Thanks for the suggestions you guys left in reviews! I plan to incorporate most of them, except the one with the seed from NGE2 showing up. The trouble is that having someone show up who knows how this whole terraforming thing works that Kaworu could just download the information from would let Earth get fixed too easily, and right now the need to work together to fix it is the only thing that could possibly get humanity to stay focused and not go to war.
Once Tabris fixes the planet, they don't need him anymore. NERV would be ordered to go back to doing its job. Peace would go right back to not being an option and Shinji would get ordered to kill him.
Think about how WWIII was once considered absolutely certain because there were two sides with ideologies that hated each other and the Cold War actually involved a lot of violence that constantly threatened to boil over into full-scale conflict and yet it didn't happen because everyone knew that starting a conventional war had too much risk of turning into a nuclear war and it turned out that we as a species were not quite that stupid. "War called on account of Armageddon." If it weren't for the nukes, though? People have argued about the effectiveness of the nuclear deterrent, but given how many local wars did start even with that deterrent in place, the desire to go to war was clearly there. If it weren't for the need to avoid direct conflict, it would not have been confined to proxy states. Think about how WWI started: nations got dragged into wars because their ally nations were involved, the way America getting pulled into Vietnam was France's fault. People were aware that the factors that led to war were there. The nuclear thing gave them a very, very pressing reason to resist those forces. The international peace movement would not have been as big a thing as it was if the nuclear threat didn't constantly remind people of just how bad war would be.
People hate the abominations and SEELE, and people's brains tend to turn off when hatred is involved. The certainty of utter annihilation if they don't make use of Tabris and Armisael, the will to survive, is really the only thing that could force people to fight their own emotions in order to keep thinking and try to make this work.
"It's a good move."
"It's a good move: That's all you have to say?" Shinji demanded, head in his hands and the, the crown in his lap as he sat in the one guest chair that had been brought into the NERV Commander's echoing office.
"You know how much difficulty we're having getting the UN to negotiate with an abomination as a head of state," Professor Fuyutsuki reminded his son, glancing at the drawer where he kept his stash. Unfortunately Misato was already drinking it and didn't look inclined to share the flask. His daughter had declared her intent to make sure the stress didn't make her stepfather develop a drinking problem by drinking it all herself years ago. "For a human who isn't one of the original members of SEELE to be even the nominal ruler would make this easier for some people to tolerate."
Misato stood to the right of his desk: Ritsuko flanking her on the left while the digital avatars of Naoko and Dr. Sohryu appeared on the lowered projection screens. The background behind the two Eva spirits were bright and lively, intended to be as unlike SEELE's dark monoliths as possible.
"He wants to hold the coronation ceremony before the wedding, so it's clear that this is my power instead of dependant on his," Shinji said, or rather reported, and sometimes Kozo wasn't sure if the boy made him ache with pride or with shame that he'd had to grow up so fast. That he was already so mature. Already a blooded warrior. Mentally decades older than the students Professor Fuyutsuki had taught before the Rapture, but still only fourteen, with all the confusion and agony that came with that. "He's willing to kneel before me to present me with the crown, instead of the other way around."
Misato whistled as both she and Ritsuko automatically glanced at the wall behind Shinji, the wall where Kaji once would have leaned and offered some choice comment. Instead Hyuga looked a little uncomfortable, standing there stiffly and more than smart enough to know who they were really looking for. Whose shoes he was trying to fill, at what was half a gathering of NERV's key members and half a family meeting. "King of the Lilim: that's going to make the UN worry that Refuge is about to become expansionist again." Would Tabris want to conquer the rest of the world to present it to his bri-groom?
"Damn prophecies," the Commander said, and glanced at his stolen flask again. "King of the Lilim… It was the researchers on our end who first managed to make that part legible, too. That was weeks ago, and no one thought it was especially important." The Secret Dead Sea Scrolls didn't only pertain to the end of the world: there were lots of scrolls buried in those caverns. "It must have taken this long for SEELE's own experts to confirm our work, especially after Tabris ate the old council." Who had become experts on the Scrolls themselves, and shared their knowledge with very few. "Or he might have made some connection we haven't so far, thanks to their knowledge." The UN might have the full scrolls now, but they were only beginning to study them, especially since they didn't want to just rely on SEELE's interpretations. Not that Tabris had shared Keel's or the rest of the council's interpretations of the scrolls with the UN, not when the entire point was getting a fresh interpretation of them, untainted by SEELE's dogma and possibly false assumptions.
"There's no way he'll want to be expansionist right now," Shinji knew.
"Now?" Misato asked, surprised. Shifting her weight to her other foot she remarked that "Not now implies the possibility of someday."
"Not militarily," Shinji assured her with a half-shrug, blue eyes narrowed in thought. "But the old SEELE was only thinking about until Third Impact. That was their strength and then it became their weakness, but Tabris knows that time is on his side. That's why he's willing to wait and see if we can figure out a way to save the planet, make it inhabitable again, and he's letting us take the time the UN needs to confirm instrumentality and complementation. I told him that Instrumentality… no one has the right to make that decision for everyone. But if no one can make anything else work, and everyone agrees it's the only option? He doesn't want to fight or be hated. He thought that complementation was something that all the Lilim wanted, or would want if we really thought about it. That was what he believed in, what he agreed to. What he wants is to grant everyone's wishes. So he'll give us the time to see if it really is what we all want, but only because he has that time. There isn't a time limit on it anymore: if it takes us a century to give up he'll still be here. He won't die and condemn the Lilim to slow whimpering extinction, or destroy us himself if he waits too long. He torments himself with doubts and fears of failure, but that's just being human. If he really was in doubt, then he'd act now. Have me kill him now." To advance the timetable of SEELE's scenario, hasten the day the angel Lilim transformed itself into a God.
"That's only one side of it, though," Shinji went on. "If humanity can survive, if we do admit that we need his power to do it? Oh, he'll help all the UN countries reclaim their land from the LCL just because, but it would still mean we'd owe him, wouldn't it? Tabris doesn't think that way, but he understands now that other people do think that way. He knows how Lilim think now, and not just any Lilim. Master manipulators." SEELE. "He wants to help, wants to befriend people, and… I saw how easily he made friends when he was Kaworu. People knew they could trust him to help them. We Lilim… We're an angel, and weren't all the angels willing to die to reach the seeds? Isn't it the seeds that grant power, that hold the future? Tabris didn't have friends, before me. There are people who hate him and there are people who worship him. I don't think," he took a deep breath. "I don't think that's just because of their religion." In Refuge. "I'd like to think it's because he's Kaworu, that people recognize that he's just such a good person, so much kinder than any human could possibly be, but I have to wonder.
"If the people who thought that there was some kind of mind control effect around him were right." Everyone straightened without being aware of it, because Shinji saying something like that? "We are the Eighteenth Angel, and Angels are supposed to be called to the seeds, right? I don't think… I'm certain that he's not doing it on purpose. He hates that he can't make friends," except Shinji, "and he's afraid of Adam and Lilith's call, but even if it's not something he's doing on purpose, that doesn't guarantee that it isn't happening."
"Like men will be drawn to our breasts whether we want them to be or not," Ritsuko muttered, annoyed. Men kept assuming that just because a woman was attractive it meant she wanted to attract them. When a woman's beauty was a trait that was hers, not something that belonged to their eyes, something that existed for their sake. Breasts existed for the sake of the possible babies, not for men who acted like them.
Shinji nodded. "I think so. It's how people respond to him, not anything he's doing. He said that all Lilim can sense souls, even if we're not consciously aware of it. If that's true, then him having a soul that's so much brighter than all of ours, so different? I think that would be a little hard to miss. But he can still pass for an ordinary human, people can still look at him, see his soul and not be creeped out. If we're instinctively frightened of things that are different, things that we don't understand, then doesn't that mean that on some level we do know what we're seeing when we look at him? That we're not going 'this is different, that's weird and creepy' because we recognize why there are differences, so it's not a mystery? But even if we do know why there's a difference, people that are different still make us nervous." Like, oh, girls. "So there has to be something that's overriding our fear. I'm not someone who opens up to people very easily," he owed Rei and Asuka apologies for that, "but I became friends with Kaworu and it just felt so natural. I wasn't worried that he might secretly hate me, or worried that I'd get off on the wrong foot or, or anything. I wanted to, everyone wanted to be near him."
The elders glanced at each other: the way the angels were called to Adam and Lilith?
"Zuul," Fuyutsuki said thoughtfully. "A form that would never hurt us: the form of our mother Lilith."
The others got the reference after a few seconds, but Shinji was the only one who had been there for that conversation, so he was the first to nod. "Kaworu is someone who takes care of people. Everyone who's met him knows that about him. That's why I want to be the one to take care of him." He blushed, realizing that he'd said something private, or personal. Something important enough to him that it was semi-secret even from his family. "But if all of us are drawn to the seeds? I thought that of course people will like Kaworu if they give him a chance, but then I realized that isn't natural. People will dislike each other for all sorts of reasons. The people in Refuge: they really should be a lot more frustrated that Tabris isn't giving them the complementation they were promised right now. People blame leaders for stuff they don't have any power over." He glanced at his father as he said that. "Even if they're doing the best they can, if they're not making everything happen instantly and perfectly it's just not going to be enough for some people. No ruler has ever been liked by all of their people, not unless someone was faking the poll results or people were too scared to tell the truth. And it's really hard to be frightened of Tabris if you know him. Even knowing how dangerous he would be if he wanted to be." The most powerful of the abominations. A being that could eat souls.
"So once we stop teaching people that he's our enemy, if we let go of our hatred," Misato said, her own eyes narrowed, "we'll be as vulnerable as the ones who gave him a chance," by going to Refuge, "and end up worshipping him too?"
"I'd like to think that I'm some proof that there's some middle ground," Shinji said with more than a trace of sadness, "but I love him. I love him like my father loved my mother." Enough to destroy the entire world for her. "I hate that," he didn't want to be like either of those monsters, "but I can't help it." Not when Tabris was Tabris. "I'm disgusted that part of me wants to blame him for this," for making him even a little like his parents, "but I don't think I'm just making an excuse. He's so perfect that just meeting him… He's such a good person. Maybe it's just that I'm in love, or infatuated or whatever, and I'm overestimating how special he is because my judgment is compromised. I mean, it's possible to love someone that everyone else despises: just because I think he's so great and my hormones act up around him doesn't mean he has the same effect on everyone else. Don't, don't take me too seriously," he said, looking shamefully down at the crown.
"He's your first crush," Ritsuko said with a glance at Misato, "but I don't know that means you're wrong. Still, I certainly haven't observed Rei having an easier time making friends than she logically should."
Misato and the Professor glanced at each other. Naoko just gave her daughter a level stare. "What?" Ritsuko asked.
"You think that Rei is the cutest thing on this red earth," Naoko told her daughter. "Even if people were fighting each other to pinch her cheeks, you'd still think they didn't love her as much as she deserved. Misato, the Professor and I were surprised how easy it was to convince the UN not only not to kill her, but to give her as much freedom as she's been allowed. Kaji wasn't." In hindsight, knowing that he was a follower of SEELE, someone who believed that the seeds of life and wisdom were more than just abominations that all of humanity should find repulsive? That made a certain unpleasant sense. "Now that Armisael's on TV?"
Everyone except Shinji looked at Kyoko, who looked thoughtful. "I despised the feel of Arael's soul, but the fact she was trying to fuck with my daughter probably had something to do with that. And she was an angel, not a seed, but even so… Armisael is just so snuggly!" Little hearts appeared in the computer generated image as Kyoko clasped her hands together enthusiastically. "She was just so lonely and she needed a hug so much! Asuka was always trying to grow up so fast: it's my fault for having her to try to upstage that other woman. I tried to make it up to her after I came to my senses, but trying to prove she's the best and strongest became part of her personality." The damage couldn't entirely be undone, and Asuka mostly responded to her mother saying she didn't have to push herself, really, and Mommy would love her no matter with outward disdain and only inner fuzzies. Heroic Eva pilots did not blush luminiscently because Mommy said she was proud of them. "I was trying to learn to be more demonstrative for Asuka's sake, but then I came in here," the Eva, "and that makes it a little hard to hug her. But Armisael was so snuggly! And she's a little blue dragon, a little Sohryu: it had to be fate!"
The squeeing mommy vanished in an instant, replaced by the second greatest Eva scientist on the face of the planet. "Fate," Dr. Kyoko Sohryu repeated for emphasis, looking each of them in the eyes.
"It's not part of the prophecies," Fuyutsuki reminded them. "Armisael is supposed to be killed by her opposite number: Lilith's sacrifice." Both Ritsuko and Kyoko's expressions grew even darker at the reminder of that: damn SEELE for not releasing the tactical information they had on the other abominations! "But the text is fragmented." And parts of it were damaged where it had been pieced together using improper methods. "And the idea of allowing an abomination to live on UN soil," Rei, "and now another…" Steepling his hands, he looked thoughtful. "Hyuga. Approve more TV exposure for Armisael."
"Sir?" Was that really a good idea?
"We need her. Well, technically we need her or Tabris, but she's under UN control." Unlike SEELE's abomination. "If the light of the soul is among the non-visible frequencies picked up by transmissions, even in a partial form…"
"Sir, you're suggesting that we expose the UN population to mind-altering radiation?"
"Don't call it that," Ritsuko said a little sharply. "Armisael doesn't have the wit to do something like that on purpose, or rather if she knew she could do anything like that, she would have tried it on Dr. Sohryu. If this phenomenon we're discussing even exists, then it's just another sense humans have. And tracking popular opinion of Armisael relative to amount viewed might let me verify this phenomenon, although I'll have to figure out how to design the experiment…" To compensate for the other factors working to get the population to accept their new source of babies and potential terraformer.
"If we're talking about a coronation followed by a wedding? The UN will want to know why if we refuse to let things like that broadcast in our territory. Especially if we're airing large amounts of footage of Armisael and possibly Rei as well at the same time." Surely the Commander couldn't just let that air, and expose the UN public to a possible mind control hazard. Keeping that kind of thing from getting through was part of the NERV Intelligence division's job!
"If it does work through ordinary footage," Naoko said thoughtfully, "You'd think Keel would have found that out. And what he knew, Tabris now knows."
"The man was a political genius and he analyzed the prophecies himself," Fuyutsuki told her, "but science? That's why Gendo Ikari got so much power over there." By heading their research into the genetic and Eva side of it: the engineering as opposed to the grand theories. "They probably just assumed that the Lilim were instinctively recognizing Tabris' innate superiority as a child of the White Seed… Which amounts to almost the same thing, doesn't it. It sounds ridiculous, but so did the idea that Earth was terraformed by godlike aliens, back in my day." Before Professor Fuyutsuki revealed the truth and ended that era of blissful ignorance.
"Tabris is probably so used to hearing people say that he's better than us and we should worship him that he wouldn't have paid attention to it if they believed something like that," Shinji said. "Wistful thinking." On SEELE's part, wanting to believe that Tabris was a superior being and that meant they could become superior beings. "He'd rather believe that he's winning us over by being himself. Who he is, not what he is." His words and deeds, not what amounted to sex appeal.
"So you hope you're wrong," Misato knew. "But you don't think you are." She closed her eyes, thinking back. "Naoko?" Naoko and Misato were the ones who had spent the most time in Tabris' presense, had the most exposure except for Shinji.
Naoko looked thoughtful, then slowly shook her head. "If this ever leaves this room, my vengeance will be swift and terrible, but I didn't like Rei at first. Especially because you were so attached to her, Ritsuko." Naoko's daughter getting herself in trouble by trying to protect some thing? "But if hatred armors us, then my hatred of that bastard," Gendo Ikari, "rubbing off on the abomination he made in his wife's image might have protected me until I made up my own mind about her. I think that she's my cute granddaughter, but that's what I think, not what my hormones think. Trust me," she said with a grimace of distaste, "I know the difference by now." After falling for Gendo Ikari and spending a decade trying to figure out what the hell she'd been thinking before being forced to conclude that genius scientist or not, she hadn't been. "As for Tabris, I knew all along how much destructive power he had, and what SEELE was using him to do." Who the hell cared how cute the thing was: he was a danger to everything on the planet including her daughter. "Then Armisael, and if I didn't know better I'd have assumed you were letting your guilt over Asuka affect your judgment, Kyoko. I didn't just suddenly like any of them, but I certainly did dislike all of them to begin with." So if conscious dislike was enough to ward off unconscious attraction?
"I can't tell either," Misato admitted. "Analyzing my emotions… That's just not me. Rei is Ritsuko's daughter and what's my sister's is mine. I wanted to dispose of her, but the soul would just have ended up in another clone in Gendo's hands, and Ritsuko wanted to bring her home with us, so better than the alternative." She'd just gone along with what the rest of the trio suggested: her job was figuring out how to smash things, not whether or not to smash stuff, not back then. "Tabris… It's hard not to give him a chance if he's making Shinji this happy, and I guess… this also never leaves this room, but it's a little hard not to like him if you do give him a chance. He's sweet, even if he's an idiot who let those bastards use him to deceive the world and protect their mass-murdering asses." He'd gotten between Misato and the men she wanted to kill more than anything, and it would be hard for her to ever forgive him for that. Even if he had killed them for her, in the end, she'd wanted their blood on her own fists, or Naoko's.
"Stupid sweet. Cloying, but I guess he's my arch-nemesis." So she knew him well, and if it was hard to know him and not like him? "Armisael's too… flimsy and touchy-feely and pathetic. She puts me off, to be honest. I'd rather have another daughter like Asuka." Who was Misato's step-daughter for legal purposes since it was a little hard for Kyoko to a lot of maternal things, like hugging, from inside the Eva.
"I would ask you for particulars, Shinji," the details of how he felt about Tabris/Kaworu, how that had changed over time, "but since that would involve listening to my fourteen-year-old son gush about his boyfriend and your sister took my vodka, I'd really rather not. Consider us duly warned, but at this point we don't have any firm evidence to suggest there's an effect, at least not one that works over the airwaves, and lucky for us the professional conspiracy theorists have already gone over this possibility. So as long as the intelligence division continues to exercise due caution," the Commander gave Hyuga a meaningful look, "I don't think this is a serious concern. We of all people," NERV's command staff, "can't afford to get bogged down in paranoid theories that aren't testable, or witch hunts."
Shinji nodded. "I know, I just thought I should mention the possibility."
"It's good to know you think there's a possibility so we can start thinking about how to handle this," and the inquiry, "but right now?" Fuyutsuki looked down at the crown and sighed. "I can't help being reminded of when I found out that your mother married Gendo. Of course, at the time I thought he was the one leading her astray." Before Yui, Gendo was a violent punk. Afterwards, he set off Second Impact, performed inhuman experiments and used his charisma to destabilize governments, especially Refuge's neighbors so SEELE could seize more resources and territory. "I suppose in this case that's a good omen. That he has more cause to be afraid of you than you do of him." When Shinji was supposed to be Tabris' death. "But, son, if you're the only threat to him that means he has motive to neutralize that threat. And so do his worshippers." Making the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls public meant making that public as well: it hadn't taken people very long to figure out who Tabris' destined beloved killer had to be.
Then came the inevitable public outcry of 'so why isn't the abomination dead yet?!'
Fuyutsuki pushed his hair back, once again thinking of how it had gone gray years ago and yet he was amazed the stress wasn't making it fall out on top of that. "Talking about how he has time… Please, Shinji. Please keep in mind that you may have to do your duty." He still might have to kill Tabris, for one reason or another. There were plenty of reasons. Shinji had to get used to that idea: he couldn't start thinking that it was never going to happen, or it would hurt more if it did. When it did.
"I know," Shinji said, careful to grip his legs instead of the crown: gold was soft. He was certain he was strong enough to damage it. To rip it apart. "I know, and he wouldn't want me to let it bother me too much."
The adults exchanged glances.
The silence wore on, until, "He's just so kind," Shinji said as though it was a confession. "He, he really is… I don't want SEELE to be right about anything, and I know so many kind people, but he's kinder than anyone I know. He's perfect, and there's no way I could not love him. He's, he's my Kaworu, and if it was him or me, if one of us had to die…" Shinji froze, and they saw his shoulders tremble a little.
It was Misato who said, "If it was him or you?" because she was the other Eva pilot here, and Shinji needed to bite the bullet, to force this out. They needed to know where he stood.
"…Him," Shinji said, and his shoulders hunched in, his whole body trembled, trying to hide from the horror of that thought. "Because that's what he would want. He's so much better than I am: I'd hate myself and want to die if I was the one to live, but Kaworu… He'd hurt so, so much. I could survive murdering someone even as wonderful as Kaworu, but Kaworu's so kind: he blames himself for Second Impact even though he knows better, so he couldn't ever forgive himself for living at the cost of my life. He'd have to keep on living for his people, and I couldn't, I couldn't do that to him. Even if it's better for the world if he's the one to live, I'd still… I still couldn't do that to him." Because Shinji, because the former pilot of Unit 01, loved his race's enemy more than he loved the world.
A pilot's job, but a pilot's duty, was to be a killer. Shinji's job was to kill abominations: that was what the world expected of him. This was what it wanted of him, the task he would be hailed as a hero for completing. The reason didn't matter. Not enough that anyone here would see any need to report this. To consider him compromised. If the order came it would be to kill Tabris, not to spare him. As long as Shinji carried it out no one could consider him a traitor.
Not in the UN territories, anyway.
Not that anyone present gave much of a damn about what the SEELE sympathizers in Refuge thought. Even if they'd fled there only out of fear for their lives or their children's, they'd known the consequences. They'd known that humanity was in a fight for survival and they were choosing the wrong side, in their desire to be on the winning side.
They didn't matter. Not next to Shinji.
It was Shinji that Misato crouched next to, pulling her baby brother up into her arms as Fuyutsuki carefully stood up and limped – he'd broken his lower left leg when a bodyguard knocked him down behind the podium during an assassination attempt, and it still ached sometimes in the glacial cold of NERV's inner chambers – over to join his daughter and his grieving boy.
Shinji wasn't crying. He'd cried so many tears after his mother gave herself to the Eva, but now he'd learned to hide them, to hold him in, and it was too soon, too young.
But it was what they'd asked of him, what the world needed, and Fuyutsuki knew he didn't deserve this, not when he'd almost found his courage too late.
They didn't deserve him but there he stood, right hand holding the crown offered for love of him as he trembled at the thought of losing that divine love. Holding it tight enough that either the metal or his flesh must give, something must break or be bent by the force of that emotion.
There's a quote from Anno that Kaworu was envisioned as such a good person that just meeting him was going to give Shinji a complex. In the anime Shinji has been buried in how humans are bastards, everyone's messed up (especially himself) and then he meets someone who genuinely is perfectly kind. Legitimately a better person than Shinji ever could be: when Humans are Bastards is part of Eva's theme, Kaworu's kindness just is as much of a clue to what he is as his hair and skin tone, really. Because it's not humanly possible to be that nice, so either he's evil (this interpretation is part of why the hatedom) or he's not human.
Shinji saying that Kaworu is the one who deserved to live, the superior lifeform? Yes, but as Misato points out Kaworu died because his will to live was inferior. The Lilim are the race who are willing to kill in cold blood (like Shinji kills Kaworu) and even use things like the Evas in order to extend our own lives. The Lilim are willing to fuck people over in order to ensure our own survival, while Kaworu isn't willing to kill billions (more) in order to survive himself. So the Lilim get the planet. Oh, Kaworu says that our music and so on are great and we deserve to live more, and he's way too nice so he probably believes that, but Shinji's got a good point too. A world populated by people as nice as Kaworu would be a much better world.
After being burned so hard by every human he'd reached out to, I think that Shinji's awareness on some level that Kaworu wasn't human was part of why he opened up to Kaworu so quickly. It would almost have to have better odds of not ending badly. Arael was an evil, mind-raping bitch? She ain't got nothing on Gendo Ikari. And, you know, at least he's allowed to kill angels.
Feedback is always adored and requests are still being accepted.