.hack/EVA: Catharsis: Well of Urd

Disclaimer: In this universe in the quantum foam, I do not own or in any way shape or form hold a claim to the .hack series or Neon Genesis Evangelion (or of course, any other copyrighted works I might reference here).

" " denotes speech

'italics' denotes thought

'bold' denotes location names

'bold italics' denotes skill use

Recollection

She floated, not quite alone, in the space between waking and dreaming, the world around her in a haze due to the twin influences of pain and medication. Never had she imagined that being an EVA pilot could be this painful, that even in "victory", there could be such a sense of loss. Days after the battle, her nerves still burned as if her body was covered in phantom wounds—and that was where she could feel anything at all. Above the neck, there was only a sensation of numbness that only slowly abated as her body grappled with the realization that it was not her that had been decapitated in the fight against the shadowy figure, only the EVA with which she was synced.

'I suppose I should be happy that I don't have that great of a sync ratio,' the pigtailed girl thought in one of her more lucid moments. 'Otherwise…'

Here and there, she caught glimpses of the world around her, seeing a broken Shinji, the departing back of a lavender-haired woman, and then stillness once more, as she stepped out onto a rocky outcrop, surrounded on three sides by majestic waterfalls, power all to droplets turned. It was a place of quiet contemplation, where in legends, a young apprentice magician had given his life to summon the light of the gods back to a world plagued with shadow—yet it was quiet now, save for the white noise of water crashing upon rock.

'I've seen this place before…' the pigtailed girl thought, feeling frightfully out of place in this tranquil environment, as she was still clad in a (what she considered tasteless) formfitting, crimson plug suit, a bit of technology in a place where none was evident. 'I know this place well…but why am I here?'

As if compelled by some greater force, the girl named Hikari stepped forward once, twice, then again, until at last she stood in between the three great sprays of mist at the base of the falls, perfectly balanced on the pinnacle, head bowed in thought. For a time, she simply let herself think, her mind mulling over past events as through some kind of haze which she would not let herself push through, a barrier through which she could not pass in her mind.

'But what is it that I could be hiding from myself?' she wondered, as behind her sounded a muffled crunch of boot on gravel, startling her, and sending her plummeting from her perch, only to land in the embrace of waters at the base of the thundering falls. 'Who…?'

Quietly, ever so quietly, someone was approaching, a figure of shrouded by the mists on the surface of the water, who as she drew into sight was revealed to be a figure in a loose flowing white dress with a blue underskirt, holding in one hand a strange and simple scythe. One might almost call her a doppelganger of Hikari, save that her hair was much longer, and where the light was reserved, the shadow was assuredly not.

"What clings to you?" the figure asked, with a surprisingly familiar lyrical voice. "Bear it—you cannot. Accept it—you cannot. But hidden it is from you. Recite its name."

"I know you," the plug-suited Fifth Child spoke simply in reply. "You are my shadow…"

"Then recite my name," the other said with a hint of amusement. "Unless of course, you are scared of the dark, dear 'light'.'"

"Now why would I be scared of even an unyielding Shadow, Tomoyami?" Hikari returned with a hint of a smile. "But tell me, why are you here?"

"Have you not been paying attention to Morganna-sensei's lessons?" the Flick Reaper chided, the tip of her scythe bobbing just a bit. "Each human being is composed of at least two parts, the conscious and the unconscious, though you should have a third as well…an animus."

"Right, light and shadow—you and I, and animus, as in Jungian psychology?" questioned the pigtailed girl, tilting her head. "The four stages of which are athlete, planner, professor, and guide?"

With a strange smile on her lips, the shadow stepped back, chuckling.

"Very good, I see that your vaunted attention span was not just an act to impress those so-called Invincible Perverts after all," her counterpart teased, though after a moment, her expression grew dour. "…even if neither you nor they turned out to be invincible in the end, neither in The World, nor in the reality you know."

There it was again, a sudden twist in the fabric of the sanctum, as a feeling of void expanded in her chest, then faded, clenching into a lump somewhere in her innards.

"…what do you mean?" she asked leadenly, as images flashed into her mind.

'The explosion of EVA-03, having to fight Touji in both worlds—and losing horribly against the EVA, even with all my skills and training. But…the entry plug was saved…wasn't it? By…'

Her eyes narrowed as she considered the one who had gotten away from battle.

'…Kaworu, that bastard, I hope he didn't do something to….'

"Do I really have to tell you?" the counterpart asked, more tenderly than one might have thought. "You know, don't you, from the snippets of conversation that have drifted to your mind? They say that there is no such thing as a voice that cannot reach somebody, and they are right, after a fashion. After all, part of the reason you were attracted to Touji Suzuhara was because he reminded you of a part of yourself you could not show in public—me."

"Were? Why are you using the past…" Hikari Horaki clapped both hands over her mouth in horror, "Oh my god…oh my god…don't tell me…"

The pigtailed girl collapsed to her knees, sinking down into the numbingly cold waters around her. There was something to the feeling of void that called to her, whispered to her seductively. Maybe if she could become the void, she could drown out the truth, convince herself that the illusion was real. But she could not, and little by little, she felt tears welling up inside of her, breaking the façade as her own inner façade of strength too dissolved into streaming droplets down her face.

"I…I…"

In her melancholy, she was surprised by sudden warmth, as a pair of slender arms encircled her, her doppelganger embraced her more tenderly than one might have expected.

"Hush, dear light. I won't tell you," Tomoyami whispered gently but chillingly, stroking Hikari's spine as if to soothe the sobbing girl. "Because to run from the truth is to go the way of madness, as Eris once discovered. Are you willing to give up sanity to not have to face your fears?"

"…I have my pride, Tomoyami, you of all people should know that."

"Then may it lead to your salvation, instead of your despair…"

Revenant

Whirrs, clangs, crashes and booms rent the air as several figures warred for dominance within the mind of Asuka Langley Soryu. With the old persona having been destroyed by her shadow, it seemed that the result was an all-out battle to replace the fallen ego, with various fragments of others in her mind engaged in a savage uncivil war.

They fought in a place where think haze obscured the horizon, a place like a smithy, where wisps of smog floated up from the ground, as sparks of ironworking showered from the sky, with great black gears grinding on in the background. The field itself was a barren wasteland, different from the other wastes by virtue of being littered with thousands of swords anchored in the ground like crosses on a dying world, swords snatched up one by one by the warriors, and yet continually being replaced. And in the very center, a vortex of light and shadow grew better formed with each warrior slain.

One by one, the multitude of champions had been cut down, reduced as surely as the strong prey upon the weak, until now, after the threshing of blood and iron, only three remained in the great struggle, avatars of three different factions of the mind.

One, of course, was the powerful Eris, Bringer of Strife, whose aphotic, pillar shaped blade etched with crimson letters spun about furiously, knocking aside lesser mortals, banishing them from her presence. She stood radiant, an angel of destruction, with fiery red hair falling to the small of her back and piercing blue eyes looking mercilessly upon the battlefield as she charged and struck and slashed at her foes.

"Gyahh!" she roared, slamming her weapon down towards her nearest foe, only to be blocked by a set of twin falchions inscribed with the yin-yang symbol, dual swords of an absurdly high level with metal feathers for hilts.

"I figured you'd be one of the last remaining, Eris," the blue-silver haired Adept Rogue said with a determined look, his crimson eyes glaring out at her azure, leg sweeping out to kick the redhead in the gut as her sword was caught between his blades. "I can't just beat you once and be done with it, can I?"

This was the Skari in her mind, the summoned servant of her five year old self, the little redhead girl in a yellow sundress, with a length of rope coiled around her neck, from which hung what seemed like a voodoo doll. Deeming herself unable to fight on her own, the little girl had called up a familiar from within her memories, a sort of heroic spirit who was what she wished she could have been, the manifestation of the one who defeated her.

"Heh…" the Edge Punisher sneered in response, meeting his kick with one of her own as she pushed away from him. "Did you really think it would be that easy to get rid of me? I am the embodiment of Asuka's shadow…there is no one more worthy to awaken her than I, Dark Evangel!"

"OrAni Zot!" a musical voice chanted from off to the side, and both figures flipped backward (taking care to avoid the swords in the ground) to avoid the claws of darkness that erupted on the ground where they had once stood.

Furious that their duel interrupted, both Eris and Skari sent withering glares at the one who had dared to interrupt, only to find that the person in question was one they both had a quarrel with: a silver-haired youth in clad in robes of deepest night, wielding fans that bore seven eyes apiece—in other words, the hated puppetmaster Siarl of the Seven Eyes.

"Ah, it is too bad you had to avoid that…I only wished to bring this pointless conflict to an end," the Macabre Dancer said, chuckling. "You Lilim are so divided even within a single mind…it is laughable, and the way you have picked off every one of my enemies, lessening the work I have to do."

"What are you doing here, foul caster? Do you expect us to bow before you?" the servant Skari hissed, blades gleaming in the light of the vortex as he leapt towards the robed form of the mage, only for a mass of shadowy tentacles to explode from the silver-haired youth, a surprise attack that the Adept Rogue barely countered. "Who the hell summoned you anyway?"

"No, you pathetic little Lilim, I expect you to die for your hubris," the youth said with a smirk. "You fight on behalf of the animus, Eris, on behalf of the Shadow, each battling to see who will have ultimate control over the awakened Second Child. I however, am never needed to be summoned, merely being the personification of the death instinct…the part of Asuka who knows she is guilty and does not deserve to wake up. I am the wages of sin, I am despair…I am eternal—"

In the middle of his speech, a fireball shot towards him, aided by a tornado of light that momentarily blinded the caster and singed the tips of his till now immaculate hair.

"Can it, you asshole!" Eris seethed, charging in with her strange triple-edged blade. "I've had just about enough of your psychobabble bullshit!"

This time, it was Siarl who barely blocked in time, as the blade in Eris' hand seemed to be alive, striking at perceived weak points in his defenses, only to be unable to break through, as spears born of shadow blasted out of the fallen creature's form—countered by a terrible light that flared from Skari's right arm, tearing those offensive spires asunder.

"Eris, until this bastard is defeated, a truce?" the Bearer of the Bracelet called out, silver clad form a blur as he moved to attack, only for virulent orbs of darkness to arise from the ground to surround the Adept Rogue, striking from all sides as they pierced his body. "AUUGHHH!"

"How weak he was…as weak as only the servant of a doll could be," the Macabre Dancer smirked, his tone knowing, condescending. "No self-control…no strategy. Only anger, only hate…like you, Bringer of Strife. Come, attack me, as you have attacked every other who sought to take up the mantle of awakened…or are you afraid, spineless doll?"

'I will defeat you, you cocky bastard…you perverted' flower', raged the Bringer of Strife. 'I will show you what strength truly is.'

Now, with what Eris had witnessed of Siarl's tactics, this could not be a battle of reckless charges and uncertainties, given that Siarl had a massive advantage in his AIDA tentacles—powers which she no longer had, having regained her sanity instead.

"Afraid? No, just lulling you into a false sense of security as I—" The Edge Punisher lunged forward with her new, more powerful weapon, only for the Macabre Dancer to parry and step aside, face a mask of amusement. Thrust, parry. Thrust, parry. Strike low, block low. It didn't help that he had two fans, and she only had one sword, so that no matter how she struck, there would be a weapon capable of blocking her. But this was what she wanted, for him to be focused on fighting the person in front of him, to play with her as she know he liked, to not take this match seriously.

'If against an opponent who is this arrogant…I should let him think he might actually win.'

So thinking, Eris backed away, luring her opponent forward—then kicking the sand of the field into his face, and slashing powerfully down and across in a powerful combo…only for Siarl flipped out of the way.

"Pathetic," the Macabre Dancer sneered, darkness blossoming from his form, as a large beam of energy shot out from the dark aura into Eris' frame, throwing her into the air, where she was slammed into the ground by several pulsing balls of energy, leaving her bruised and bleeding on the sands, her blade skidding out of her hands. "This is the end, Bringer of Strif—GUHH!"

Siarl groaned in pain as the two over-edged falchions, having been thrown through the air, caught him in the gut, whirling about to see that Skari had merely absorbed the power of the shadowy orbs, a column of fire flashing down from the sky to fill the Adept Rogue with molten power, as the Rogue's form shifted as a dark power stirred within him.

"You…you should be dead!" the Macabre Dancer snarled, having lost his composure. This was, after all the Siarl in Asuka's mind, and to Asuka's mind, B—ST form was not something to be trifled with. "How did you--?!"

Skari's only response was a roar of defiance, as the figure that crouched before the black and silver Macabre Dancer was now was a snarling beast, pupil-less eyes wide and glowing red, body seemingly forged of fire and steel, a clawed, winged form of unholy terror, a literal Dark Evangel, inspiring in most beings the terror of death.

"Heh…damn invincible Shinji, coming to save me even here?" croaked out Eris on the battlefield floor, watching the unexpected proceedings unfold. "Does he always have to hold back until the very last moment or something…?"

Reaching behind him with a yowl of some indefinable emotion and a burst of light, the fallen angel drew into his hands two massive broadswords that looked for all the world like oversized versions of his earlier feathered blades. And as he drew them, above him opened a behemoth rift of static, from which were spawned a thousand blades floating in the air—with the rest of those on the battlefield rising to his command.

"Well well," Eris commented, observing this all too familiar sight. "You may be strong Siarl, but can you withstand the onslaught of an infinite number of blades?"

With a blur of motion, the Dark Evangel slammed both broadswords forward, with the infinite store of weapons in that gate of twilight shooting forth in a continuous stream of blades, snaking through the air as they hurtled towards Siarl of the Seven Eyes, howling as the shrieked towards throat, gut, chest, head—only to be blocked by a shield born of AIDA—and an AT Field.

"Your hatred is weak, Lilim," scoffed the silver-haired youth as his defense resisted the attempt at attack. "Besides, these emotions only make me stro—"

He was cut off in mid-sentence by a chaotic blast of dark fire from behind him, as the young five year old in the yellow sundress appeared, unleashing a swirling mass of untamed shadow and flame that produced a wave motion blast like a flamethrower on steroids—forcing Siarl to redirect his AIDA Shield—and allowing some straggling swords to finally find a mark.

"Then no more mercy, for there can be only one…time to die," he said simply, dashing towards the otherwise unarmed little girl, razor-sharp war fans poised to cleave her in twain—only for the snarling B-ST form to tackle him aside, raking his face with its claws.

"YESS…DIEEEE…" it repeated, the power of its attacks demanding his full attention as he launched a counterattack.

And so the battle within Asuka's mind continued unabated...