Disclaimer: I do not own Evangelion


Shiro's cane echoed a rapid-fire staccato as he plodded down the hall. The corridor was deserted, like most in the higher-ranking office wings, as every available NERV staff member was tasked with helping restore order after the battle with Unit-03 and the disastrous loss of the Matsushiro base.

Maya padded after him with an armful of folders, adding notes on different files while reorganizing the information she already had. Test schedules, repair progress updates, budget estimates, security reviews and material acquisition all at least partially fell under the responsibility of the science division, even outside emergency situations. The department demanded so many resources to maintain the Eva units, MAGI and Dogma Maya was amazed her mentor never buckled under the pressure.

"The surgeons said Dr. Akagi is out of critical condition," Maya told Shiro, skimming a hospital briefing, "but they want to monitor her closely for a few days. She won't be able to direct any serious operations until they discharge her."

Naoko survived the explosion at the test site but had been in and out of surgery since. Her responsibilities fell to the next comparable senior member, Shiro. His management style relied more on delegation than Dr. Akagi, and Ibuki's near encyclopedic knowledge of the systems and protocols he needed made his new position possible, figurehead or not. Maya's relative inexperience with organizing people and personal involvement with the victims necessitated a superior. Any resentment on her part was well hidden along with depression or anxiety; Kaji's body had not been found. With the level of damage at Matsushiro it might be weeks before everyone was identified.

"I see," Shiro replied. He risked a glance at the girl's face and felt a stab of guilt at how expectantly she was waiting for some sign of relief at the news. He wondered if there was anyone in the base who didn't know about the affair. "I'm glad she's doing better."

The lack of emotion in his voice failed to dampen her satisfaction and they continued down the corridor free to refocus on business.

"Repairing Unit-01 is our top priority," he began. "Unit-00 can wait. Put a call in to the US branch in Nevada. We at least need to keep the channels open for—"

He stopped short to find Ikari Shinji slumped against the wall by his office. His knees were drawn close to his chest, supporting his arms and bowed head. His hair was dirty and mussed.

"Shinji-kun?" Maya asked as she looked to Shiro. A brief gesture told her to stay.

Shinji's head twitched up a degree. He fell back against the wall and pushed his body up. He lurched forward and turned to face the two adults.

"When did you meet my mother?" he asked.

"It's been some time," Shiro said slowly, feeling an uncomfortable glance by Ibuki. "I'm sorry, but could we talk about this later? My division has its hands full right now."

"I, uh, I have a lot of other work I should see to…" Maya began, edging backwards as she clutched the bundle of files to her like a shield. "I'm sure Dr. Katsuragi could spare a few—"

"You told me it was after Second Impact, right?" Shinji continued.

"That's right." Something in his tone made the hair on the nape of his neck stand up. "It really has been quite a long time. I'm sorry; I don't remember the exact date."

"Then why did you tell NERV you never spoke with her? You said it was a 'professional regret' that the two of you never worked together. You said it was a failure and joining NERV was atonement."

How the hell…? Shiro panicked. Kiel let him officially join Gendo shortly before NERV was formed, after Ikari Yui's accident with Unit-01. He was subjected to an understandably lengthy interview process which was nothing unique; being the sole survivor of the Impact, any authoritative body with enough clout demanded access to him.

He told NERV during the screening process about his unrequited professional desire to pool his knowledge with Yui's, but that was almost a decade ago; Shinji would have been a child and Shiro never had contact with him prior to his arrival in Tokyo-3.

Everything he told NERV to win admittance into their ranks was carefully documented and stored within the MAGI's bottomless well of memory. How could Shinji find them? It would be a pointless security risk to allow any copies—

Kaji.

Shiro lost control of his mask and the color sank from his face. Collaborating with Ritsuko just for something like this seemed unlikely despite the blow it would strike against NERV. Kaji told him Asuka deserved to know the truth about Unit-02 and her status as a pilot, but this was beyond any manufactured parental sympathy. This was calculated treason designed to break the exclusive power over the Eva units Ikari enjoyed.

"No one said you two ever met," Shinji went on. "A lot of people like Dr. Akagi and Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki said so. So either everyone was lying and you lied to them, or you lied to me. S-so tell me everyone else was wrong and what you told me was the truth." There was no response and his face twisted in agony. His voice hitched. "Why did you lie to me?"

The world unraveled and Shiro was in freefall. Shinji quoted him from interviews a lifetime ago, referred to secondary sources, and confronted him in his own home, so to speak; there was no question he knew the truth. No clever stories or feigned compassion would save him this time. The script was lost and the grand performance was over.

"We needed you to pilot," Shiro said.

Shinji shook his head angrily: "Why did you keep lying to me?"

Everything felt slow, even his thoughts. The walls bent outward until all Shiro saw was Shinji with eyes too old for his face begging for a reason to understand why.

To keep you motivated to pilot. To cover my breach of security in doing so. To challenge Ikari and see how far I could take it. To feel like I was doing something useful. To make NERV and Ikari submit to me just once. To hold the power of Eva in my hand. To use you because I could.

Because you were alone. Because I pitied you. Because you were a coward without any hope of finding a reason to live on your own. Because I have misjudged every person I have ever met and you were the simply the most recent. Because I needed to ruin your ability to rely on others since I don't know how to.

Because I wanted everyone to know I'm a monster. Because I deserve to be hated. Because I deserve to be hated by you.

Because I exploited how your father abandoned you. Because you hate him but want his love. Because being around you was my punishment.

Because you remind me of her.

"I don't know," Shiro finally said.

Shinji dropped his head and the rest of his body slumped with it. Shiro abruptly appreciated how small the boy was. A gust of wind would carry him away. When his shoulders shook in disjointed spasms he thought he was crying.

Shinji's face snapped up dry of tears. He marched forward and took Shiro's cane from under him with a sweep of his foot. The Doctor plummeted hard to the ground.

"Shinji-kun!" Maya cried, deciding whether to slap him or help her superior to his feet. Shiro held a hand up to stop her.

"It's okay," he said from the floor.

The fury withered from Shinji and his body lost its tension. His mouth parted around a tired sneer.

"You're the same as the rest of them," he said. He turned and ran away.

The pieces of the confrontation, careless remarks overheard from Kaji and Dr. Akagi, and the reason Shinji stayed in NERV collided into a coherent narrative for Maya. Using a child's dead mother as emotional blackmail wasn't any less morally bankrupt than training Asuka and Rei as soldiers since birth, but they never lashed out and demanded a justification. The results of the programs she facilitated for NERV were impossible to ignore now.

"Shinji-kun!" Maya called after him, starting a pursuit.

"Leave him be," Shiro said. He reached his cane and used it with the wall to haul himself upright.

"But—"

"What would you say to him?"

Maya crumpled. She watched the hall between them and Shinji grow, and struggled to alleviate the guilty swirl of disgust and pity in her.

"We can't just let him leave," she protested weakly.

"It's over," he told her. He hobbled to his office and opened the door. "Nothing we do will help and we don't have time to try. We have a lot of work to do, Ibuki."

The tether of subordination pulled Maya after Shiro. She had a sudden, heavy understanding of how he and Dr. Akagi could be so close. They treated morality regarding NERV's goals as hindrances; principles just muddied the water. We're in the business of saving the world, Kaji told her once. He smiled as he said it, that weary mocking smile. The wellspring of tears his image should have freed was already empty.


Filiation

Chapter 11: The Serpent's Fangs


Asuka was the last person he could talk to. She had to speak with him; he saved her life. When he arrived at NERV's intensive care wing the receptionist cheerily told him all non-medical personnel were barred from visiting the Second Children due to the sensitivity of her injuries. He asked when she could receive visitors and the receptionist did not know.

Shinji wandered away. Left without specific orders he didn't know what else to do. He normally only travelled between the entrance, the lockers, the cage, and recently Dr. Katsuragi's office. Every new hall looked alike, and the massive dimensions of headquarters dawned on him as he followed his aimless feet. It was dizzying to imagine such a facility secreted away within a crack in the earth. He felt like he could walk forever and never get anywhere.

Shinji did not meet anyone as he walked. The isolation was a comfortable kind of misery, left alone with his thoughts but free from the anxiety of other people. His feet carried him to a quiet chamber with benches and potted plants arranged like a small park. The ceiling was bisected by windows that allowed the reflected sunlight of the Geofront into the room. It almost felt natural.

A television panel dominated the wall to his right and displayed a series of peacefully colorful landscape stills fading into each other without hurry. A dense overhead view of a forest canopy seemed to flow like a choppy sea. A yawning beach stretched beyond the horizon around perfect sparkling blue ocean. A thin stream slithered down a mountainside and disappeared in a series of hills. The sun hung in the sky, wreathed in strands of pale white cloud. A dense overhead view of a forest canopy—

Those kinds of places only existed in pictures and movies. The only forests Shinji saw were partly eaten by cities or power plants. He hated the beach. Mountains made him feel small and alone. Every sky that crawled over him was black with rain or painful with heat. Even if those fake images the wall forced on him were real it was pointless to see them. Memories of things like "good" and "beautiful" and "peaceful" didn't have the same influence as "bad" and "ugly" and "terrified". People were too habituated to their own depravity.

He took the bench beside Rei without fully knowing why. She sat five feet to his left reading a small book cradled delicately by slim hands above her lap. She was motionless, even the rise and fall of her chest concealed by the harsh angles of her school uniform. She did not look up when Shinji entered the room or collapsed by her.

Shinji stared at the panel.

"Why are you still here?" he asked her.

Rei turned a page.

"Aren't you scared of me?"

Rei read her book.

"Do you want me to hit you this time?" he asked. "Or kick you? Maybe I should choke you instead?" His body sagged. "Why don't you hate me?"

The lack of sleep and expenditure of emotion caught up with him without the lust for self-righteous judgment. The hate for Katsuragi faded overnight and only the familiar unremitting ache of betrayal remained.

"You performed well during the last sortie," Rei remarked absently, still not looking at him. "I have come to believe it's your lack of discipline that has made you the most successful pilot. A kind of instinctual self-preservation that NERV drove from myself and Soryu." She paused in an almost wistful manner. "I envy you."

"Envy," he echoed. "What is wrong with you?"

"Self-preservation is the most fundamental of human drives. You have adapted it into an effective impetus for violence. That is what I envy: your ability to adapt. You can adjust your violence for use against either Angels or humans. It is a wondrous thing."

"Who cares?" Shinji said with a thick voice. "Who cares about any of that? It's not like it changes anything or makes things better. It doesn't matter what I do. Even if I keep beating the Angels what will it matter? We're all going to die anyway so why do we act like we can get around it if we fight hard enough?"

His head dropped back and he gazed at the glass ceiling. It was very bright today.

"Soryu is… who knows? Nobody tells me anything about her or anything else. I tried to help her but… nothing I do helps anything…" He rubbed a palm over his eyes. "Nobody tells me why I have to pilot or why it's okay to lie to me or why all of this has to happen to me…"

Shinji's mouth lost the power to fight injustice. He pitched away from Rei and fell on his side. He curled his arms around his head.

"What do you want from me?" he whimpered. "I don't have anything. Why can't you leave me alone? Why can't you just go away?"

"Where should I go?" Rei asked, turning another page.

"I don't care. Anywhere." He bit down hard. "I don't like you."

"That is inconsequential."

The panel projecting the landscapes shifted and rearranged before him. He wanted to believe they were real and forget all about NERV and the monsters that inhabited it and how small and fragile they made him feel. He hadn't cried in weeks and still couldn't find the strength or the weakness or the right series of biological prompts. The ability was scored from him, leaving only a dull empty pit where the tears used to spring so readily. The trapped frustration gnawed under his skin.

Rei rose from her seat with a whisper of cloth. The bench didn't make a sound freed from her presence. It was like she didn't weigh a thing.

"I have a test scheduled," she announced like a change in the weather. She did not leave or make a move for a long time. "This place is swollen with people. They are terrified of its existence and its absence."

Her feet padded away, the touches of her soles like the last coughs of a rainstorm on a roof. Shinji listened and was not sure if he was relieved or upset at being left alone.

Isolation was anyone ever offered him. Dr. Katsuragi lived in his own fantasy, his father abandoned him, Captain Kaji was missing, Dr. Akagi was in the hospital, Horaki was gone, Soryu was hidden away, Ayanami was content with her private madness and Suzuhara was dead.

What made Shinji deserve anything else? Being heroic and saving the earth were convenient platitudes the adults intimated but the world never gave him anything worth fighting and dying for. He saw two cities in his life and they were both filled with the same miserable pack of selfish, cruel, ignorant liars. Piloting for them was a disgusting idea. Piloting for himself was worse; the cloak of righteous self-sacrifice he wrapped his perversions and failings in to save his mother was lost. All that was left was Shinji. That sick, cowardly, stupid, worthless, talentless, repulsive useless child no one wanted. The best humanity had to offer against the Angels.

The pictures on the wall bled into each other.

"This is pathetic," he muttered.


The alarm sounded seventeen minutes later. Shinji counted ten seconds before the intercom blared at him. They were slacking off.

"The Third Children will report to Cage 7. This is not a drill. I repeat, the Third Children will…"

At least they were honest about the consideration they paid him. He was nothing but a tool they needed to turn the Eva on, like a keycard or access code.

His feelings weren't any different. Inside the entry plug the voices and faces that reached to him from headquarters were just noises and images, disconnected with the reality of their individual lives. It was a symbiotic relationship, each side enabling the other. But if he failed, died, the noises and images would fade to silence and static and nothing substantive would be lost to him.

Everyone would die if he lost, billions of lives across the planet. Would the guilt he felt from taking one life be amplified a billion times? Mountains, continents of bodies, twisted and immovable, all wearing the empty cracked face of Suzuhara Toji.

Shinji was walking. He couldn't remember when he left the bench. His stood at the door of the locker room, pausing for a moment of recognition before entering. He stripped, frowning at how thin he was. He considered getting something to eat after the sortie but food always held a faint underlying tang of LCL.

Is this what you wanted for me, mother?

He pulled on the plug suit and it conformed to his body with a sigh of air.

Do you and father hate me so much?

What was so great about this world to justify suffering for it so much? It was the same world that took his mother and left him alone and forgotten, the same world that mocked him with displays of everything he could never have, the same world that burdened him with the expectations and demands of others.

He entered the cage, an anthill swarming with technicians scurrying up and down scaffolds with a manic kind of purposefulness. Each knew their individual task and carried it to completion without any thought. Drones marching around their queen.

Shinji climbed into the entry plug and Unit-01 welcomed him into the folds of its supremacy. He sat upon his throne and wondered the reason. For humanity? For mother? For such abstract, foreign purposes? He didn't know them. All he ever knew was himself. So he was all that mattered.

Eva gave him absolute power over the world. He controlled whether everyone lived or died. The strength of giants ran under his fingertips like currents of divine lightning. A sweep of his hand and man's culture, the entirety of its accomplishments would be turned to ash. It was his will that moved Eva, it was his will that judged existence worthy of salvation or deserving of oblivion. Soryu and Ayanami were gone. He alone remained in the Evangelion, an impenetrable shield against guilt and blame. This was his reason to pilot: to gain the power to act.

Unit-01 submitted to him and he was transported to the lifts. A noise in his ear told him he was being deployed within the Geofront. He tried not to think about how strong that meant his enemy was. He rose by the artificial lake, NERV's pyramid at his back. On his right a thick metal panel serving as a makeshift shield had been erected and he staggered towards it; with less than twenty-four hours since the last battle Unit-01's left leg remained severed at the knee. Shinji dropped into an uncomfortable crouch, braced against the shield as he connected a waiting umbilical cord.

A massive flatbed truck bearing a pallet rifle lumbered to a stop by him. It pulled away after delivering its cargo and another in a long convoy rolled into its place, outfitting Shinji's position with extra rifles, rocket launchers and melee weapons.

A rending of metal and a flash of light cracked the air as a cross flare reached from the inverted city ceiling. The fleet of trucks scattered as retracted buildings lost all support and crashed to the floor of the Geofront. Shinji fixed a rifle on the entrance cut from the sky and waited for the Angel, the enemy, the means to act without thinking. Soon there would only be the Eva, protecting him from hindrances like guilt and fear and shame and loneliness. Then the ugly unthinking thing trapped behind his skin could come out.

The Angel slid into the Geofront, a hulking dark mass wreathed in fiery smoke and debris. Shinji felt his blood push against Unit-01's armor.

I've killed your kind, I've killed mine. It's all the same. They were alive, I found them, and now they're gone.

There was no public praise or condemnation. It was like they never existed, like they all just disappeared.

Dr. Katsuragi, Captain Kaji, his father, the dead boy Suzuhara, Horaki, Soryu, Ayanami, his mother and everyone who ever passed him in life distorted and merged into the profane monster before him descending to the floor of the Geofront.

I'll make you disappear.

The first burst of gunfire struck the Angel and it vanished in a ballooning cloud of smoke. The violent recoil of the rifle needled his arms with the stinging precursor to numbness. It felt like the last Angel's saliva burning through his leg.

The rifle emptied and he abandoned it for a rocket launcher. The Angel drifted peacefully to the ground and hung suspended above it like a parade float. Shinji drew the crosshairs on the targeting reticule together and felt his entire body shudder as he fired the first rocket, then a second, then a third, then he lost count.

AT Field is neutralized… why isn't it falling?

The rockets struck the Angel and flared into angry orange balloons before dissolving into harmless curls of smoke.

You can't exist with me! I won't allow it!

The launcher spent its final round and Shinji froze in bewildered fury.

Why don't you disappear?

The Angel hung unfazed in the air wreathed in the shimmer of super-heated air. Its eyes flashed and it vanished beneath the burning white death of a cross flare. It struck Unit-01's shield and blew it apart, sending Shinji tumbling crazily to his side.

He found himself facedown against a stack of broken trees, his entire body sore. He struggled up and abruptly fell as he forgot his missing leg. Shinji flipped his body to locate the Angel and watched the protrusions on the top of its body unfurl two long thin slats. The ends snapped up and shot forward.

They seemed to slow as they neared and he watched the strange organic intricacies of the blades with condemned fascination as one pierced his lips and slid through his cheeks, then his teeth, then his tongue, then his throat, then the base of his skull and then there was nothing.


"Unit-01 has ceased activation," Maya said.

The main monitor showed the Evangelion slumped backwards in a half-crouch, its skull cleaved in two at the mouth. The lower jaw was revealed, the tongue lolling back over the exposed throat. A curtain of blood fell to the earth below it. The top of the head could not be seen.

"Pilot's status?"

"I don't know. The main monitoring circuit was severed—"

"The Angel is proceeding past Unit-01."

"—so I'll have to reroute the pathway to another—"

The world shook. Shiro fell forward against the back of Maya's chair. His cane clattered somewhere on his right. Debris from the ceiling misted the air.

"Unit-00's status?"

"It was transported from the neutralization zone but it hasn't been prepped for combat," Hyuga said. "The Commander's overseeing it." He took a thick breath to continue before another explosion shouted over him. The bridge shuddered and secondary alarms wailed to life. "The Angel has breached headquarters. It's descending the Main Shaft towards us."

Shiro stared up at the image of Unit-01. Its wound had almost stopped bleeding. There were only a few thin fingers of blood reaching for the ground.

"All personnel evacuate," he ordered. There was no possibility of even a partial evacuation of headquarters. At least they'd die thinking they had a chance. Once he was alone he could activate the base's self-destruct himself.

The main screen dissolved into jagged static before bursting open and allowing the Angel access to the bridge. It plodded forward under a shower of wreckage, crushing the lower levels and several straggling technicians.

A scream echoed from a tier below. At his side someone choked on a sob. Shiro watched death fill his vision and felt something small and angry scratch the edge of his consciousness.

The air was thick again, it was fiery and vicious. There were sounds and lights he never saw before. The snow and ice were difficult to walk through and he was carrying that little girl.

That little girl.

He saw Unit-01, headless and frozen.

That unconscious bleeding little girl.

Asuka's burnt and mangled body.

That unconscious bleeding little girl you left behind.

The crushing darkness inside the escape capsule.

You left her.

Shinji, staring down at him, without tears in his eyes, only a shattered trust.

You abandoned her.

That little girl, staring up at him, without tears in her eyes, only a bitter longing.

You killed her.

You killed your own daughter.

You killed Misato!

Shiro's mouth split open when a thunderous crash sounded as Unit-01 landed behind the Angel. Swells of smoke and rubble exploded forward like a gale. Unit-01's giant claw rose above it and pulled the invader to the ground on its back, the other hand parting the cloud to strike. The Angel's eyes flashed and the energy skewed wildly as it tore apart Unit-01's fist.

Blood and bone and metal splashed the bridge, a chunk of finger carved the command tower in half. Shiro landed hard on the floor as the structure collapsed around him. Aoba scrambled past him, tripping over his legs.

The brain in his head spun. His ears went numb and he tasted copper. He found a jagged sheet of metal framework pinning half of his body. Something thick and warm hurried down his face.

Unit-01 rammed the Angel into the wall. The catwalks lining it snapped like twigs. The Angel pivoted to flare its eyes again. The energy beam severed Unit-01's ruined right arm, painting the ceiling with gore as the limb tore through it, finally crashing to a stop on the far wall.

An elbow to the Angel's faceplate knocked it down, and an armored foot kept it prone. The Eva's remaining hand seized the face and pulled until it tore off with a sickening snap of severed muscle and skin. Unit-01 plunged its arm shoulder-deep into the exposed insides and with a straining effort ripped it free out the front of the Angel, splitting it open like an overripe melon. Strange internal support structures and unidentifiable organs were wrenched free and spilled to the ground in wet heaps. The shining sphere encased in armor on its chest dimmed, then sank into the ruined mire of its body.

Eva dug a hand in a bulging pile of viscera and stole a ragged fistful of meat, raising it like a trophy. It crushed the pulp against its open jaw and forced it down the exposed throat. What was left of its head jerked up and down as it swallowed, the armor hugging its neck straining against the effort. The hand came up empty, wet with saliva and blood.

This is the end, Shiro thought as he watched the butchering. The stench finally hit him and he covered his mouth to fight back the bile. An Eva unit with a true S2 engine. We've signed our death warrants. By SEELE or this new god before us.

Evangelion Unit-01 rose, bathed in gore. Its jaw pitched up sharply and trembled before the flesh around the throat bulged and bubbled, sprouting like a flower. A pale mass swept over the teeth, growing up and out to settle on a vaguely pear-shaped form.

Shinji-kun…

The skin around the front retracted and a top set of teeth burst through. A slit opened above it, forcing out a perfectly formed green sphere. The great eye rotated unnaturally in its socket as it inspected the ruined chamber. Inevitably its attention fell back to the gutted Angel and the promise of complete restoration.

Trapped beneath the twisted and bloodied wreckage of the command deck Shiro bore witness once again to the awakening of a god and the loss of a child.

I couldn't even say I'm sorry this time.


End of chapter 11

Author notes: sweet, sweet deus ex machina. I suppose a headless Unit-01 fighting is pretty unbelievable. If you find biomechanical clones of gods believable.

Next time: the conclusion. It will hopefully wrap things up to a satisfactory degree. But probably not.

OMAKE

"The Angel has breached headquarters," Hyuga said. "It is descending the Main Shaft towards us." Beside him, Aoba shrieked in terror and hid under his desk.

"All personnel wet your pants," Shiro ordered, one step ahead of everyone.

The main monitor dissolved into static as Zeruel burst through, itching for another humiliatingly one-sided fight. Before it could do anything besides look menacing Unit-01 dropped down behind it, sans head. The Eva raised a mighty fist and swung without mercy or accuracy. The punch missed completely and Unit-01 flailed a moment before regaining its balance. It hopped forward on its one leg, swinging wildly at the air.

"Well, it did lose its eyes," Hyuga said.

Safely floating to the side, Zeruel debated how best to annihilate her persistent but pathetic enemy. The wall behind her exploded outward and Unit-00 charged through wielding a progressive knife poised to attack. It slashed far too soon and tumbled head over heels, landing facedown below the command deck.

"Unit-00 only has one eye," Shiro observed, "so its depth perception has to be pretty bad."

The Eva did not move from its graceful faceplant.

"And Rei never was our best pilot."

Making the most of a dramatic entrance, Unit-02 plummeted down the hole Zeruel made and landed with a resounding crash.

"… I knew we forgot something."

The red Eva had yet to be repaired following its near-destruction during the Leliel battle, and was little more than a charred torso. It lay immobile in a crater. Unit-00 still hadn't moved. Unit-01 had managed to locate the wall farthest from the Angel and was making it pay for ever being built. The pants-wetting command was reinstated.

Zeruel charged her eye beams. Aoba continued shrieking in a puddle of urine. Hyuga cursed his virginity. Maya felt a subtle relief at not having to learn the results of the blood test following her breakup with Kaji.

"Well at least I didn't leave the job half-done this time," Shiro said. "I can finally say I was directly responsible for killing all of humanity, not just half. Closure feels good."

Then the cross flare erased him on a molecular level. The end.