Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Disclaimer: Birdy the Mighty is the creation of Masami Yuuki. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.
Chapter Nine: Resisting
The First Day…
Gendo Ikari had the migraine from hell.
This really wasn't that surprising, given the way several key factors in his scenario had gone sour recently. And, adding injury to injury, SEELE's response to the latest battle was perhaps worse than it would have been if Unit One had absorbed the S2 organ like he'd expected.
"We find the report given to us on the most recent battle most disturbing, Ikari," SEELE-06 said.
"Not only did the Angel penetrate the Geofront, but the way in which Unit One went berserk is something we find a great cause for concern," SEELE-11 added.
"Indeed. What do NERV Central's engineers do all day?" SEELE-07 asked. "Certainly not work on EVA, judging from the ease which the beast broke from its restraints. Unless…"
SEELE-07 paused for dramatic effect. Had Gendo had the actual man in front of him rather than a holographic monolith, he would have been very tempted to rush over and throttle him.
"Unless," SEELE-07 repeated, "Unit One's berserk rage was something that was desired."
Gendo resisted the urge to wince, something that the sensation of having a jackhammer inside his skull did not make any easier.
SEELE knew what he'd wanted to happen; the Dead Sea Scrolls, to which they were so devoted, had doubtlessly allowed them to work it out easily. The prophecies contained within the scrolls had many either/or clauses—forks in which destiny could branch off into different directions.
It was now fairly obvious that Gendo had sought to send events down the branch that concerned "the true Offspring of Lilith ascending to Godhood by consuming the Heart of her Enemy, the Fruit of Life."
It was even more obvious that he'd failed. The former fact had made SEELE distrustful, while the latter had made the old men infuriatingly smug. It was the worst of both worlds.
Fortunately, they could prove nothing, despite what they knew. The game would continue.
"That is preposterous," Gendo scoffed. "NERV never desired to lose control of an Evangelion. Maintenance of the restraints on Unit One was never neglected. You may check NERV's records to confirm this for yourself."
The last part, at least, was completely true. Gendo had never bothered having the restraints upon the test-type EVA weakened, if only because he'd been confident that no simple bindings of steel could ever hope to hold back Unit One when the time came.
"Well, it is most fortunate that Unit One did not claim the Angel's S2 organ for itself, despite NERV's loss of control," SEELE-02 spoke up.
You think my only opportunity has passed, Gendo thought, silently bristling at the man's vaguely mocking tone. You're wrong. I will make another opportunity for Unit One to claim an S2 organ, if need be.
"Indeed," he agreed.
"Ikari, your presence here is no longer required," SEELE-01 spoke up abruptly.
There were no false pleasantries about how well appreciated his appearance had been; they saved that for the meetings between Gendo and the Instrumentality Committee, which were always on-the-record affairs. Instead, the hologram of Gendo within the virtual meeting chamber simply vanished.
"Ikari lies," SEELE-07 said. "He planned to subvert our scenario in favor of one of his own."
"Obviously," SEELE-01 said contemptuously. "However, he failed. I would not have expected that of Ikari."
"Clearly we require further information," SEELE-02 said.
"Clearly," SEELE-01 agreed.
The first thing Gendo did after leaving his meeting with SEELE was to head to his office and take several aspirin for his migraine. When the relentless pounding inside his head started to abate, he summoned Dr. Akagi to his office.
She arrived more quickly than he would have liked.
"You sent for me, sir?" she asked as she strode across the great room toward his desk.
"Yes," Gendo said. "I trust that by now you've heard Fuyutski's explanation for why EVA failed to act as we expected?"
Akagi nodded. "I have, sir."
She wisely refrained from reminding Gendo that she had warned him about the third entity for some time now.
Being the boss of a place like NERV meant never having to tolerate people saying "I told you so."
"Good," he said. "I want you to rectify the problem immediately."
"That…could be a problem, sir," Akagi said.
Gendo felt his headache growing in intensity again. "Why is that, Doctor?"
"Isolating the foreign entity would be no easy task at the best of times, sir, but so long as Shinji's trapped in EVA along with the entity and Unit One's…resident soul, it will be virtually impossible," Akagi said. "And eliminating the entity cannot be done without first isolating it."
"Then your chief responsibility right now is the salvage operation to extract the Third Child from Unit One," Gendo said.
"Yes, sir," Akagi said. "If that's all…"
"You're dismissed, Dr. Akagi," Gendo said.
"Yes, sir," she said and left.
Gendo waited until she gone, then allowed himself to slump in his chair, grimacing as he rubbed his aching head.
The Second Day…
Skeletsu came at her with a roar, his fist surging forward at incredible speeds. Birdy just managed to dodge in time, and his punch landed on the wall behind her instead, creating a great hole within it.
The Alterian let loose a savage kick, striking the reptilian being right in the chest and sending him flying into a nearby building. The force of his impact left a considerable dent in the concrete.
Her opponent seemed to have taken less damage than the structure. He leapt to his feet at once, his good eye blazing. Birdy motioned for him to bring it on.
He charged her. As he drew near, Birdy gripped his arm and attempted to use his own momentum to fling him into the wall he'd so recently punched a hole into. However, he responded with some maneuver she'd never encountered before. The next thing she knew, she was on her back, and Skeletsu was atop her, his powerful hands by her throat.
Then he threw his head back and laughed. "You're certainly worthy of being known as Birdy the Mighty, but your old teacher isn't out of tricks yet!"
She smiled as he got off of her and allowed her to get to her feet. "Why don't you show that trick to me, Director?"
"You mean you haven't figured it out yet?!" Skeletsu demanded, pretending to be appalled.
Birdy smirked and cracked her knuckles. "I intend to get it out of you one way or another, Director."
Skeletsu grinned. "Come on, then, my student. Earn your lesson."
They began sparring again at their usual fast and frantic pace, holding nothing back as they tested one another. The various people who saw the two of them fighting in the streets of Alteria rolled their eyes and pretended not to notice the two, but that was all right. She was on her home planet, she was with her beloved teacher, and everything was all right.
Except there was something niggling her, at the back of her mind, telling her that everything was not all right at all.
She ignored it and continued her sparring session…until they happened to find themselves by a shop with a large, storefront window. In it, she caught sight of her reflection and gasped.
Her hair, once pink and white, had become completely black, just like Shinji's.
The sight caused memories to rapidly begin resurfacing. Birdy remembered that she wasn't on Alteria at all, but on some primitive mud ball named Earth. She had been bonded to a boy she'd nearly killed…and the two of them had been absorbed into a replica of one of the Untouchables that the Earthlings had so foolishly created.
"Oh god," Birdy breathed, looking at her reflection again.
She knew only too well what her suddenly having one of Shinji's features meant. The barriers between the two of them that had been so carefully erected when she'd prepared herself to bond with him must not be present here.
Her mind and soul were starting to fuse with those of Shinji Ikari.
The Third Day…
There were some things in the world that seemed like they'd continue going on no matter what else may be going on. No matter what cataclysm might be going on, these activities would always happen like clockwork, or so it appeared.
To EVA pilots, sync tests were definitely one of these activities.
"The two hours are up," Maya finally announced, opening the test plugs.
"So how'd we do?" Asuka asked with far less enthusiasm than usual.
"Rei's sync ratio has held steady since the last test," Maya answered. "Asuka, yours is down three points fromm the last test," Maya answered. "You should probably, um, work on that."
Under different circumstances and with different news, Asuka might have laughed. The mousey technician sounded painfully nervous in the absence of Dr. Akagi, who was probably working with Unit One at the moment.
"Understood," Asuka replied.
"Okay, then, I guess you can go," Maya said.
Asuka and Rei both nodded, then departed the test plug chamber, heading for their locker room. The two wordlessly showered and then changed into their normal clothes. It wasn't until they had left and were walking through the halls that one of them finally said something.
Surprisingly, it was Rei. "Are you all right?" she asked.
"Yes," Asuka answered, then hesitated and added, "No."
"What's wrong?" Rei asked.
Asuka sighed. "I had victory in my hands. I could taste it," she said. "And then he took it away from me."
Rei quirked an eyebrow. She had thought that the source of Asuka's black mood was her sync ratio's decline.
"By that point in the battle, it was not Ikari any more," Rei pointed out. "It was Unit One."
"I know," Asuka said, "but I can't be mad at a damn machine."
Rei frowned slightly. "You wish to be angry at Ikari?" she asked.
"No," Asuka replied, looking downward. "Shinji's in a bad spot right now, and I want him to get out. I do still owe him one. But I feel like I need to be angry at someone."
"I do not understand," Rei said.
"Neither do I, sometimes," Asuka said, shaking her head. "Neither do I."
"I see," Rei said, even though she didn't. "In any case, I wish I could do more to help you."
Asuka smiled slightly. "It helps a lot just having someone who listens to me and doesn't think I'm insane," the Second Child said. "I'm glad that we did eventually become friends, Rei. Hikari's great, but I can't talk to her about stuff at NERV like I can with you."
Rei blushed a delicate pink. "I am…also glad."
The Fourth Day…
"So what exactly happened?" Misato demanded.
She and Ritsuko were standing on the walkway in the cage that was right before Unit One's face. The great war machine had damaged its helmet during the last battle, and its head was currently wrapped in great bandages. Only its huge white teeth and a single, unblinking green eye were visible.
"Shinji's sync ratio reached 400 percent," Ritsuko answered. "At that level, the pilot's ego borderline collapses. His mind and soul were absorbed into the EVA."
Misato's eyes narrowed. "What happened to his body?"
"It came apart, for lack of a better term," Ritsuko said. "The composition of the LCL has changed to something very similar to the primordial soup of earth. All the molecules that formed Shinji's body are still there. They've just been separated."
Misato crossed her arms. "You're talking like this is some simple lab experiment," she said in a low growl. "Like there isn't a teenage kid trapped inside of there."
"I always try not to consider the human element," Akagi said. "It never helps."
Misato's eyes widened, and before she knew what she was doing, she's reached out and slapped Ritsuko across the face as hard as she could.
"You will consider the human element, damn you!" she shouted. "There's a boy who's been put through an incredible amount of shit by us, and you will have his fate resting on your conscience while you take some responsibility for what your creation has done and get him out of there! Do you understand me?!"
"Perfectly, Major Katsuragi," Ritsuko said coldly.
"Good," Misato said.
The Operations Director then stormed off, leaving the cage and heading into a nearby elevator. The moment the door closed, she punched one of the walls. She felt pain shoot up her arm all the way to elbow but didn't cry out.
"Damn it," she whispered, squeezing her suddenly tear filled eyes shut.
The Fifth Day…
"EVA Unit One! Go!" Misato shouted.
The electromagnetic catapult sent the violet destroyer rocketing upwards at terrific speed, and Birdy grimaced beneath the force of the acceleration. Whatever the white and blue plug suit she wore was supposed to do, it didn't make the task of piloting any more pleasant.
Within seconds, the mighty Evangelion had arrived on the surface, and Birdy at last got to see her enemy. It was a great blue diamond, even larger than the behemoth she herself was piloting.
"Look out!" Misato suddenly shouted over the radio.
"Huh?"
A great lance of blue-white suddenly erupted from one of the points of the Angel and slammed into Unit One's chest, quickly melting and then vaporizing even the extremely tough armor of the EVA.
Birdy screamed in agony, feeling as though the terrible heat might well cause her heart to simply explode or turn to ash. The LCL boiled furiously around her as it was flash heated by the Angel's attack.
She was vaguely aware that she seemed to be sinking. NERV was recalling the EVA. However, the Angel kept its beam attack focused on Unit One's chest as the EVA began to descend.
The pain reached a terrible crescendo, and Birdy knew no more.
She returned to the waking world with a start, finding herself staring at the drab, off-white ceiling tiles that she knew meant she was in NERV Medical.
"Unfamiliar ceiling," she groaned.
Then she frowned. She had never been one to get stuck on such trivial details as ceilings. Something wasn't right about all this. In fact, something was seriously wrong.
Getting up despite the intense pain, Birdy staggered over to the room's tiny adjoining bathroom, absently noting how scratchy the green hospital gown she was clad in felt.
Finally reaching her destination after what felt like forever, she leaned heavily on the sink and then, after pausing a moment to regain her strength, dared to look up into the mirror.
She paled when she saw her reflection. Birdy had half-expected the black hair, but not how young she looked. She was too short, and her face had regained some of its childish roundness. She couldn't be more than sixteen and was probably younger.
"I'm being fused with Shinji," she whispered, finally remembering what was wrong.
The process was progressing with frightening speed. Already, she was starting to take on more of his physical traits. That was a very bad sign, she knew.
She racked her brain, frantically looking for something that was hers, something that completely distinguished her from him.
Only to have great difficulty discerning his memories from her own. Was she the one who apologized far too readily, or was that him? Was he the ice cream lover, or was that her? She didn't know, and that horrified her.
This is one of his memories, too, I think, she realized, suddenly feeling like she was about to vomit.
"I can't stop this from happening by myself," she said softly. "Shinji! Where are you? Why aren't you helping me keep them from happening?!"
She didn't really expect any response to her call; the Third Child hadn't said a word since they'd been absorbed into EVA. For all Birdy knew, he wasn't conscious.
So it shocked the hell out of her when his face appeared in the mirror.
"I don't want to stop it," Shinji said in a tiny voice.
The Sixth Day…
"An entire set of protocols just for this very situation," Maya said in an awed tone as she looked over the information. "Sempai, how on earth did you manage to create all this so quickly?"
"I didn't," Ritsuko answered as she looked on over her assistant's shoulder. "Most of this data is from ten years ago."
"What data from ten years ago?" Maya asked. "Has this happened before?"
"Yes, but it was before I started working here. It was during my mother's time," Ritsuko answered. "But I can still pick her brains."
"How did it come out ten years ago?" Sakura asked softly.
"They didn't succeed," Ritsuko asked with a shake of her head.
The head of Tech Division One left it unsaid that she had no expectations of succeeding now, either. Oh, it would be nice to retrieve Shinji intact, of course, but she didn't believe it would happen. The presence of the third entity within EVA complicated the hell out of a situation that was already impossibly complex.
Really, she thought dourly, the best we can reasonably hope for that the salvage attempt kills the third entity along with Shinji.
The Fifteenth Day…
"No!" Birdy screamed. "No! Make it stop!"
The Alterian was caught in the center of a tempest. It was a great maelstrom made not of wind and rain but of memories. Thousands upon thousands of memories swirled around her; sights, sounds, smells, feelings of all kind. There was far too much for her to ever hope to process, two lifetimes' worth, and she had no idea who each memory belonged to.
"Stop! Make it stop!" she wailed, falling to her knees and somehow feeling them come into contact carpet, a bamboo mat, and the lining of her (his) chair on the space ship all at once.
She gripped her head as a sudden cacophony of noise sounded, threatening to overwhelm her. It was a horrible combination of cello music, an Alterian band, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and the roar of space ship engines.
"Damn it, Shinji!" she screamed. "Why won't you help me stop this?! Why do you want this to happen!?"
Because I'm so tired of existing as I have been, he whispered, sounding utterly miserable. I don't want to be me anymore.
Birdy's eyes widened. She knew that the Thirteenth Angel had struck Shinji hard, but she had never had any idea he was so depressed that he would be willing to commit the soft suicide of becoming one with her.
Then a great whirl of memories unfolded before her. In a mere heartbeat she saw the life of neglect Shinji had led, the pain he'd inadvertently caused when he'd been forced to action, and she understood his willingness to just sit back and allow them to fuse into one person.
That didn't mean she, too, was going to stop fighting. Not by a long shot.
"You can't let this happen!" Birdy shouted. "You can't!"
I have to admit that you infuriate me sometimes, Shinji continued as though he hadn't heard her. But you're also very brave, much more than I could ever be. You know when to act. I admire that about you. I…that's one of the reasons I'm willing to be one with you.
The great storm of light and sound that gusted around her increased in intensity, and Birdy feared that she would soon be carried off by it.
Then her face hardened, and she threw every ounce of her willpower to the task of maintaining her individuality. Nothing in her life had ever been more difficult.
"NO!" she snarled. "I AM I!"
The tempest calmed suddenly, not disappearing entirely but diminishing greatly. Birdy sighed in relief, even though she knew this was merely a respite. She had to convince Shinji to help her, or it would return in even greater intensity.
"Shinji," she gasped out, suddenly realizing that she was panting with exertion. "You have no right to do this. If we're combined into a hybrid, both of us will cease to exist in our present forms. That might be okay with you, but it's not with me."
She could immediately sense that this disturbed him. "Please," she said. "Help me."
I… he stammered. I…I'm sorry, Birdy, but I can't. I just don't have the strength. I'm not like you.
Birdy grit her teeth and resisted the urge to start screaming at him, instead changing tactics. "You know that since I'm the stronger of us, the resulting hybrid will be more me than you, right? You'll be erased a lot more soundly than I will."
That's all right, Shinji replied in a tone of weary resignation. We tend to do better when we're being you with me in the background anyway. You listen to me when I warn you against taking reckless risks. I don't listen to you, so it's probably better this way.
Birdy took a deep breath, then played her last card. "If we become one and form a new person, there are people who are going to miss you, Shinji."
No there isn't, he scoffed. People only ever care about me because I pilot EVA. I'm sure we'll be able to pilot after becoming one person, so everyone will be fine.
"That's not true!" Birdy yelled.
Isn't it? I've spent so much time being you and helping you with your investigation, Shinji said. Nobody ever seemed to notice or care.
"People do care about you!" Birdy shouted. "Look!"
With the two of them so dangerously close to becoming a single entity, Birdy currently enjoyed access to most of Shinji's memories. Only the most secret and private ones remained his alone by this point.
The Altarian somehow grabbed one and showed it to him. It was the image of Rei's smile, immediately after the Fifth Angel had been slain. The first time she had ever smiled for him.
Birdy selected another one, this time of when Misato had kissed him after he'd bought her jewelry as a gift to congratulate her on her promotion to major. Shinji again felt the sensation of the older woman's lips pressing against his own.
Then Birdy foisted the memory of the time Shinji had told Asuka he'd gotten the talent scout's card for her. He again relived the moment when the redhead had smiled at him so brilliantly that her entire face had lit up, practically glowing.
"You see?!" Birdy asked desperately. "People do care about you! You're just too afraid to see it and believe it!"
Shinji was silent, having no response to this.
Birdy pressed the issue. "If you let this happen, you'll be hurting them more than any number of bungled attempts at helping them ever could!" she yelled.
Shinji said nothing for a long, long moment. He didn't quite believe what Birdy was saying; his feelings of worthlessness ran deep. However, he couldn't just bring himself to dismiss the possibility that she was right.
"And Shinji," Birdy added, "I care about you, too. After everything we've been through together, I consider you a friend. I don't want you to stop existing any more than I want to stop existing. Please, help me."
…all right, Shinji agreed at last.
The Third Child put his will to the task of retaining his individually, of keeping them separate. He was actually more adept at the task than Birdy, probably due to his being well-practiced at the art of keeping others at arm's length.
The storm of memories ceased entirely, and Birdy grew back to the proper age, her hair becoming pink and white again in the process.
"Well, this is interesting."
The Alterian turned to see Shinji sitting on a nearby sand dune, his knees drawn up almost to his chest. Birdy let of a cheer and rushed over to the boy, hugging him.
"Thank you, Shinji!" she exclaimed. "I knew you wouldn't just give up if I could only make you see reason! You wont regret this, I promise."
"I'm not sure it'll make a difference," he said. "Feel that?"
She frowned and was about to ask what he was talking about, but then she realized that she did feel it. It was like a magnetic pull, trying to draw her and Shinji together. It was faint at the moment, but it was there, and she somehow knew that they wouldn't be able to resist it forever.
"We have to get out of here," she said. "Out of EVA."
"But how?" Shinji asked. "Just walking down the shoreline until we find the exit?"
"Huh?" Birdy frowned, looking about.
She realized that the landscape around them, which had been as fluid as the crazed rush of memories, had settled into that of an empty beach of white sand, upon which gentle waves were continually crashing.
"What is this place?" she asked.
"I don't know," Shinji replied, looking confused. "I though it was someplace from your memories. I've never been here before."
"Neither have I," Birdy said. "This is weird."
"Yeah," Shinji agreed. "It doesn't answer my question, though. How are we supposed to get out of here?"
Birdy took another long look around, then shrugged. "If walking down the shoreline is the only thing we can do, then walking down the shoreline is the only thing we can do. Let's go."
Shinji was about to argue that such a thing couldn't possibly work to free them from EVA, then he gave a mental shrug and got to his feet, brushing the sand off his pants. The pilot and the police officer then set off down the beach together.
The Thirty-First Day…
It had been an entire month since Shinji had been absorbed into EVA. An entire month that had at once passed in a blur and lasted a seeming eternity to Misato Katsuragi.
And finally it was time to try and remedy the situation that had plagued NERV for so long. They were going to try and rescue Shinji from EVA.
"Ego border pulse connection is complete," Maya said, looking at a computer readout that Misato couldn't make heads nor tails of.
"Roger," Ritsuko replied. "Start the salvage operation."
"Initiating program, transmitting first signal," Makoto said.
"Signal received, no rejection," Aoba replied.
The cool, professional voices of the technicians irritated Misato. They sounded just like they were doing any normal experiment or procedure, not trying to save a child's life.
"Proceed to send the second and third signals," Sakura said.
"Subject is normal."
"Destrudo cannot be confirmed."
An increasingly loud humming sound came from somewhere, but where exactly Misato couldn't have said.
She guessed it was probably EVA.
"Affirmative, shift the subject to phase two!" Ritsuko commanded.
Inside of EVA, Shinji and Birdy had long ago ceased their walk down the endless beach.
"This isn't going to work!" Shinji grunted as he used his legs to push away from Birdy, his feet planted against her abdomen. "It's over."
Pushing Shinji's shoulders with her arms, Birdy grunted. "What have I told—"
"I know, I know, never give up," Shinji groaned.
The pseudo-magnetic force between them had only grow in intensity as time had passed, to the point where the two were literally being pulled together. Both knew that if they ceased in their efforts to remain individual beings for even a moment, they would be pulled together irrevocably.
Both knew that even if they didn't relent, they would become merged into a hybrid being soon anyway.
Neither one noticed the way that the sky above them, which had remained bright blue the entire time they'd been on the beach, was starting to flicker with a thousand different colored lights as Ritsuko attempted to get Shinji out.
"It's no good! His ego borderline is frozen into a fixed loop!" Maya shouted as her readout went crazy.
"Try and irradiate the wave patterns from all directions!" Ritsuko ordered. She rushed over to Maya and looked over her shoulder at the technician's screen. "My god! All of the radiated signals are being trapped in Klein space!"
"What does that mean?" Misato demanded.
"It means…we failed," Ritsuko admitted, and Misato's eyes slid shut as a look of despair came to dominate her features.
"Abort intervention!" Ritsuko commanded. "Reverse the tangent graph! Set the addition value at zero!"
"Roger!" Maya replied.
"Destrudo reaction in the Q-area!" Aoba reported. "Pattern is sepia!"
"I've got a change in the core pulse, too! Class three, confirmed!" Makoto added.
"Maintaining current condition has priority! Stop that backflow!" Ritsuko shouted.
"Right!" Maya said, typing furiously. "Backflow, plus point five, point eight! This is all wrong! I can't stop it!"
"What's going on!?" Ritsuko exclaimed, looking up at Unit One. "Don't you want to come back, Shinji?"
"The EVA! It's rejecting the signal!" Maya shouted as red alert warnings appeared everywhere.
"Shinji's ego pervasion is disintegrating in the LCL!" Aoba said.
"Pressure in the plug is increasing!" Makoto added.
"Abort all operations! Power down!" Ritsuko yelled.
"It's not working!" Maya said. "The plug is being ejected!"
The hatch opened and LCL began to gush out onto the walkway.
"No!" Misato screamed. "No!"
Ritsuko and the bridge techs could only watch, frozen in horror, while Misato sprinted down to the walkway where the LCL that had once been Shinji was pouring. By the time she had reached her destination, the great flow of LCL had ebbed to a mere trickle and Shinji's blue and white plug suit had been washed onto the walkway.
Misato fell to his knees before the garment, crying. She picked it up and hugged it to her chest as she sobbed.
"Damn you!" she cried. "What good is all your science if it can't save even one small life!"
The Operations Director turned to regard Unit One. "Give Shinji back, you monster!" she shouted. "Give him back!"
"I can't keep fighting, Birdy," Shinji said. "It feels like its been forever. I'm just too tired. I'm sorry."
With that, the Third Child ceased his efforts to remain separate, expecting to no longer exist as an individual person the moment he did so.
Instead, the world shattered around him. Shinji inhaled sharply in surprise as he found himself suspended in a great field of stars. And he was floating alone; Birdy was no where in sight.
"Where am I?" he whispered as he floated through nothingness.
No answer was forthcoming, but he did spot something in the distance, a spot of light that was larger and brighter than the countless pinpricks of the far off stars. It approached him, and Shinji soon recognized it as a certain spectral figure that he had encountered when trapped within the Twelfth Angel.
"Mother?" he breathed.
She drew near him and smiled, then reached out and caressed his face. He was surprised to find that her ghostly fingers were warm, and he reached out and took one of her hands in his. Then—
Misato suddenly looked up when she heard a small splashing sound to her left. Her eyes widened when she saw a completely naked Shinji Ikari laying face down in a puddle of LCL next to her.
The Thirty-Third Day…
"So Shinji still isn't awake yet?" Ritsuko asked as she and the Operations Director made their way to the NERV parking deck.
"Nope, but all the doctors have assured me that he's just exhausted and should wake up soon," Misato said worriedly.
"I'm sure they're correct," Ritsuko said. "NERV doesn't employ incompetent doctors."
Misato smirked slightly. "I'm sure you're right, Dr. Akagi."
Ritsuko shook her head slightly as the two drew near to Misato's car. "So, heading home?" the faux blonde asked.
Misato shook her head. "No, I have to go meet with someone."
"I see," was all Ritsuko said.
"Well, see you tomorrow," Misato said, getting into her car.
Ritsuko watched as the battered Renault peeled out of the parking garage. "Shinji just came back, and she's already going off to Kaji," the scientist said with a shake of her head.
Then, a small, rather bitter smile appeared on her face. "Well, maybe I'd be doing the same if I were in her place," she said.
Unfortunately, she wasn't in Misato's place, she was in Ritsuko Akagi's place.
"And Ritsuko Akagi has a hell of a lot of work to do, finding that mystery soul," she muttered, heading back into headquarters.
Within one of the many sterile rooms of the NERV Medical Ward, Shinji Ikari finally began to stir after over a day of deep, dreamless sleep. His eyes slowly slid open, and he beheld his least favorite site in all the world.
As he knew it meant success, however, even he couldn't be too depressed at the sight. "Not so unfamiliar now," he muttered, a small smirk on his face. "Looks like we made it out of there."
Within the confines of his head, he heard a groan, then a gasp. Sh-Shinji?
The Third Child's eyes widened hugely.
That wasn't Birdy's voice.
"Mother?" he whispered.
Author's Notes: I told you I'd surprise you, didn't I? I've had this idea in mind for a while now, and I have to say I was glad to finally get to this part.
Now, I know a couple of you were hoping to see Shinji and Birdy interacting with Yui while inside EVA, but that was never really something I'd planned. Hopefully this latest development satisfies you.
As always, thanks to all my readers and reviewers. Now for a little fun.
Omakes!
Dangers of Dancing
"You sent for me, sir?" she asked as she strode across the great room toward his desk.
"Yes," Gendo said. "I trust that by now you've heard Fuyutski's explanation for why EVA failed to act as we expected?"
Akagi nodded. "I have, sir."
"Now—"
"It's a real pity that this had to happen," Ritsuko said. "If only someone could have warned you that there was a foreign entity present…"
Gendo's eyes narrowed. "Doctor, I do not appreciate your tone, and—"
"Oh, wait! Someone did warn you!" Ritsuko exclaimed. "I did!"
"Akagi…" Gendo growled.
Undeterred, Akagi leapt up onto Gendo's desk and commenced the "I told you so dance."
"Oh yeah, oh yeah!" she cheered. "I called it! You ignored me! And it bit you in the—"
Gendo savagely kicked his desk, moving it a few feet and sending Akagi tumbling down to the hard floor.
"Ow," she groaned a she picked herself up. "Was that really necessary?"
"Next time you do that, I will shoot you," Gendo said flatly.
Ritsuko swallowed. "So…I'll just get to finding that foreign soul now."
"Good idea."
Uh-Oh…
Within one of the many sterile rooms of the NERV Medical Ward, Shinji Ikari finally began to stir after over a day of deep, dreamless sleep. His eyes slowly slid open, and he beheld his least favorite site in all the world.
As he knew it meant success, however, even he couldn't be too depressed at the sight.
"Okay, Birdy, we're out, and we're still us instead of one person made out of us," he said. "Now, it's your turn to hold up your end of our deal. Tell me the secret of undoing a girl's bra with one hand!"
…Shinji?
"…Mommy?"