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Chapter 37: "…Mama's gonna make all of your nightmares come true …"
"It's been a while."
Shinji had stayed rather quiet while Misato had taken him to NERV, his only words had been shouted at the woman just before the N2 mine had detonated. Having his flesh melted off by something akin to a small nuclear blast was more than unpleasant, but he hadn't dealt with that feeling for some time.
In all, except for correcting her on how to reach the EVA cages, it had been rather uneventful. He thought this just might be the closest life he had in a while.
Until that voice.
It wasn't his father's.
Looking up, the boy couldn't do anything but stare at her, the sight petrifying him like some indescribable horror.
Yui.
"Mother?" he whispered.
He didn't advert his eyes, no, he kept them glued to her. The slight smirk that his father always held was now on her face too, but somehow he could tell there was something different. The apparent disdain for him was missing.
If she was still here… would things be better?
"We're moving out."
"Moving out? But Unit-00 is still in cryostasis!" Misato protested "Wait a minute, you're going to use Unit-01?!"
"There's no other way."
"Now wait a minute, Ray can't do it yet can he?"
He?
"I'll do it," Shinji said, his hand shaking and a plan forming in his mind.
No words were needed, no more explanations were given, he entered into the plug, steeling himself for what was coming.
If Yui wasn't in here…
Sure enough, he felt that unfamiliar presence where his mother should have been once he was in the entry plug and the same anger as always bubbled up in his chest at the thought of the man. Right now, however, he needed to keep that under control, he needed to defeat this Angel and then he could think about what he wanted to do.
"Launch!" He heard Misato call out as the familiar sensation of him being pushed back into his seat.
To say the fight was anticlimactic was an understatement. Despite the constant need to block the thought of his father from his mind, Shinji dispatched the Angel in record time.
Swift slashes with the progressive knife had torn through the AT field and into the core, leaving him there anxiously wanting to get back to the Geofront and talk with his Mother.
A short debrief and ecstatic Misato later, he was standing in what he always knew as his father's 'office'. A much too large room that used glass for the floor, it had more in common with a manga villain's layer than anything.
Yet there he stood, his mother leaning back in her chair, and gloved hands intertwined at chest level.
"Speak."
"To be completely honest, I was expecting Gendo Ikari."
Even now with his mother in the seat, the room's temperature seemed to drop at the mention of that name, much like it had when he brought up Yui's name to Gendo.
"Is that supposed to be a joke?" those eyes were now watching him much more closely, like some predator watching some unfamiliar prey.
"I've done this before." He explained, gesturing to the room and Geofront below "This, Evas, angels, I know Lilith is in Central Dogma and I know what your goal is."
Yui said nothing, she just remained pushed back into her chair, eyeing the boy.
"What are you?"
"I'm Shinji, no one else," he explained "I'm not like the Fifth Children, I'm human."
For a moment the brown and blue eyes refused to leave each other as a silence fell between them. Internally Shinji was praying to any deity out there that his mother would somehow be easier to deal with than his father.
"Alright… assuming I believe you… what do you want?"
"I want to do it right this time, I know you want to be the center of the Third Impact. All for Gendo assuming that's still your goal. I just… I don't want it to be me."
That was a complete lie of course. He had no intention of letting that happen, this was him trying to make things go smoother, a way for him to get close to 'the scenario' and hopefully disrupt it from the inside. He just hoped she didn't call his bluff.
"If you wanted Human Instrumentality to occur, why are you here?"
"I…" his voice caught in his throat, before thinking quickly "I'm tired."
"I want… a restful world." He explained, "It's been a long time since I could just… sleep."
That hadn't been a lie.
"I can tell you what's going to happen, at least to a degree."
"And what do you want?"
God, that was a long list, but he wasn't about to give her anything that could be used as leverage against him. No, the less she knew the better.
"Nothing, just… I want this to be over."
Again, that icy stare bore into him, but she said nothing, only lowering her gloved hands.
"Return tomorrow, we'll discuss more then."
Shinji did his best to compose himself as he turned and left. Once into the hallway he suddenly was aware of his racing heart and the slight shaking of his hands.
Letting his feet take him where ever they pleased, he allowed his thoughts to race in his head. After a while he was so deep in thought he didn't hear the footsteps behind him.
And it was only after he was on the ground, helpless with muscle spasms did he see the blonde doctor standing over him, taser in hand.
ʡʘʘ..ʢ
"Is that why you didn't trust me?"
Shinji opened his eyes to the sight of her, his mother, or what would otherwise be his mother. Yui Ikari looked the same as always, the rather small woman was no different than most other lives.
Save for the fact she was currently here and talking with him.
"You've been muddling through my memories?" he asked, mildly annoyed, it wasn't like he hadn't shown her how he felt, but it seemed a bit too invasive if he wasn't there beside her when she looked.
"It wasn't like I had much of a choice, you're in here with me now." She said, surprisingly he detected a bit of sadness in her voice.
"Hmm," he didn't have anything to truly say to her, words would be wasted at this point. He couldn't escape the core, so maybe this was the end for him, he didn't know if an EVA core could ever break down, after all his mother's plan would've been dampered by the fact the core wouldn't last that long if that was the case.
So maybe this was just the end of the road for him, wasting away in a core, or at least until it too was destroyed.
"Did I really do that to you?"
Her words brought him out of his musings.
"Did you do what?" he asked, much more annoyed now.
"Did I plan for you to go through all that pain and suffering?" she asked, her face falling.
Shinji rolled his eyes "Yeah, yeah you did, not only did you leave was me at the ripe old age of 4, you made sure I was there to watch, you wanted me to be the pilot in the first place, but to top it all off, is the why…"
"Why did you do it? Oh wait, so you could travel through space as some 'monument to humanity', yeah that's why." He growled at her.
"I…"
"Go ahead and say you're sorry, go ahead and tell me that it was 'for the good of everyone. It doesn't change the fact that you wanted to end the FUCKING WORLD, but somehow it gets worse, because you wanted me to do it!"
.
.
.
"I'm sorry she did that to you Shinji."
He couldn't continue his sentence. Did he believe her? No of course not, but to just hear those words from her, having dreamed about hearing something even close to those words… it was hard for him to resist feeling something other than just hatred for the woman.
The woman drew closer, causing him to back away.
He never changed.
Thought it wasn't like he could run away now, here in the core there was nowhere to go, so as she drew closer, he just glared at her, hoping that the visual daggers being sent her way would be enough to stop her.
They didn't, they did nothing to stop her as she pulled him into a hug.
She crouched down to his level, wrapping him in her arms and pressing him into her.
"I'm so sorry you had to endure that Shinji; she should have never done that to you." That voice she was using made it sound like she actually cared like she didn't have the same exact plan for him.
"Then what did you do it for?"
"You were never meant to be a pilot, you should have never been a pilot, your father should have looked after you and cared for you. I never wanted this life for you."
"Then why did you help SEELE, why did you help any of them, why try and pilot the EVAs!"
"Because… this world… it's filled with such pain… humanity would have torn itself apart eventually, it needed to evolve, to move on. It seems your father… or rather this Gendo Ikari eventually had his own goal in mind."
"You're saying you didn't want this?"
"I wanted a world where my son would be safe, but I never wanted him to be a pilot."
"Then why did you risk it, when you knew what Gendo was?" Somehow this felt too good, having this argument with her, finally telling her how he truly felt, he never thought he would get the chance.
"Did you honestly expect him to just accept your 'death' if things went wrong? Did you really think he would take care of your son; you knew what he was, unless you were blind, or were you just willfully ignorant!"
"No." she said, looking away, unable to meet his gaze, "I knew exactly what he was… and I loved him anyways...". She looked back up while letting the edges of her lips curled slightly into something of a warm smile, "That's something you know all about, don't you?"
"She's beautiful…" Yui spoke up,
"What did you say?"
"She's beautiful, Asuka…."
"You don't get to say her NAME!" he shouted. How dare she even think about her after what she did?
Yui slunk back away from him, a bit disturbed by the outburst.
"So, you do you blame your mother for not breaking out of the bakelite sooner?" she asked, ah so that's what this was about, she wanted to talk about this, did she?
"No… if I had gone to the cages, I would have made it, I would have been able to help her."
"But…."
"THERE IS NO BUT! I. DID. NOT. HELP. HER!" he shouted. "She needed me and what did I do? NOTHING! If I hadn't sat around before that I would have been useful!"
Yui said nothing, there was obviously nothing she could do to quell the boy's anger on that particular subject. She just hoped that one day his view would change.
"Soryu."
"What?" he asked.
"Her name, it was Soryu… after her mother…"
"What about it?"
"It's nothing, just curious, that's all." She said softly, somehow he didn't believe her, "Did you two meet as children too?"
"What?"
"On a visit to Germany, we took you along with us," She smiled, thinking back on the memories they had made there, "the two of you met, though I doubt either of you remember, it was a few months before... I left."
"Let me show you," she said, as his world began to shift, the emptiness morphing into something else as his senses were filled one after another.
His vision changed so that was watching his mother, standing beside a parked motorcade with plenty of personnel running about unloading things.
Around the car came his father, younger and without a beard, but it was clearly him. In his arms was a small squirming child, who was making the man just about as uncomfortable as the boy had ever seen.
Handing the child off to Yui, Gendo breathed a sigh of relief as he went back to the opposite side, meeting up with a gathering crowd. Yui set the child down, letting him stand on his own. Apparently, he was very good at walking at that age, because as soon as his feet were planted he took off, not nearly fast enough to get away from Yui, but enough so that she had to keep up a brisk walking pace.
They were in front of some facility, unliked the sleek metal constructions of NERV in Tokyo-03, this place was mainly concrete, with a large set of steps rising up to the main doors. The small version of himself had no desire to climb the stairs, instead 'running' to the side of them, where a tiny head seemed to poke out at the wrong time.
Crashing into one another, the two of them went to the ground, while Yui stayed back. Shinji could feel what she was thinking, instead of the worry and alarm that he would have expected from a parent, instead, she felt curiosity and a bit of amusement. There was little regard for him, though he knew she was ready to step in if needed, he also knew she wanted to see how he would react to this.
Just like a scientist watching some new animal.
When didn't she use him to play games?
Annoyance bubbled up in him again, perhaps he was always thought of him as another experiment, or perhaps optimistically she was just naïve. Either way, it bothered him that she hadn't gone to see if he was ok, regardless of how small an accident it was.
He watched as the two children straightened up, brushing themselves off to little effect before they just looked at each other.
Shinji heard what he thought was a 'Sorry.' Though it was hard to tell. He couldn't help but snort at the irony of his first-ever words to Asuka in this life being 'sorry'. He also would have laughed if she decided to give him a nice kick or punch to go along with it, but instead, she slunk away after eyeing the adult behind him.
The child version of himself followed her around the corner, probably expecting to play with his new 'friend', the pain of the previous fall seemingly forgotten.
"Hi, I'm Shinji." He heard as Yui rounded the corner, a bit of warmth bubbling up in her chest at the sight of the two of them.
"My name's Asuka." The redhead had replied defiantly while she continued to back away from the other child while looking up at the adult who was keeping her distance while still watching.
Shinji figured she was trying to think up a way to make him go away without drawing the ire of his mother, but he didn't expect the next words out of the young boy's mouth.
"Wanna play?"
Bet you didn't see that coming! We're halfway through the interlude and I think what I'm going to do is have another week where there's no chapter, then post the last two interludes in the same week, like a Monday/Friday that I used to do so we can hop into 3.0 a bit quicker than anticipated.
Shoutouts!
deathbringer374 – Thank you! And thanks for not eating my liver, I heard they're really not that tasty anyways. As for writing and reading, right back at you!
YodaMorpheus7 – Hey! What are you doing in my head!? Well, half right, that last chapter was a memory that happened.
Berix – More like 'I Can Warp This Lore 3.33'. Wait, so if you don't like all of those… what exactly do you like lol?
NoseGum – More like a memory, as for cracked, he's got a Ghost following him… or is it a Ghost? *X-File noises*
EvaPilotFair – Baloney Pony is for a later date lol.
JIM D. ZAS – Thanks!
fonte20nit – He is taking a nap, but that was a memory.
tomdj1701 – Yeah, that was a miss type there, and well, the violin isn't his…
dyinglittelstar – Ah, you'll have to wait and see, I think people are gonna be happy with the solution to that.
Iraki01 – Thanks! I think a even a small review of the film can't really do it justice lol.
UltraSpink of Da USA – Ah, logic… not exactly EVA's strongest suit, especially the Rebuilds lol.
skyf0x – 2 more interlude chapters, as for answers to what happened post EoE, we'll get that in 3.0.
Ghemstro – Shadowfang.
Guest – A very akward dinner… for the future.
calborghete – We'll come back here eventually.
Ritchitzer - *Godzilla had a stroke trying to read this and fucking died*
JDH1080 – Exactly! There were some bits in there pointing in that direction, and the lack of Ghost Soryu too.
TheOneAndOnlyErik – Next Chapter Now!
ThyDevoutBeliever – Ah, its just the end for now…
Guest – Don't plan on doing either of those?
Alright, that's all for now folks. Also, I'm not going to do a spoiler warning at the tops of the chapters, most places I've been have had their spoiler warning policy experiing on September 1st, plus if you're reading fanfics I'm pretty sure you'd want to see 3.0+1.0 pretty fast haha.
Until Next Time