Exodus: gift for you.
"Who are you?"
Asuka sat on a seat in an empty room. There was a spot light concentrated on her. It revealed a ground under her and the seat. It was multicoloured and looked tainted and sick. Light formed a sphere around her, which made her feel somewhat safe.
Asuka looked around but didn't find anything to concentrate on. The air was creating pressure around her inside the room... if it even was a room.
There was nothing but the thick hood of darkness making her feel uncomfortable and wearied. Something loomed at the back of the room suddenly that caught her attention.
"Who are you?" The question appeared in her mind. Flaming letters burned into her thoughts.
"What?" Asuka asked.
"Who are you?" The words flashed a second time.
"I'm pilot of the Evangelion Unit-02," Asuka stated.
"Wrong. Who are you?"
"I said that already," Asuka replied almost angrily.
"Who are you?" It didn't seem to notice her objections.
"An Eva pilot," Asuka spat.
"Wrong. Who are you?" it asked again, burning, more angry this time than before.
"The second child," she replied.
"WRONG!"
Now the word was strong, and filled with rage. The red lettering exploded between her eyes.
"WRONG!"
She could taste it, the frustration, the anger. The flames that licked her mind were saturated with wrath and determination.
"WRONG!"
The darkness began to grow. It began to eat away at the light barrier that she had thought was keeping her safe, tentacles of shadows rapidly approaching her, they began to devour that small light what was surrounding her.
"Who are you?"
Asuka began to breath faster, her pulse climbing, as she watched the darkness eating the ring that was her only line of defense against the night, which enveloped right in front of her...
"Who are you?" it asked once more, barely giving her a chance to think on her own.
"A—A—A Asuka..." she said stammering. She didn't added the pilot part this time.
"GOOD!"
Now the word wasn't hostile anymore, but seemed almost delighted. The eerie darkness withdrew back to the corners of her safety ring, giving her the space she craved.
"What do you want?" it asked.
Asuka began to breath normally as she saw how the dark ring backed away from her.
"What do you want?"
"I...I..." she didn't understand what was happening. Or why was it happening.
"Is this some kind of punishment?" she asked quietly.
She heard a click. Another spotlight appeared before her. It was Shinji who had come suddenly.
"Why would it be?" Now there weren't any words or flashing fire, but only the sound of his voice.
"I tried to take my life... I don't have purpose anymore... no reason... maybe I deserved this." She buried her face into her hands, not wanting the boy to see how distraught the conversation was making her.
Again another spotlight began to glow. It revealed her guardian, Major Misato Katsuragi.
"Deserved what?" Misato asked in a kind voice.
Asuka looked at her guardian, who was calm and almost emotionless.
"This... this hell... this limbo... this darkness..." she cried. "Whatever you call it..."
"Why?" Shinji asked. "Why would you deserve this?"
"I... I" She stammered, not sure how to answer the innocent question, despite how obvious she felt the response really was.
"Why?" Misato repeated Shinji's question.
"I tried to kill myself... " Asuka reasoned. It had to be reason why this is happening, it was the simplest explanation. "...yes... it... it shouldn't be in my grasp to decide what I want anymore..." she cried.
"If it isn't you, then who can make that decision?" Shinji asked. The question seemed so logical.
"I... I don't know..." she replied slowly.
"Someone can take your life, and you can take someone else life, too," Misato answered simply. "It's power that has been given to people."
"Your life is in your own hands, but sometimes it is in someone else's hands at the same time," Shinji said, as he waved his hand to another corner of the dark space.
Something inside of her clicked suddenly, showing her what had happened all over again.
There was a rainy view of Tokyo-three. It was dark and hazy. In the distance of the dark sky something glowed. The fifteenth angel. Lighting stroke inside the clouds and grumble of the thunder created a orchestra, as the angel floated up in the highs, ghostly eating clouds away when it came forward.
She saw her Eva Unit-02 aiming at the sky, and the red color glowing from it. Raindrops spanked it without mercy. It was awaiting its enemy, to come a range where it could carry on its mission, patiently, without flinching.
Suddenly all space began to glow. Bright rainbow colors took over the entire city, making it shine like thousands of stars with a power that was almost touchable.
"No! Not again!" she begged, shaking her head. She couldn't see it again... not again...
Eva Unit-02 began to spasm and twist out of control. It trembled and four slits on its head began to glow. Powerlessly it shot all of its ammunition to nearby buildings or the sky. A few shots flew harmlessly passed the Angel. It didn't take long before all of the munitions were empty, leaving the Eva helplessly pulling the trigger again and again.
"No..." The suffocated cry escaped out of her lips.
The Evangelion continued its dance as though it was dancing on razor blades, every deadly step taking her closer to her doom, and the pain was more than she could bear again.
For some time, Asuka heard her own screams inside the Evangelion as it tried to escape its fate by dancing faster. Soon it begin to slow down despite itself, and was crouching on the ground.
"Please... not this... not again..." she moaned, trying to cover her eyes, but even when she closed her eyelids, there was no escaping seeing the scene again.
Unit-00 appeared out of nowhere without warning, holding a double helix spear in its arms. Slowly, it began to tune its position to target the Angel high in the sky above them.
"Wondergirl..." Asuka growled.
Unit-00 appeared to be waiting for a while, and Asuka knew that computer was calculating the optimal patterns to throw. She could hear its muscles tense when it took firmer hold over the lance. Then it began to run forward and the lance began to vibrate, and when the blue Unit threw it, it was transformed into a bright red arrow.
It flew through the air with incredible speed, faster than sound, faster than anything Asuka had ever seen before. It reached the angel in orbit, and an orange flash was seen in the sky as the Angel activated its AT Field, but the lance barely even noticed it. Soon, a bright flash formed in the sky and the Angel spectacularly dissolved into a millions of light dots.
Soon the mind-raping beam was dimming, and the red giant fell to the ground.
Asuka watched this whole episode with a mixture of hate, diguist, and despair. "I couldn't do anything... I was like a helpless child... and Wondergirl... of all people..." she growled between her teeth, looking at the sight before her with a dark expression on her face. "I'm so weak..." she gasped, settling on the facts. The thought of that only made her feel worse, though.
Now, new white flames burned her mind as a different voice started speaking. "What do you want?" Although it was a new voice, the question was the same as before.
"I want to die!" she shouted.
Again, a new spotlight appeared. This time, her friend Hikari spoke. "Really?"
"Yes... why should I continue... there is no reason... I've lost everything..." She sobbed and shook her head as the realization sunk in. She had nothing left.
"What is everything to you?" Hikari asked.
"The Eva... piloting it... what the others think.... my pride," she moaned on her seat, no longer able to meet the piercing gaze her friend was giving her.
"Look at the mirror.," Misato suggested, pointing at the mirror that had appeared out of nowhere.
Asuka rose out of her seat slowly, her determination the only thing driving her forward, towards the mirror. There she saw herself, dressed in her favourite yellow dress. The one who looked back at her was the proud and persistent individual that she had fought so hard to become. She laughed a little because the whole thing was almost too ironic for words -- she was actually jealous of herself. "Look at her... she has everything..." she grumbled. "Look, how she is... me." It became so clear to her all of a sudden.
The mirror image of her began to move, and then it replied to her quietly "I'm not you."
"No?" Asuka replied confused.
"No. I'm the image that what you want the world to see, your other self. I'm the one who you wish to be, but you aren't me. And I'm not you," her reflection said.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that I'm only your mask, a image, a lie, what you desperately try to hold onto in order to have reality hold together for you. Your reality is shaken, and so you tried to get away from it."
"How?" she asked.
"You tried to take you life. You thought that death would give you liberation, a peace. Where you would be safe, away from all the humiliation. Away from failure. Away from pain."
"Yes... I have to die... it's the only sensible thing to do..." she nodded to herself, knowing finally that she had taken the right path.
"Why do you hate the other pilots?" Hikari asked suddenly.
"Because they are better than I am... they have both beaten me..." she growled and glanced at Hikari angrily, though she could feel the anger ebbing away within her. "And they... they didn't even mean to do it! Shinji... ha... he only does it because he can, not because he wants to. He always whines about how he doesn't want to pilot it... And Wondergirl... she only pilots because she is ordered to do it..." She frowned at the thought.
"So, you hate her the most?" Misato said in a calm voice.
"Yes..." Asuka hissed. "She acts like a complete robot, and I can't stand that! She has a choice!"
"A choice?" Shinji asked.
"Everyone has a choice!" Asuka yelled.
"NO!" A new word with white flames screamed into her mind. As soon as the flames died, she noticed that her location was different again. She was looking at the some kind of vat, where Rei was floating in a orange liquid, which Asuka guessed to be LCL. It had to be.
She looked around and saw walls, walls which weren't solid but made out of glass. It was like an aquarium, but at a much larger scale. It was filled with LCL and apparent fishes. Only they weren't fishes at all.
Multiple Rei Ayanamis were giggling and grinning as they swam around the aquarium, looking at her. She understood almost at once that these were clones - mindless copies of the one she knew as Rei Ayanmi.
"Is this true...?" she asked, breathless.
"Yes." Now Ritsuko appeared out of nowhere next to Asuka. "This event took place right after sixteenth angel."
Soon Asuka noticed Gendo Ikari watching the tank, and talking to some technicians surrounding the vat. She made her way a little closer so she could hear what was being said.
"Is the conditioning complete?" he asked.
"Yes...we have wiped her memory clean of everything as you requested. This is the strongest form of conditioning that we have used, and we are not certain if it will last, as we had to rush the process to avoid suspicions. We have anticipated a 95 percent success rate, thanks to the Maji System."
"I don't care about petty success rates. I just want her to be ready to use," Gendo answered coldly.
"Yes sir," the technician answered.
"What about the injuries?" Gendo asked.
"Sir..?" technician asked, not seeing what he was getting at.
"You said that you were trying to avoid suspicions as I asked, but her body is intact. How are you going to explain that she survived the explosion without coming to any harm?" Gendo asked in a sarcastic tone.
"We had to skip it, in order to accelerate the conditioning process," Technician answered nervously.
"I see," Gendo muttered. "Guards."
A couple of muscular guys walked into view. "Once this is complete, beat her up," Gendo ordered.
"Bu-but sir..." the technician stammered, shocked by his order.
"We can't take any risks. Besides she'll get better soon: we just have to keep unwanted questions at bay for a while." Gendo began to walk away, and stopped at the exit. "Just don't hurt her too much."
When Rei was taken out of the vat, she only managed to take a couple of hazy steps before the first guard slammed her to the floor with his baton, and the corner of her eye began to bleed. When she fell on the floor, another guard hit her in the stomach so that she couldn't resist the 'process.' Rei cried out in pain as air was forced out of her lungs. The technicians turned their heads away, and closed their eyes, but they couldn't close their ears. The beating continued for a couple of minutes, and between hits Rei let out of series of screams, which were brutally drowned in the noise of the next attack. Soon Rei let out a heart-tearing scream, and the beating slowed.
One of the guards stomped on her hand and broke it. Rei dragged herself with her healthy hand for a while, trying in vain to escape, until one last hit to her head knocked her unconsciousness.
Now Asuka realized the horrible system what Gendo had created. A clone would be a perfect choice and with the conditioning, she would be a doll...she never had to change. Even if someone would shoot her, blowing her apart, it wouldn't be a murder because clones weren't humans, so they are outlaws.
Cruel and perfect. Gendo Ikari's trademark.
"Do you still hate her?" Misato asked. They had all returned to the room where she had been before the show.
"No... I... I almost feel sorry for her..." She thought all this time that Rei felt too superior, but now she realized that she couldn't feel anything at all. "It's... it's like a bird whose wings are broken... she may want to fly... but she will never be able to... she can't feel."
"So, what do you want now?" Shinji asked.
"This doesn't change anything... I'm still useless..."
"You want to stop being useless?" Misato asked.
"Yes... I... I'm so tired. Tired of being worthless... tired of being strained all over, tired of being angry all the time. But I can't be happy..."
"Why not?" Hikari asked.
"Because..." Asuka swallowed. "I'm alone. I've driven away everyone who would ever care about me... I have no one left..."
"Can't you change that?" Misato asked.
"Can I?" she asked hastily.
White flaming words appeared in her mind again, echoing in her consciousness. "Of course."
Now a new vision appeared. She was older, in a house of her own. She was seated in comfortable looking armchair. It was a traditional German house, and she was reading a book. Not to her self, but to two children around her.
"What...?" she asked confused.
There was a little boy and girl, both around the same age. The girl looked almost just like her, and the boy had something familiar about him. They were both listening to her as she was reading to them. Asuka thought that was a Belgian fairy tale about a king and a bear, but she wasn't really paying attention to her own voice, but to the children.
She looked around the cottage. It was cozy and filled with warm and love. Asuka noticed that this self was... happy. It made her feel better. She didn't find any reminders about the angels, the EVAs, or anything else, but she didn't care. Everything seemed so right. It was as though everything was supposed to fit together like this.
But then it vanished.
"NO!" she cried. "Show me more!" she demanded to those around her.
"I can't," Hikari replied dully. "I can show you nothing else."
"This is only a glimpse. This isn't real." Shinji added.
"It is a lie?" Asuka asked more confuse than moment before.
"No," Misato replied. "It's what your life could become one day, though."
"But not the way you are living now. All your life you have thought that the Eva series is your only purpose," Hikari continued. "Have you ever thought about who you are and who you would be if the Eva series didn't exist?"
Asuka began to think about the past. Eva was attached so tightly around her self, around her very soul, that even thought about was impossible. But the more she thought about it, the more it began to sound so reasonable. "I see it... so clear now... everything is so clear..."
"Really?" Hikari said.
"Yes. I didn't want to be alone... so I wanted to be perfect and gain attention that. I thought that it was I who drew others near me, but it was only a shell.... a shell to protect my true self. And if someone tried to dig beneath my illusion, got too close, I drove him or her away. In the end when my shell was destroyed... I was truly alone..." Asuka said.
"GOOD!" The white flaming word seemed delighted as it announced itself again.
"I can only blame myself. I tormented Shinji because I wanted to have control, to know that I had someone under me, but instead it just made me feel worse... what an irony. I wanted to be praised and idolized, but who could love me now, after all I've done to push them away?"
"It's a difficult dilemma." Shinji stated.
"Yes. But if I tried hard enough maybe I could...." she stopped.
"Could what?" Shinji, Hikari and Misato asked in perfect unison, their combined voices sounding more like the voice of the white flame than anything else.
"Maybe if tried, I could find a new purpose, other than the Eva. Find someone to love, someone who could love me back..."
"CORRECT!" the word stated.
"That's it! Maybe there is hope!" Asuka's eyes lit up as she spoke with a new found sense of joy.
"Maybe, but you chose to die, remember?" Hikari pointed out.
"But can I be happy? Without Eva? If there is a chance... I want to take it... despite the risks..." She rose up in her chair again and walked towards the mirror that still held her old self contained within it. "No more of this!" She pushed the mirror to the ground, and shattered it in a million pieces. "No more!"
"What about other people? You've sworn that you don't need them..." Shinji reminded her.
"But I do... and hopefully someone out there will need me, too..." she replied quietly.
"But what if you are wrong?" Misato asked.
Asuka swallowed her fear before replying. They had made sense thus far. "Death is always an option, if I change my mind. But I am sure I can find someone out there."
"Tell us again what you want." The white flaming question was no longer asking, but demanding again.
"I want to love, and be loved, I want to be happy, and I'm going to be happy! I don't need the Eva anymore! I will be fine even without it! Did your hear that?!" she shouted "I want to live!"
As soon as the words escaped her lips, the whole room started to collapse around her. Soon she noticed that she was swimming towards blue flame, and then the white flame spoke one last time.
"Take back your life: it's gift is for you!"
She woke up on a hospital bed, and looked around slowly. Shinji was next to her, half asleep. Asuka drew a sharp breath and shot up from the bed almost at once when she realized that she was back in reality.
"Asuka!" Shinji yelled and for once he defied his fate and embraced her, knowing that she would soon cry 'baka hentai.' But he didn't care. She was alright, finally. To his amazement, though, she didn't scream.
Instead, Asuka answered his embrace by holding him closer. Shinji could no longer hold back his own tears. When they finally let go, he looked to her carefully. "Are you all right?"
"Better than I have been for a long time," she replied with a smile. Then she bent into him and kissed him gently on his cheek slowly.
Shinji flushed as she pulled back. After he got himself together, he looked into her eyes, begging the question that he knew his voice wouldn't handle.
"You deserved it. Thank you..." she answered in a whisper.
"I didn't do anything," he replied.
"Yes, you did. You cared. And for that... thanks."
The end.
"Who are you?"
Asuka sat on a seat in an empty room. There was a spot light concentrated on her. It revealed a ground under her and the seat. It was multicoloured and looked tainted and sick. Light formed a sphere around her, which made her feel somewhat safe.
Asuka looked around but didn't find anything to concentrate on. The air was creating pressure around her inside the room... if it even was a room.
There was nothing but the thick hood of darkness making her feel uncomfortable and wearied. Something loomed at the back of the room suddenly that caught her attention.
"Who are you?" The question appeared in her mind. Flaming letters burned into her thoughts.
"What?" Asuka asked.
"Who are you?" The words flashed a second time.
"I'm pilot of the Evangelion Unit-02," Asuka stated.
"Wrong. Who are you?"
"I said that already," Asuka replied almost angrily.
"Who are you?" It didn't seem to notice her objections.
"An Eva pilot," Asuka spat.
"Wrong. Who are you?" it asked again, burning, more angry this time than before.
"The second child," she replied.
"WRONG!"
Now the word was strong, and filled with rage. The red lettering exploded between her eyes.
"WRONG!"
She could taste it, the frustration, the anger. The flames that licked her mind were saturated with wrath and determination.
"WRONG!"
The darkness began to grow. It began to eat away at the light barrier that she had thought was keeping her safe, tentacles of shadows rapidly approaching her, they began to devour that small light what was surrounding her.
"Who are you?"
Asuka began to breath faster, her pulse climbing, as she watched the darkness eating the ring that was her only line of defense against the night, which enveloped right in front of her...
"Who are you?" it asked once more, barely giving her a chance to think on her own.
"A—A—A Asuka..." she said stammering. She didn't added the pilot part this time.
"GOOD!"
Now the word wasn't hostile anymore, but seemed almost delighted. The eerie darkness withdrew back to the corners of her safety ring, giving her the space she craved.
"What do you want?" it asked.
Asuka began to breath normally as she saw how the dark ring backed away from her.
"What do you want?"
"I...I..." she didn't understand what was happening. Or why was it happening.
"Is this some kind of punishment?" she asked quietly.
She heard a click. Another spotlight appeared before her. It was Shinji who had come suddenly.
"Why would it be?" Now there weren't any words or flashing fire, but only the sound of his voice.
"I tried to take my life... I don't have purpose anymore... no reason... maybe I deserved this." She buried her face into her hands, not wanting the boy to see how distraught the conversation was making her.
Again another spotlight began to glow. It revealed her guardian, Major Misato Katsuragi.
"Deserved what?" Misato asked in a kind voice.
Asuka looked at her guardian, who was calm and almost emotionless.
"This... this hell... this limbo... this darkness..." she cried. "Whatever you call it..."
"Why?" Shinji asked. "Why would you deserve this?"
"I... I" She stammered, not sure how to answer the innocent question, despite how obvious she felt the response really was.
"Why?" Misato repeated Shinji's question.
"I tried to kill myself... " Asuka reasoned. It had to be reason why this is happening, it was the simplest explanation. "...yes... it... it shouldn't be in my grasp to decide what I want anymore..." she cried.
"If it isn't you, then who can make that decision?" Shinji asked. The question seemed so logical.
"I... I don't know..." she replied slowly.
"Someone can take your life, and you can take someone else life, too," Misato answered simply. "It's power that has been given to people."
"Your life is in your own hands, but sometimes it is in someone else's hands at the same time," Shinji said, as he waved his hand to another corner of the dark space.
Something inside of her clicked suddenly, showing her what had happened all over again.
There was a rainy view of Tokyo-three. It was dark and hazy. In the distance of the dark sky something glowed. The fifteenth angel. Lighting stroke inside the clouds and grumble of the thunder created a orchestra, as the angel floated up in the highs, ghostly eating clouds away when it came forward.
She saw her Eva Unit-02 aiming at the sky, and the red color glowing from it. Raindrops spanked it without mercy. It was awaiting its enemy, to come a range where it could carry on its mission, patiently, without flinching.
Suddenly all space began to glow. Bright rainbow colors took over the entire city, making it shine like thousands of stars with a power that was almost touchable.
"No! Not again!" she begged, shaking her head. She couldn't see it again... not again...
Eva Unit-02 began to spasm and twist out of control. It trembled and four slits on its head began to glow. Powerlessly it shot all of its ammunition to nearby buildings or the sky. A few shots flew harmlessly passed the Angel. It didn't take long before all of the munitions were empty, leaving the Eva helplessly pulling the trigger again and again.
"No..." The suffocated cry escaped out of her lips.
The Evangelion continued its dance as though it was dancing on razor blades, every deadly step taking her closer to her doom, and the pain was more than she could bear again.
For some time, Asuka heard her own screams inside the Evangelion as it tried to escape its fate by dancing faster. Soon it begin to slow down despite itself, and was crouching on the ground.
"Please... not this... not again..." she moaned, trying to cover her eyes, but even when she closed her eyelids, there was no escaping seeing the scene again.
Unit-00 appeared out of nowhere without warning, holding a double helix spear in its arms. Slowly, it began to tune its position to target the Angel high in the sky above them.
"Wondergirl..." Asuka growled.
Unit-00 appeared to be waiting for a while, and Asuka knew that computer was calculating the optimal patterns to throw. She could hear its muscles tense when it took firmer hold over the lance. Then it began to run forward and the lance began to vibrate, and when the blue Unit threw it, it was transformed into a bright red arrow.
It flew through the air with incredible speed, faster than sound, faster than anything Asuka had ever seen before. It reached the angel in orbit, and an orange flash was seen in the sky as the Angel activated its AT Field, but the lance barely even noticed it. Soon, a bright flash formed in the sky and the Angel spectacularly dissolved into a millions of light dots.
Soon the mind-raping beam was dimming, and the red giant fell to the ground.
Asuka watched this whole episode with a mixture of hate, diguist, and despair. "I couldn't do anything... I was like a helpless child... and Wondergirl... of all people..." she growled between her teeth, looking at the sight before her with a dark expression on her face. "I'm so weak..." she gasped, settling on the facts. The thought of that only made her feel worse, though.
Now, new white flames burned her mind as a different voice started speaking. "What do you want?" Although it was a new voice, the question was the same as before.
"I want to die!" she shouted.
Again, a new spotlight appeared. This time, her friend Hikari spoke. "Really?"
"Yes... why should I continue... there is no reason... I've lost everything..." She sobbed and shook her head as the realization sunk in. She had nothing left.
"What is everything to you?" Hikari asked.
"The Eva... piloting it... what the others think.... my pride," she moaned on her seat, no longer able to meet the piercing gaze her friend was giving her.
"Look at the mirror.," Misato suggested, pointing at the mirror that had appeared out of nowhere.
Asuka rose out of her seat slowly, her determination the only thing driving her forward, towards the mirror. There she saw herself, dressed in her favourite yellow dress. The one who looked back at her was the proud and persistent individual that she had fought so hard to become. She laughed a little because the whole thing was almost too ironic for words -- she was actually jealous of herself. "Look at her... she has everything..." she grumbled. "Look, how she is... me." It became so clear to her all of a sudden.
The mirror image of her began to move, and then it replied to her quietly "I'm not you."
"No?" Asuka replied confused.
"No. I'm the image that what you want the world to see, your other self. I'm the one who you wish to be, but you aren't me. And I'm not you," her reflection said.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that I'm only your mask, a image, a lie, what you desperately try to hold onto in order to have reality hold together for you. Your reality is shaken, and so you tried to get away from it."
"How?" she asked.
"You tried to take you life. You thought that death would give you liberation, a peace. Where you would be safe, away from all the humiliation. Away from failure. Away from pain."
"Yes... I have to die... it's the only sensible thing to do..." she nodded to herself, knowing finally that she had taken the right path.
"Why do you hate the other pilots?" Hikari asked suddenly.
"Because they are better than I am... they have both beaten me..." she growled and glanced at Hikari angrily, though she could feel the anger ebbing away within her. "And they... they didn't even mean to do it! Shinji... ha... he only does it because he can, not because he wants to. He always whines about how he doesn't want to pilot it... And Wondergirl... she only pilots because she is ordered to do it..." She frowned at the thought.
"So, you hate her the most?" Misato said in a calm voice.
"Yes..." Asuka hissed. "She acts like a complete robot, and I can't stand that! She has a choice!"
"A choice?" Shinji asked.
"Everyone has a choice!" Asuka yelled.
"NO!" A new word with white flames screamed into her mind. As soon as the flames died, she noticed that her location was different again. She was looking at the some kind of vat, where Rei was floating in a orange liquid, which Asuka guessed to be LCL. It had to be.
She looked around and saw walls, walls which weren't solid but made out of glass. It was like an aquarium, but at a much larger scale. It was filled with LCL and apparent fishes. Only they weren't fishes at all.
Multiple Rei Ayanamis were giggling and grinning as they swam around the aquarium, looking at her. She understood almost at once that these were clones - mindless copies of the one she knew as Rei Ayanmi.
"Is this true...?" she asked, breathless.
"Yes." Now Ritsuko appeared out of nowhere next to Asuka. "This event took place right after sixteenth angel."
Soon Asuka noticed Gendo Ikari watching the tank, and talking to some technicians surrounding the vat. She made her way a little closer so she could hear what was being said.
"Is the conditioning complete?" he asked.
"Yes...we have wiped her memory clean of everything as you requested. This is the strongest form of conditioning that we have used, and we are not certain if it will last, as we had to rush the process to avoid suspicions. We have anticipated a 95 percent success rate, thanks to the Maji System."
"I don't care about petty success rates. I just want her to be ready to use," Gendo answered coldly.
"Yes sir," the technician answered.
"What about the injuries?" Gendo asked.
"Sir..?" technician asked, not seeing what he was getting at.
"You said that you were trying to avoid suspicions as I asked, but her body is intact. How are you going to explain that she survived the explosion without coming to any harm?" Gendo asked in a sarcastic tone.
"We had to skip it, in order to accelerate the conditioning process," Technician answered nervously.
"I see," Gendo muttered. "Guards."
A couple of muscular guys walked into view. "Once this is complete, beat her up," Gendo ordered.
"Bu-but sir..." the technician stammered, shocked by his order.
"We can't take any risks. Besides she'll get better soon: we just have to keep unwanted questions at bay for a while." Gendo began to walk away, and stopped at the exit. "Just don't hurt her too much."
When Rei was taken out of the vat, she only managed to take a couple of hazy steps before the first guard slammed her to the floor with his baton, and the corner of her eye began to bleed. When she fell on the floor, another guard hit her in the stomach so that she couldn't resist the 'process.' Rei cried out in pain as air was forced out of her lungs. The technicians turned their heads away, and closed their eyes, but they couldn't close their ears. The beating continued for a couple of minutes, and between hits Rei let out of series of screams, which were brutally drowned in the noise of the next attack. Soon Rei let out a heart-tearing scream, and the beating slowed.
One of the guards stomped on her hand and broke it. Rei dragged herself with her healthy hand for a while, trying in vain to escape, until one last hit to her head knocked her unconsciousness.
Now Asuka realized the horrible system what Gendo had created. A clone would be a perfect choice and with the conditioning, she would be a doll...she never had to change. Even if someone would shoot her, blowing her apart, it wouldn't be a murder because clones weren't humans, so they are outlaws.
Cruel and perfect. Gendo Ikari's trademark.
"Do you still hate her?" Misato asked. They had all returned to the room where she had been before the show.
"No... I... I almost feel sorry for her..." She thought all this time that Rei felt too superior, but now she realized that she couldn't feel anything at all. "It's... it's like a bird whose wings are broken... she may want to fly... but she will never be able to... she can't feel."
"So, what do you want now?" Shinji asked.
"This doesn't change anything... I'm still useless..."
"You want to stop being useless?" Misato asked.
"Yes... I... I'm so tired. Tired of being worthless... tired of being strained all over, tired of being angry all the time. But I can't be happy..."
"Why not?" Hikari asked.
"Because..." Asuka swallowed. "I'm alone. I've driven away everyone who would ever care about me... I have no one left..."
"Can't you change that?" Misato asked.
"Can I?" she asked hastily.
White flaming words appeared in her mind again, echoing in her consciousness. "Of course."
Now a new vision appeared. She was older, in a house of her own. She was seated in comfortable looking armchair. It was a traditional German house, and she was reading a book. Not to her self, but to two children around her.
"What...?" she asked confused.
There was a little boy and girl, both around the same age. The girl looked almost just like her, and the boy had something familiar about him. They were both listening to her as she was reading to them. Asuka thought that was a Belgian fairy tale about a king and a bear, but she wasn't really paying attention to her own voice, but to the children.
She looked around the cottage. It was cozy and filled with warm and love. Asuka noticed that this self was... happy. It made her feel better. She didn't find any reminders about the angels, the EVAs, or anything else, but she didn't care. Everything seemed so right. It was as though everything was supposed to fit together like this.
But then it vanished.
"NO!" she cried. "Show me more!" she demanded to those around her.
"I can't," Hikari replied dully. "I can show you nothing else."
"This is only a glimpse. This isn't real." Shinji added.
"It is a lie?" Asuka asked more confuse than moment before.
"No," Misato replied. "It's what your life could become one day, though."
"But not the way you are living now. All your life you have thought that the Eva series is your only purpose," Hikari continued. "Have you ever thought about who you are and who you would be if the Eva series didn't exist?"
Asuka began to think about the past. Eva was attached so tightly around her self, around her very soul, that even thought about was impossible. But the more she thought about it, the more it began to sound so reasonable. "I see it... so clear now... everything is so clear..."
"Really?" Hikari said.
"Yes. I didn't want to be alone... so I wanted to be perfect and gain attention that. I thought that it was I who drew others near me, but it was only a shell.... a shell to protect my true self. And if someone tried to dig beneath my illusion, got too close, I drove him or her away. In the end when my shell was destroyed... I was truly alone..." Asuka said.
"GOOD!" The white flaming word seemed delighted as it announced itself again.
"I can only blame myself. I tormented Shinji because I wanted to have control, to know that I had someone under me, but instead it just made me feel worse... what an irony. I wanted to be praised and idolized, but who could love me now, after all I've done to push them away?"
"It's a difficult dilemma." Shinji stated.
"Yes. But if I tried hard enough maybe I could...." she stopped.
"Could what?" Shinji, Hikari and Misato asked in perfect unison, their combined voices sounding more like the voice of the white flame than anything else.
"Maybe if tried, I could find a new purpose, other than the Eva. Find someone to love, someone who could love me back..."
"CORRECT!" the word stated.
"That's it! Maybe there is hope!" Asuka's eyes lit up as she spoke with a new found sense of joy.
"Maybe, but you chose to die, remember?" Hikari pointed out.
"But can I be happy? Without Eva? If there is a chance... I want to take it... despite the risks..." She rose up in her chair again and walked towards the mirror that still held her old self contained within it. "No more of this!" She pushed the mirror to the ground, and shattered it in a million pieces. "No more!"
"What about other people? You've sworn that you don't need them..." Shinji reminded her.
"But I do... and hopefully someone out there will need me, too..." she replied quietly.
"But what if you are wrong?" Misato asked.
Asuka swallowed her fear before replying. They had made sense thus far. "Death is always an option, if I change my mind. But I am sure I can find someone out there."
"Tell us again what you want." The white flaming question was no longer asking, but demanding again.
"I want to love, and be loved, I want to be happy, and I'm going to be happy! I don't need the Eva anymore! I will be fine even without it! Did your hear that?!" she shouted "I want to live!"
As soon as the words escaped her lips, the whole room started to collapse around her. Soon she noticed that she was swimming towards blue flame, and then the white flame spoke one last time.
"Take back your life: it's gift is for you!"
She woke up on a hospital bed, and looked around slowly. Shinji was next to her, half asleep. Asuka drew a sharp breath and shot up from the bed almost at once when she realized that she was back in reality.
"Asuka!" Shinji yelled and for once he defied his fate and embraced her, knowing that she would soon cry 'baka hentai.' But he didn't care. She was alright, finally. To his amazement, though, she didn't scream.
Instead, Asuka answered his embrace by holding him closer. Shinji could no longer hold back his own tears. When they finally let go, he looked to her carefully. "Are you all right?"
"Better than I have been for a long time," she replied with a smile. Then she bent into him and kissed him gently on his cheek slowly.
Shinji flushed as she pulled back. After he got himself together, he looked into her eyes, begging the question that he knew his voice wouldn't handle.
"You deserved it. Thank you..." she answered in a whisper.
"I didn't do anything," he replied.
"Yes, you did. You cared. And for that... thanks."
The end.