Act 3:The closing curtains.
The week that had passed since 'the incident' as everyone in Nerv had been directly instructed to call it was a chilling one. For an Angel to attack a mere two days after the next left everyone on edge,doubly so because their only unit had,by order of the mysterious instrumentality committee been ordered frozen still in bakelite.
"I still don't understand why,i mean..the unit still has one possible pilot."Maya said as she looked at the frozen form of unit-01. The doctor by her side, sighed.
"There are some things beyond your understanding Maya,as far as you should care Unit 01 is just not combat usable." The doctor said,though the fact that she didn't agree with the unit's freeze was obvious to any who knew her.
"I know sempai,my apologies."The technician said,bowing deeply as she did and to which the doctor simply gave a dismissive wave of the hand as her eyes locked into the titanic form of unit-01 once again.
The spear of Cassius which it had created from the Seraph's body was clear for the world to see,it's shaft peeking above the bakelite with which the unit was frozen. The committee had also made it clear that the spear was,under no circumstance,to leave the unit's body.
Which of course lead to rather curious questions coming from those members of the staff who were not aware of the true origins of the spear or if it's twin from another mother,or rather father,stuck deep down in terminal dogma.
The Doctor sighed, the tired sigh of someone who had barely slept in the entire week,a sigh shared by many of the technical staff at NERV following the utter disaster that had been the first Seraph's coming,even if officially it was being dubbed the fifteenth angel. Even now Seele denies the existence of the Seraph..i suppose this is what happens when one is so blinded by their dogma. Akagi though.
A few more seconds passed,the unit did not move and the doctor's aide in Ibuki did not speak,and so the fake blonde decided to maker her way to do something more productive. "I'll be going to check on the first's condition, make sure the unit doesn't even move an inch and submerge it fully in bakelite if it does."
Ibuki gave a hurried nod. "Yes Sempai,i'll do my best!"
Shinji Ikari's room was not like most hospital rooms,most hospital rooms after all,were not flanked by fully armed security personnel and rigged to explode at the slightest of disturbances. Even among all this security it was not so uncommon for the young comatose boy to receive a few visits,be it from his rowdy fellow pilot and redheaded girlfriend,the purple haired major or the false blonde that was the doctor.
Flashing her security ID continued into the room,a disinfectant being sprayed on her as she walked through the first layer of the airlock leading into the room. Needless worrying by the part of the more bureaucratic elements of Nerv,the boy's immune system was doing fine enough that no disinfected airlock was necessary.
She walked over to him, his eyelids still firmly closed as he sat with an unusually blank expression in his young face,above him and plugged into him were a variety of monitoring apparatus.
Tentative Name:Shinji Ikari,first child. That was what his file read,not simply Shinji Ikari. And that was for one very simple reason,the boy's physiology could no longer be considered fully human,not truly at least, In fact, had their short range sensors not been destroyed by the angel's assault on central dogma, the boy would have probably been marked as the 16th angel.
Well,in the end he was no less human than Ayanami Rei was,and even then he could not be considered quite as 'special' in that regard either. But having been the catalyst for unit 01's awakening he was not fully Lilim, all they had to do was clear him in the Magi's system like they had with Rei and when the short range sensors came back online they had detected nothing.
But Seele suspected things, not that it truly mattered, Seele always suspected things,doubly so when things went against their plans,but with the awakening of unit-04 a mere three days before the awakening of unit-01 it was not hard to convince them that awakenings were simply not a part of the scrolls of the dead sea,and that in the end all would go according to their plan.
They had seemed to believe it,even if the doctor knew better than to think those 'old men' as the commander ironically called them didn't plan to betray Nerv the very same moment they could. Which would undoubtedly come whenever the true 17th angel was ultimately defeated.
The doctor sat down on the chair beside the boy and looked at his peaceful and unremarkable face, the face of a child she considered,in some ways,as her own son. Then,her memory flashed to who had come with the child from the plug,his equally comatose biological mother.
Akagi's nails dug into her flesh but she breathed in,she needed to be calm,she couldn't let her anger get the better of her,couldn't become like her mother. So what if Shinji's biological mother was back? Even if Shinji choose her that wouldn't change things,not by that much,they would still be friends,and it wasn't like Shinji had ever seen her as his mother. No,the truth was simple, the only one who wanted that kind of relationship was herself. So there really was no need to worry that their relationship would change.
Even so, she wished the boy would awaken,if only to ease her mind of the burdens that had been placed on it.
Gendo Ikari stood where he had always stood for the last week,by his wife's side. Even as she did not awaken,did not make a sound besides that of her breathing,he stood by her side. He had nothing else he could do but this, he had no other method of easing his worry that she would simply fade from his grasp again besides this single action.
Whenever he was not with her he was with Shinji and when he was with neither it was because he was convincing Seele's insufferable old fools that the scenario was still proceeding as expected. It was not and both he and they knew so. The Awakening of unit-01 was a potential hindrance within Seele's plans and the very goal of Gendo's own. In the end victory was closer than ever before.
"S-shinji.." Gendo blinked, a word, a word had left his wife's mouth,the first signs of life within a week. A word,not just any word,their son's name. Gendo grabbed her hand and gave it a loving squeeze.
"Shinji's alright Yui..he's doing okay,just wake up soon and he'll be here to see you."A lie,their son was still in a coma much like she was,but she didn't know that,she need motivation to awaken,not a reason not to do so for longer. And in the end,among the sea of lies that was Gendo Ikari's life..what hurt could one more cause?
"Left arm regenerative process is at 27%"
A young red-headed girl stood with narrowed eyes as she looked at her Evangelion unit-02,the once mighty beast looking positively pathetic with all of it's injuries,doubly so as a half-assed attempt at recreating it's limbs was made. The majestic form of her Evangelion was no longer so majestic,then again it did seem to fit her mental state.
She was weak,weak to the point where she couldn't beat the angel and now,worse of all,she was alone. With her idiot of a boyfriend stuck in a coma that she had no idea how long it would last,forcing her to instead look on at the very representation of her failure.
Absentmindedly she wondered if she deserved such failure,if her actions in past and present were enough to justify the utter gut wrenching despair which she felt. She supposed they did, she was indeed quite a bitch after all,she always hurt those she loved and in the end she was too selfish for her own good.
Despite all of these flaws that even she,a proud person by nature, could find in herself, she was still loved by the brown haired and blue eyed boy that was the first child,and yet he was no longer there,he had not run away,in fact he'd done opposite of doing so,he'd ran straight into danger and nearly gotten himself killed.
Because you told him you needed him. A voice in the back of her mind told her, that voice that had once been only a flicker that she tried to subdue,the part of herself that loved Shinji Ikari,that part of herself was no longer subdued,it was now as much a part of herself as all other parts of her were. And it was right, he'd done it all,protected her because she'd told him,quite clearly,that she needed him.
"I don't need anyone, I can live by myself!" Her young self's words echoed in her mind. Had she really fallen so far from grace? To the point of telling Shinji Ikari,of all people,that she needed him.
Don't lie,you know he needs you as well. The part of her that loved him said,and she was forced to agree. It was the truth,they were the same after all. And she missed him,she wouldn't lie to herself and pretend like the emptiness of her bed didn't feel suffocating, she needed him and she hoped he needed her,and she wished he would just come back to her. She wished he would come back so she could hold him again,so they could hold each-other.
"Come on you idiot..."
Shinji Ikari blinked into wakefulness,his eyes felt heavy and his mind felt unusually clear, the white ceiling above him was as unfamiliar as it was pristine. He blinked again, he felt lost,confused.
"An unfamiliar ceiling...again."
12 Monoliths,all stood utterly still,for a second until one,dubbed first among them all,spoke.
"This has become a precarious situation." He said,his voice distorted as were those of the others.
"Indeed,it appears that unit-01 seeks to replace the position of god." Another,the one dubbed the third,spoke up. "This goes against our final plan,the union of all under instrumentality."
"There is little need to be so pessimistic." The fifth assured. "The true nail coming from the spear of Lilith has been removed from the unit,with this it can be used as a replacement for her primordial form."
"Indeed." The first said. "while such a thing is rather troublesome it cannot be helped,we will have to go with our backup plan."
"We are forgetting something important,i might remind you." The Seventh spoke. "The unit,by it's own power created a spear of Cassius,a recreation of what we had thought long lost. If it's ascension had gone to completion it would have ascended past the god-like existence granted to it by the super solenoid engine and into a truly divine one,creating both spears of creation and destruction from the power that should be Lilith's."
"Yes,if such an ascension had gone to it's full lengths,the results would truly be disastrous." The second said. "Not to say,the first has advanced past human limits."
"No more so than our agent and the second child, it will not affect the final plan,his ascension is as incomplete as that of his unit." The third assured.
"Indeed,our plans can still continue,this has only been a hindrance,even if a larger one than initially expected." The eight said.
"Mankind's final cleansing will soon arrive,the eternal womb shall be ours!" The first assured with a triumphant shout,the others followed along.
Rei Ayanami looked out at the destroyed form of the geofront from her position at the balcony of the pilot's quarters,which had thankfully not been too badly damaged in the battle against the first Seraph(as the commander had informed her the enemy was called).
The once might fortress of mankind felt utterly desolate,the destruction brought to it by the Seraph's assault making it look more like the front-line of a battlefield than the last line of mankind's defenses against the angels.
Even her own assault,even a direct hit by a N2 missile had only managed to stop the Seraph for a few seconds, in the end it had taken a near-impact event to truly destroy the Seraph in all of it's fury...and this was merely the first,the first of the Seraph had brought about enough destruction to take down 2 Evangelion units,no,in essence it had taken down 3. It had taken the ascension of unit 01 into something greater than an Evangelion to defeat it.
And this was just the first. Would she have to face more,in the future?
The future...the future,what was going to become of the commander's scenario. Rei's use was no longer valid,doctor Ikari had been retrieved from Evangelion,Lilith was no longer a fitting initiator to the rite of instrumentality,she'd been made useless.
She wondered if that meant she should die, her use to the commander had come to an end after all, her use to the world and to the plan was equally null now that Evangelion unit-01 had begun part of it's final ascension,all she was now was the pilot of the most temperamental and least controllable Evangelion out of them all.
Would anyone still love her?Would the commander still speak to her even thought he no longer held a use for her?Would her brother still love her even now that he had his mother back,making her nigh on useless to him?
But,most importantly of all,why did she care,why did she care if others would love her,why did she care if the commander and if her brother would treat her a same now that the woman she shared a face with was back in this world?
She didn't know and frankly it terrified her,it terrified her that she might lose all she had held dear,even as a false person,even as someone unworthy of the love of others by her very base nature,she still wanted it none the less, she wanted to feel loved and to love in return.
And yet she might be denied this by the existence of her original self,of the body of which she was born,a woman who was the closest thing to a biological mother she truly had. "Doctor Ikari."
She did not resent the doctor,it would be selfish of her to do so,but she was somewhat jealous,somewhat jealous that Rei herself couldn't be as human as she was,somewhat jealous that she was just an imperfect recreation of that woman,no,not even that,an imperfection recreation of an already flawed copy.
She sighed.
"I suppose...it is time for me to be cursed like others...to find my own purpose."
Shinji sat in bed, his hospital garb feeling uncomfortable around him as he looked down at his own lap, his mind ran with a million thoughts a second as he looked at his hand. He clutched it,and then relaxed it and then repeated the same motion at least half a dozen times.
This was the hand he had used to pull back his mother...why?He didn't understand, he didn't understand why he'd done it,why he'd saved her. Had he continued...had he continued the entire world would have been fixed,cleansed of the weight of that sin 15 years ago.
And yet he couldn't do it,the childish part of himself that wished for his mother's affection hadn't allowed her to die in front of him once again. But..he'd succeeded,he still remembered,the very moment before his world became a dark abyss,his mother had been there,she'd been alive.
He smiled, as long as he could save everyone, even if it made things harder for himself..even if that meant more suffering in the future,as long as he could save everyone it would be alright.
The door,or rather,the airlock,to his room opened, a man in a section two uniform walking in with a file in his hands.
"You are Shinji Ikari,correct?"He asked, quite obviously aware of that fact that the boy standing before him was,indeed, Shinji Ikari but being forced to work bureaucracy none the less.
"Yes,that is me."The boy replied,the man nodded.
"You've been cleared of potential mental or physical contamination and will soon be allowed visitors coming from your immediate family or those who make a written request of which you will be given the opportunity to accept or deny."The man said,reciting the words from the document in his hand.
"I understand."Shinji said,the man's eyes didn't leave the document as he spoke.
"Furthermore,you are cleared of piloting duty for a period of upward to six months or until a suiting substitute for Evangelion unit-01 has been found."
Shinji nodded,the man continued to speak. "And lastly,there has already been a written request for visitation made by the third child,Asuka Langely Sohryu. She sounded quite adamant."
Shinji smiled. "Allow her to visit whenever she wants to."
The man nodded. "Very well,furthermore the instrumentality committee has called for a meeting between yourself and their high members in exactly one week. You are expected to attend."
Another nod from Shinji. "I will."
"Very well,have a good recovery Shinji Ikari."The man said before turning to leave.
"Thank you."He replied.
After that he stood in wait for several minutes,the lack of any entertainment or of anything to do ,making it feel more like hours,and then the door opened, a familiar head of red hair and blue eyes staring back at him. Shinji smiled,she smiled back.
"You're...finally awake."She said,an emotion somewhere between happiness and relief seeping from her voice. He nodded.
"Yeah..well,i don't know for how long I was gone in the first place,the guy who briefed me on things didn't say anything and the doctors were even less helpful."Shinji said,Asuka looked at the chair next to his bed.
"Can I?"She asked,he nodded and she sat down. "It's..it's been a week."
Shinji's eyes widened,he'd assumed it'd been a bit,at least a day,but a week...a week was a long time, a very long time. "oh...Asuka,I'm so-"
She brought a hand up to his lips. "What are you stupid?! What kind of person apologizes for going into a coma...geez."
He silenced himself, biting his lip in an effort to not to give off another meek 'sorry' at her words,god,why was he feeling so weak lately? "About...about the day before the battle...you were right,i shouldn't..i shouldn't have run away."
"Of course you shouldn't have."Asuka agreed. "But I also don't think my reaction was the best it's just...everyone,everyone I've..I've loved. They've all just...they've all left..and I thought...you too."
"I'm sorry."Shinji said,ignoring the glare that followed. "It's just that...I've hurt everyone I care about...and in the end I think..i think that's all I end up doing,i end up hurting the people who matter to me most. It's just..i love you a lot and..i was afraid that I'd end up hurting you but..well,i guess in the end by running away I hurt you more."
"You really are an idiot you know?"Asuka 'asked' with an exasperated sigh. "I'm not a kid, I know enough about relationships to know that we're gonna end up hurting each-other and...if you're there,if you stand by my side..then that's enough for me so...so don't think you can get rid of me that easily!"
Shinji smiled. "I'm...I'm glad then. I love you Sohryu."
She wrapped her hands around his neck,leaning in closer to him. "Don't start calling me Sohryu Again baka-Shinji."
He chuckled. "Sorry Asuka."
"Baka,i love you as well."And with that,she gave a soft kiss on the lips.
A large cargo plane came in for a landing in Vienna's busiest airport,it's gigantic frame coming to a stop on the runaway as a group of four people looked on from a distance. The oldest among them,Eugene Drache, took a sip of a fine red wine as he looked out at the incoming frame of the flying machine.
"Ah,a beautiful creation of mankind indeed. What's inside however,oh,now that is true beauty"Drache commented.
"Space exploration always has been one of your kinks,hasn't it?"Travis asked with a hint of humor,the woman to his side gave a snort as she looked down at her laptop with a hunched over posture.
"Ah,there is something to be said about mankind's ultimate destiny to reach toward the heavens above,is there not?" He said.
"Well Grampa,it would be better if you focused a little on us mere mortals as well,you know?"Kurumi,the man's 15 year old granddaughter said with a hint of humor in her voice. And thought her appearance was that of a Japanese girl her German,spoken with an Austrian accent,was perfect.
"Ah,but it is for you that I do many of these things too Kurumi." Her grandfather said,the girl averted her eyes somewhat.
"Yeah,yeah. I know as much."She said,a hint of sadness in her voice.
"So,what part of your toy even is this?"Cecile asked, not even looking at her boss as she continued to have her eyes focused singularly on her work.
"Engine block number one,if I'm not mistaken."Eugene said. "One of the last parts required for phase one."
"And I'm still here wondering where exactly you get the cash to blow on these projects." Travis commented from beside the man as he looked down at the plane as it finished it's landing. "I mean an SSTO is a big expenditure after all."
Eugen nodded. "A big expenditure it was indeed,but in the end this is something that many who invest in the less secretive parts of our organization are interest in as well,a replacement for the American space shuttle program with half the cost,all based on N2 technology. It's pretty much any space agency's wildest dream."
"I'm sure it's got nothing to do with those same elements also wanting to get weapons into orbit now that there are no treaties stopping them from doing so."Cecile commented slyly.
"Ah,yours is a careful eye after all."Eugen said. "Of course,we already have a few weapon deployments lined up,i made sure to make those cost extra, call it an attempt at ensuring the peace."
"In the end even peace has a price for you,eh boss?"Travis asked,the man nodded and Travis gave him a sly grin. "And that's why your my kind of man!"
Even peace has a price uh...Kurumi commented as she looked down at the unloading of engine block 1,for some reason and for the first time in her life, she wondered if her grandfather was truly wrong.
A helicopter overflew the reddened remains of what once been Nerv-2's sub-branch in Nevada,the ground below was nearly fluorescent in it's crimson hue and looked uncomfortably much like blood. Jackson starlit's eyes narrowed as the helicopter finally descended on the location of the base proper,little more than mangled metal remained of it, a large crater in the ground marked the spot where the so called 'ascension' had begun.
One of his aides,a man in his early twenties by the name of Daniel,approached him, leaning closer toward the crater with a curious glance.
"So it's as they said..."Jackson commented. "the unit has truly vanished."
His aide nodded. "Yes sir,while the military Is still holding rescue operations for the unit and it's pilot,it's quite unlikely that either will be found,a silver unit would stand out in this kind of environment and neither satellite footage or overflying airplanes have shown anything besides red."
"I suppose this is the cost of human hubris."Starlit commented. "Was anything recovered?"
"We have a few security tapes on the outside cameras being held at the military's temporary encampment site." Daniel said, Starlit nodded.
"Let's go then,i want to be the first to see those tapes."
His aide nodded and soon they were both off to the place were the military was directing the rescue operations,no one had been found,starlit assumed that no one would, he'd not seen even as much as a single insect in that red and unearthly hell.
The footage was not all too clear, the only thing that could be seen was a spear breaking through the spinning vortex of red and impaling the ascending Unit-04 however,in the last frame of footage.
"Freeze it there!" Starlit commanded, the man who was playing back the footage nodded.
There stood something,an Evangelion for certain,it's size and it's form assured of that,but it was jet-black with hints of orange and red, though the footage was too blurry to pick out anything. "Evangelion?"
"And it's...flying?"Daniel asked.
"The only question is why? We were given no information that another unit had been deployed." Starlit asked.
"Well sir,you know Nerv can be quite secretive."His aide said, the man nodded.
"I suppose they can,well,we're better off sending this to the 2th branch."
Then,the click of a gun's safety coming undone,as the two men looked back they were shocked to find the general having his pistol pointed at them,5 of his men behind him. "Now I don't know how you got your hands on that footage before we had a chance to blow it all to hell but...well,let's just say that your options now are limited."
For some reason, Jackson Starlit had a very bad feeling about this.
"Well Shinji,besides the aforementioned physiological changes,you're pretty much healthy enough to go home in a few days, a few checks up every other day until your abdominal wounds heal up fully and you'll be good to go."Ritsuko said.
Shinji nodded. "Thank you Ritsuko."
"I'm just doing my job."She replied, a bit colder than usual.
"Thanks anyways, how's..Doctor Ikari?" He asked,not knowing what to call the woman who was his mother.
"The doctor is still in a comatose state,we're unsure if she'll recover as quickly as you did,she was in a non-physical form for nearly a decade while you were only so for a few seconds at best."
"Thank you..."Shinji said,looking down at his lap one again. "I've heard unit-01 is under freeze."
"Until further notice,yes."Ritsuko said. "Why,does it disappoint you not to pilot?"
He shook his head. "Nothing like that...it's just,there's more angels..and I don't want the others to be hurt."
"The others are trained pilots,just like you. In the end you'll have to trust them to be able to do the job well enough." Ritsuko said, Shinji nodded.
"It's not that I don't trust them,i just can't help but worry as well."Shinji admitted. "I care a lot about everyone,i don't want them to..to be hurt."
Ritsuko smiled. "I know as much,you're a good kid Shinji,don't let yourself forget that."
He gave a soft smile and a dishonest nod, he didn't really feel like he was but,if Ritsuko said so he wouldn't want to disappoint her by denying it. "Oh..what did happen to unit-08?"
"Unit-08?"Ritsuko asked. "Aside from some minor external damage it's currently being held in standby mode,it's pilot was badly injured in the initial explosive outburst of the fourteenth angel,it's a miracle she survived in the first place."
"Makinami is..."Shinji trailed of,clutching his fist. "I...i didn't even know until now."
"It doesn't make you a bad person."Ritsuko said.
"For you maybe..."Shinji said,looking down.
"If you try to carry the weight of everyone's sufferings all you'll end up doing is find another position in which the only thing you can do is run away. One man alone cannot carry the burdens of the entire world, hell, many cannot even carry those of even who they love."
"I don't like to see others suffer."Shinji said.
"It is through suffering that man can define himself, a life devoid of suffering would be no life at all."Ritsuko said. Shinji nodded.
"Even so...a life with much less of it...i wouldn't mind something like that at all."Shinji said wistfully.
"I suppose that...neither would I."Ritsuko said. "Well,i'll be seeing you around Shinji."
He waved as she left,and was suddenly struck into another state of introspection.
"If I try to carry the burdens of everyone's sufferings all I'll end up doing is find another position in which the only thing i can do is run away uh?..."Shinji sighed. "This world really is twisted."
Maya watched as a red object was slowly lowered into a high security underground vault,it's size was gigantic by the standards of humans,but when compared to the size of the beast from whence it came it was something rather small indeed.
"Sempai..i don't want to overstep my bounds but..."Maya began,sounding hesitant,the doctor took notice of this with a small smile
"There is no need to be worried,if it's something out of your classification level I will simply say so."Ritsuko said.
"Well ma'am..it's just,I was wondering what that is."She said,gesturing toward the nail-like object that the vault was being enclosed around.
"A weapon capable of piercing the AT field of any angelwith relative ease,it was used when the first activation test of unit-01 went badly years ago and seemed to have fused into the unit's core."Ritsuko explained. "It seems like when the spiritual core of the Evangelion was dumped it also released the nail."
"I see ma'am..i assume that's why they are keeping it so tightly locked up,because it's a dangerous weapon?"Maya asked,the doctor nodded.
"In a way,yes, in another no. Just don't worry too much about it,it's how I've learned to deal with these sorts of things."Ritsuko said.
Maya nodded in response. "Yes ma'am."
The sky above, an endless expanse of blue that reached for as far as the eye could see. A world chosen for it's place in the universe, a rarity among the billions in the stars,a world prone for life even without the aid of the gods,and with them? It was a world positively teeming with it,in every corner of the earth be it the highest of heavens or the lowest of trenches you could find life.
Kaworu Nagisa gave a pleased sound as he watched the heaven above,the white clouds parting through the sky in beautiful fashion.
The first phase of his plan had gone by without a hitch and he had not even needed to move a single muscle,in fact it was nearly comical how well things had gone. But he was not foolish,he would not assume that the next phases would go nearly so well.
"In the end it comes down to the first,how ironic,that I,the last of the angels rely on the first of the Angel killers." He commented with a soft smile. "Even so..Ikari Shinji...i'm sure we'll meet."
"We are kindred spirits after all."
AN:And that's it for today's chapter(Which is very creatively named),shorter than usual but I did give you 9k words in the last one.