Neon Genesis Evangelion
Collision
By BrokenChosenofEva

0
0

Title: Pain is Weakness
Prompt: set 1 / prompt 003 [Pain]
Word Count: 1500+
Rating: T
Summary: Pain, Asuka had been told during physical training, was weakness leaving the body. So why did she feel that much more weak than before?

Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion

Notes: Bold is memories.

0
1
2
3

Everything hurt, and for perhaps the first time in her short life Asuka hated the phrase her physical training instructor had pounded into her mind while she was in Germany waiting to be deployed to Tokyo-3.

"Pain," he said, "is weakness leaving the body. You think you're strong? You'll need to be the strongest to stop the Angels."

This pain, though, this pain was strength leaving her. Cut, stabbed, slammed, and washed in flames, Asuka knew she had never experience such pain before nor felt pain leave her so weak and tired. It was a subtle difference, where training had left her exhausted but with a sense of accomplishment, this had left her feeling tired and lost.

"Weakness leavin duh body?" Touji quoted back to her during one of their sparring matches, "That makes no sense. Pain is yer body tellin ya it's hurt, and tuh be careful."

She knew, based on where it hurt, that she should be careful. She should have been careful from the beginning, but her stubborn pride had convinced her not to worry. Twisting slightly from her hunched position over the side of the chair, more pain lancing up her left side, the redhead looked out through the partially static filled view to see Unit-Three dueling one of the last MP-EVAs.

Rage filled her, dulling some of the pain. The sensation of burning claws in her left side, right side of her face, and left leg were muted but not gone. As she forced Unit-Two up to its knees, and from there to its feet, groans issued from the massive cyborg.

"CRITICAL WARNING." a computerized voice announced inside the entryplug, "SYNCH-RATIO AT 90%. PILOT SUFFERING FROM SYMPATHETIC INJURIES. RECOMMEND SHUTDOWN AND IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION."

"Shut it." Asuka snarled, tapping a quick code into a recessed console near her right hand and muting the computer voice's safety warnings, "I'm coming Touji..."

"CRITICAL WARNING." again the machine intoned, "BATTERY POWER AT TWO MINUTES, THIRTY SECONDS. RECOMMEND CONNECTING TO EXTERNAL POWER."

"SHUT UP!" she bellowed, entering a seccond set of codes to further mute the machine, "I'LL KILL THEM IN SECONDS!"

Exploding from a half-crouch, Unit-Two leapt the distance to crash full-on into one of the three remaining MP-EVAs that stood watching Unit-Three. Slamming it to the ground, she interlocked her fingers and slammed her combined fists into and through the slug-like head, pulping its skull from teeth to brainstem. Pulling her fists back, she rolled to the side in time to avoid the falling blade of one MP and tripped the second, knocking it flat on its sickly grinning maw as she stood up to Unit-Two's full height behind it.

Pain was nothing new to her. Like an old friend, one you know well but don't want around often. Pain had followed her and taken residence in her heart since she found her mother dead a decade ago, showed up every time she pushed herself in training, visited during and after several of the battles. Each pain -mental, emotional, or physical- had its own unique flavor, but pain was pain.

And like always, she would push passed it and win.

Through the faint tether of their linked AT-Fields, a link forged in desperation, forged in what she even now hesitated to call love, she knew he was exhausted but winning. He had recovered from the invasion of his EVA by Bardiel, returned to her after the terror and near hopelessness of the catastrophic fight with Zeruel, been with her through the torture of Arael, saved her from the insidious invasion of Armisael, and helped her overcome Tabris' deception.

It was her turn again.

Eyes a blazing green fire, Unit-Two reached for one of the massive double blades the MP-EVAs used. Slow, threatening, Asuka brought the Blade up while two EVAs not engaged with Touji watched her, their maws a rectus grin that repulsed her to her core.

With a lunge, Asuka swung the massive weapon in a sweeping arc, cathing one of her adversaries before it could dodge and cleaving it nearly in two. Continuing the spin, the momentum carried her through a clumsy pirouette as the other MP, obviously not learning from its compatriot, leapt forward in trying to catch her while her back was turned and instead ending up losing it arm and head as Asuka brought the Blade around and up. Over balanced by the spin and up-swing, Unit-Two fell to its back.

Groaning, the young German woman stood again with a quick glance at the battery timer. Two minutes even and counting.

"Touji."

"Asuka watch out!"

Whipping her head around, Asuka turned just in time to see Unit-Three jerking back to its feet as the MP-EVA he'd been fighting slammed into her full force. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs, snapping her the rest of the way out of her rage and bringing all the pain back to the front in an instant.

Hitting the ground, her EVA's head slamming into the central pyramid as her own head slammed back into the seat, her last sight before the black took her was Touji running to her and the grinning visage of the slug-headed EVA above her.

0o0o0o0

Groaning softly, the first thing she noticed, other than the dull pain edging into her leg and side, was the dampness on her cheeks and the light through her eyelids. The last thing she could recall, here in the space between waking and dreaming, was a white room and tears.

"Hey."

The voice, low and soft, exhaustion clear, seemed almost too loud in the stillness. Forcing her eyes open, ignoring the spike of pain from the bright light streaming in through a window to her left, Asuka was greeted with the tired but relieved face of her fellow Pilot leaning in from the right.

"...Touji..."

Her voice was scratchy and her throat was dry, but it still drew a smile from the young Japanese man beside her. He reached out of sight, bringing back a glass of water with a straw. Helping her sit up by adjusting the bed, he held the glass while she drank. Downing half the glass in slow, measured sips, Asuka sighed and turned her focused gaze on Touji.

Bags under his eye, hair more scraggly and messed than normal, face a little more pale...

Eye?

Touji watched her as she examined his face, and he knew she'd seen the change when her eyes went wide and her jaw dropped. Reaching up, he lightly brushed over the white medical eyepatch that covered his left eye, smile now uneven and gaze slightly dulled.

"Yeah," he dropped his hand, laying it gently on hers, "Took out dat last MP, but duh creep managed tuh get my knife from me and jam'd it in tuh my EVA's skull duh same time as I crushed its core."

Unbidden, tears gathered in her eyes and poured down her cheeks, following the trails left by the tears she'd shed while unconscious. He'd lost an eye. He'd nearly died, only saved because she bound his AT-Field to her own, and now he'd lost an eye. And both were because she'd been too arrogant about her abilities to consider what it might cost either of them when she was inevitably wrong.

The pain in her body was matched by a pain in her chest and doubled by her exhaustion. She felt so weak, tears on her face she had sworn she would never cry adding to it. But the final straw was the gentle hug and whispered words of the young man beside her as he leaned over and pulled her in.

"Hey, we made it."

And she broke. Everything she thought she'd buried came rushing back and poured out through her eyes as tears and her voice as soft sobs. She thought she'd dealt with nearly losing him, with the horror of Arael, but the warmth in his hug and the strong yet gentle touch of his subtle AT-Field brought it all back. So she cried, and held him, and pushed her fragile AT-Field to intertwine it further with his.

In the mingling of their Souls, the bond she'd initiated weeks ago to save him by forcing his Field to repair his body using her own newly awakened power, she found a sense of peace she thought she'd never get to have. And it scared her. She tried to push it back, not expecting this sense of completion, but human or not he wouldn't budge. He gently brushed her weak denials aside, not forcing the bond but not retreating either.

Eventually she calmed, and with a sigh she decided to let it go. For the first time, she realized the pain that had haunted her for so long was not bound to her. It had haunted her because she had not let it go, had wrapped it around herself like a shield against further injury. Instead, it had simply built up as each new hurt was added to it. So she let it flow out, her tears no longer painful but freeing, her sobs reducing to hitched breathing. Holding him, body and Soul, she let the pain leave her body.

And feeling it leave, she revelled in certainty and peace that replaced it.

3
2
1
0

A/N: Well, that was a thing.