Chapter 1: A wish
The blood-red waves kept on hammering away at the sandy coastline of the completely ruined city of Tokyo-3. What looked like a magnificent, modern metropolis dotted with high-tech skyscrapers now resembled a sorry mess of metal, tar and half-dried blood. The eerie night sky was dotted with gruesome maimed silhouettes of gigantic man-like figures, which seemed to be frozen with their arms spread, as if crucified on huge, invisible crosses.
Two more figures were lying down on the beach right next to where the blood-colored waves met the yellow sand. However, they could not be called large by any standard. One of the figures was tightly wrapped in the remains of a latex red suit, with the thin rubber on one of the arms replaced by loose, dirty bandages. Red hair spread outwards from the small silhouette's head, resembling innards strewn out from a gunshot wound.
The second was clad in a torn white shirt, now stained with a wild mix of cream yellow and blood red. His tattered pants now more resembled a pair of shorts and clung to the figure's legs, wet and dirty. At first glance, one could think that the two shapes were sharing a kiss or an embrace, that was how tightly they were clinging to each other. That impression could not be further from the truth: the white-clad shape had its arms around the red shape's neck, in an apparent attempt at strangulation.
Some time has passed before the two separated, the white shape, who was a dark-haired boy relaxed and slumped down next to the red one, who was a girl with what looked like horrific injuries hidden underneath bandages on one of her eyes; her right arm and left leg were covered in gauze as well.
The girl spent the next minute and a half coughing softly and rubbing her throat, while the boy curled up and started to sob.
"You really are pathetic", - the redhead's voice was dull and emotionless, - "Can't even finish off a half-dead girl. Can't say I'm surprised."
The boy remained quiet, his body shaking. Perhaps, he was trembling in anger at the girl's words. Perhaps, shaking in fear of this red-haired monster that kept on patronizing him wherever he went in Tokyo-3. Or perhaps, it was just his silent sobbing was getting stronger.
The thin red-clad figure slowly got up on her feet and looked around dejectedly.
"We're in hell, aren't we", - with a soft limp, the girl made a couple of strides towards the red waves, which were still licking the sandy coast monotonously. – "God, this is hell, and you are still such a pussy."
She came close to screaming the last few words out, and immediately fell into a coughing fit. Clearly, her throat had not yet recovered from the recent assault.
"You make it hell wherever you go, Asuka", – the boy's voice was now the same as his companion's has been earlier: monotone and emotionless. The voice of someone who had given up on everything.
Surprisingly, the girl did not get even the least bit visibly offended. Instead, the look the boy got was the look of a teacher looking at his worst student, the look that screams "wow, you are so stupid".
"Yeah, cool story. In that case, I'd like to make this place hell somewhere private, without you". – her voice was now muffled by the sudden gust of wind. The girl turned around and began to limp away towards the ruined mess of what was some time ago a bustling city. Her body shook with every stride she made – it was obvious that every bit of weight the bandaged teenager put on her bad leg tore through her body like a knife.
"If we are dead, how come your body still hurts so much?" – the male figure questioned nobody in particular, as the girl was now out of his sight, and judging from the lack of an answer – out of earshot as well.
THUMP
As soon as the thought escaped his mouth, pain of his own – dull and heavy – ripped through his head. A blinding light poured down from the sky above, as if someone lit several dozen projectors straight into his face.
"What do you want, Ikari Shinji?"
That was a voice the boy was not expecting to hear any time soon.
"Rei?!" – Shinji tried to turn his head towards the source of the gentle voice, but as soon as he made any attempt to move, the pain would cripple his movement and stop his feeble efforts straight away.
Finally, after giving up on trying to move at all, the boy seemed to catch a glimpse of where the girl speaking to him was – right above. If the pain piercing his brain was not as strong, he probably would have found it odd to see her float in a blinding ray of light.
"What do you want, Ikari-kun?"
She could finally think. No more NERV drugs, no more memory lapses, she could finally remember. Remember the thousands, or perhaps, millions, of times she had seen the boy lying down on the sand, shirt torn, pants shredded. All the empty lifetimes of existing, surviving as a NERV pet that she had endured were worth this feeling of freedom.
But something was different this time around. Impact after impact, the light would fall on two figures on the beach. But this time there was only one. For the first time in millions of years, something was different.
In her head, Rei called the duality of the different timelines the mother/father cycles. Every time the impact would occur, Shinji's wishes would boil down to the same thing – bringing his missing parent back to life. In the cycle that had just finished – his mother was the one fused with the EVA, so, naturally, his wish should be "I wish my mother was still alive", as opposed to the previous cycle's "I wish my father was still alive", and so in the next cycle, his father would be the one trapped inside the purple monstrosity, and his mother would go on to become the ruthless head of the NERV agency, who Shinji would come to resent for abandoning him and summoning back only when the need for an EVA pilot arose.
But this time, there were differences. To the blue-haired girl floating inside the warm stream of bright light, everything was obvious now. Like a butterfly effect, one tiniest thing led to another, and another, and another, which would, in time, grow into a raging storm, taking events away from the normal timeline.
Rei could not, for the life of her, figure out why exactly this has happened. After so many times of time going in circles, nothing would change. Did something go awry last cycle? Or perhaps was someone able to retain memories from his previous life? The girl was unsure.
"I"
The boy's voice was more resigned than usual. Cycle after cycle, he would nearly break into tears at the thought of his "deceased" parent. But now, his voice was just… Empty.
"I wish none of this existed. No angels, no EVA. I wish it would all just... go away."
It was done. Those were the wishes that Unit-01 was supposed to grant the boy. But no angels meant…
"Very well, Ikari-kun. I don't know if I will, but", - the girl's voice grew fainter as she seemed to float up, as if pulled towards the heavens on invisible strings, "But I will be happy to see you again."
Suddenly, Shinji felt the full extent of his injuries. His limbs, which just a second ago, felt almost weightless, now felt like they were getting squashed under enormous weights. His headache grew stronger, and his eyelids felt like the heaviest things on earth. Just a couple more seconds, and he will pass out.
"Rei… Asu…"
"Let's go, doofus. Time to get up!"
Shinji's head hurt like hell. Just what time did he stay up last night until?
"Ugh, just five more minutes, Asuka.."
The brown-haired boy curled up on his bed and tried to protect himself with the covers. Deep down though, he knew that there was no escape from his childhood friend.
"Don't make me hurt you, idiot!" – The girl, who was dressed in her school's uniform of a blue skirt and white shirt, checked her wristwatch. If they did not leave right now, there would be hell to pay in class for being late for the first day of school. Fuming at how lazy the boy was acting, she decided it was time for drastic measures and reached down for the wooden edges of the western-style bed.
"Wha- ", - was all Shinji managed to squeak out as the bedding underneath him gave way and his backside made contact with the hard floor. Just how strong was this girl?
"And please, put some pants on!" – Asuka contorted her face in a sour expression and thrust out her arms in a rhetorical effort to shield herself from what could not be unseen.
"Alright, alright! Just give me some privacy here!" – the boy realized dejectedly that he was probably not going to get out of this one, and that he would rather get dressed before he met the same fate as his bed.
"Goodbye, Mr Ikari, we're leaving now!" – putting on her sweetest voice, Asuka shouted into the kitchen, where Shinji's father, head propped on hand, was slowly gulping down half-cold coffee from a white cup with a NERV logo. "And put some pants on, too! Jeez, this family! How indecent, especially when a girl is visiting!"
"H-hey, you can't scream at my dad like that, Asuka! And it's just creepy when you put on a voice like that."
"Yeah, and you cant flash me, moron, but you do it anyway!"
"It's not like i did it on purpose, Miss Home-Invader! Bye, Dad, see you later! Ow, don't pinch me, you red-haired brute!"
"What did you call me?! You should be thankful I woke you up in time!"
As the voices got softer and eventually drowned out in the sounds of the morning street, Gendo Ikari, who thought he was fully dressed for work, glanced at his underwear. That's what he was forgetting!
"Give it your all, kids" – he muttered to nobody in particular and lazily dialed a number on his cellphone.
"Morning, Fuyutsuki" – the call was picked up on the other end in a matter of seconds, - "Yes, would you mind bringing me some spare pants?"
Upon hearing the reply, Gendo's face contorted into a grimace of worry and anger.
"What do you mean, you already left home?! Damnit!"
The head of NERV slowly sank back down into his chair and sighed.
"Maybe I should just stay home today."