Disclaimer: I own neither, Neon Genesis Evangelion or Inuyasha. There would have been no TV ending to Evangelion if I had something to say about it and you probably would not recognize Inuyasha.
Thanks to Snipa, for thoughtful services as beta for this story. And to the rewrite beta, Zim'smostloyalservant.
Separations & Reunions
Anyone else would speculate that fate was conspiring to push them out of their comfort zone. Rei, on the other hand, had never been informed of the idea of such a zone; she only realized that circumstances were forcing her to act and think outside her accustomed boundaries. The First Child was irritated and on the road to being angry.
This had been a bad night for her, and the only progress she had made was locating the Pilot of Unit 2, but said pilot was only compounding her problems by behaving more irrational than usual. Rei was shocked that she was thinking in some desperation to disregard emergency protocols and leave a fellow pilot, if only 'til she was less troublesome.
For the moment, Rei was sitting on the grass, surprised at how naturally her body eased in a crouching position that was quite comfortable. The lack of exclamations from the hole might mean the Pilot of Unit 2 had exhausted herself. While it was more peaceful, it was no good in achieving her goal of extracting her fellow pilot from the crater. Even if she was asleep, the act of dragging her out would likely awaken her and result in an assault on her person.
And she did not want to be assaulted.
Besides, the odds did not favor her strength being sufficient enough to haul the enlarged body of the Second Child up the incline even with cooperation. Her reaction was one that she had observed in Major Katsuragi and Dr. Akagi and seemed appropriate for the moment: she sighed.
The shift of the wind brought a familiar scent to her. The source of many scents, blood included, was coming closer. She turned more nimbly than she thought possible in this state, and gazed into the trees where the smell came from. Not just blood, but also two more scents mixed in. The other was more familiar, but she could not place it.
Breathing it in, Rei could feel some of the tension in her head loosening like a muscle in a hot bath. But rather than her senses being dulled they felt keener; the sounds more pronounced, the wind in her feathers and of course the scent itself. She had no idea such a reaction could be caused by a mere scent, much less one mixed with the scent of blood. It was still impossible to place the third scent.
Whatever it was, it was coming closer. She could hear the movement amidst the foliage now, it was big.
Rei was actually a bit relieved at the prospect of its arrival. If it brought aid, somehow, that was too the good. And if it killed her, then she would not have to worry about this uncharted scenario anymore. While her priorities would puzzle most, they seemed quite reasonable to the albino bird-girl.
As it turned out, what emerged only made matters still more complicated for the mentally overworked girl.
He was close now, much closer. The wind had shifted, stealing any scent, and noise had stopped, yet there was certainty he was getting closer. A thick branch caught across his chest, arresting his progress for a moment. There was no reaction save for a half step back followed by the branch snapping and clattering to the ground as he stepped over it.
The trees gave way to clear sky, and he realized he was not alone. Looking down, he saw what his brain cobbled together into categorizing as a bird-girl. No good. It was not what he was looking for. Then she looked up at him, with red eyes and a face that looked as if it was crafted from freshly fallen snow. It shouldn't have been, but it was and that was more than sufficient. No questions now, only that which was played across void outside the closed keep.
"Aye-ah-nami," the words came from a ragged throat akin to the last words of a soldier succumbing to wounds. Recognition light up her eyes, and snow might have fallen in hell as Rei Ayanami's jaw dropped.
"Pilot Ikari?" Rei asked, already knowing the answer. While aware of rhetorical questions, she never saw the need. Until now. She had asked the question just to buy time to get back on her feet mentally as the rug of reality was jerked out from under her, again.
He was changed, as it seemed to be the pattern. He was quite large now. Smaller than the trees, but taller than any human male she had ever encountered. But he was different from her and Unit 2's Pilot. He seemed to have brought some of his Eva-unit with him, as a part of him. It had been his scent that she had barely recognized. She had first gotten to know that odor the day he came into her apartment and fell on her.
The purple armor encased his torso much like the Eva's, but on his limbs it seemed to grow out of him, metal ridges following his bones, dividing his flesh. The palms and back of his hands were still human in appearance, but purple armor covered his thumbs and fingers ending in claws that made her a little uneasy. With a near chill, a thought strayed over her mind wondering if it was actually the Eva wearing pieces of pilot Ikari.
The head was what had most thrown her, not the ring of purple metal around his skull plate, which called a crown to her mind, it was the face. It reminded her of the Commander at first glance, but it was quite different, she could see now. Perhaps the face Ikari would have worn had he become a young man, the eyes were his, but they seemed dead. The uncertainty that always lurked, the fire that rarely came to the face, and even the fear, were all gone. It was like staring into the eyes of the Dummies.
"Ahska," the Ikari thing breathed. It was easy to interpret and Rei wondered if this was a situation she could make use of. Well, it could hardly make matters worse, she decided.
"The pilot of Unit 2 is in the crater, can you get her out?" Rei asked. He gave no response and she wondered if something was wrong with him, aside from the obvious and the usual. It was needless to worry in this regard as he stepped forward, a roll step that tore up the ground with the hard sharp point of his heel. Rei hopped out of his way, being uncertain that he would avoid stepping on her. Only to be puzzled by the form of locomotion she had used.
She was surprised he didn't march just as thoughtlessly into the crater. He looked down, presumably on the half snake pilot, before kneeling down to grip the craters edge in one clawed hand before awkwardly descending. Well it seemed he could still be considerate. Things are looking up, Rei thought.
Then an out of sight Asuka gave a high pitched scream, something rang against metal. As the Second Child cried out in fear and pain, Rei conceded, mentally, that things were not getting better any time soon. And worse of all, she seemed the only one fit to take emergency command.
Staying in her crater was increasingly appearing to have been the best idea after all.
Later:
Daybreak was a relief, not that Rei had slept any. The daylight, however, seemed to have a calming effect on the Second Child; she was just highly irritable rather than hysteric. Thus, after the nights dramatics, they could hopefully get something productive accomplished. Rei hoped so at least.
Asuka had come screaming and scratching out of the crater as Ikari picked her up bridal style and a good potion of her tail dragging behind him. Having not recognized him, the transformed pilot believed herself under attack. Fortunately he seemed quite durable to her scale covered fists. Though, Rei was puzzled by the discoloration to his armor and skin where he had been holding her. It was gone by dawn so she forgot about it in favor of more pressing matters.
After he took Rei's instructions a bit too literally and dropped the red pilot she had proceeded to drag herself a sort distance by her hands before exhausting herself enough that she had little choice but to listen to Rei's explanation.
"Alright then, so in review — you are now some kind of chicken, the dunkopf got upgraded to Jolly Purple Giant in exchange for trading in what passed for his mind, and top it all off we are stranded in the middle of nowhere. That cover it?" Asuka inquired. She was lying on her back on the grass. She had tired herself out due to a combination of poor choice of words by Wonder Girl and the stupidity that is Wonder Wuss.
After she dragged herself most of the way across the clearing, which in of itself was extraordinary due to her new figure, she had finally calmed down somewhat. Rei had taken the opportunity to explain things. Sure enough, the hulking Eva-armored Ikari's failure to react to her insults convinced her it was him. Rei could not approve of the other pilot's logic, but it did lead to the correct conclusion.
Rei nodded in the affirmative to the Second Child's analysis. Though, it wasn't accurate as it made no mention of the incredible serpentine change in Asuka herself. Unlike Rei, and apparently Ikari, the Second Child was not adapting to her new form, only able to ineffectively wiggle the tail they now constituted the majority of her body. In response to her earlier worry over being naked of all things, Rei wondered if she realized her lower anatomy probably conformed more to a snake's than a human.
Rei's plumage rose a tad as she realized she had missed something the other pilot said.
"What?" Rei asked. The narrowed gaze of the Second didn't bother her even slightly; the Commander's scrutiny had been exponentially more unpleasant. Besides, a new voice in her head whispered, it was not as if the Second Child could actually hurt her.
"I said 'what should we do now?'" Asuka reiterated. Bad enough to be in this freakish state, but she was loosing out to the doll in coping. She was the best, she would find a way out of this mess and put the First back in her proper place! As if impotent scheming was exerting, Asuka's stomach growled, making her cheeks flush, matching her scales.
"Securing provisions seems the logical first step. Water and food," Rei recited from a nearly forgotten lesson. While the scenario never required her to leave the City, some precautions had been taken to ensure she would survive awhile if she was stranded away from civilization.
"Sounds like a plan, you fetch us a pail of water or whatever, and the giant wuss can scrounge up some food," Asuka decided. Rei didn't object, seeing no great flaw with the order, and as for Shinji, he seemed to realize Asuka was talking about him. Without a word, the massive figure walked off into the forest making a new path.
Rei looked to the skies and found herself flexing her wings. An idea whisked across her mind, but she quickly dismissed it. Taking the path Shinji had arrived from, she picked her way into the forest straining her senses for water.
Alone again, Asuka slumped on her shoulders, looking down at her body. Even alone she suppressed a whimper as she hand one hand down from her waist. She pressed the palm and fingers down where there should have been space between her thighs, but was only smooth hard scales in a single unbroken appendage.
"Graah!" She cried, the tail flopping up and to the right, and she tried to will it to split down the middle into two proper appendages. It was futile though; it wasn't like her legs were trapped, though she could almost feel phantom legs tingling at her bulk. They were gone, and she would bet it was her spine running clean from her scaly neck to the tip she morbidly wiggled.
Letting herself fall back to earth and trying not to cry at her horrid state, Asuka was wholly unaware of the chill running down her spine. She was far from alone, the unmistakable scent of fear and distress having drawn something from its own hole to the border of the clearing.
Hidden amidst the brush it was watching and waiting for now, letting the large figure it felt such aversion for depart still more. But patience did not come easily to such a small mind, especially with such a feast before it. Mandibles clicking in anticipation and the demon waited for the opportune moment.
Somewhere else in Space/Time:
It was over, Kagome had decided. It felt strange to think and say it, and when she was alone, it was was harder still. Those adventures, the tragedy she had seen and the triumphs she had taken part in — that was all behind her, and she couldn't feel sadness or relief at the thought.
The final battle with Naraku had truly been something, terrifying as anything to come out of an old saga. Kagura's death had been herald to it. Seeing Sesshomuru watch over their despised foe's end had moved her. There was some regret there — Kagome hated the Wind Sorceress, she had killed so many of Kouga's people, but perhaps Kagura had not asked for her role in this anymore than she had.
It all came back to Naraku. Had there even been a human or demon so selfish? He was the cause of so much suffering and all just so he could gain still more power. Not just sacrificing innocents who only happened to be in his way, but even tossing aside his own offspring as if their lives meant nothing. Kanna had been the only one truly loyal to him, and he had not even acknowledged her as anything more than a tool. Even without his other sins, that was unforgivable in Kagome's eyes.
He was gone, though, purified and vanquished forever. They had won. Kouga lost an arm; Kikyo, by Naraku's power, was dragged back into the underworld, apparently to remain there until being reincarnated as Kagome. Kohaku had died again as well, though this time he left smiling, providing Kagome the opening she needed with his last act.
The sacred jewel was shattered again, all of Naraku's and their efforts destroyed. It could have been the start of some new adventure, leaving Naraku and his schemes at their backs.
But it hadn't. Inuyasha had made an end of it all. He took her back through the well and stole her sole fragment of the jewel.
"It's better here. With Naraku gone, I doubt anyone could reassemble the jewel anyway. You don't have to end up like Kikyo did, so long," He had been gruff and to the point. She was angry and sure he would return soon, it wasn't like he could actually live without her.
But it had been three months now, and nothing out of the ordinary had happened to her. She slept in her bed, ate her breakfast, went to school, hanging out with her girlfriends, and went home. Hadn't she wished for this so many times when she found herself fighting for her life?
When exactly had her real life become a novel distraction, and the Feudal Era become the place she returned to? Stupid Inuyasha!
In her restless boredom with life, friends and everything, she actually volunteered to help maintain the shrine while her mother and grandfather took Shouta to that new theme park. Had she ever been interested in such things, she found herself wondering?
Was this life now? To just go on day by day as if it had never happened? Save for stories between family and a few trinkets, for it all to become memories of my youth, she thought.
When had it become restrictive to have only one time to live in? Only one life to lead?
She had only the one before her now, but the certainty brought no relief. Only doubt.
No, there was no certainty. And everyone could see it, Kagome thought as she walked home from school. Autumn was here, crisp and showing what beauty it could in Tokyo. The turn of the seasons meant so little here compared to back there.
She was alone because she had asked for it. Her friends had obliged, and everyone seemed to be giving her space. What else could they do when something was clearly wrong but they didn't know what?
She stopped to drop her backpack off inside the door. Just her schoolbag, not the massive, well-worn companion. That was ages and maybe a world away.
'Why go there? You know he won't be there,' she admonished herself as she traced the familiar steps.
Someone was there.
He stood to the right of the door to the well shrine, whittling a branch, the bark laying about his feet and shavings stirring in the wind. He was clearly a foreigner, a tall man with the look of a traveler. He was mostly bald, only a fringe of short cropped curly white hair curving around his skull.
He was frowning slightly, intent on his work, bringing out wrinkles in the well-worn face that seemed older than its time, judging by the powerful frame hinted at under his brown traveling coat.
Then he looked up.
There was no glow in his eyes or anything, but she knew, meeting the light brown gaze, that this was not a mortal.
"I mean you no harm, shrine maiden," he said. The voice was strong, but not threatening, like the wind or an ocean current.
She relaxed a little, realizing she had fallen into a stance to flee. Fighting wouldn't have been an option unarmed. Despite it being only right, she was frustrated that her bow and last arrows were all the way in her room.
"Are you... a pilgrim?" she asked. He was no demon, she was only sure what he wasn't.
"Always, but my final destination is one of the things I do not know. Consider me a stranger passing through. That is my role, in relation to others," he said. He glanced to the walking stick between him and the door.
Kagame had overlooked it, focusing on the man. And that was not right either, was it? The stick was tall enough to go past his waist. Too tall for a cane, but not enough for a staff. The head was shaved, polised wood roughly fashioned likre a crook's head. The rest was black barked with the shimmer of varnish. And from the black were numerous thorns, sticking out in a sharp spiral down the length to the bronze tip.
She cried out when she reacted to catch something he had tossed.
"My business with you is best brief, I think," he said. She held the object, a sphere the size of a gold ball, glowing green and casting shadows in her hand.
"What is this?" she demanded, ready to throw it away.
"My belief is in choices," he ignored the question to return to his work. Fashioning a simple spear, she concluded.
"That bauble gives you the choice to undo what that hanyou lad did."
"What?! How do you know about that?" she demanded.
"A good question. But I have no time to answer. Time is never sufficient. Truthfully, I once held a certain disdain for you. Your circumstances allowed you to live a double life, and you often failed to prioritize the one with mortal peril over the one of your birth. At least not what I felt was enough. But time gives as it takes, and in the course of time, I have admitted the temptation to do as you did. To try and be 'normal' and act as if your life was normal amidst such tragedy and high stakes; most never face such a choice. And you are so young. I think it would have been better had you no retreat back to this place. That you might have grown more, especially in understanding that one and the ghosts that haunted him.
"But your choices, even if poor, are not beyond understanding. And your ability to do as you did was the circumstances, not your design. But it was wrong of him to seal you back here. The choice to stay or return forever was yours, not his. I am not here to chastise you for failures, but to give back that choice in light of what you did," He put the spear into an inside coat pocket, tucking it nonchalantly away. She glanced down at the orb. Was the light fading?
"When the sun sets tomorrow, the light will leave that orb. And with it, the world you know as the Feudal Era will be closed to you. Your life here will be yours to live, and do not think happiness is impossible. You are not the only reincarnation, after all. Or you can use it on the well, and journey across time and space one last time, to never return here. One or the other, no middle ground. That is the choice I return to you."
"What? But?! My family! My friends," she protested, mind reeling from this bizarre onslaught of a monologue. The man shrugged as he picked up his stick.
"It's not my place to advise you which road to walk. Only to show them and remind you of the consequences. Chose wisely, Lady Kagome.
"And thank you for not making a fuss about me taking this from that tree of yours. It will be very helpful in finding a certain Chinese girl who is lost from her proper place in the scheme of things," he nodded. He walked away from the shrine toward the fence.
Between one step and another he was gone. No flash of light, fade away, or a pop. Gone.
Kagome sat down hard on the stairs. Hand squeezing about the sphere her only proof that was not just some strange vision.
Looking down at the soft magical light, Kagome was afraid. It was her choice and no one else's now.
What was she supposed to do now? She really hoped if she met that guy again, she could put an arrow in his ass for dropping this on her and then just disappearing!
Author's Note, 2017:
Well, this rewrite has been burning a hole in me for years. Ever since I realized a reviewer was right and I came too close to bashing Kagome in the original. I say close rather than doing it, because I always intended her being torn down to make way for a glorious rise. I see bashing as a petty thing that serves no real purpose but the writer tearting into a character they don't like.
But regardless of intent that scene toed a line I have come to despise. And thus became an old shame I am pleased to correct late rather than never. My thanks to Zim'smostloyalservant for his aid in this rewrite.
I seem to be in an odd place lately writing. Even as QoaO looms large in my mind and the two Shadows stories tingle with possibility; my mind is going more to neglected projects. I hope to follow this rewrite up with some buffering on the last chapter and a follow-up with a brand new chapter. Not a long chapter I think. That seems to be key right now.
Well if anyone still reads this, long days and pleasant nights.
