Evangelion Fan Fiction
The Difference Of A Life
By Kraven Ergeist
A/N: Just saw 2.0. It got me pumped. Writing will commence now.
April 27th, 2016
Kensuke opened his eyes and found himself wondering if the past week had all been a dream. Maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him That would certainly account for the fact that he kept waking up in this same damn hospital bed. He blinked, realizing that he still couldn't see clearly and was about to reach for his glasses when…
"Here…" a pair of hands slid the spectacles over the bridge of his nose, and suddenly a face came into view.
He blinked several times to ensure he wasn't still dreaming. "Mana?"
He could tell now that she had been crying. "Doctor's said you wrenched your neck again…only so many G's the LCL can dampen…idiot…"
Kensuke relaxed a little when he realized it was really her, but his brows reknit when he saw her in crutches.
"You're hurt!"
Mana's smile was unconvincing and forced. "Idiot…I'm fine…I'll be out of these in no time…"
He tried to reach his hand out to her, but he couldn't muster the strength. His thoughts turned to his friends and compatriots.
"What about Toji? Hikari? Shinji?" Kensuke gasped, trying to sit up, and getting a face-full of stars for his trouble. "How is everyone!"
"Alive…" Mana breathed, her eyes drained of energy.
Kensuke desperately wanted to get to his feet so he could see for himself, and absently realized that he still couldn't move his neck because of this grudgingly familiar neck brace. His eyes flew open, however, when he realized he also couldn't feel his toes.
"Mana, what happened to me?" Kensuke stammered, adrenaline suddenly filling his system. "Why can't I move my legs!"
Mana shook her head. "Relax. Take a deep breath. We were the lucky ones…"
Kensuke fixed a glare at her. "Mana…don't try to protect me…tell me the truth…"
His heart sank when he saw her begin to cry all over again. He tried once again to reach out and take her hand.
But he wasn't able to.
He would never be able to.
xxxxx
Hikari woke up – or thought she woke up – and instantly regretted the decision. It hurt to breathe, and her vision was a foggy red haze. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to let out a scream, but a silent exhalation was all that came. She felt like there was a wad of steel wool shoved down her throat, clogging her airway and scrapping her throat raw every time she tried to breathe.
In her clouded vision, she thought she made out a familiar shape, and then a warm hand touched her cheeks.
"You gave me a real scare, Hikari…" a warm, coaxing voice sounded in her ear.
All of the sudden, she forgot about her aching lungs, and she blinked, the foggy cloud over her eyes clearing to reveal Toji's smiling face, staring down at her.
She tried to say his name, but her mouth was dry.
"Easy…" Toji said gently, stroking her hair. "The doc's said you're gonna be fine. You just need some rest…"
She suddenly coughed, an act that shot a spike of indescribable pain through her chest and neck, and a wad of blood splatting unceremonious onto the front of her hospital gown. Hikari tasted blood and made a face.
"Yuck…" she moaned, pitifully as she saw the mess she made. "My throat hurts…"
Toji nodded and – Hikari blinked as she noticed what he was sitting in – rolled his wheelchair over to the telephone by the door, speaking into it. Moments later, a nurse came and injected something into the IV bag by the bed, which Hikari now noticed was slowly letting fluids seep into the blood stream of her left arm. The nurse cleaned her gown with a sanitary wipe, and left in a hurry.
The pain in Hikari's chest began to decrease, but her voice began to slur as a result of the anesthetics.
"Is that…?" Hikari glanced at the bed adjacent to hers. In it was a girl on a ventilator, a clear tube running up to a facemask, fogging with the occasional exhalation.
"It's Soryu," Toji confirmed, looking depressed. "They said she'd need to be on that breathing tube for a while. Yours came out yesterday. That's probably why your throat was so sore…"
He felt Hikari's hand slip into his own where it lay on the side of the bed, and he looked down at her, looking worried.
"Glad you're alright…" she mumbled, looking woozily at Toji. She was starting to feel tired.
"You too…"Toji smiled and her and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "Get some sleep, Class Rep…I'll be right here…"
Her hand tightened in his as her eyes closed.
xxxxx
Kaworu, having made a "miraculous recovery" stepped into the hospital room where the 3rd and 6th child were kept, both having needed ventilators, and smiled as he saw Toji, his wheelchair next to Hikari's bed, his body resting against her bed, his eyes closed. It made him smile to see the two of them like that, even having just barely survived their last encounter.
The next encounter, he knew, would be far worse.
"Asuka…" he mouthed under his breath, standing next to her. She didn't look half the valiant warrior he knew her to be, but he knew that having the greater sync ratio, she had taken a substantial degree of the damage her Eva had experienced. Thank goodness Zeruel's ribbons had made a clean cut, otherwise this would be even more difficult than it already was.
Slipping his hand into her still one, he closed his eyes and tightened his grip. He knew she wouldn't respond, but he could feel the fire within her soul laying dormant.
But it wasn't gone.
He took a deep breath and expanded his will. Not enough to fully manifest his powers, but enough for his soul to brush against Asuka's. Her blood began to quicken, and suddenly she was coughing, her throat constricting around the breathing tube.
"I'm sorry, Asuka…" he said, letting go of her hand. "You can't rest for much longer. You're needed for the next act."
As he turned to go, several attending physicians rushed in through the door, ignoring Kaworu to check Asuka's vitals, exchanging puzzled looks before one of them nodded and began to remove her breathing tube.
Her breathing and her pulse returned to normal, and she resumed peaceful slumber.
"That was a risky move…" an accusing voice voiced to Kaworu as he exited the room. "If your AT Field had expanded any more, all of NERV would have been alerted to your presence."
Kaworu smiled as Mayumi looked at him, her bespectacled eyes not even trying to hide their disappointment.
"You know how much Asuka loves to fight…" Kaworu smiled as he meandered down the hall, not caring if Mayumi followed him or not. "I was doing her a favor."
"No you weren't…" Mayumi frowned, arms crossed. "You and I both know this next battle might be too much, even for all of us…"
Kaworu said nothing as he left her standing there, staring worriedly at the two girls in the hospital room. One, who had opened herself to the person she cared for, lay still as the boy stayed by her side. And the other, who was too proud to do so, tossed and turned as the one who cared for her most walked away.
xxxxx
"Shinji? Shinji, is that you!"
Shinji mentally groaned. He wished whoever was calling out to him would let him sleep.
"How could you be here!" the voice sounded incredulous. "You're supposed be outside with everyone else!"
The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. He was just so tired, and he had been having such a pleasant dream. Maybe if he just rolled over…
"No! Don't go to sleep! You'll disappear!"
Shinji suddenly rocked, as though someone had shoved him out of bed.
"Whoah!"
He opened his eyes, seeing only water – or was it LCL – around him. He thought he saw a light shining beneath him. He got the impression that it was the sun shining through the liquid, and suddenly felt disoriented as the inclination that he was upside down overtook him. He quickly righted himself.
"Don't you realize where you are?" the voice sounded, and Shinji twisted around to look at the speaker.
"Mom?"
She shook her head, and he realized that he was wrong. The woman wasn't someone he recognized, at least visibly. But he could have sworn he'd heard that voice before.
"Not quite," she mused. "I don't think either of you are ready to see each other just yet…"
Shinji wasn't sure what she meant by that. It didn't occur to him that they were both nude, though their bodies were somewhat blurry below the neckline. There wasn't much light in this…what was this place, anyway?
"Where am I?" he asked stupidly. Everything about this place, the warmth, the smell, the sound of this woman's voice…it all felt…familiar.
"I'll try to explain…but it's complicated…" the woman looked flustered and uncertain, but not at all shy. "I don't really understand it myself…but from what I can tell, this place exists beyond the world we live in. It…"
The woman suddenly clutched her head and groaned as if in pain.
Shinji reached out his hand. "What – what's wrong?"
The woman's body shook and she curled into a fetal position, her body floating haphazardly amidst the LCL.
"Can't…no…mustn't…" she gasped for breath, eyes clenched shut. "I want to tell you…but it's forbidden…"
Shinji swam closer, hesitating, before reaching out to take her by the shoulders.
"I don't understand!" he cried. "Who are you!"
The woman shook, before going rigid, and lifting her head.
"ME…?"
Her voice sounded different, as if another consciousness was in control. It was deeper in pitch, as though it were echoing across the LCL.
Her eyes opened. They were glowing red.
"I AM EVA."
xxxxx
"For the last time…" Kaji sighed. "You're not a failure."
The raven-haired woman sitting opposite him hiccupped, several bottles lay strewn across the table between them.
"Oh yeah?" she growled, knocking back another drink. "Then explain to me how else I could have let two thirds of my pilots nearly die?"
"The 'nearly' part, for starters," Kaji shook his head. "No other commander in the world could have taken what we had and launched an effective countermeasure to the attack we received, and certainly not in the amount of time you had. We suffered minor casualties at worst."
Misato slumped over, her cheeks crimson. "I had to rely on the tactical mind of one of my own pilots…and now that pilot's probably never going to walk again…"
Kaji gritted his teeth, staring across at her. He had seen this before, seen Misato launch herself into a self-destructive cycle of self-loathing and blame.
"Stop it…"
"Asuka and Hikari are on ventilators…" Misato's hair covered her eyes. She and Kaji both knew that both those girls had recently been taken off their breathing machines, but she went on. "Toji's in a wheelchair…and Shinji…"
"Stop it, Misato…" Kaji got to his feet, his chair's feet squeaking on the floor as he shoved it back with his legs. "It's a shitty situation, but it could be a lot worse. And each of your pilots knew the dangers of what they were getting into."
Misato sighed, sitting back in her chair. "Why do they all have to be so brave? Why can't one of them – just one of them – ever just say 'I'm afraid, Major…I can't do it?' Nobody would blame them…"
"Nobody except the next pilot on the list to be recruited," Kaji pointed out. "And none of your pilots is unafraid. They're all terrified. But as scared as they are for themselves…I bet you they're even more scared for the lives of their fellow pilots…"
Misato sniffed and looked back at him.
"You've been on the field before, Misato," Kaji smiled sincerely. "You should know that the first thing on any soldier's mind isn't their own survival, or even the greater cause they're fighting for. It's for the safety of the soldier fighting next to them…that's what they're fighting for. That's what these kids are fighting for…"
He looked away as he nursed his own drink.
"…And that's what I'm fighting for…"
Misato was either too drunk to hear him or didn't let herself react to his words. But her cheeks were flushed brighter than ever.
"How about you?" Kaji asked, turning to face her, his features composed once again. "What are you fighting for?"
Misato thought about her days in college with Kaji and Ritsuko, about the good times they'd had, the messes, the awkward bumps, the love, the heartache…
Was that what she fought for? So that these kids could one day grow up and make the same mistakes she could, and make them without the fear of impending apocalypse looming over them.
Or was it for something…more basic?
"Kaji…" she sighed, finally making eye contact with him. He had been like a stranger for so long since he'd arrived. They had exchanged playful banter here and there, he had pretended to flirt with her, and she had acted like she didn't know it wasn't pretend. But she never let him get close, never as close as they had been…
But right now…
She leaned closer.
Her phone vibrated.
Fuck! She almost said aloud, before flipping it open.
"Katsuragi here…" she groaned over the phone, her voice slurred.
Suddenly, her eyes widened.
"What!"
She instantly sobered.
"No…no, no, NO! Not now! "
xxxxx
Unit 01's eyes were lit up as though it were active, but there was no active synchronization. But that wasn't the scary part. What had the entire scientific crew of Project E nearly wetting themselves was the fact that the Eva's head was tossing back and forth, its eyes flickering as a hollow roar emanated from what sounded like deep within its throat.
"What's going on!" Professor Kyoko Soryu demanded. Below her, Ritsuko and Maya, on the operations deck scrambled to check readings.
"Uncertain," Maya wracked her brain for answers. "The Eva suddenly began fighting against its restraints."
Soryu glared at the Eva. "Then how is it not tearing itself out of there? We all know those locks aren't enough to hold a berserker Eva."
Ritsuko's brows knit fiercely. "Not the physical restraints, Professor…my mother outfitted the Evangelions with powerful mental barriers as well. If the Eva ever actually became conscious what we were doing to it…"
She let the thought hang. Maya felt a little more than unsafe.
"Then what's it doing!" Kyoko demanded. "Is it trying to get past those restraints?"
"Possibly," Ritsuko mused, lighting a cigarette. "Shinji and the Eva are one mind now. He might have stumbled over some of the psychological safeguards we've put in place…"
The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. The Eva was in no serious threat at the moment, but they couldn't leave it the way it was much longer. Already it was almost ten days since Shinji had been in there.
She stared at the beast as it stilled, its eyes flickering back off. Everyone calmed down a little – they had all thought they might have accidentally lost their pilot. But Ritsuko knew…
If they didn't get him out of there soon, they probably would.
"This would be so much easier if my mother or Dr. Ikari were here…" she massaged her temples.
Maya looked up at her sympathetically. "Senpai…"
That's when the alarms started going off.
xxxxx
April 28th, 2016
So far, the Angel wasn't posing an immediate threat. It was simply floating off in orbit, far away from the reach of any of NERV's offensive reach, even with the positron rifle. Mayumi, Kaworu and Rei were in three separate positions throughout the city, similar to how they'd been positioned during the 10th Angel in case it should decide to dive bomb the city, each armed with one of the aforementioned rifles, each equally ineffective, and waiting in anticipation for the Angel to make a move.
"She's not interested in us," Kaworu said, as though it were obvious.
Rei, always suspicious of the strange boy, said nothing. This was partly due to her lack of sleep – they had been out here since two in the morning yesterday, and it was nearly midnight.
Mayumi, for her part, inquired further.
"She knows who we are," Kaworu explained. "The three of us, I mean. And she's not interested in us."
Mayumi, who was familiar enough with Kaworu's enigmatic speech, tried to put it together in her head. "So…we need one of the other pilots out here?"
"Precisely," Kaworu admitted coyly.
"But there are no other pilots," Rei argued. "We are all that is left. Every other pilot has been…" she thought of Shinji. "…incapacitated…"
"Not quite," Mayumi sighed, the dots connecting in her head. "There's one other…"
"Who?" Rei demanded. "Surely you do nott mean Pilot Kirishima? She is in crutches. Suzuhara is in a wheelchair, Soryu, Horaki, and Aida are bedridden, and Shinji…"
"Asuka is just fine," Kaworu declared. "She just woke up."
Rei bristled. "Still…having just recovered, there is no way she is in any condition to pilot."
"To the contrary," Kaworu said with that maddening smile of his. "Her sync ratio is still higher than yours. And yours, in case you haven't noticed, is dropping by the second."
Rei didn't want to admit it, but he was right. She was tired. She was pushing twenty-two waking hours, and maintaining synchronization with her Eva was taking its toll. She needed to rest. How Kaworu and Mayumi managed to pull it off…
"Major Katsuragi," Kaworu radioed the bridge, his smile ever present on Rei's screen. "I'm worried that Pilot Ayanami has become incapacitated from lack of sleep. Request replacement pilot so she can get some rest.
Rei's brow knotted tightly at Kaworu. "What are you planning?"
Kaworu looked annoyed. "The next act." Then he shut off her comm. channel.
Misato looked like she was ready to argue, but suddenly looked to the left as though she were hearing someone speaking to her, before returning her attention to the screen.
"Understood, Nagisa," Misato said, sounding surprised. "Asuka just woke up, and she'll head out in Unit 02 to take over for Rei. How are you and Mayumi holding up?"
"Just fine, Major," Kaworu said with a smile. "Maintaining synchronization is not as difficult for those with higher synch ratios."
Rei received orders to retreat, and while she couldn't argue (her synch ratio was in decline), she couldn't help but fear that she was allowing Asuka to be put in harm's way.
xxxxx
Asuka had been verging on depression before the call came to her hospital room telling her that she was their last viable pilot. Her confidence bolstered for the moment, she practically sauntered over to the Eva cages in her plug suit, with only a little stiffness in her arms and legs. So she had a bit of a handicap. Ha! The Angel would need it, now that she was on the battlefield.
Unit 02 had barely even left the catapult when the attack came.
"Photonic wave, incoming!"
Asuka was enveloped in light in moments as her mind began to flashback.
PRIDE!
Asuka reeled back like she had been smacked in the face, her Eva stumbling.
"What…?"
FEAR!
Unit 02 fell to its knees. Asuka was sweating, but she didn't know why.
ANGER!
She was remembering…her father? Her mother? Kaji? Shinji? Her days piloting, those days when she was at the top of the world.
ENVY!
She saw Rei and Shinji in her mind, their arms around each other.
"What is…?"
HATRED!
It was…someone else. Something else! A second will…inside her mind…
Probing her…
"Get…get out!"
REGRET!
She stumbled about in her Eva, half falling down as Unit 02 drove through buildings around her.
LUST!
She was pinning Shinji to her bed, kissing him hungrily. When she withdrew, his face was that of Kaworu.
GREED!
"NO!" she ordered, pounding her fists against every surface she could reach inside her entry plug. "Get out! GET OUT OF MY MIND!"
WRATH!
Unit 02 was in a fetal position on the ruined street as Asuka sobbed within her entry plug.
"Please…don't rape my mind…"
xxxxx
He had been a fool. A fool! He had been playing right into their hands, and he hadn't even known it until it was too late! And now, he had put Asuka in danger.
It was too much.
"Kaworu, where are you going!" Mayumi demanded as she saw him moving. If Kaworu meant to interfere, SEELE would not stand for it.
But he was past caring. All they wanted was to bring things to 'That Which Should Be,' an impulse they had instilled in Kaworu since birth. Consciously, he could overcome it. But its effects had been subtle, and he had thought that his plan had been utter genius.
He reached Asuka, and his Eva screeched to a halt over Unit 02, and he stood before the ray of light that struck her. He spread his arms wide and absorbed as much of the blast as he could.
"What are you doing, Arael?" he demanded, making sure his radio was off. "This isn't how it's supposed to go!"
This…is That Which Should Be… the voice of Arael sounded in Kaworu's mind.
"Are you a fool?" Kaworu shouted. "Open your eyes! You're victimizing this poor girl for the sake of your own curiosity!"
Tabris…you would turn on your own kind?
"It is you who have turned!" Kaworu accused. "Mother and Father have no such intentions for humanity!"
This…is That Which Should Be… Arael's voice spun like a song in his mind. You…are a traitor…
All at once, Kaworu felt his vision going foggy as Arael's mental probes began digging into his mind. He gritted his teeth and glared off at the pristine white Angel in the sky.
"You are an ignorant fool, Arael. You can't do anything to me…" Kaworu grunted, though his vision was narrowing. "Your task is forfeit."
Then…I shall die… Arael's voice did not bear the resignation that Kaworu knew to be there. But…you cannot save humanity, Tabris…
The light faded off. Arael's wings curled in on themselves as the Angel fell out of orbit. As it entered the atmosphere, the earth rotated beneath it enough so that it would land somewhere in the north Atlantic. NERV officials would try to figure out what happened, if it had tried for a dive bomb attack that the 10th Angel had tried, then why had it missed by such a margin. Kaworu would be the only one to know that the Angel was already dead. There would be a spectacular tidal wave. And that would be the end for Arael.
"I'm not here to save humanity…" Kaworu muttered in prayer before unconsciousness claimed him. "I'm here to convince humanity…to save itself…"
xxxxx
Once the battle had ended, Rei stared blankly at the discombobulated mess of wires that protruded from the base of Unit 01's skull, the place where Shinji's entry plug was situated. As she stood, hands clasping the safety rails, her mind swam in a state of perpetual unreality. Dr. Soryu and Dr. Akagi had both informed her that Shinji's mind had passed the human ego limit and had somehow melded with that of the Eva, taking his body with it. With her limited grasp of biomechanics (she knew surprisingly little based on her origins, she mused absently), this was all she was able to comprehend.
Though comprehend may have been too generous a term. How could one 'comprehend' the fact that the person they cherished most was in a state of Schrödingeric limbo? She had been told that the Shinji she knew may not even exist anymore. That the boundaries of his soul had come down and allowed the nearest soul – that of Unit 01 – to meld with it.
Rei fought back fear, revulsion, hatred, frustration and despair. A year ago, she would have never been the subject of such emotions, but Shinji had brought out the worst – and the best – in her. It wasn't fair! What right did Unit 01 have to Shinji? It wasn't even her child! Unlike the other pilots, Rei had spent a great deal of time underground, and overheard enough snippets of Dr. Ikari's conversations with Professor Akagi to attain a basic understanding of the situation. Within each Evangelion Unit lay the soul of a human mother, whose primal instinct to protect her young made each Evangelion the most powerful force humanity could physiologically render.
But each of those mothers was being duped – there was no blood relation between the pilot and the soul within the armor. Each pilot was selected, seemingly arbitrarily, to pilot each Evangelion. And if the cross-synchronization tests were any indication, it didn't rightly matter one way or the other which pilot sat in which cockpit. Yui Ikari and Naoko Akagi's research and scientific developments had progressed to such a state that each Evangelion was, effectively, a domesticated pack-mule, who would respond to the kick of any rider.
What right did this beast have to take Shinji from her, and keep him for her own? She was just a ghost – a will that had outlived its lifespan, whose essence fueled humanity's last desperate hurrah. Rei bit down on her lip as she glared at the giant purple demon. Her red eyes beamed increasingly poorly restrained hatred for the behemoth. A trickle of blood ran down her chin as her teeth dug into her lower lip, and she squeezed the hand-railing that stood between the machine and her, the scrambled recovery crews and whirring and humming of repair equipment fading to black around her.
Never before in her life had she ever felt such raw anger. And never before in her life had she ever directed such passion towards Eva. Shinji really did bring out the worst in her. She felt weak. Vulnerable. At the mercy of this all-consuming monster of hatred and rage. She hated the Eva, but more than that, she hated herself for being so useless. For being unable to do anything to help Shinji. For being so inept on the battlefield as to cause Shinji to be put in such danger in the first place. And that hatred led her to despair.
A single tear trickled down her cheek to merge with the blood that was already collecting at the point of her chin, hemoglobin mingling with salt. Red eyes practically bloodshot as she glared accusingly at the Eva, her skull was hammering as her pulse steadily drove her mad with a constant thundering that pounded at her mind, blinding her instant by instant. Her grip tightened on the handrail as her jaw lowered to let out her gasping breath.
"Give…him…back…"
xxxxx
Commander Ikari sat before the committee, their large monolithic emblems revealing nothing.
"The 15th Angel was weeks ahead of schedule," Gendo pointed out.
"This was within predictable realms of divergence from the scenario," one of the monoliths uttered.
Ikari had a feeling that Third Impact could have happened tomorrow, and it would have still been 'within predictable realms of divergence from the scenario.'
"Any other changes you plan on hiding from me?" Gendo mused rhetorically. "I am not my wife. The less I am told, the less effective I am."
"What we need is a tool that performs its task regardless of what it is given to work with," said one of the monoliths.
"Then you ask the impossible," Gendo announced. "My staff is at its limits. Most of my pilots are incapacitated. It is nothing short of a miracle that my own son has escaped the confines of his Eva. If not for those three…"
"The Nephilim cannot be relied upon," Keel declared. "They represent time borrowed from the enemy."
"And who is our enemy?" Gendo demanded. "This last Angel didn't seem interested in fighting the Eva's, much less uniting with Adam."
"The 15th Angel is a special case," one of the markers sounded. "Only two remain…"
Gendo nodded. "Which means, after the next battle…"
"There is a reason the Nephilim were put under your protection…" Keel said sternly. "Do no disappoint us Ikari…"
They disappeared.
Gendo squelched his anger as he left the holo-projection room. He had neglected to tell them that the Fifth Child had been unconscious since the last battle. Perhaps he expended too much energy in twisting radio signals to suit his needs, or in speedily regenerating himself, the 3rd and 9th Child. Or maybe his battle with the 15th Angel really had taken its toll on him. It had to explain why the fight had ended so abruptly.
Gendo mused silently. He didn't trust the 5th Child. But he trusted SEELE even less. But he had to make a decision as to which of them to side with, and soon.
xxxxx
"The Doctors gave you a clean bill of health," Misato said as she escorted Shinji through the hospital wing to the other pilot's rooms. "Some muscle atrophy, nothing a bit of exercise won't fix. You might as well have been comatose for a week and a half."
Shinji shook his head in disbelief. "A week and a half…" It was still hard to absorb. And that wasn't even counting the strange dream he had while he was stuck in his Eva.
"Everyone survived the battle, but a lot of the pilots are worse for wear," Misato saluted him somberly. "I take full responsibility for what happened in that battle, and I apologize for letting you and your friends down, Shinji."
Shinji waved an arm uncomfortably. A superior officer shouldn't salute her subordinate! "It's our fault too, Major!"
Misato smiled weakly. It felt good talking to Shinji like this, even if he took her command more seriously than she did.
"By the way…" Misato's smile widened. "How long is she going to do that?"
Shinji's arm was very nearly dead from Rei's uninterrupted grip on it throughout the time of their journey and Shinji's waking.
"Is there a problem, Major?" Rei asked bluntly.
Misato waved her hand. "Not at all. Carry on."
Rei intended to.
Shinji saw each of his fellow pilots in turn. Hikari and Toji were both taking shaky steps, and Mana was already off her crutches. But Kaworu and Asuka were both comatose. And Kensuke…
Shinji nearly broke down into tears when he saw him.
"Hey…" the boy said, trying to sound tough. "Relax, will you? I'm not dead…and I can still technically pilot…even if I can't walk…"
It was a joke of course. Kensuke would be put on absence leave as soon as he was released from the hospital. Of course, releasing him from the hospital would only mean being stationed in another hospital in Tokyo-3.
But Shinji left Kensuke's room feeling defeated. Kensuke was paralyzed. Shinji had failed him. He had failed his friend again.
Rei was still holding onto his arm.
"Shinji…" she sighed, pressing her face against his shoulder. "I'm so sorry…"
The tears ran freely down Shinji's face. He was grateful that Rei was there to catch them. But he still felt like he was partly responsible for ruining Kensuke's life.
Rei stayed with him all the way home. She fixed him some chicken broth as per the doctor's orders. They ate in silence. Shinji got up to go to his room. Rei followed without a word.
They held each other all the way into the night. There was no romance, but there was love just the same, something Shinji valued much deeper than a mere sharing of flesh. He was hurting. Badly. And right then, he needed her.
And she needed to be needed.