Children of the Prophecy ENGLISH Version Chapter 10: 09: Fugue, an evangelion fanfic

09: [Fugue]

I've spent so much time

throwing rocks at your window

That I never even knocked

on the front door

I walk by statues

never even made one chip

but if i could leave a mark on the monument of the heart

I just might lay myself down

with little more hope than I had

the last day

Wait a time

and spare these lies

we tell ourselves

These days have come and gone

But this time is sweeter than honey

Evanescence, 'So Close'

Excerpt from the second interim-report about the first battle in Neo-Tokyo-3 by the leader of the operations division and thus, the person responsible for the operation, Captain Katsuragi Misato: "Even if we were victorious, lots of damage was caused, and for us from the operations division, this battle was a trial that exposed many miscalculations and showed us that there is still much to improve. Regardless, it is to be commended that Ikari Shinji, a completely untrained, unprepared boy succeeded in carrying out the operation, no, that he even agreed to participate in it."

In the time the NERV personnel needed to reach the battlefield, retrieve the EVA, relocate it onto a transportation framework, remove the Entry Plug and open it as the last step just before transporting it back to HQ, Ikari Shinji had been weeping incessantly.

Neither Touji nor Kensuke dared to address him in that state, even less after having witnessed the suffering he had just gone through with their very own eyes.

Shinji didn't even release himself from his position, keeping his hands and arms pressed against the control lever and his head hanging in between them.

He had no strength left to move from this spot, let alone subject himself to the judgment of his classmates or even look them in the eyes.

All he could do was cry.

Sure, his sobs of lament got quieter over time, but when the NERV technicians opened the main hatch of the entry plug after it had been extracted and the bulk of the LCL had been expulsed, they still found him in that exact same posture.

However, when he was asked to come out, he rose from his seat and complied almost mechanically, wordlessly walking over to one area that had been previously encircled with curtain-like partition screens, where a short, medical checkup was to take place, right past Touji and Kensuke whose concerned looks he did not seem to register.

The two were already being expected by several security employees in black and soon marshaled somewhere different, presumably to get thoroughly chewed out.

Shinji, on the other hand, was asked by a somewhat elderly physician to sit down on an examination couch which had also been set up there and to remove his plug suit from the waist up.

He followed all instructions like a robot and wordlessly sat through the procedures.

It quickly became apparent that he had escaped completely unscathed this time – physically, that is.

After he had thus been discharged fairly fast, he passively let himself be escorted back to headquarters, flat out incapable to independently do or say anything – Any and all 'processing capacity' in his skull was far too busy with futile attempts to come to terms with the events of the last five minutes – It was hard to believe that it really had been this short.

One might as well have asked a cheap calculator to compute the exact value of pi.

Once they arrived at HQ, Shinji was left in a room with multiple showers in it – Shinji had been here before, quite often, mostly after his training, but never after a battle – the first one had left him incapable of leaving the EVA on his own two feet.

On one of the two benches which were also present in the room, he was being awaited by a pile of neatly folded clothes and a cold drink in a paper cup, complete with a straw, and the first thing he did was to take a deep gulp out of the latter to calm himself and soothe his throat after all of that panicked screaming.

After that first gulp, however, he decided to shower before anything else – less because of any thoughts that someone might be expecting him somewhere, than because of his wish to rid himself of the plug suit and the remaining LCL sticking to him as quickly as he could, since both of these things kept reminding him of the battle.

Peripherally, he wondered why in the world there were so many showers here.

Right now, both they and the closely situated, similarly large locker room were frequented by him alone. Sure, there was still Ayanami who was currently out of commission because of her injuries, but this room seemed too big for even two people.

From the looks of it, he would have guessed that it had been intended for significantly more users.

But Shinji was far too enervated to think about it for all too long – Ever since he had moved to Tokyo-3, his life had ceased to make sense anyway.

Thus, he quickly shed his plug suit, occupied one of the showers and gave his body a thorough scrubbing, as if he were hoping to wash off those horrible memories along with the LCL.

That didn't quite work, but at least the hot water did him good.

After he'd rubbed himself dry with a towel that had also been provided to him, he hung it over the saloon-door-like flaps that served as entrance to the individual shower he was in and presumably to shield the user's private parts from the other occupants if this shower room should ever come to be frequented by more people than just him, and put on the clothes – among them loose black trousers and a blue t-shirt – in no particular order.

And since he hadn't been given any further orders, he just sat down on one of the benches, grabbed his drink, and waited.

For a while, he was left alone, left waiting in his silent darkness, without being subjected to further demands or expectations.

But then, the door opened, and some entered.

Shinji didn't have the heart to even look up.

"…why did you disobey my order?"

It was Misato's voice. She sounded positively cross.

Of course… of course there would be no kind words.

The organization didn't give a damn about the hell he just went through.

They had taken it for granted that he would win.

All he was to them was a glorified extension cable to rely their orders to the EVA, they expected him to function, and that was all.

"I'm sorry." He answered quietly. That was what they wanted to hear from him right now, wasn't it?

That's why she had come.

Wasn't it that what he had to say so they would be nice to him again?

"You are aware that I'm responsible for you and this operation, aren't you?"

"Yeah…"

"And this means that you have to do exactly as I tell you. Do you understand what this means?"

"Yeah…"

"So, this will never happen again?"

"Yeah…"

By then, Misato had had enough. Did that child really think that the problem would just go away if he played the poor, beleaguered victim and recited a few apologies to placate her?

"Are you sure that you're even listening to me?"

"Yeah…"

"Damnit, Shinji-kun! This isn't about you saying yes to everything, you need to understand!"

"Yeah… I do understand, Misato-san. But the important part is that we won, isn't it? If you need me to pilot the EVA again… just tell me…"

And now that unnerving feigned calm. That was the last thing she needed right now.

So, she marched over to where he was and leaned forward, hoping that she may have better chances at getting through to him if she was at eye level with him.

"Listen up, you may think that's it's easier to go with the flow than to take responsibility for your actions, but if you pilot the EVA with that sort of attitude, you will die!"

"Who cares? I don't, and I know no one else does."

The worst was that he never stopped presenting her that false, defiant smile, even when saying something like this.

"If you expected me to applaud you for your so-called heroism, you thought wrong. I won't do any such thing."

"I don't care about that." Shinji lied. "After all, I'm the only one who can pilot Unit one, right?"

That went too far.

Misato could no longer bear to look at that poorly- faked farce of resignation.

Why couldn't he just tell her to her face what the hell he had been thinking? How was she supposed to help him otherwise, heh?!

Irate, she grabbed the fourteen-year-old by the seam of his shirt and pulled him upwards, as if she wanted to force him to look her straight in the eyes.

In the process, his drink found its way to the floor – he didn't seem to have expected this.

Still, he seemed neither impressed nor intimidated.

And he still wasn't looking into her eyes.

It was simply no use.

So, she let go of him.

"Enough with this. You better go home… and rest."

It was only after the boy had left the shower room with his head hanging in defeat that Misato became fully aware of what she had just done.

She could have slapped herself right then and there – and to be honest, she did.

That boy irritated her to no end…

Of course he did, he was a fourteen-year-old teenager in the middle of puberty, no trained soldier.

A fourteen-year-old teenager who had just been through a life-or-death battle against a gigantic abomination – and then, he'd even been yelled-at for his trouble, by none other than her.

If there was a prize for counter-productiveness, she had probably just won it.

Excerpt from observation protocol Number 42, Subject: Code Third Child, penned by Captain Katsuragi Misato: "Today, we were attacked by the fifth angel, completely out of the blue. It was successfully defeated and destroyed by Unit One."

"Ikari? Ikari Shinji? He only just transferred and he's already missing? Whatever, looks like he'll have to repeat this little surprise test then!"

Collective moaning.

Shinji was wasting away.

He felt like death warmed over.

For days, he hadn't left his bed for anything but short trips to the fridge or the bathroom. For days, he hadn't ceased to stare at the ceiling, waiting for his life to start being just a little less horrible.

He didn't understand.

He didn't understand this at all.

He had done what they all asked of him, hadn't he?

He had let himself be stuffed into the EVA, even though he'd been beaten up for it, he'd fought the angel despite the mind-numbing agony he had been forced to endure.

He had even won, but apparently, that wasn't enough.

Not enough to earn himself anything resembling kind words…

But if those were beyond his reach, if he couldn't expect any sort of affection, not even from Misato, if nothing he did would please them…

Then what was he even doing here?

Right, what was he doing here?

There was a door.

A new morning rose over Tokyo-3.

The dawning of a new day.

The dawning of a shitty day.

If the intrusive ringing of her alarm clock wasn't the first thing to tell her so, then it was the distant sound of the pouring rain that convinced Misato that she would have nothing to laugh about today.

After she had shut up the troublesome clock with her right foot, which had been the closest to it of all of her limbs, she stretched herself a little and finally sat up.

It was so very apparent that she really didn't feel like leaving her bed today, but it couldn't be helped.

So, she dragged herself to the bathroom, in her blue pajamas, with her hair in a state of total chaos, using one foot to scratch the other as she morosely brushed her teeth.

Her disheveled reflection wasn't exactly motivating as was the prospect of having to eat breakfast alone – for the fifth time in a row.

Ever since the incident with the fifth angel, Shinji had shut himself in his room to brood – Not that she wasn't partially to blame for this, but this had gone on long enough.

She hoped that she would at least be able to convince him to go to back to school today.

Not that her expectations were particularly high.

By now, the provisional nametag on his room's door had been replaced by a proper, metal one whose heart-shaped surface was now announcing to the world that this was 'Shin-chan's room', but 'Shin-chan' himself wasn't showing the slightest reaction to Misato's knocking.

She gave it another try, this time, accompanied by words:

"Shinji-kun, come on! Just how long do you intend to keep skipping school? You haven't left your bed for five days already!"

No reaction.

"They've even finished repairing Unit One by now, but without its pilot, all it does it catch dust uselessly! Shinji-kun!"

No, it did not look like she was achieving anything besides wasting her breath.

All right.

Maybe he was more likely to listen if she entered his room.

But when Misato opened the door, only a crack wide a first, just to check what he was doing, she found an unpleasant surprise waiting for her:

He was gone.

And not just him;

The cupboards were emptied out, his clothes were missing, much like his sparse belongings, like all sighs that anyone had ever lived in here.

He had even tidied the place up and made his bed.

The only things he'd left behind were his NERV ID-card and a little piece of paper:

'Farewell.'

Great. Apparently, he shared his father's enthusiasm for very short letters.

But that was beside the point.

"He ran away… Why does this even surprise me…"

Damnit.

She had to report this to headquarters.

So she hurriedly grabbed her hairbrush and organized the bird's nest on her head. Next were her clothes, which she pulled over herself at an abnormal speed – lucky for her, as it turned out when the doorbell happened to ring as soon as she had finished putting on her shirt. Hastily donning her uniform jacket on the way, she raced to the entrance of her apartment and manually pulled the door open, too worried to wait for the electronics.

"SHINJI-KUN, WHERE HAVE YOU-"

Wait. No.

Instead of revealing the missing EVA pilot, the door exposed Misato to two now understandably confused-looking boys that somehow looked vaguely familiar to her.

The one on the left was notably taller than his buddy, was wearing a dark blue tracksuit and had brown eyes, relatively tan skin and close-cropped black hair that had been molded into a modern-looking style, possibly with the aid of hair gel.

His companion had a somewhat lighter complexion, freckles, longer, light brown hair and a pair of glasses on his roundish-looking nose.

Unlike his friend, he was present in his uniform.

The taller of the two seemed somewhat… impressed.

"F-Forgive us, Miss…!" Much more wouldn't leave his lips.

But that was apparently why he'd brought his friend: "We're Aida and Suzuhara."

"Aida-kun and… Suzuhara-kun?"

"Yes, uh, I'm Suzuhara." Touji added to prevent confusion in advance.

"Hey, wait…" Misato finally remembered where exactly she'd seen those faces before: "Weren't you the two who were in the entry plug with Shinji-kun?"

"Yes-"

"Yes and we're very sorry."

"We're here because-"

"We're here because Ikari-kun hasn't come to school ever since." Touji finished, continuously taking the words out of Kensuke's mouth.

"We got worried and wanted to check if he's all right."

"Yeah, yes he is." Misato lied with the best sugar-doll-smile she could muster at the moment. "He's just really busy with his pilot training at the moment."

"Yeah, we get it."

"Here's the mountain of paper that's been accumulating on his desk…" Kensuke added, handing Misato the printouts in question.

"That's very kind of you."

"Okay, we'll be going then." Touji stated.

"Please say hi to Ikari-kun for us!" Kensuke amended.

"I will! See you soon!"

Misato waved goodbye and closed the door.

She feared that her act had been rather transparent towards the end.

But the boys' attention had been focused somewhere slightly lower than her face.

"That didn't turn out the way we expected…"

"That was one seriously hot babe…"

Regardless of her temperature, Misato was, first and foremost really, really miffed.

At last someone was coming to visit him, someone seemed to have begun to consider him a friend, and where was he?

Right.

Up, up and away!

Exasperated, Misato turned away from the door, just to spin right back a second later and vent her frustrations through a fierce kick against that poor, innocent, pitiable door that had never done anything to harm her.

"SHINJI, YOU IDIOT!"

"…you… Idiot…"

The second time, the insult had lost its vigor.

Presumably, because he may just have gone back to school if he had still been here to meet those two…

"Today was another rainy day, the last four days have been one single downpour. Even the analysis of the angel's remains had to be postponed because of this.

Other than that, there is nothing more to report today."

At first, the tram had seemed to be the fastest way to get as far away as possible, but he hadn't thought much further than that.

It wasn't as if he had any sort of destination he wanted to reach.

He was drifting like a ship that had been untied from the rope binding it to the port, and then left to itself and the waves.

He just sat there, with the headphones in his ears, his head hung low, immersing himself in the buckling of the tram;

His surroundings were bustling with activity, the busy conversations of an average weekday he was trying to block out.

No one took notice of the inconspicuous fourteen-year-old sitting on the bench right next to the exit, silent and alone; They all had their own business to think off, people, that accompanied them on their personal journeys.

Outside, the deluge went out without cease, and even when it did subside for a short while, it would always continue pretty soon afterwards. At times, the tram would traverse a tunnel, constantly emptying and filling with new, different people:

Schoolgirls chatting with each other, businesswomen in their blazers, students, mothers with children, either sleeping right next to them or looking out of the widow.

But none of them stayed in this wagon for particularly long, they all had a station to arrive to, a place they were awaited at, a goal to reach.

Shinji had no such place, no place to arrive at, and so, he simply didn't leave the wagon at all.

Thus, his path bit its own tail and became a circle, always going round and round and round, always following the orbital railway.

When he entered here, he had simply picked the first tram that had arrived at the station closest to Misato's apartment, but there was nothing stopping him from leaving and boarding another tram, one that would certainly lead him far, far away from here.

Nothing but the thought of finding himself alone in the darkness of the night, far away from the artificial lights of civilization or anything else to suggest a path for him to continue upon, which just scared him more the harder he thought about it.

He found the mere idea to horrifying that he turned up the volume, hoping for the music to wash it out of his skull, but what he'd feared the most about that possibility was the boundless feeling of solitude such a situation would entail… and just how was it any different from the loneliness that was plaguing him right here, right now, even here amongst all these people…?

Then again, even their numbers was steadily decreasing, since it must have been getting really, really late, more and more were leaving at every single station, and each time the tram stopped, Shinji wondered whether he, too, should leave here, yet in the end, nothing ever came of it; He simply kept listening to his music.

Track 25, Track 26, Track 25.

25, 26, 25

He thought he had found something like a home, a source of acknowledgement, but he should have expected that no one could possibly want him for his own merits.

No one could possibly want someone like him.

Someone like him who just couldn't do anything right.

For every step he took forward, he always went one back.

One step forwards… and one step back.

For each step forward, another that brought him right back to where he started.

And it was getting darker and emptier around him, the people were disappearing one by one, until the crowd was reduced to a single old man who had fallen asleep under his newspaper, and in the end, even he left.

When the tram finally came to a halt, not even the wet footprints the many people had left behind had remained to keep Shinji company.

According to the automatic announcement coming from the speakers, this was the final destination.

He could no longer stay here.

Shinji raised his head, taking an upright position for what had to be the first time in ages.

"I need to get back!"

He skipped to Track 26.

One step forward…

…and one step back.

By the time Track 26 had finished playing, that fickle little flame of determination that had shortly flared up there had already been extinguished.

He had wanted to get back, yes, but how was he supposed to get back from here?

It had barely been a month since he moved to this city, and most of that time had been spent in his room or at NERV HQ.

Of course, he could have asked someone for the way, but by the time he arrived at that thought, his motivation had already fully seeped out of him, so he kept wandering the streets aimlessly, never separating himself too far from the crowds.

He found himself in some dirty, godforsaken corner of the inner city, judging by the scraps of conversation he picked up around him, maybe even the red-light-district, but he didn't care, he just tuned up the volume of his music to he wouldn't have to listen to other people enjoying themselves while he was all alone.

With his bag as his only company, he silently waded through the forest of city lights, people and advertisements, just another shadow in a large, dark crowd at the feet of the tall, enormous buildings.

He happened across a cinema that had one old, bad, cheesy movie about Second Impact running, one that just about everyone would have seen on TV already.

Correspondingly few people had turned up at this ungodly hour to see it; In fact, most of the people who had found their way here didn't seem to be motivated by the movie at all: In the front row, there was a drunk sleeping off his intoxication, somewhere in the middle rows, a homeless man was snoring to himself, having apparently considered this cinema a fine shelter for the night.

Technically, Shinji himself was now homeless as well.

He, too, did not particularly care for what was flickering across the screen; He was here because you could usually buy food at cinemas, but mostly because he had simply felt like having something other than his music washing over him.

Completely apathetic, he stared forwards, not really at the screen, but simply into nothingness, until something else grabbed his attention:

A few rows in front of him, there was a couple, whispering words of love into each other's ears, covering each other in their arms and kisses, and, ultimately, beginning to have Sex.

Shinji blocked out the movie and began observing those two instead, partially disturbed, partially resenting the fact that he didn't have anyone to give himself to…

This was the first time that he woke up with the same funereal train of thought he'd gone to bed with still going on; It hadn't ever happened to him before that battle. Until now, his experience had always shown this gap, that interruption of his consciousness to be at least a momentary distraction, a partial reset after which the world would just continue going on.

Then again, calling this "going to bed" was a massive overstatement, all he had was a bench in the cinema's lobby – There didn't seem to be anyone left here who could have noticed his presence – his bag as a pillow (There were things inside whose outline he could clearly feel through the fabric, but it was better than nothing) and no blanket to shield himself from the slight cool of the night.

Everything here was foreign, cold, dirty and open, the lights of the vending machines couldn't be turned off, and the toilet here had been dominated by a horrible stench; He could hardly name them all, all those little sources of discomfort, each of which may have seemed trivial, but the sum of them left him downright languished.

He was already the type to have the most niggling neuroses about the smallest little things, he had little to no tolerance for regular unfamiliar places, this here was straight up unbearable.

After a long, long time, he ultimately did fall into a state at least reminiscent of sleep, if only because he no longer had the strength to sustain his "wakefulness" any longer, but not before distantly wondering what it was that he had hoped to find out here.

The next dawn came enveloped in a cloak of deep red.

The clouds, the buildings, the landscape, it was all tinted in an all-encompassing vermillion by the rising sun.

Shinji had left his little alleyway behind and continued his erratic meandering in the outskirts of the city, finally daring to stray from the most frequented parts of the city now that it was no longer dark.

He was circling the borders of Tokyo-3, following those little dirt tracks that led him into the woods surrounding the metropolis.

Bit by bit, the colossal skyscrapers were being supplanted by sleeker, smaller buildings, many of which were still quite large Apartment buildings.

One of these many distant towers glistening in the reddish light might be Misato's apartment.

Maybe he should…

But the moment he had taken the first step into the corresponding direction, he could already hear it.

He had already noticed its beginnings on his way here, the way it was steadily getting louder and louder, but now, it was beginning to come over him like a rising storm.

This may have been a forest, but this was just too much.

This continuous buzzing, droning and chirping of the innumerable insects rang in his ears like a bizarre, alien, far too disharmonic orchestra, surging to a booming crescendo through the participation of more and more animals.

Shinji covered his ears as best as he could and ran as fast as his legs would carry him, following the street, away from the forest, away from the insects, away from the apparment buildings, just away.

Most of the day was over by the time he came back to his senses.

His only proof for the passage of time was the battery gauge on his cassette player which seemed a great deal emptier now – He distantly wondered where he would be when it had finally ran out.

In the end, he ended up making himself an improvised, makeshift resting place out of old, discarded cardboard boxes, somewhere in a dark alleyway otherwise populated by stay cats only, which, by virtue of bordering on a larger street lined with city lights, bars and pubs were drunk, cheery people were celebrating until the dawn brought them rest, at least wasn't silent.

When he thought that he must have hit rock bottom with last night's so-called accommodations, this cruel world must've taken it as an implicit challenge to prove him wrong – He should have known his fall into this infinite, black hole would go on and on and on, that this downward spiral would keep spinning and spinning and spinning…

He hadn't been able to find a better spot to sleep, not here, in this area that was completely foreign and opaque to him, and if he'd brought enough money with him to rent a room in a hotel, he would've done so yesterday. And even if he had the cash, what should he do if someone asked him what he was doing here all alone?

Actually, he didn't have a clue how much a night in a hotel would cost – he had been standing in front of one for a while, wondering what it would be like to step inside, but the moment it seemed like someone was coming to address him, he shied away.

Even if he had been willing to explain himself, he couldn't have done it; He was lost to his leaden speechlessness.

Before coming here, he had tried a parking lot and a train station, but he had no luck – Both times, he had been found by a security guard, and he couldn't say which experience had been worse, the brusqueness and lack of empathy with which he had been thrown out of the parking deck with a few "colorful" words thrown after him, or the man from the train station, who had planned to drag him away, intending to call the police and hand him over.

He escaped the guards both times – just the initial, sudden, fast movement was enough to send him back to the battlefield, facing that colossus of red flesh, its tentacles of light snatching at him at the speed of a bullet, just one particularly loud noise, and he'd be back in EVA 01, fighting for his life –

If he tried to think of how he had left that place and wound up here, his memory gave him no answer – The only clear thought in his head had been "Away from here!", his innermost filled to the brim with the gruesome images of the battle that were bubbling up like the carbon dioxide in a bottle of coke that had been viciously kicked across the room, bursting under the sudden pressure from the inside, and you could very well imagine his mind in the role of the bottle, all, that was left were the fear, the pain and the endless tears, his complete and utter inability to cope with being immediately responsible for two other lives, for everything that might have happened…

He completely lost himself, and when he found himself again, he was here, curled up in this wretched hole.

Around him were numerous bins and bags filled with garbage; There was a nauseating stench, but he was far too worn out to search for another place to stay.

Actually, this might be exactly where he was supposed to be, what was he, if not just another piece of useless garbage that not even his own father considered worth his time.

He couldn't stop his trembling; In the silent darkness, the fear kept reverberating through his being as if some metaphysical little homunculi somewhere in his cerebral gyri had forgotten to turn it off, and the thin layers of cardboard and cloth weren't enough to keep the cold of the night from creeping into the pathetic shell of his being.

He almost couldn't believe this despair, it just wouldn't dissipate, as if something in his inner clockworks had just gotten stuck in this state, permanently crushed by the angel's tentacles and the thundering stomps of the EVA.

That battle had very much done him in, left him hollowed out – that he had even needed this long to arrive at this conclusion, that he hadn't been able to do that until now was all proof he'd ever need of that, and of another truth he had finally arrived at: That he was afraid to have lost a part of him that he would never get back.

"Today, we could finally see the sun again, even if it was still a mostly cloudy day.

Other than that there is nothing more worth mentioning."

A method that was much more effective at putting as many kilometers as possible between himself and Misato than simple running could ever be was, as it turned out, to simply board a bus.

The particular bus that Shinji had taken eventually dropped him off somewhere in the mountains that surrounded Neo-Tokyo-3.

It might as well be the very same mountain where the battle took place more than a week ago – he no longer cared.

He just continued walking, all the way across the landscape, wherever his feet would carry him.

It was all the same to him.

He just kept marching forward, his head downcast, taking his time.

Idleness was a luxury that those without goal or purpose could very well allow themselves.

The sky was blue, the birds were chirping, but it didn't matter to him in the slightest;

Nothing really impressed him: Idyllic country roads, shining, clear lakes, enormous fields full of vibrant sunflowers.

The sun polished all of nature to shine in its brightest colors, so that one may have felt like they had just stepped into one of Van Gogh's paintings, not just because of the flowers.

But the scenery lacked the fast strokes of the brush, the menacing, washed-out elements – But Shinji's mind took care of inserting these on its own, unable to find joy even when surrounded by such splendor.

What he did readily stop for were the daunting mountains of his homeland, with their woods, their terraced cliffs and their unforgiving, icy winds that chased clouds and mist past them.

Tokyo-3 could be seen from up here, where the distance alone reduced the fortress city to a small, silver spot surrounded by ancient stone that only served to demonstrate him how insignificant and small he really was.

And those same winds played with the boy's hair as his deep blue eyes scanned the scenery devoid of any hopes or expectations.

With his hair in motion, he looked more like the fragile, delicate being he really was.

Shinji silently dedicated quite some time just to standing there, right next to the abyss, on the wrong side of the fence at the very edge of the rock, where a particularly strong gust of wind or even a single, clumsy movement would be enough for him to plummet into oblivion.

He couldn't think of a single, convincing reason to keep his distance from the precipice…

(One step forward)

…but neither did he feel particularly compelled to jump.

(One step backwards)

Or maybe he was just too much of a coward to go through with it.

(So, he sat down on that very spot and remained there for what must have been half an eternity, unable to make the final step.)

"He's only fourteen… Just how is he supposed to cope with having to shoulder the literal weight of the world?"

"He has to. As a matter of fact, only children his age can be used as pilots for the Evangelions… Has Shinji-kun phoned you or done anything else to contact you?"

"MhMh…" Misato replied, sullenly leaning against the wall while her blonde coworker went through the First Child's examination results on the monitors before her nose, while the girl herself, currently naked save for simple, white panties and a mountain load of bandages, was being subjected to an extensive screening.

"You haven't heard from him at all?" Dr. Akagi prodded as she scribbled down something pertaining to this week's dose of Rei's medication onto a piece of paper lying right next to her mouse pad

"No, not at all. And I don't think he's ever come back, either…"

"So what do you plan to do about that?"

"Nothing at all." Misato admitted in resignation. "It's probably for the best if he doesn't return…"

"Why do you say that…?"

Misato proceeded to detail that one, fateful, and very much failed conversation between Shinji and herself.

"…and then, I realized that he's just a child. It's only natural that it's all too much for him, it's only natural that he doesn't follow our every order… We're expecting him to… function however we want to, and, we have to, I mean, all of our lives are at stake, but Shinji isn't an automaton that we can just turn on whenever we feel like it, that we expect to "perform flawlessly"… You should have seen that, just how… how wrong it was…

There he goes and tells me to my face that he doesn't care whether he lives or dies… with a smile on his face, but it was very apparent that he was at the end of his tether… and I hardly made it any better…"

Misato sighed.

"I see." The scientist glanced at her second monitor.

"We shouldn't ask him to do something that causes him this much pain…" Misato concluded. "It will destroy him."

"But… we do need pilots."

Misato didn't quite know what to reply to this.

"DADADADADADA!"

"AAAAHHH"

"Captain, you're hurt!"

"Go on without me, Aida!"

"But… I can't just leave you here, Sir! I'll stay at your side!"

"That was an order!"

"OUCH!"

What might have sounded like an epic battle was the work of a single schoolboy who was playing all the roles himself, only aided by a fairly realistic plastic riffle and clothes covered in a camouflage pattern. But right now, he was allowing himself a little rest after his stunning performance of punching himself in the face.

From his point of view on the ground, it seemed as if both the steadily darkened evening sky and the orange-ish clouds travelling across it were surrounded by a frame formed by the individual spikes of the high grass surrounding him, which some of them protruding into the "picture".

However, the moment that he sat up, presumably to continue his adorable little war games in some shape or form, he became aware of a solitary boy who was wandering down a nearby dirt track.

Wait a second, that school uniform, that haircut, that posture and the ostensibly depressed state it implied…

Hadn't he seen him somewhere before?

"Hey, Ikari!"

And sure enough, the other boy stopped and turned to face Kensuke, visibly surprised.

He hadn't expected to see any familiar faces in this kind of place, much less to be called by his name – As a matter of fact, Kensuke's was the first remotely familiar face he had seen in the last two days.

In the time the two boys had needed to make their way to the spot where Kensuke had pitched his tent, the night had caught up to them, along with the cold that tended to follow its every step, presenting Kensuke with a chance to demonstrate some special American-boy-scout flint stone trick to ignite a small campfire to chase the cold and the dark away.

Shinji hadn't disclosed what he was doing here, but shook his head at Kensuke's question as to whether he was being expected anywhere, silently agreeing to follow the military otaku and allowing him to wrap him in his jacket.

It was only when he felt the green and brown piece of clothing covering his skin that he became aware that his arms and fingers had grown numb from the cold, having been exposed to the mountain's freezing winds in nothing but his thin, short-sleeved school uniform.

Eternal summer or not, every summer had its cooler, rainier days, and with the absence of seasons, the influence of the increasing altitude could be felt all the more.

While he hadn't managed to kick off a conversation on the way to the tent, Kensuke decided to use the cozy atmosphere around the campfire for yet another try, for he had something to say that had been needing to be said for quite a while now, even if a certain friend of his had not yet managed to swallow his stubborn pride to a sufficient degree: "Touji is really sorry that he beat you up. In the end, he got scolded by his little sister of all people! She said that you and your robot saved our lives. Must be quite embarrassing to get scolded by an elementary school student, right?" Kensuke reported, poking around in the fire with a wooden stick.

Unfortunately, he was forced to conclude that striking up a conversation with the involuntary EVA pilot was a daunting task – That last battle must have affected him profoundly, which meant that the entire robot business – as much as it enticed his curiosity – was probably off the menu.

So, Kensuke tried something else: "I like coming here at night, when those cicadas don't make such a ruckus. Until recently, it used to be bearable during the day as well, but lately, those things have been mating like rabbits…"

Even Kensuke himself was actually a little startled when Shinji actually replied, speaking for the first time in days: "Misato-san says… that it's a sign that the ecosystem is slowly recovering…"

Kensuke grinned.

Yet another successfully accomplished mission for his list of achievements. And Shinji had even steered the conversation back to the more interesting topics, all by himself.

"Misato-san, you say? Man, I'm really envious. You get to live with such a gorgeous lady, and on top of that, you get to pilot the Evangelion! If I could do that only once, my heart would be content… I'd show these monsters who's boss!" Kensuke gushed, accentuating his fantasies with a few gestures of high entertainment value.

But Shinji had a significantly more disenchanted view of his job: "Be glad that you don't have to. Your mother would be worried…"

"I don't think so. I don't even have one. I'm the same as you."

That prompted the first visible reaction is the Third Child's face. He even straightened himself up, properly looking his companion in the eyes for once.

But before Shinji could ask how Kensuke had known this – maybe he had deduced it from the fact that he was basically living with his superior, or perhaps he could tell from the way he'd said that last sentence? – the latter announced that their dinner must be ready by now, and the two of them had their meal together.

Apparently, Shinji liked it; in any case, he complimented the food with a few sparse words and apologized for imposing on Kensuke.

It was probably a positive sign that he was the one to start their next conversation once they had retreated into the tent and hidden away under their blankets:

"Do you do this kind of thing often?"

"Yeah, sort of." Kensuke admitted.

"Is that supposed to be training for some sort of guerilla-warfare?"

"With a plastic gun? Not really. I just do this for fun."

One step forward…

…and one step back.

The sun didn't grant the next morning as much vibrant colors as the last one – Or who knows, maybe the sun was secretly doing its best and shining as brightly as it could, it's not like there was any way to prove the opposite with these thick layers of mist in the way.

But the singing of the early birds wasn't the only sound to greet the dawning of the next day; What awakened Kensuke from his slumber were the steps of a nearing group of people.

Alarmed by their sounds, he quickly put on his glasses and moved over to the entrance of the tent, ready to face the newcomers.

He much preferred to reveal himself by his own choice, with the safety of the tent behind his back to them being the ones to pull the fabric of the entrance aside and "catch" him in a small enclosed space.

But as soon as the military otaku took a glance outside, it became apparent that his "strategy" didn't matter one way or another – he already had been surrounded to begin with.

In each of the four directions, there was one well-built man in a black suit and dark sunglasses, led by a woman who was standing directly in front of the tent.

She, too, was wearing sunglasses and black clothes, in her case, a blazer and a tube-like skirt that ended just above her knees.

Kensuke knew enough about this kind of things to recognize them as trained security personnel at first glance.

Normally, this would have instantly activated his inner fan boy and bombarded them with questions, excited to actually meet people like that in real life, but today, he knew that there was only one possible reason for them to be here…

The Third Child.

And with that being the case, this lady and her companions meant trouble before anything else, as impressed as Kensuke was to find a woman working in such a job.

Now, one may have wrongly gotten the impression that he was currently being presented with a nice view, considering that he had just crawled out of a tent to find a woman in a short skirt looking down at him, but she was wearing rather opaque, black stockings and high, black boot without any heels to hinder her.

She had long, jet black hair that was bound into a high ponytail on the back of her head, and it would have been wrong to say that she didn't possess above-average physical beauty, but she completely lacked any sort of aura of attractiveness or magnetic charisma; Yes, she wasn't ugly, but there was nothing about her looks, posture or gestures inviting you to find that out and make your eyes linger. You would only have noticed her beauty if you were looking for it, if you used your fantasy to fill in what the nondescript cut of her clothes wouldn't reveal to you.

She wasn't a drool-inducing diva like Misato where your first or second association would be the word "Hot!", but more of a small light.

"Are you… Ikari Shinji-kun?"

The sentence sounded experienced, matter-of-factly and businesslike, like you'd expect it of a computer, or well, a professional, but there had been that strange pause in her speech, as if it cost her some effort to bring herself to use the boy's name.

Kensuke was, at first, a little stunned by all this.

"No, I'm… I'm Aida Kensuke, a classmate of his… b-but he's here. Wait a moment, I'll go get him…"

Since he wanted to avoid being accused trying any sort of tricks by these 'Gentlemen' (All that trouble after last week's incident had been more than enough for him and he didn't feel like getting arrested or anything) he slipped back inside his tent as swiftly as he could – but in the end, he might as well have spared himself the trouble: The spot that, until recently, had been occupied by a certain EVA pilot was now filled with various items that had been lying around in the tent, arranged under a blanket by the missing pilot himself so that his disappearance wouldn't become apparent right away.

Touji heard the story the next morning, just after arriving in his classroom.

"And you would have told them where he is? Just like that?" Touji bristled at Kensuke's account of the events.

"That's easy for you to say, but those were pros from NERV's security section. They are… trained in close combat."

"Don't you have any balls at all?"

A group of girls in the background expressed their disapproval at Touji's choice of words.

"Only a fool would fight when they cannot win. My balls have nothing to do with it. If he'd still been there, they would have found out one way or another, and then they'd arrest me, too. I don't know about you, but being put through the meat grinder once was more than enough for me…"

"Still, I wonder what the hell he was doing there to have those security gorillas chasing after him…"

"He probably ran away." Kensuke speculated. "He didn't explicitly say so, but given all that happened, it's the most obvious conclusion…"

"Damn it!" Touji slammed his first onto his desk. "Just what is he thinking!"

He sounded furious, but his anger wasn't directed at Shinji and Kensuke as much as at himself and own contributions to the current state of affairs; He couldn't stop his worry from seeping through.

Kensuke and the security personnel might still have found Shinji in that tent if he hadn't woken up a little earlier through pure coincidence; Shinji himself couldn't quite say why exactly he had stolen off on his own.

He had been offered warmth and security and kindness, all the things he had been missing and needing so much after the last battle.

But was that so unusual of a beginning? It had been the same with Misato, she had only bothered to be nice at first, but then, sooner or later, came the demands or at least the questions.

Questions that he hadn't felt like answering, both right now and just after the battle, because he was so very ashamed of the truth.

It was quite possible that Kensuke would've woken up, stretched himself a little and the immediately proceeded to ask a question that would have pressured Shinji, even without meaning to, something amongst the lines of casually asking what he was doing here and whether he wasn't missing any of his 'uber cool pilot training'.

So far, the other boy had always been kind to Shinji and he was sure that he meant well, but his enthusiasm pertaining to that whole EVA thing only served to feed Shinji's uncertainty.

He didn't want anything to do with it anymore, and he had suffered so much in that horrid biomechanical contraption that any praising of its alleged "coolness" was nothing but scoff to his ears, and he had to remind himself that it hadn't been Kensuke's intention to deride him.

Also, he wondered if the military otaku would even talk to him if he didn't happen to be that thing's pilot.

Probably not.

It wasn't as if there was anything about Shinji himself that would be worth it.

Before he had become an EVA pilot… no one had ever paid him any heed at all.

His teacher didn't count, after all, he'd gotten a big, fat payroll from his father for bothering with him.

Even if he had stayed, Kensuke probably would have lost interest in him quickly enough as soon as he noticed that Shinji wasn't the cool superhero he probably believed him to be.

And he no longer was an EVA pilot, anyway.

He couldn't stand that fear and that uncertainty.

So, he ran away.

So, he kept meandering across the mountainside.

Shinji's long, aimless roaming eventually led him to a small source, where cool, clear water gushed out of the mountain in the middle of the forest.

It had to be an absolute coincidence; After fleeing Kensuke's tent, he had even given up on following any sort of ways or paths, and simply followed his nose regardless of what lay in front of it.

It was less surprising that he had wound up in the middle of a forest, which was, according to what his teacher always told him, supposed to be a place that was filled to the brim with many diverse life forms – For all Shinji cared, he might just as well be walking through a wide, white salt desert devoid of any distinguishing features;

There was nothing here at all that meant anything to him, nothing that was enough to prompt any kind of real reaction from him, beyond reminding him of his own insignificance, much like the mountains they were growing on.

But at least they provided him with some fresh oxygen.

He had stopped once or twice to deeply inhale the pure forest air, but it hadn't brought him much of a lasting comfort.

It was little surprising, then, that not even happening across that little source managed to make his expression change, but he did stop for what he intended to be a short rest.

His feet were sore and ached from all the running, and this was a nice opportunity to remove his shoes and did them into some cold water to alleviate that.

The temperature was unpleasant at first, but quite refreshing and invigorating after a few instants of getting used to it.

He took some of the water and used it to wash his face.

It may still have been misty and cool in the morning, but by now, the sun was back to its usual merciless bombardment, and now that the rainclouds that has obscured it for the past week had fully dissipated, the heat of the eternal summer could be felt at full strength once again.

The trees may have shielded him from the direct path of the unforgiving rays, but the evaporative heat loss on his face was still very welcome.

Since he was in the middle of nowhere anyway, he let himself be tempted to stay and observe for a while, to watch as the water broke out of the depths of the earth and formed a newborn creek as he soaked his feet in it – He had nothing else to do…at least until he suddenly noticed a red tint in the water. Sure, he had seen a lot of red water in his life, but this wasn't the sea, just a little brook… and the discoloration didn't seem to be starting directly at the source, anyway.

Shinji got the answers to his emerging questions when he saw a few drops of red liquid falling past him.

Perturbed, he turned around – and, to his horror, was forced to conclude that someone had been standing right behind him for quite a while without him noticing.

But that wasn't what made him pale like a piece of paper.

Before him stood something that resembled a woman of eighteen or seventeen years, wearing men's clothes that were far too large, even more disheveled than he was, and – this being the particular detail that made his heartbeat cease for an instant – covered in bloodstains.

Even her face and the cap that covered almost all of her hair were generously splattered with red stains.

The worst, however, was the source of the red droplets, a woman's headless corpse that was being carried by that unbelievable apparition.

And it was currently less than a few centimeters away from Shinji's face.

Absurd giant robots? Okay.

Humongous monsters attacking? Yeah.

All that other surreal stuff? It hadn't killed him yet.

But something this close, this real without the Evangelion's plate armor in between…

Something as mundane as a psychopathic killer…

That was the last straw.

Shinji just started screaming uncontrollably, and recoiled, skidding backwards, even if he had to move into the stream's cold water for that, but before long, he felt something on his back that didn't belong to the opposite back of the little creek, something like a solid, invisible wall, a complete barrier that caused him strange sensations wherever he made contact with it, as if every touch contained something like a call.

The woman nonchalantly dropped the corpse into the brook, leaving its blood to poor into it in a much more direct manner, and raised her head which had been lowered until now, so that Shinji wasn't spared from seeing the murderous leer on her face.

Her strangely familiar face.

Shinji's screaming just grew louder and wilder, he released unprocessed noise from his lungs, began kicking around, and hit the invisible barrier behind him with his fists, still not convinced of its existence.

This was simply far too much… why did it have to be him, why was it always him?

He wanted all of this to stop, it was supposed to stop!

He wanted out of here. Why wouldn't all of this just stop?

Why couldn't he just wake up to find himself beneath Misato's ceiling, and find out that all of this was just some crazy nightmare, being beaten up at school, the battle, the chew-out that followed, all of this, all of it, one single nightmare!

As far as he could tell, this situation had been far beyond fixing for a long time.

On top of that, this… this thing was now closing in on him, one step or another.

It was only when Shinji was pressed against her wall in panic, and she herself mere centimeters away from where he sat, that she began to speak, providing him with fresh reasons to abuse his vocal cords.

"Divine child." Her lips formed.

{{Ikari Shinji}} was what reverberated inside his head.

He clutched the fabric of his shirt in panic.

It was as if he could hear her speak from the depths of his very being, deep, deep within his innermost, betwixt all the dirt and filth he kept in the repugnant core of all that he was, straight from the festering darkness he was trying to separate himself from.

Just by speaking to him, she forced him to look inside, where he never looked, where he never wanted to look.

Her voice – not just its simple sound, but some abstract, metaphysical essence of it, the sheer substance of the words, accompanied by something subtle and immaterial that resembled the sound of a tuning fork.

Overwhelmed, he pressed his hands against his ears, quickly gave that up, and clasped his head instead, shaking it wildly as he screamed.

He gave up on covering his ears because it had been fruitless; Even then, he could still feel her from within, loud and perfectly clear.

He shrank away from that wall, for it, too, was something of hers, filled with her reverberation, reflected that eldritch sound and passed it on to his very bones and innards from wherever he touched it.

That was the instant when the realization that this being before him could not be human hit him with its full force.

The aura of strength that could be felt heavy in the air, that corona of resonance reminded him of his encounter with the last angel, yet at the same time, he sensed that this was something fundamentally different.

It didn't have the suffocating heaviness of an angel's presence, it felt different, completely different, something stealthier and subtler, and yet much, much mightier;

The greatest contrast was perhaps that she wasn't just emanating her presence in all directions, she was really speaking to him, almost like… like a human would.

Like a human that he knew very well…

And like a human that knew him just as well…

He knew her, he could hear her inside his head, and she was really speaking to him alone, to him in particular.

She had said his name.

His very own name.

How on earth did this …thing know his goddamn name?

He felt like he was about to burst apart, just from sitting this close to where she stood.

{{Ikari Shinji.}} the being repeated.

"Wha-wha-what do you want from me?! What did I do?!" he ultimately managed before breaking down in helpless, desperate sobs.

"H-Heh?!"

{{I'm sorry. No mother likes to bring harm to one of her children.}}

"M-Mother?!"

She placed her hand in the middle of his face, marking him with the warm, sticky blood that clung to it and, in spite of all his attempts to somehow evade, moved it all the way up to his hairline, where she actually stopped to stroke his head.

Shinji felt the trail of blood she had left on him trickling over and dripping down from his face.

Resting assured was the last thing on his mind right now.

She did not have to point at it with her fingers, rather, she somehow transferred that meant the headless corpse that was currently bleeding into the water.

His heartbeat was frenzied, his breathing fast and loud.

"For… for me?! I haven't seen you before in all of my life!" he wailed. He had already resigned himself to the fact that would most likely lose his life in the next few minutes. He didn't expect to be missed.

"A-And you k-killed someone, too…" he added, in tears.

"Something this horrible… something like this…"

{{What are you afraid of?}} her words came, simultaneously emerging from her lips and the depths of Shinji's spirit.

That was the first time that a trace of actual human emotion, more precisely, surprise became visible on her face, but he couldn't shake off that feeling that it wasn't really her emotion from her own heart, that she was only wearing one of his.

But he was quick to assume that it must have been coming from her and the ringing of her unearthly presence, because the only thing he was feeling right now was abject fear.

That thing before him terrified him enough to leave every ounce of blood in his body frozen solid. And now, she was bending forward to look him in the eye.

Her next sentence sent him into another screaming fit that was only ended when he eventually broke down in sobs – Her sentence, and the uncanny, almost maternal tone that came with it: {{I am only trying to bring about what you wished for.}} She whispered close to his ear, either oblivious to his panic or deliberately ignoring it. {{You should be happy.}}

She knelt down next to him and stayed there, regardless of how much he kicked and screamed, how much he tried to push her away, to just get as far away as the narrow room between her and her invisible wall allowed it.

"Why would I want anyone to die?" he cried, his face reddened and awash in tears. "And why me? Why me of all people?"

That was the very question that had been vexing him for a very long time now, in many different contexts. "How does it matter what I wish for? Because I just… happened across this place or- I'm… I'm not… particularly wise or important or-"

"Hehehehe…. Hihihihi…"

She laughed, one abhorrent, eerie snicker barely resembling human vocalizations, but it was easily outshined by the correspondent pendant that manifested directly in Shinji's head, a metallic screech mated with the shrill shriek of chalk scratching down a blackboard that appeared to be scraping against his very soul, refusing to be expressed by any sort of phonetic spelling.

{{Ikari Shinji…}} She pressed her hand to his forehead and distanced herself again, rising to her feet, but never letting go of him, eventually standing there with her fully outstretched arm reaching down to his face. {{You might just be the most important human being in all of creation…}}

Had he finally lost it for good?

He wanted it all to stop…. stop… stop… he couldn't stand any more of this… he couldn't take any more of this… He didn't want any more of this…

Her eyes narrowed.

SPLOTCH

Shinji didn't even have the time to shield his face with his arms.

The headshot was followed by several further shots to the center of the mass, riddling the whole torso with enough holes to make a Swiss cheese envious.

The woman, no, the creature collapsed without the slightest resistance, falling right past Shinji, over the corpse she brought with her, landing face down in the waters of the small stream.

As she fell, her cap, now with a new hole in it, came undone, releasing a torrent of long, sky-blue hair to cover her form like a shroud after she had fallen.

It hardly needed saying that Shinji got splattered in her blood.

But that was only one of many reasons for his subsequent scream.

Until now, he had only met a single person with this strange hair color that he'd classified as 'azure blonde' for lack of a better term.

And hadn't this thing's face looked so very familiar…?

No, no, this… this couldn't be, he was just making weird, unhinged associations…

Eventually, what snapped Shinji out of his almost trance-like state of absolute shock was the sound of nearing footsteps.

The shooter.

Of course. The bullets that had probably saved his life had to have come from somewhere.

Hesitantly, he turned his eyes into the direction the steps could be heard from, and his gaze came to meet with four men in black.

The woman walking ahead of them – presumably their leader – was still holding her gun.

It was probably her that he had to thank for the fact that his head was still on his shoulders.

But… these people… they didn't really have any reason to be here in the middle of the forest… and they looked like security personnel.

Like NERV's section two, for example.

They had come for him.

"Step away." The gun-toting woman ordered without much emotion.

"E-eh?"

He rose to his feet, his clothes still dripping wet.

"Away from the corpses."

Now, he understood.

He took one step backwards, out of the water.

And another.

And then he turned and ran as fast as he could.

He wanted out of here, away from here, away from all of it, away from NERV and away from that thing, from all the violence and the grotesque absurdities.

"Asahina-san?"

One of her colleagues turned to face the woman in black an inquiring look.

"…follow him and keep him under close observation, but don't retrieve him yet." Asahina ordered in a businesslike fashion. "I need to clarify this situation with headquarters first. I'll send you reinforcements if necessary."

"Yes, Ma'am."

The four men in black departed.

Their steps quickly vanished into the forest – after all, they had been trained to move without arousing suspicion.

In contrast, their leader let her glance wander to her 'prey' lying in the creek, at first only from the corner of her eyes.

Blue hair.

Then she turned, walked over to the bank of the steam, knelt down there and grabbed the fresher of the two corpses by the shoulder to inspect its face.

In reaction to the sight of it, Asahina's expression went through a series of distinct states, beginning with shock, continuing with wrath, all the way to a thin, cold smile and back to her previous, cool, professional, nondescript expression.

And just as cold and professionally, she took her weapon and emptied it into the being's skull, leaving its face looking like the crater-ridden surface of the moon when she rose up again.

He took her phone from her pocket, but it was only her second call that went back to NERV HQ.

Shinji kept running until he had long since found his way out of the forest, being forced to slow down by the fact that he was completely out of breath, having forced every cell in his drained, used up body to its outermost limits.

The splatters of blood had found the time to dry on both his clothes and his skin, much like his tears.

Not that the absence of these now brownish stains would have made that much of a difference, he had been wearing that same uniform for god knows how long, and by now, it was swathed in filth. What little money he had taken with himself for the sake of buying provisions had long since run out, and because he had been forced to leave his shoes next to the source, his feet were covered in bruises and scratches.

And now, on top of all that, it was getting dark, and he was out here on his own, with nothing to protect himself from the cold of the night.

He had run away from a place and a life where there was nothing but pain, because there was nothing good at all.

But out here, in the middle of nowhere… he wasn't terribly far from becoming a snack for the rats, he felt like he might just let himself collapse onto the ground and wait patiently for the warmth to seep out of him, to just go belly up here, unseen and forgotten.

Shinji was thoroughly worn down and, frankly spoken, feeling goddamn awful.

He may or may not have let himself sink into the mud if the meadows he had currently been wading through with his trouser legs turned up hadn't been parted by a highway, a sight that awakening a pale glimmer of hope in him, as dim as it may have been.

A highway!

A real, asphalted, marked, illuminated highway.

A road that was bound to lead somewhere.

Walking on the concrete was a lot more comfortable than the ground of the forest or the meadow, as long as he made sure not to step on any of these sharp little stones.

Maybe he would be able to find shelter for the night if he just kept following this road.

He kept walking on and on, but he wasn't passed by a single car.

Later, he came across several orange traffic cones and what looked like the a roadblock minus all the waiting cars, but he wasn't deterred, even if he distantly wondered which this highway was blocked at all.

The single car that was surrounded by further traffic cones at the edge of the street may just have broken down.

But where had its owners gone?

Shinji's journey continued, this time, through a tunnel.

Someone had left their bicycle lying around there, and the resulting image looked desolate beyond words.

But after glancing at it for a short while, even Shinji walked past it and left it behind, continuing his lonesome stride towards the exit of the tunnel.

When he finally traversed it, however, he found a discouraging revelation waiting for him.

With wide eyes, Shinji stared at the road in front of him, or rather, the lack thereof.

On this side of the tunnel, the highway continued for a little, held up by the pillars beneath it, but a few dozens of meters further ahead, two large chunks of it were missing, leaving the middle part between them standing like a little bridge without a proper ending or beginning, defiantly remaining in the landscape for no purpose beyond its own vanity.

Yes, it was just as useless as Shinji himself, and yet, it was there.

As for the Third Child himself, he was standing before an absolute abyss: There was no way forward, nothing at his sides, and nothing to turn back to, either, not anymore.

End of the line.

The most ironic thing was that Shinji could easily conclude just what had cut his path short – The humongous footprints before and after the behind the crushed bridge told him all.

If it had been last month's angel, the repairs would at least have started by now, and the one last week didn't have any feet to speak of, which narrowed the circle of suspects down to a single possible culprit: EVA 01. He must have cut off his own way out back when he charged the angel like a madman.

He couldn't go on any longer.

It was over.

If he really thought about it, this entire little "road trip" had been over the moment it began; How far could he possibly have come, a mere, unknowing child like him, without any goal for him to reach?

Besides… that security lady may have saved his life, but… there was no way they could've possibly found him in the middle of that forest, which implied that they must have been following him for quite a while…

They were probably still following him.

Of course. They had to be.

They needed to know exactly where he was at any time so they could drag him off to stuff him into his Evangelion if one of these monsters should show up.

He never really escaped them, and he should have expected that one child alone wouldn't be capable to escape from such a huge organization…

It had all been for naught.

Shinji felt resignation spreading through his being, but also, terrific wrath directed at his own powerlessness.

He clenched his fists.

"Enough! In the end, you're gonna bring me back to Misato-san anyway, aren't you?!"

The moment he turned around, Shinji was forced to narrow his eyes to shield them from the blinding brightness of many lights that appeared mainly from above the tunnel.

Once his eyes had grown accustomed to the brightness, his suspicions were confirmed; There were men in black all around him and the woman from earlier had already pulled out her phone, probably to organize his retrieval.

He let himself be dragged away without uttering a single word.

"What?!" Misato shouted into her phone, obliviously pouring the contents of her electric kettle straight onto her countertop, missing the cup on instant noodles that had once been the intended target by a notable margin.

PenPen briefly commented it all with an puzzled blink before he continued to waddle his own way.

"You… You're saying they found him?"

Leaving her kettle where it was, Misato had raced back to NERV headquarters in a frenzy, most likely breaking over a dozen traffic rules in the process.

She didn't care.

She had other worries right now.

Naturally, she did want to see Shinji and make sure that he was all right, but she couldn't have said whether she was really happy about his return. She feared that the entire EVA business was bound to run him into the ground sooner or later, but she wasn't doing him a favor by allowing him to run away from responsibility.

She hadn't even heard about the circumstances of his retrieval yet, but in either case, she concluded that the best way of action would be to ask him what he wanted, straight to his face.

During her trip to headquarters, she kept replaying the words she had prepared for their meeting in her head, over and over again… She had to get to the security wing, where the bullpens were situated.

Cell number 1-0-1, she had been told.

The corridor next to them was narrow and, in Misatos opinion, could have done with better lighting; Not the sort of place she would she would spend extended periods of time in if she could help it, but probably just about right for a prison.

Since she didn't come here often, the numeric designations of the cells were her only orientation – One would think that a cell with a number like '1-0-1' would be easy to find.

Then, a sparkle of hope.

A woman in dark shades, a black blazer and a matching skirt was standing before one of the doors, ostensibly guarding someone or waiting for her superiors.

If that wasn't Shinji's cell behind her, she would at least be able to show her the way.

"Hey you there! Excuse me, but could you please tell me where to find cell 1-0-1?"

The woman only slightly tilted her head in Misato's direction.

"Are you Captain Katsuragi?" she asked, frankly and businesslike, as if her tone was meant to shame Misato for her own, rather informal tone.

The woman in red straightened herself and made an effort to produce a serious expression.

"Yes, I am. I assume that the Third Child is in here?"

The security lady nodded. "He surrendered to us of his own, free will and has been cooperative ever since."

He surrendered? Misato didn't know whether to be worried or relieved.

Of course it wouldn't have been good if he had been dragged here kicking and screaming all the way, but she could also picture the alternative very clearly: Shinji, with his head lowered as usual, and an expression of deep, repressed sorrow on his face, not even bothering to resist because he didn't have the courage, and that image did not make her happy.

"How is he?"

"He's not injured, if that's what you mean. But he could probably do with a bath and a warm meal. But there is something else I am to inform you of."

"…Something… else…?"

"My colleagues and I were able to avert it, but today… there was an attempt on the Third Child's life."

Misato wondered how that woman could state such a thing like it was an everyday occurrence to her. "An… attempt on his life?!"

That wasn't good. That wasn't good at all… Okay, Shinji had survived, but that he was forced to live through something like this on top of everything else…

"Correct." The woman in black confirmed. "I have personally terminated the perpetrator, so there is no reason for further worry."

"Who… who was it?"

"We believe that it was what the media currently refers to as the Tokyo-3-serial killer."

"The serial killer? The one that always does those weird things with the corpses?"

"Correct."

"And you got them? Then you're the one who saved Shinji-kun's life… What's your name?"

"Asahina. Asahina Najiko."

"Then, thank you very much, Asahina-san. Can I see him now?"

"Go ahead. I will be leaving you to your personal space."

As Asahina's steps trailed off in the passageway, Misato took a moment to gather her thoughts and order the words she was planning to say one last time.

She may not have shown it much before Asahina, but she was really not amused, and she wasn't planning on pampering Shinji, either.

But she would ask him what he wanted.

So, she pressed the button that would open the door.

The cell was dark and spacious, with NERVs insignia on one of the walls.

And Shinji was slumped on a little plastic chair and avoided looking at her if he could help it.

"It's been a while."

No comment.

"So, did you gain any great insights from bumming around for three days, Shinji-kun?"

"Dunno."

"They've finished repairing the EVA. Are you going to pilot it… or not?"

Splendid! He had only just returned, and already, it was all about that terrifying purple abomination! If anything, it was just another confirmation that he shouldn't have expected to find anything good in this place.

"You… you're not going to scold me, are you?

…Of course not, after all, it's not like we're related…

If I say that I don't want to pilot Unit One anymore, what will you do?"

"Make Rei do it instead."

Of course. Rei.

"It seems unrealistic for you to force it all on her…"

Then again, hadn't his father almost gone through with it already?

The thought that that poor, injured girl would have to shoulder all of these horrible battles on her own did make him feel a sting somewhere in his heart.

"…but don't worry, I'll pilot it."

"But you don't really want to, right?"

"Of course not. I'm not cut out for it, either. But that doesn't matter, does it? It's not like anyone actually cares what I think. I have to pilot the EVA, that's the only reason my father called me here to begin with… So who cares? I'll do it, if that's what everyone expects of me…"

After all, they had just gone through the trouble of dragging him back here. There was no way that they were just going to let him go, right? The point of this whole speech was most likely to get a "yes" out of him that sounded honest enough to them.

He had already agreed to do as they say, so what else did they want?

They couldn't honestly expect him to enjoy or want the ordeals they planned to push him through!

"Yeah, but aside from all that, what do you want?"

"I… I just don't think that I can do this…" Shinji admitted. "And I don't think any of you really believe that, either…"

It was a simple, unshakeable truth that he wasn't any sort of valiant superhero with nerves of steel. He couldn't just turn off his fears by pressing a button, and much less did he understand why he of all people had to be chosen for this. His father may have said that he was the only one who could do it, but… no, he could not. He wasn't capable of handling all this in the least. To name an example, both Touji and Kensuke could be said to have significantly more heroic personalities than he did, not that he would wish any of this horrible suffering on them.

But it couldn't be helped.

It was him they asked this of, it was him whom they forced into this.

"…but Ayanami is injured, and this is why you, my father, and Ritsuko-san want me to-"

Misato had enough. Why couldn't that boy give her a single straight, honest answer?

"Don't always bend yourself to what you think others want!" she shouted, furious, but very much tinted with desperation.

"Don't you get it? We have no use for unwilling pilots!"

Whether you want to pilot the EVA or not is something that only you can decide. If you don't want to, no one's going to stop you from leaving! Forget everything about us and the EVAs, and just go back where you came from! It's your choice."

After leaving him with those words, she immediately shut the door without leaving him any chance for further questions or comments.

Shinji stared helplessly into the dark. He had nothing to hold on to, nothing to show him the way, no way to tell what he was supposed to do.

She just left him hanging in thin air.

(1) I couldn't quite decide what version of Shinji's "retrieval" to use. On the one hand, I'm one of Kensuke's few fans and really missed the tent scene from episode 4, but on the other hand, the "end of the road"-scene from Rebuild was such a powerful visual metaphor, and the way he "surrenders" there perfectly encapsulates one of the main points of that particular part of the story, his powerlessness before those huge organizations… So I looked for a way to include both.

(2) A "Fugue" is a baroque type of music, characterized by increased repetitions of a few motifs – Like anything baroque, they were internally strictly ordered, but since I checked some of them out, out of curiosity after hearing so much about it in school, I've always thought that the combination of the many melodies at times sounds increasingly chaotic and intense (depending on the exact piece), like someone slowly going mad… maybe it's just my layman's ears that aren't accustomed to classical music. You may have heard of Beethoven's Great Fugue. Bach, Mozart and various Baroque artists also made some cool ones... But the allusions to a number of similar terms are, of course, fully intentional. As is the invocation of the common associations to the word "baroque". And yes, it comes from the latin word for "flight" or "escape."

(3) So yeah, there's Asahina's introduction and sufficient hints at all you need to know about her… have fun speculating.

(4) For clarification, the "invisible wall" mentioned in the middle part was escaped-experiment-chans AT-Field. Shinji just didn't recognize it as such.

(5) Shouldn't Shinji's neck hurt from the way he's always staring downwards? I only really noticed how much he does that (especially in the prologue arc) once I tried to get his body language written down. And was his Japanese voice always this… acoustic equivalent of a "please-hug-me"-sign? *gives Shinji a huge teddy bear and hugs both him and the teddy* So, and now, smile a little, will ya? Looking at you like this hurts my freakin' soul…

(6) So much for "Evangelion" meets "Catcher in the Rye". Now, onto the next chapter! Will he stay or will he go? And will he recover? This and more will be revealed in the next chapter, 10: [Home at last]