goes. Ode to Joy. She hates it, but anything is better than the sounds of the ocean.
Shinji comes into view what must be hours later; the red streak in the sky has shifted several degrees, but Asuka does not feel the slightest hint of fatigue from her long journey. She stops plucking as she draws within earshot. Shinji looks the same as ever, and acts the part, not looking up at Asuka's approach. She ignores his melancholy frown and plants her free hand against her hip, nails digging into her shirt. "So? Has anyone else showed up?" she asks.
"No." The reply is as broken as the boy who spoke it. Only then does he look up at Asuka, blinking with confusion at her unfamiliar attire. "Your arm. It's okay," Shinji remarks. Asuka's lips thin into a line; her eye narrows dangerously, and Shinji looks away quickly. "D-did you find anything in the city?"
"Just Misato's apartment, and the building it was in collapsed." Asuka bites her lip, wondering if she should add her typical over-the-top embellishment. She settles for a happy medium. "I barely made it out. Didn't find much else, though. I found a boat down the beach, but there's no more wind, so it's useless."
"A boat?" The Third Child perks up, his eyes glittering with hope, so much hope that Asuka has to look away; it's too much. Out of the corner of her vision she sees his face fall, like a balloon deflating, almost comical. "But I can't leave here," Shinji whispers. "What if he shows up while I go looking for him? No... I can't go, but-" He looks up again, his hope tinged by fear. Asuka doesn't bother to face him. "A-Asuka, I- I need to ask... help," he finishes lamely. "Could you take that boat and... go out and look for him?"
Look for who? And where?" Asuka shouts. "Even if I wanted to help you, you haven't told me anything useful! You didn't even say anything to me the first time I woke up; you just choked me!"
"He... he's like Rei," Shinji stammers, ignoring her accusation. "You'd know when you saw him.. I saw him and Rei during..." He gestures at the sea. "I thought, since he's like Rei, and he sort of... was Rei, maybe he would be out... there."
Asuka knows where he means even before he points. The rebuke is already on her tongue, the air gathered in her lungs, that despicable desperation in his eyes begging to be stamped out. But she looks at the sea, at the petrified MP Evas and the sightless head and the violet sky, and she knows there is only pain to be found in denying him his request. "You make me sick," she spits, and whirls on her heel, retracing her footsteps on the shore.
The boat is still there, rocking along with the caresses of the tide. Asuka throws her violin aboard before wading in, her jeans soaking up the water and pressing against her skin. She rolls them up to the knees to alleviate some of her discomfort and glances around. A pair of oars rest conveniently at the bottom of the boat. Asuka glowers at her two healthy arms and shoves the oars into the oarlocks. She casts off with a great heave, each stroke of her god-killing arms pushing her further toward the gruesome effigy of the First Child.
About half a mile from the shore, the movement of the ocean vanishes entirely. A single push of the oars propels Asuka a sizeable distance; the water is still but not clear, and it distorts the sky into a magenta spread. The red streak loops carelessly through the heavens, passing overhead three times, and with each pass the fallen head grows closer.
She rows by day and sleeps by night, despite feeling no need to sleep. Dreamless sleep is such a novelty that Asuka feels entitled to claim it as much as she wants, especially on this mindless errand for her ungrateful fellow pilot.
On the fourth afternoon, Asuka encounters hair. At first she thinks it to be some strange growth, like seaweed, but as she rows on the strands grow in number, until they all but entrap her craft and pull her closer. Asuka sets the oars aside and picks up her violin, strumming it with strained fingers. The air grows colder and colder, biting her through her jacket and her unrolled jeans. Little pieces of red crystal begin to float by, tangled in the hair; Asuka prods one with an oar and it breaks apart like ice. Once she thinks she glimpses a tower of frozen red, but when she looks again it is gone, and she dismisses it as another anomaly of this perverted world.
She makes landfall shortly after. Asuka secures the boat by tying it to several strands of hair, which sting her hands like lashes from a whip and raise pale, unearthly marks upon them. She briefly laments not having her plugsuit to protect her feet, but she takes an oar, in case this person Shinji wants her to find turns out to be hostile. The first touch of white flesh upon her bare feet makes her cry out, and had she been born before Second Impact, she might recognize the touch to be like that of snow.
The hike up the unrelenting slope is a long one, and though her muscles no longer ache nor feel pain, the ascent is slowed by the chill seeping into her soul. The oar becomes a walking stick, raising bruises where it is pressed down to steady the trembling of her body. She falls more than once, the cold touch burning its way through her palms and cheek and wherever else she lands, but Asuka refuses to concede even a tear. She grits her teeth and soldiers on. The scabs on her knuckles split from the force with which she grips the oar, her blood oozing between her fingers and soaking into the weathered wood.
Asuka encounters a peak, or perhaps the peak comes to her, having taken pity on her struggles. The peak is really just a nose, and from her vantage point Asuka gazes out at the rest of the barren world, at the sea stretching endlessly in every direction, accompanied by pristine, unblemished white. She cannot see very far to her left, but she knows no other embodied soul is with her in the same way that she knows where Shinji and the beach are.
The white flesh beneath her feet ripples imperceptibly. Asuka looks down, confusion spreading from her eyes to her parted lips, through which she shrieks as the unholy ground throbs. She casts her eyes to the horizon, rising slowly as if to plunge her back into the sea. Her boat floats at the neck of the horrible half-head; she scrambles for it, the heels of her feet fighting the cold and the slope down which she flies. Around her the hungry red ocean continues to advance, like millions of angry souls are dragging the dead Angel down to join them.
The head lurches, throwing Asuka several meters down the slope, where she lands face-down. She screams, not in pain, but to roar her defiance of the world and everyone in it, pushing off with tingling hands and pumping her arms furiously as both ocean and boat continue to get closer and closer. With a final cry and a massive effort from her legs, Asuka leaps off the alabaster shore and swings her single oar into position before untying the strands of hair holding her craft in place.
Her boat glides free with an eerie ease, brushing aside icy-blue strands of hair with a gentle grace not seen on its trip in. Asuka attributes it to her rowing with the currents, rather than against them, or perhaps the frantic energy behind each of her strokes. She makes it out of the thicket of hair in what seems like record time, only slowing when she can see a noticeable drop in the presence of hairs surrounding her.
Asuka lets her arms sag at the oars, merely a gesture, while she closes her eyes and heaves a sigh of relief. Ahead of her, the Rei-Lilith head seems to have stabilized, its descent having slowed, or even stopped. Only small ripples in the water betray that anything abnormal had happened.
After a long moment's rest, Asuka's shoulders straighten and click back into rowing position, ready to continue the journey home. She closes her eyes and hums to herself, an old German song that she remembers from her childhood that takes her back to the empty green pastures that sat next to the NERV Germany headquarters. How she used to run through them without a care in the world, the only time when she was truly at peace with herself, with the sun streaming down and warming her skin-
A sudden shade falls overhead. Asuka glances up, more than annoyed at the cloud that dares to interrupt her pleasant daydream, only to realize there are no clouds in the sky. There have been none since Third Impact. Instead she stares, wide-eyed, at a wall of water that towers over her. It is red, but it is clear, and through the streaming foam she can see that the head is gone, having sank beneath the waves.
There is no time to react. Asuka crumples as the water crashes into her boat, ripping her from her seat and shoving her body far below the surface. The light from above fades rapidly as the sea turns opaque, leaving her in darkness. What pitiful amounts of air remain in Asuka's lungs quickly burn out, and she gasps, inhaling what she hopes will be oxygenated LCL. It tastes like it, but the liquid burns the insides of her throat and nostrils and yields nothing. Sapphire eyes burn with desperation even as their owner's struggles slowly become weaker, until her limbs are still and her eyelids slam shut. On the porcelain shores where Shinji waits, a slightly larger wave crests and brushes against his feet. He thinks nothing of it.
Light filters down from above, a perfect circle that illuminates a single metal folding chair on a wooden stage. Resting on the chair is a bow and violin, just her size. Asuka glowers at the arrangement, her toes barely touching the edges of the yellow circle that she finds immensely vile. "This is bullshit," she snarls, starting forward. She takes up the instrument with a single violent sweep of her arms, and lays the bow to the strings with a passionate, fiery intensity.
A shadow falls across her from behind. "You're in my light," Asuka growls. Whoever is behind her does not move. The redhead stands, the motion of her arms not ceasing, and kicks her chair aside. It clatters away into the darkness as Asuka turns and comes face to face with an identical twin of herself, only the other Asuka is clad in the red plugsuit she had thrown away. "The hell are you doing here?"
"I'm here because you are," says the other Asuka. She gestures with her hand, and the cool wood beneath Asuka's fingers vanishes. "I thought we should have a talk, you see, about that brat you left behind."
"Baka-Shinji?" A nod. "What about him?"
"You realize you're only here because of him, right?" Asuka feels a chill race down her spine as her double says that; the thought had never crossed her mind, not while she was freezing her limbs off trying to climb her way to the top, not while she was rowing for her life. "Tell you what. We're all busy here. You tell us why you bothered with that brat, and we'll let you go back to drowning."
"We?" asks Asuka.
"What, you think I came alone?" The other Asuka laughs and spreads her arms as two other figures advance from the shadows. Asuka's breath catches as she glimpses them, her knees failing her and pitching her onto the stage floor.
"Kaji," she breathes. "M-mama. Is it really you? Are you both... really here?"
"Of course we are, Asuka," says Kaji. "Everyone who's ever been was part of Instrumentality."
"Except for Gendo Ikari," adds Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu. "I didn't feel his disgusting mind in here with everyone else." Her sharp gaze softens as she sighs. "Yui was there, though. She didn't want to speak to me."
"So I've reverted back into LCL, or whatever the hell this is?"
"Not exactly. In layman's terms, your soul has left your body, but you're not really dead. We just happened to see you in the area and called you in for a chat. Your mother would be able to explain it better."
"Like this young man said, we called you back into the sea for a reason. More specifically, I did." Kyoko glances down at her shoes, unable to meet her daughter's gaze. "Asuka, I was a horrible mother. I neglected you for Project E, and when I didn't, I only saw you as a means to beat the competition. And when... after the failed Contact Experiment, I wasn't in my right mind. I would have given anything to have another chance with you, Asuka, and now we can have it. I wanted to ask you if you would like to stay here. With me."
"She would," the other Asuka interjects, "except there's one small problem she's got to take care of. You see, it's called 'Shinji Ikari', and she may have left her collector's edition broken back on the beach-"
"Hey!"
"Oh give me a break, that's totally what you're thinking, isn't it?"
"Not like that!" Asuka stamps her foot, ignoring the bemused look Kaji shoots her. "Mama, I would love to, but there's someone up there who needs me."
"I saw what he did to you, Schätzchen. Why would you ever want to go back to that?"
"Because I care about him, even if he doesn't give a damn about me. It's my fault he started Third Impact, and even if we weren't counting that, there's no one else left for him. No one else has come back yet, and we don't even know if anyone's coming back! If I leave him alone there, on that beach, who's not to say he'll do something stupid like kill himself?"
"That's golden, coming from someone who-" Kaji begins, but the glares of three angry Germans quickly cut off that train of thought. The ex-triple agent holds his hands up in exasperated surrender and falls silent.
"Do you really care about him that much, Asuka? You know you owe him nothing, and even if you did, no one could blame you for staying here."
"I... I want to go back!" declares Asuka, her fists clenching as her resolve swells. Kaji turns to the side, a smile on his face, as Kyoko's face goes slack.
"Asuka-"
"It looks like little Asuka's grown up," Kaji grins.
"Stay here, child," pleads Kyoko. "We can be a family here. I can take care of you, I can give you the love that I never got to. We can make things right, Asuka. You can be happy this time."
Asuka smiles, a hint of sadness coloring her gaze. "I'm sorry, mama. I have to go back. He would fall apart without me there. He doesn't have anyone else. You understand, right?"
"I do," Kyoko replies, the irony striking her almost like a physical blow. "But do you really want to leave?"
"I... would have liked to stay," confesses Asuka. "But I don't know how much time I've spent down here, other than it's enough. I'll take my chances going back. That idiot wouldn't know what to do with himself without me to tell him what to do." The redhead hesitates, swaying on the spot. "I... will get to see you again, though, right?"
This time it's Kaji who speaks, shaking his head. "We're already too far gone to return. Even if we wanted to, our bodies are long past the point of recovery. We will remain here, helping to guide other souls who may want to return, and when that's done... well, I'm fairly sure we'll find something to do with ourselves."
"And you?" Asuka asks of her double.
The other Asuka smirks. "Me? What are you, stupid? I'm you. I'll go wherever you go. I'm just here since your subconscious apparently wanted to give the rest of you a talking-to."
The smile on Asuka's face widens. "I'll miss you two," she says. The stage light begins to glow with a harsh intensity, bathing the small circle with blinding radiance. Kaji and Kyoko step back out of its boundaries, their faces still illuminated in the light, arms extended toward her in farewell. "Auf Wiedersehen."
The circle of light expands, pushing aside the darkness. The images of Kyoko and Kaji are blown away like dust in the wind, and Asuka closes her eyes, shielding them against almost physical presence of the light. She can hear herself laughing, but whether it is herself or her double she cannot tell. There is also someone calling her name, faintly but persistently, and she follows the sound like a moth drawing closer to an open flame.
"...suka? Asuka, wake up. Please wake up, oh god, Asuka-"
Stark blue eyes flare to life as Asuka opens her eyes. Shinji hovers over her, his face etched with worry, brows knotted together, chest heaving. "Oh god, you're alright," Shinji gasps. "I- I saw you wash up on the beach, and you weren't moving but you were breathing, and I didn't know if you were dead, so I-"
"So you do care after all," Asuka remarks with a wry grin that slowly fades into a somber expression. "I didn't find him out there."
"I know," Shinji replies with equal gravity. "He... came to visit me while you were away. Not from the sea, though. He said... that he was taking everything away and starting over, whatever that meant, and that in this life I already had someone who... someone to love me."
"I see." Asuka glances away, at the sands of the beach, anything to avoid meeting Shinji's eyes. "And what did you say?"
"I didn't say anything; I didn't really have time to. As soon as he said that, I saw you floating on the water, so I ran to pull you out and when I looked back, he was gone."
"I just missed him, then. That's a shame. Maybe if I'd taken a longer swim, you two could've had an actual conversation."
"Th-that's not funny!" Shinji stammers. Asuka whips her head around, the shock evident on her face. "I... when I saw you just... floating in the water, I thought- I thought that I'd killed you, by making you go out there!"
"And if I had died?" The question is low and deathly quiet, almost as if Asuka was not the one who spoke it, but rather repeating the inquiry like a fearful child.
"If you'd... died? I wouldn't have been able to forgive myself. I- I already messed up, when the MP Evas were..." Shinji trails off, sinking back onto his haunches and looking down at the sand. "I'm just glad you're alright."
"Yeah, and I'm glad too." Shinji gasps as Asuka sits up and flings her arms around his shoulders, pulling him into a hug. "No more mopey Baka-Shinji, alright? I think we've had enough of that for a lifetime."
"Yeah," says Shinji, carefully freeing an arm and resting his hand on Asuka's. "I think we have."