A/N: Everything used in this fanfic is owned by Gainax.
-Passage of Time-
His eyes open, long encircled by shades of shadow. Within his sight was a faint and vague blur of light in the distance. Was it another one? He fitfully, yet vainly shook his head; now, only a pathetic, instinctive gesture. He wanted to survive. He wanted to live. It was why he was here, to find why he was still living, existing still.
A sound. A click. A tone. Open.
She walks in. Her eyes are red. They are as red as he could remember. Red. No, she was not her. Her skin, was pale, inhumanly so. Pale. No, she was not her. Who was she? Who were they? All he knew was he. All he clung to was the idea of him, the idea that brought him back to reality.
And yet, she gives him comfort. She does what she can. She feeds him, and he enjoys every sensation of flavour now rushing from the tips of his tongue, even if what is fed turns out to be nothing more than mere tasteless crumbs. She dresses his wounds and scrubs him with a sponge, and the pain eases, if for a brief moment, even as the beatings rush on.
He does not waver. She is here.
He feels like he should grant her a name. Not of a parent to a child, or of equals; but, of one worshipful of another, much grateful, a starving peasant to a merciful lord. Yes, she was befitting of that name.
"Yui."
She stirs. Her red eyes show quite a parade of fleeting feelings; of suspense, of surprise. She knows. She knows her; a silver of hope briefly flickers within him. His interest is piqued; the rhythm of his heart, the pace, quickens. His eyes light up, with an intense ardour, the foolhardy idealism of long ago.
"I am not her", she says.
Then, she leaves, abruptly. Her feet shuffle her towards the exit hurriedly.
Close. Darkness.
He cries. He can only afford to do so now. Before they come. Because he has lost his light.
He closes his eyes.
He cannot sleep.
Unbeknownst to him, he is watched. He is watched by a woman, with features strikingly occidental, her eyes decisively blue. She is indeed quite distinct; various implants jutting out of the varying parts of her body. She looks straight at the flickering screen, the numbers below seemingly portent of an ominous happening. They are, she silently murmurs, ominous. Because, now is the time for the Scanario to be fulfilled. And the year itself, is quite fitting.
The year is 2015.
Tick.
She turns swiftly. Her aide hands her a sheaf of papers, all bundled in one folder. It is marked as "Archaeological Findings, Tokyo-3 Ruins, 2000". She snatches it from her aide's shaking hands, whose face then turns pallor. And she whispers to herself, almost too eagerly. She whispers, her voice dripping with callous ambition and sly cunning.
Tock.
"All preparations are in order. My kin; are you ready?"
Behind her, a pale woman nods; her red eyes wary with suspicion.
Tick.
She walks. They walk. Towards the entrance, they walk. Then, it opens; revealing a large, horned monstrosity. It is their hope, they all say. But some doubt. And they do doubt. They doubt rightfully so, holding a primal fear towards the chained beast they have found and imprisoned. But, her eyes are unwavering. They do not fear the beast. She is alone. The rest; they all do fear it so.
Tock.
"All systems are ready, ma'am. Unit 01 is ready for reactivation."
And then.
It is she. It is it. She is it.
She gives a fierce, animalistic roar. She lunges towards them. She leaps towards them. The glass shatters, and her fist goes right through. She screams. The yellow hue of her eyes brightens into the ferocity of an innate killer, a being born and awash in blood. She pounds. They all run away, in fright, in instinctive reason. But two do not budge from where they stand.
The women show not an ounce of distress. Pairs of blue and red glared defiantly at the beast.
Silence.
The Beast fell silent, brooding.
Brooding. It was.
What was it? It was a chained abomination. What for? It was for the selfish intents of selfish human beings; wanting their selfish wishes to manifest. Who was it? Who, a word which is befitting of a free being with a name, that of which it is not worthy of. It is not worthy. It has killed. It has brought death to those it sought to defend. It is only it.
It is not she.
And yet, it clings on to its name.
Yui.
Ik.
Ikari.
Yui Ikari.
Now, it is enslaved once more. It has been a few millennia, since it had initiated Complementation. But, it is now chained. Chained to a fate it is not eager to face. Chained to fight, once again. And still, it believes, deep within, that it is worthy of name. It still believes, it is worthy of existence. It believes, when in fact, it is not. Thus, it clings on. Thus, she clings on.
Yui Ikari. I am.
Shinji. It had betrayed him. It had set in motion his torturous destiny. It had brought him pain and anguish; tearing away from him the love she–no, it had for him. It had torn away from him the love of his own mother. It had done so, and it had reaped the bitter fruit.
I am. Ikari Yui.
Gendo. It had used him. It had taken advantage of his weakness, of his desire for love, of his aversion to others. It had made him into a monster, much like herself–no, in the end, it was itself that was still the true abomination in the grand scheme of fate. And she, no it rather had paid the price; reaping the bitter fruit that followed.
I am Yui Ikari.
It had...? It had. It had! And she regretted it. She was she, not it. She was once a human being! She was still a human's soul! She felt all of it, all of it, for the constant that was the decades which only turned into endless centuries of separation, of loneliness. She felt more than regret; she felt pain, she felt despair, she felt desperation–she felt it all.
Stuck in a prison, to be the testament to man's existence?
No, she was even denied that. Man lived on. Man always lived on. Now, she was degraded into a bitter reminder of the foolishness of their ancestors, of the greed which consumed them whole.
I am Yui Ikari.
She glances, at herself. She is restrained; her captors have placed new bonds on her, to prevent her from her rampaging like before. Yet, she wonders, in the consciousness she now grasped full, about those two women. They bore an uncanny resemblance to two of those girls around her son; that nephilim clone of her and that daughter of Kyoko. Yet, they also reminded her of her own son; in the little gestures and quirks she noticed.
Now, she gazes, with her eyes. They shuffle in a pilot. Have they given up stuffing her with an antiquated dummy plug system? A system she'll reject with certainty.
She looks. He looks. Into their eyes, they gaze.
He is he.
She is she.
They still live. They still exist. Her consciousness is rushed upon by a flurry of sentiments; of regret, of pity, of sorrow. His hands throb with shock, with amazement, with a tint of bitter irony. Yes, he thought. Now, it was he who was meant to pilot her, under the pain of force. Ironic, fate loves to be. He manages a bitter chuckle. Perhaps, she too recognizes the strangeness of this twist of fate.
He gets in, clad in a plug suit, white and blue. Like him.
"Synchro-Start"
Time flows by. Time eases. His perception of it wanes. Instead, he is in an eternity, an existence encapsulated in static; a unique existence unto himself. It is only him and her. They are one. This is what it feels. He muses; odd, how their consciousnesses could meld together, in such a way that did not equal pleasure, but demanded attachment.
His son felt a mother's love, demanding him to come. He felt the love of forlorn lover, calling him by name. And he wondered and waxed on whether it was genuine, whether it actually was. Or was it just a playful trick of the mind; an illusion of Eva. It didn't matter, though. Whatever, wherever love was; he would take it without hesitation.
In this world, he had nothing else.
She feels it. She feels him. He doesn't know her true self; but she does. She knows. She knows he doubts whether she is. Whether she is truly calling him, calling his name. She wants to speak. She wants to say. She wants to tell him that she does; that she wants him, and would accept that he wants her. She cries, inside.
In this world, she had nothing else.
"Synchronization Rate is at...over...two hundred percent...ma'am...beyond MAGI-S projections."
The woman, with her cool blue eyes, laughed with a strange sense of joy. Everyone else shuddered, whether they may be standing or on their seats. They looked at her, reluctantly expecting a justification, a reason for her odd, out-of-place laughter. She only grinned.
"Well, it appears that your close colleague and her husband are doing quite well, dear ancestress of mine. Don't you agree?"
She was talking to no one, in hushed whispers. And then, the room around her seemed to reply, from what seemed to be within her mind, but was not. It sounded bitter, spat out in mocking condescension.
"Yes, my imprudent nachkome. Though do I have reason to worry if this is the respect you show to your vorfahren."
A brief pause. Then, an answer came.
"Nein. Sei ruhig."
An alarm.
Sirens wailed, with their mechanical shrieks ringing in the ears of many. Aides scrambled about to their positions, confirming reports of incidents, of the frightful landings of untoward extraterrestrial visitors. Soon, an uneasy calm settled in, with all now ready at their positions.
The woman, her blue eyes nevertheless imposing, stood tall.
"Yui, are you there?"
This was on a plain barely seen by human consciousness or perception; the plain of thoughts, of dreams. This was where the A.T field was not broken down as many would guess, but where it was surpassed in animo, allowing for a brief and powerful empathy, a mental oneness. And this was where he was.
This was also the plain of havoc; for in this state did Unit 01 rampage in berserker frenzy. Was he, the man wondered, in such a state? Was he now wreaking destruction unwittingly?
"No. You are not."
She did not appear, nor let herself be perceived by his mind within. All he knew was that she was there.
"I...see..."
The man was utterly speechless. He had good reason to be. Away from his privy mind, Yui laughed out a chuckle. She could glance at the entirety of his mind, and see his feelings surge from bewilderment to a joy. A joy indeed, she noted.
A pleasurable feeling that arose from his discovery that she was alive; that was his joy. That, she noted.
Though to her surprise, the man quickly regained his composure. In his eyes was a fiery spark of passion lit once more. With the joy that he had now grasped, he turned hope into decisive will. She could see that. She could see the flurry of plots, flickering through his minds like the times of old.
She sighed. Ambition. Again.
"A cocky man is a foolish man to be reckoned with, pilot. Before you prance around after seeing for yourself that I still exist, remember the painful lessons you have been taught. "
Somehow, despite that, the man widened his smile even further. Yui sighed. Was he really this foolish?
"Yui. Where am I?"
"Right now, you're in an Evangelion that is going to be launched in exactly ten seconds from real time. Although, if you ask where you think you are, you're merely interacting with the soul of the Eva, in other words, me."
The man stroked his beard, pondering for a while.
"But surely, it has been more than ten seconds, Yui. Are we being launched right now, as I speak?"
He spoke, calm and commanding. Reassessing the situation as always, Gen-chan? Gen-chan? Why was she calling him like that? It just seemed...after all the cruel tricks and games...very inappropriate, to call him again by his pet name.
"No, that isn't the case, really. Actually, this is your perception of our souls mingling without the interference of the A.T field without physical breakdown, so to speak. And it just so happens that our perception of time in here is moving much faster than real time."
He stroked his beard again. This time, he had slight grin on his face. But, it seemed quite bitter and irritated.
"Ah, so now I achieve Godhood? I mean technically, this is Instrumentality. Just between two souls though, right?"
She rolled her eyes, if she could have. Gendo was still hurting over that? Well, she was too, but she accepted it, somehow. If she didn't, she'd just be a crazy beast, virtually a shadow of her former self. And it was true that he also did move on, to a certain degree. If he didn't, well, he'd be ripping his heart out and screaming out her name, over and over. Literally, of course.
Instrumentality did that. Fixed people's lives up.
At least for the scant hundreds who survived, she sorely remarked.
"Well good for you, Gendo..."
The man knew what she meant. That was a forbidden topic. He agreed. Better to bury hatchets, right here, right now.
"...but you have to come down to the real world. Or else..."
From where he was, from the visuals he that all now came down to him, he could see the pitch darkness of the night, all around him. He was in space. The Eva looked, felt same, with the exception of the white wings it now had on its back.
These were what must have brought him here, he mused.
He glimpsed a humanoid figure, metallic, yet oddly natural. It was much like the Eva, from that single glance alone. But, besides that, it was completely and utterly different. A mask, much like what marked many of the Angels, was at its chest, and it burned fiery red with the oscillating fields around it. He knew. It sought blood. It was blood-thirsty. And, it was now his enemy to fight.
"...we'll both really die, for good, Gendo."
His only answer was to tighten his grip on the handles.
"Go ahead. I've killed billions. You're no different."
The Eva thrust forward, with a speed unimaginable.