Crumpled and abandoned, the former Evangelion pilot Asuka Langley Soryu lay wheezing and half-conscious on the floor of Misato's thoroughly trashed kitchen. She lay where she had been left for dead after her erstwhile companion, Shinji Ikari, discarded her in favor of his more apocalyptic ambitions. She didn't know how long she had lain there. It felt like five seconds ago, but it could have easily been five centuries, or longer.
She felt something wet on her toes and recoiled. Making a sudden movement shook her into a higher level of awareness so she rolled herself into a half erect position. Her feet had been in a puddle of coffee, now cold. She remembered everything.
Everything meant in a holistic sense. She was aware of billions of undulating human minds swirling into one multiplicity. The feeling of insignificance was not altogether new to her. Asuka hated herself, after all. This novel and vivid awareness of her not-even-a-billionth's share of the world was a bit much, though.
She felt her own mind slipping through a prism that refracted what made up Asuka into every color of the human experience. To her it felt more like getting passed through a mental cheese grater. Scrape-scrape-scraping away at her wholeness into digestible chunks.
She felt a billion other billionths of this new being pressing in upon her, too. Their rapturous glee at seeing her horrified her, their orgasmic bliss with their new-found intimacy disgusted her. They pulled her apart along every hatred, fear, anxiety, loneliness, and even love. They held each aspect of herself up to their faces like a mirror and called out: You are me, too. We feel the same. We are more alike than we ever knew.
You don't understand me! Nobody can understand me! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
Asuka pushed herself up against a cabinet and coughed hard. She tasted coppery LCL which she spat out onto the floor, then wiped her mouth on her yellow shirt.
Stupid Shinji, where'd you go? Come finish the job. You stupid coward! You never finish anything off except yourself!
Asuka could feel his absence even in all those billions.
She surveyed the upended ruin of their home. She felt responsible for it. Responsibility swelled into a perverse sense of satisfaction. This had been her work. It had taken her a lot of time and tears to get here.
It's not me, it's you.
She had finally proven herself right. After all those false starts, false hopes, and one terrible kiss, Asuka had proven categorically to herself for all time that the Shinji she needed, or had thought she needed, did not exist. Could not exist. She had given him every opportunity. But he wouldn't even hold me.
Because I was his jerk-off fantasy. That hit her hard, somehow even harder than it was bearing witness to his memory of the act. It wasn't just that he had done that. I can't believe I believed all this time I could be anything more. That's what was behind all of his stupid smilies and his stupid sorrys and rushing out in front of me to fight all the angels.
"You're the only one for me!" What a lie! As if he could cover up his crime.
He instantly proved her right. He called out for somebody, anybody else when she refused him.
"Help me, save me!" He begged me when no one else came, as if that would flatter me into forgetting.
Nobody had.
Conceited little boy. Jerking off to the whole world. They never asked you to do anything. And then what did you go and do, huh?
"Why aren't you here?!" she screamed and kicked a toppled chair. It skittered across the floor into the upturned table. She hugged her knees to her chest to crush out the rage but only tears came. The needy billionths came creeping back. She pulled herself together, wiping her tears from her eyes and onto her blue shorts.
With much less difficulty than she expected, she hauled herself onto her feet. She had steeled herself for more of a struggle so when it hadn't come she had to grapple with finding a purpose faster than expected. Where would she go? Where was she really? It was hard, but the cloying verisimilitude of the apartment fell apart under any close examination. She wasn't really there.
I guess when you're nowhere, you can go anywhere, she thought, marching out the apartment door.
Or so she thought. She emerged into one of the anonymous corridors that criss-crossed the GeoFront. Behind her was more corridor.
I'm dead and I still can't escape this place. Great.
She perceived a drip-drip-dripping sensation and a red warmth that ran down her right arm. But there didn't seem to be anything the matter when she looked. Nothing was amiss other than that the right sleeve of her plug suit was torn apart and hung in ribbons from her shoulder and wrist.
My plug suit? When did I change clothes?
Still not really knowing what to do, she kept walking while she collected herself.
"I am dead, right?" she said aloud.
Nobody replied.
She replayed the last few seconds of her life in her mind, at least the way she understood it. The monsters descended on her. Tearing. Then they leapt into the air to prepare the killing blow. I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'll kill you. A new presence in the entry plug crawled towards her. The presence was intensely familiar even through the murk of LCL fouled by Asuka's own blood. And at his touch, her miserable physical existence ended with a pop.
His touch?
If that was him then what happened afterwards? Did he regret it? Did he think I wouldn't find out?
She and Stupid Shinji had ricoched in and out of each other's minds saying nothing particularly new but learning a great deal about one another. She had laid down the gauntlet. He had balked, like always. Strangling her, though, that was a new tactic.
You won't even hold me.
This was Instrumentality, a word she learned from Misato's recollections moments before or maybe ages ago. That was early on, before the titanic cacophony of several billion more souls poured into her, now their, collective consciousness. Those ones had not been remotely aware of what was going on. There was a great amount of psychic shouting.
The sterile white hallway stretched on into infinity. There was no geometry to this place which left Asuka feeling increasingly disoriented and nauseous. She braced herself by a window that opened out to the great subterranean habitat. The silvery arc of the GeoFront's false sky shone brightly. There was no natural blue there.
No bombs fell here. It's not real.
She looked down at the idyllic forest. The trees should have been knocked over and burnt down to charcoal. In the distance, she could distinctly make out a small garden. She squinted at it, hoping desperately to see a figure there. Nobody was tending it.
Even though she was alone in a phony hallway, Asuka felt self-conscious. Her plug suit was starting to bunch and peel back in awkward places. It was meant to form a hermetic seal around her body, but the damage made that impossible. It would start to slough off if she didn't change out of it soon.
Just what I need, four billion perverts staring at me naked.
She turned around and, miraculously, she was already across the hall from the NERV locker room for female pilots.
Yeah, right. Whatever. Since I'm here...
She stomped inside. The locker room was also empty, though that wasn't all that unusual. There had only ever been two girl pilots, and one of them spent much of her time in a hospital ward. Asuka shuddered at the thought. She noticed that her school uniform was neatly folded and piled on a bench like she had changed out of it herself earlier and traipsed off to battle.
Of course it is.
Asuka disengaged her suit's form-fitting mechanism, but the seals were so wrecked that she ended up having to tear herself free chunk by chunk. Peeling off each piece reminded her of the awful, awkward fitting sessions back at NERV Third Branch in Germany but in reverse.
Sorry to ruin all your fine work, Herren. You really outdid yourselves on fitting this thing. Anybody who worked in your department should've had their computers seized and scanned for contraband...
Bits of her pride came off with every piece so she was slowly stripped of that, too. Her right sleeve was torn because it had been shredded by one of those twisted spears. She remembered how pathetic it felt to put her hand up against the final assault by those monsters. She had won, then lost, her greatest battle. The last battle ever fought on Earth.
In her fourteen years of life, she could count two days when she wanted most to live. The first day ended with her mother's death, the second day ended with her own. Sort of.
The last scraps of her suit to come off were the gauntlets with their shackle-like cuffs. She let them drop to the floor with a clunk. Her red headsets came out of her hair easily. She held one in each palm, hefting them suspiciously. They were somewhat heavy when she wore them as improvised hair clips, but she had long decided that she could bear that minor discomfort as an outward symbol of her own greatness and authority. If kings and queens could haul around solid gold crowns on their pointy heads to let the peons know who's boss, she could do it, too. And, unlike a crown, she had earned them.
At least so she had thought until quite recently. Finding her mother inside the Eva made her wonder.
Was this my inheritance? Was I born into this life? Was it ever a choice?
Now the headsets felt like two leaden lumps.
Asuka eyed her neatly piled school clothing. Ordinarily she'd place the headsets besides her clothing so she'd be ready to accessorize again after showering. Her eyes drifted to the rags piled on the floor. She closed her fists and at last hurled them into the darkness of the far locker room. The headsets clanked against some lockers and into oblivion. Then she dug her heel into the ruined red heap on the floor and twisted, her teeth bared.
As she showered, she couldn't help but trace her fingers along the tell-tale signs of her mental breakdown. The tone of a youthful athlete had given way to protruding rib and hip bones. Her muscles felt tight but without strength, like a rope pulled too taut. Everywhere she pressed inward felt hollow. She wanted to punch the tile, but she doubted she even had the strength to hurt herself anymore.
Asuka put on the school uniform if only to escape herself. Fastening up the red ribbon felt like a foolish affectation, but it was important to her to keep up appearances. As she tied the bow around her neck, she could tell she was no longer alone.
"Ayanami?"
Rei Ayanami appeared before her dressed in her school uniform. Asuka looked down at her own blue and white outfit. Asuka hated anything that made her seem similar to that blue haired doll. She curled her toes into the remains of her shredded plug suit underfoot.
Should have brought a change from the fake apartment.
Rei's eerie red eyes felt more attentive than they ever had in life. Asuka folded her arms across her chest and frowned. She resolved to remain angry, not afraid.
"Well? Where's your son gone off to? Some mother you are, losing track of your own child!"
"I am not his mother," Rei replied in her monotone. Her two red eyes stared back at the redhead.
"So where is he? I wasn't through with him," Asuka said with less venom. The faster she found the idiot, the faster it would all finally end.
He had surprisingly strong hands for such a shrimp. Maybe it was the cello?
"He is gone."
"Gone?! Where can anybody go from here?"
"He has gone back into the world. He wanted to experience the boundaries between people again. He hopes to find happiness that way."
Asuka forced out a spiteful laugh. "So he ran away?" The idea of going back sent her reeling. Whatever survived out there to wait for her couldn't be good. Then again, at least it'd be over.
Rei didn't respond.
"Of course he ran away. He does all of this, whatever this is, and he runs away. He finally, finally almost gets what he wants," Asuka went on, unfolding her arms so she could caress her throat meaningfully, "and he still runs away! The invincible coward Shinji!" She kicked in a locker door.
"You gave him permission."
"What does that mean, Wondergirl?"
Rei didn't explain. Of course I know what she means. She knows I know. I know she knows I know. This fucking place.
Asuka shrugged as casually as she could affect. "Fine, he's gone. Good! Can I go now?"
"Yes, but if you go you will die."
Asuka tasted LCL in her mouth again, or maybe it was just blood.
"Is that a threat?" she tried to spit back with malice, but her heart wasn't in it.
"No, it is reality. Your injuries have left you weak and vulnerable. You would not be able to provide yourself with even basic needs."
Asuka looked down at her body, feeling certain places where she remembered the pain. Her flesh seemed whole to her in this place, but she knew better. She remembered the spear, their tearing mouths. Her clothing felt more like a shroud. She shoved all that aside for now. There would be plenty of time for those new nightmares to join the old ones.
She lunged at Rei, grasping her by the shoulders. "He leaves me to die but I don't die! He tries to kill me but doesn't finish the job! You do it, then! What?! No!" Her hands passed through Rei's clothing as though it was smoke. They sank into the flesh of Rei's shoulders. Their skin rippled and smoothed out into a single surface.
She saw an orange tank full of blissful Rei doubles. Shattered glasses. A severed hand. The Earth from orbit but her feet still touched the ground. Her and Shinji passing into and through each other. The intimacy of it all was unlike anything Asuka had ever known.
Asuka ripped her hands free. They came out surprisingly easily. She took a step away from Rei, but tripped over her tattered plug suit and fell. What is she?!
Rei herself remained unperturbed.
"You cannot die here. The boundaries between our hearts were broken by Third Impact. The human organism was composed of many complementary cells which formed a single mind. This new organism is made up of many minds which complement each other to form a single existence, a perfect understanding. Your human emotions are the cells. As our bodies did not forget to regrow the cells we shed in life to maintain its wholeness, so this new organism will not forget that which makes it whole."
She paused to consider her next words.
"However, I think that you will only know pain here."
Asuka picked herself up and sat on the locker room bench. Though shaken, she crossed her arms and rolled her eyes at Rei's new-found sense of dramatic timing. Maintaining her own sense of casual disregard was helping her keep it together.
"My choices are pain or death!? What kind of heaven is this?"
"This is neither heaven nor hell. It is everlasting life. A new form of organism initiated by the Human Instrumentality Project. We-"
"Who cares about any of that?! What are you?!"
Rei looked away from Asuka for a moment.
"I do not know. But."
Asuka was perturbed by the intense look of concentration that crossed Rei's face. She has never seen Rei so expressive, not that Asuka had ever given her much of a chance to express herself around her.
"But I know that here I am at home. Here I can see humanity for the first time. I did not know how to interpret your words or your faces before. A word could have two opposite meanings, or ten meanings each similar but exclusive of one another. A face could have a thousand from moment to moment."
Rei looked back at Asuka inquisitively. Asuka felt herself being probed. She remembered an elevator ride.
"You opened your heart to the Eva," Rei said finally.
Asuka swallowed a mouthful of clotted metallic vileness. She shook her head violently.
"Stay out of my mind! Freak!"
"There can be no secrets here," Rei said. She sat beside Asuka, who flinched but didn't move to get up. "I would like to understand something. Please?" She reached out her hand.
Asuka twitched her arm to slap Rei's away, but something about the plaintive request stayed her. She relaxed to indicate something like acquiescence. She was getting tired and giving in was getting easier.
Rei placed the palm of her hand on Asuka's arm, muddling the border between them once again. She closed her eyes. Her lips stayed frozen in their typical near-frown. Asuka sensed memories of her early childhood. Of her mother and dolls and pride and loss. It wasn't like when the Angel had ripped through her mind, though. Instead it was like hearing a movie playing in the theater next to her own.
In Asuka's theater, she saw scenes from the triple lives of Rei Ayanami. In the beginning there were so many cold hands. Four hands had belonged to an Akagi. The hands got warmer. Four hands had belonged to an Ikari. Gendo's had made her feel appreciated, but Shinji's had made her feel chosen. The overall effect was akin emerging from a bout of hypothermia.
Asuka saw that nobody new to Rei's life had chosen to be there in the sense that they were there for her company. Rei's life was their science fair project. They had degrees in engineering, medicine, or metaphysical biology. They had signed all the NERV confidentiality agreements and releases. Up until Shinji, Rei had never considered whether or not she herself could choose who to let in. She had nothing else but piloting the Eva.
Then Shinji had torn open her entry plug and begged her not to say goodbye or say that she had nothing else. Rei realized she had been wrong. She could choose to have something beyond her given purpose. She chose to smile.
Asuka gritted her teeth at the scene laid out before her. All that for her, but he'd never do it for me. The movie was spoiled. She already knew the ending.
They were back on the cool locker room bench. Rei's lips parted and she inhaled a short, sharp breath. She withdrew her hand.
"Thank you, I understand now," she said. Her eyes filled with so much sorrow.
Asuka rolled her eyes to break contact. "So you think you understand me, too?"
"We are alike and complementary. That was why we piloted Eva. We had nothing else. That is why we opened our hearts. We had no one else."
Asuka didn't enjoy hearing the comparison drawn so starkly, but Rei had already moved on.
"What makes us different is in how we experience loss. I have not felt the loss of somebody I needed. The people I have lost I chose to lose, or no longer needed. Those choices were necessary."
"Do you want a medal for bravery, Ayanami?"
Rei thought.
"I do not want for anything here, nor need. What do you want?"
Nothing!
"Who do you need?"
Nobody!
"Then why do you want to leave here, the only place where he will never be?"
Asuka stood up. Enough of this bullshit therapy session!
"This is stupid. I'm tired of it. I have nothing left to say. You already know what I'm going to say before I say it! What else would I say to you, anyway? 'Good job blowing yourself up'? Well you didn't save him or the world so what good was it? We both lost, is that what you want to hear? That I'm no better than you? That we're the same kind of failure? I'm done! I'm leaving!"
Rei got to her feet.
"You do have that choice, Soryu."
Asuka leaned back against a wall that hadn't been there a moment before. They were in an elevator. The floor indicator tick-tick-ticked down. Rei faced the elevator door. Asuka stomped her foot and pounded the elevator walls with her fists. She was furious.
"Here?! Here we go again! 'Open your heart'? I did. It's still there in my plug buried in that ruin above us, or below us, or wherever the fuck we are! Scoop it out and look at it!"
Asuka was sobbing now.
If I can't have all of you, I don't want any of you!
"I told him, Ayanami, you were there! I told him exactly what it would take! What did he do? He ends the world to get away from me! I hate him! I HATE HIM!"
"If you go back, you will die," reiterated Rei.
"Maybe I want to! I didn't fight it! I let him! I let him!"
"You didn't want to," Rei said, peering over her shoulder for a moment. Asuka thought her red eyes conveyed just the slightest hint of smug self-satisfaction, or maybe her rage had now blinded her. "Not until you died."
Oh now she's sarcastic?! She thought but Asuka for the first time felt fear in this place.
The indicator ticked lower and lower.
"When my previous self chose to die it was not so hard of a decision to make," Rei continued, not bothering to turn around this time. "My choice then was clear: die and lose myself or lose those whom I loved. I have come to believe that is what to love is: Sacrifice of oneself for the sake of others. When my previous self died, her love died, though."
Please just shut up.
"Do you think it is possible to sacrifice less of oneself than the whole of oneself?"
Stop.
"Do you think it is possible to feel love without it ending in death?"
JUST STOP.
Rei turned and looked Asuka in the eye. "Do you think need precedes love?"
Asuka shoved past Rei and punched the Emergency Stop button. The doors swung open and she stepped into the sun, sea air, and the scent of a man's cologne.