All she had to do was pull the trigger.
Just one little squeeze and another nightmare would be gone forever. A nightmare. She thought, her chest swelling, but the emotion seemed to be trying to reach her from light-years away.
"I've had enough!" Shinji shouted, leaping onto Unit-00's open palm.
Misato would never forget that face – the hurt and betrayal and... anger. For a moment, she felt more than she witnessed his hatred. The boy had never looked so resolved in anything. So determined to betray them – and he didn't even know how deeply he was cutting them.
She faltered. Her nerves screamed at her to activate the choker, making her finger twitch. Not yet. She urged. Not while they still had a chance.
Unit-00's head burst, blood spattering over the Wunder's hull and Misato's hope soared – quashed in the same moment as the Eva changed. Its cape-like wings merged and became rigid, allowing the Eva to scorch away from the air-ship in a blast of fire.
Misato leaped and climbed up the wreckage Unit-00 had left in its wake, keeping the control stick locked on the Eva. 80mm bolts from Unit-08 arced after it and a throng of battle reports spilled over her comm, but they had already lost. NERV had stolen away its prize.
"The fact that they prioritized him over Unit-01 means he still has potential as a trigger!" Ritsuko shouted.
Misato's hand shook and she tried to tell herself it was because of the wind. Unit-00 rocketed across the sky, pulling him farther and farther from her reach. She couldn't let it happen. She couldn't let them have him. Not him – if she could even think of him that way anymore.
"Misato, use the DSS Choker!"
She had failed.
The mechanism clicked and whirled, light flaring high above with a spray of red mist that was swept away in the northern winds. The device's data-tracker flared green: Activation successful! Specimen BM-03 neutralized!
The howling rush of air in the sky lorded over the now still atmosphere, a droning of voices from the Bridge fading to white noise in her ears. Fire warmed her skin, sour smells of gun metal and smoke wafting into her nostrils, keeping her anchored and present. But somehow she felt far away, like Unit-00 as it became little more than an orange speck in the distance.
Misato turned from the blue sky, realizing only too late she shouldn't have looked at Sakura. A dozen emotions swirled in those once kind eyes, now void of any innocence that might have remained. Snuffed out in this moment like a tiny flame, too weak to continue enduring the dark.
It twisted a knife in her heart but the emotion failed to reach her expression after so long of forcing herself to be detached. It got easy to do after a while – like a light switch. Whenever things got too hard, you could just turn off.
So she did.
Misato glanced at Ritsuko before stalking across the ruined deck. "Prepare the fleet. We're leaving."
"Don't bother me with stupid crap like that Misato!"
The communicator burst to pieces as she threw it across her quarters – the sad excuse for one that it was. Asuka sat on her bed, fuming. The silence slowly overcame her, only broken by the ever-present rumbling of the ship's engines, pipes from the corridors below snap-hissing as they released pressure every now and again.
Asuka combed a hand through her hair, standing up and pacing like an impatient predator, trapped in a cage. Her heart was still thundering in her chest, but slowly, everything started crashing down on her thoughts, yet she didn't want to leave the relative solitude of her quarters to find distraction. She didn't want to talk to anyone. She looked around, finding mostly Mari's things lying about.
Asuka didn't keep much for herself anymore, except for the hat in the corner – a dumb gift from a handful of meaningless birthdays ago. It sat on their rusted sink under a shattered mirror. It had been broken a long time ago, spider-web cracks splintering from the center. She saw herself in a dozen jagged reflections.
The emotion rolled over her like thunder, wrapping its choking fingers around her throat and suddenly the plugsuit was just too hot. Her face burned and her eye itched, the beast contained within screaming for release – cooing in her ears and over her thoughts, taunting her.
A hand pressed over the patch, fingers pressing so hard against her face she was sure they were white under the plug suit.
"You idiot," she snarled.
A sickness riled about in her stomach, filling her heart with a black rage. Her hand fell away from her eye, suit creaking as her fists tightened.
She hit the broken mirror again and screamed – "You stupid fucking idiot!"
On the other side of the door, Mari listened as the girl let her anguish run wild.
"At least you got to see him one last time," she whispered, making her way down the corridor towards the port-side hangar bay where Unit-08 waited, even though it was Asuka's turn to be on standby.
"The Third Child is dead," Fuyutsuki said, his voice a weary rasp. Gendo didn't turn to look at him, to try and peer into his tired eyes as if searching for certainty – for another truth.
"So we've entered a worst case scenario," he said, stepping forward across the metal grating surrounding Unit-13's birthing chamber. Lethargically, he slid his white gloves off, letting them fall from his grasp to the floor.
"Now Unit-01 has become our only option," Fuyutsuki said, trying to keep him on the path.
Gendo reached out to touch the massive sphere, his nerves tingling as his fingers glided over the rough rust-red metal. He felt its pulse through the generators, felt its life growing with every second. The beat echoed over the vast expanse of Dogma.
"The opportunity to turn back was lost decades ago. We must proceed."
With that, Fuyutsuki departed, likely unable to stand his presence any longer. He was a fool to let himself sink so far into those wretched emotions. He'd known the sacrifices they would have to give to attain their goal. Perhaps that was simply a staple of old age – as one meandered ever closer to death, they became unable to let go.
Or perhaps he was merely trying to focus his hate unjustly on his only ally. But neither of them could let go.
Death always came before rebirth.
"Forgive me, Yui."
The tree was crooked and black – its branches barren and brittle. Once green leaves lay scattered across the floor, rotted to a burnt brown and ashen gray.
Kaworu stared at it for what might have seemed a long time to anyone else. One hand in a pocket, his eyes fell to the piano on his left, still polished and smooth and perfect. His other hand reached out, touching its ivory black frame. But as he pressed upon one of the glistening white keys, only the howling emptiness of NERV Headquarters answered him. He tapped slowly – softly on the other keys, finding that all of the chords were broken.
A chilling wind that iced his Lilin form washed over the sanctuary, sending the dead leaves skittering across the floor. "I see." he said, looking up at the sky and allowing himself a vain moment to wish for a view of the stars in the midday light. "So this is my reality."
Staring, he felt the other's eyes upon him. He looked to her, a blue-haired specter standing there for a split second in time and gone in the same moment. He had expected this might be his burden to endure alone, so why did it feel so much more like a betrayal?
He stood before the tree again, staring down at its withering roots. "Human hearts are too fragile for this world."
Which meant that all would be as the Lilin directed it.
"So," Aoba said, reaching for anything but the cold silence that hung over the bridge. "What's our next step?"
They were all gathered. On standby, but for a rare moment not on combat alert status. Kitakami lounged at her post by the radar, picking at her nails and appearing disinterested. Hyuga sat on a supply crate to his right, casting a sharp glance his way as if to caution him. Aoba almost scoffed, the Captain wasn't like some fragile little girl. They'd all known this could happen, but it didn't seem like anyone expected it.
Hell, half the crew probably thought the retrieval of Unit-01 was going to be a complete disaster. The rest of the bridge crew was there, sitting at their posts or looking to the Captain for an answer. It wasn't as though their plans had relied greatly on the Third Child, but now that both parties were without him, what WILLE's next move should be was uncertain.
No, what really worried Aoba was Asuka.
"It's not like we have another kid we can strap an exploding collar to," the redhead snarled and Aoba winced, feeling the tension rise in an instant, like a mine ready to be tripped if someone made a wrong step. The girl looked far more sullen than usual, not the grim yet determined sort of expression they must've worn, but something deeper. Something broken. Her good eye, bloodshot and sporting a dark ring beneath it, snapped to Katsuragi. "Unless you wanna' start with me now."
"If you could trigger Impacts, I would," the Captain said, offering Asuka a look that shot ice down his spine.
"The device did what it was supposed to do," Ritsuko said, absorbed in her data-pad. She had been ever since the kid had been taken out. "Without him, NERV can't start another Impact."
"As far as we know," Takao said in his rumbling voice. "He couldn't be NERV's only hand to play."
For a second, Aoba almost hated him for dismissing the idea so casually – but it was true. Hope was in short supply these days, he shouldn't have been so quick to cling to it. It didn't have a place in their world. What about the Ikari kid? Was his death so meaningless that those snakes at NERV could still hold an Impact over their heads?
Before any of them could ponder too long on it, Asuka spoke up again. "Well, you said it yourself, right?" she asked, looking pointedly at Misato. "No need for so much fuss over one person. Looks like no one needed stupid Shinji after all."
Nagara looked surprised and out of the corner of his eyes Aoba saw Kitakami's shoulders tense, while Tama averted his gaze to the forward viewport. But the biting words summoned no response from the Captain or Akagi. Asuka didn't stick around, shoving her hands in her flight jacket and marching off the bridge. As the door sealed after her, the echoing quiet reigned once more and Aoba felt a sickness roll in his stomach. Hyuga looked up at the Captain, who was staring at the door Asuka had departed through.
"So what do we do now?"
Captain Katsuragi's quarters were just behind the bridge, where she could be ready to command the fleet at a moments notice. For now, Ritsuko had taken the CON for her. She sat on her bed with a glass of Synthetic Green in one hand. The cup was stained and dirty and the drink flowed like slimy seeds and bile down her throat. What she wouldn't give for water. They were thousands of miles away from anything fresh and even then only a select few facilities had purifiers. She couldn't afford to take any for herself – their water rations were low enough as it was. So she was stuck with this nutrient crap she'd have to stomach for the next seven months until they reached another colony.
Her shoulders slumped a little but a sigh never left her lips as she looked about her quarters. Everything was coated in a fine layer of dust despite the air scrubbers. When someone's home was barely lived in, it got dirty no matter what. Even this bed felt unfamiliar. It was not often that she used it anymore. The screams and broken faces always found her in her dreams.
"Kaji, my love..." she said quietly, pulling her dull silken hair from its loose bun, "have I done the right thing?"
Her hair fell against her neck and spilled down her back. As she slid the rogue strands behind an ear, she huffed, hearing his response as though he were sitting right next to her.
"I know..." she said to herself, "if you have to ask, you already know the answer."
But... she had done the right thing. An Impact had to be avoided, at all costs. It had taken her a long time to accept that. Fourteen years ago, she'd always tried to save everyone – had always believed that she was righteous and just in her actions. But the reality was that she lacked the power to save anyone. Then setback after setback. Loss after loss. It didn't take her long to realize sacrifices had to be made for victory.
Yet, what would that victory cost them?
What would it cost her?
At this point, it might as well have been a Pyrrhic one. What was the point of a world where she couldn't even save one little boy? What made her any different from those monsters at NERV? Up until now, the ends – their salvation as a species – had always justified the means. So what hope was there for her now? She wasn't worth saving. Someone who treated another human being's life like a playing card in a game wasn't worth keeping.
So that was her answer. In the dull moaning of the ship, full of ragtag survivors that endured a hopeless war, she sat alone and was met with darkness.
Her life had come to an end. Misato Katsuragi had died 14 years ago and this was the final nail in the coffin.
They would continue to fight NERV and its Evas. Continue to try and revive and seize their shattered world. It seemed to have lost its meaning now, though. In just a few days, it seemed even less than hopeless.
From the holster at her side, she slid a sidearm free, for the first time truly feeling the weight of the weapon in her hand. She could sense every bullet, could hear the full metal jackets cracking from its barrel.
She'd thought she could bear the weight of his death. That when it came down to it she could make that decision without hesitation and without remorse.
If only she could be so cold.
Misato just stared down at the sidearm in her hand, thumb rubbing against the ridges of the grip.
She could be selfish.
She could escape all of this pain.
She could end this nightmare...
All she had to do was pull the trigger.
Éla, glykiá thanátou...
Author's Notes: Just something of a drabble. I'm sure something like this has been written before, but I thought it would be interesting to explore a 'what if Misato did kill Shinji?' scenario nonetheless. Just a one-shot, I don't plan on going any further with it since that would require far more time and work building a world that's drastically changed in the past 14 years. If I wasn't currently doing that with another fic right now, that might sound like fun.
Anyway, I realize contemplating suicide might be a bit much for such a strong willed character as Misato, but I feel that killing Shinji would definitely break her in some way. As we see several times throughout Rebuild 3.0, she still cares for him quite alot. It may not seem like it, but it's there. Probably could have worked a little harder at the other POVs, but Misato's was the one I was primarily concerned with.
All feedback is welcome, particularly the constructive kind.