Is it okay?
What is okay? What is wrong?
Empty, empty, empty.
"Are you needing to be coddled again," a piercing voice calls from the darkness, "I thought that maybe after being given what you literally asked for that you could be happy…"
"No,"
"Shinji, how many more pathetic days are you going to live like this?"
A pair of brown eyes looks up to the source of the voice, trailing the sights up the long shining pillars, orange and gloss mixed before the apex ending on a familiar face. The redhead stood in front of the listener, pride emanating from her skin that ate its way through the rips and tear of what once was a proud suit that let her mind communicate easier. Shinji never thought her blue eyes matched her, the colour of the calm ebbing and flowing of the sea did not match the ferocity of the anger that Asuka would proudly announce to him. Yet here he was, begging for the red, orange and blue, in the vast ocean of black. Her voice reverberated against the nothingness that engulfed the pair, the blackness awesome in its classic meaning.
"Go on, say something," she whined, placing her fists on the dips of her once proud hips, now shyly showing itself through the taters of the plugsuit. He did not comply. He did not want to. He did not have a reason to.
A sigh escaped from the German, a defeated drop of the head and a palm to the face later she continued, "do you always need a reason to do this or that? Can't you just live like a normal person?"
"If I don't know what I am doing then I should know why I am doing it," the response was shy, timid, very much like Shinji. It matched him.
Asuka did not let up, bending down to reach over and squeezing his cheeks to open his locked jaw, "for someone who caused the death of so much life you sure know how to act like your head is cutoff."
Her anger was justified, that is what Shinji told himself. He swears to have been in this exact situation before, with him not listening or following her directions, acting as a limp doll through a situation that should not cause a human to subside from its abilities. Memories came flooding back, remembering how Asuka had to forcefully feed him during his week long endurance to stay mentally able.
"And for some awful reason, you were finally given the ability to rewrite our entire world! Imbecile these creatures! How could some powerful being that could literally create and control life let their needle be handled by a daft, blind, and half-developed idiot like you?"
"Maybe only a blind man can truly create a beautiful world, untainted the pain that washes over the old world…"
The blue met with red, and orange met with black. Rei stood to Shinji's left, her right arm extending itself and resting the hand onto his mournful shoulders. She took a moment to peer into the boy that bent himself down, hoping not to be seen by anything. Rei would best describe him as a scared animal, though knowing of where they are and why there are here, a scared animal that is afraid that another predator will come to kill it before it could finish its meal.
"You think your boyfriend here is justified in lying to everyone how life is, playing like a god over all of us, creating a perfect world for you because of what he thinks," Asuka accused, squeezing ever so tighter onto Shinji's face, "actually, yeah, probably you do! Because that one Rei got to be his mother, and another got to be the reason why he decided to start a new impact, killing everyone near him. And yeah, maybe it is a good thing that this kid here is a loner, because the more people that became friends with him, the more that would've been traded for his doll of a girlfriend."
"Asuka, enough."
Suddenly, Rei's clothes changed from her plain white plugsuit, to the school uniform that she was too familiar with. Rei sighed, her expression of emotions rare and outright impossible most of the time, but after learning how to enjoy life she had to spill herself. Before she could say the words in her mind, the boy in the suit sitting on the chair finally sat straight up, looking at Rei then Asuka before beginning, "should I have destroy the spear then? Destroying all the pieces to start a new conflict? Then I would have to watch you die again, watch Rei learn to live before being destroyed and replaced…" "What about me?"
Shinji's pupils opened wide as he shot his neck the left. Mari, his girl, stood there, happy as always. Her white button up school shirt surrounded her busty silhouette, her breasts split down the middle by a green tie. Of course, Shinji looked there first, he was always fond of Mari's features, always somehow finding himself engrossed by a split thought before needing to slap himself back into reality. The shirt ended to her dress, a classic red and green pattern, sets of lines always found in her home country's school uniforms. In fact, what she was wearing was a school uniform, which would have been obvious if her long shining chocolate hair did not cover the shield on the shirt. Shinji would never forget how Mari looks, he would never want to, glasses with the smug face and all.
"Oh please don't start defending this sad thing."
The brunette giggled as she raised a hand and tapping it onto the boy's shoulder. Asuka was not amused, and did not give another second of her seemingly limited attention. With Shinji still in between her thumb and fingers, Mari moved her hand to meat with Asuka's, separating the two's connection.
"Now, now, Princess, wouldn't it be better if you had let go of your anger," she smiled, giving a warm but still signature look at her redhead companion, "besides, you were given a life to control, no?"
"I am not angry about that," she argued, a large chunk of her explosiveness leaving her, "I am not content with who and why we are here."
Here.
Here they were.
From blackness came where Shinji replayed his memories over and over again. The top of the school's roof was always a comfortable and serene place to be. Tokyo-3's Pacific wind would some how travel all the way from the beaches to the hills that the school sat on. Shinji and Rei first connected in this building, Asuka got her first taste of satisfaction that was being given out as praise from other people, and Mari landed here on this exact spot. A smirk escaped his face, though he did not find himself to be a pervert, Shinji would always admire how soft and comfortable being hit by Mari's parachuting thighs were.
"Hey, pervert, stop it," Asuka called, looking down on him.
She could still read my mind. Could she. What is even going on?
Rei took a good look at what she was wearing, the white button up, blue shirt and dress, the clothes were too familiar to her. She would wear this day in, day out, whether it be for school or not, and before and after piloting an Eva.
"Wondergirl, you really have to figure out how to stop being so reminiscent of such little things," the fire in the girl did not let up.
Rei did not disagree, nor did she even shake her head, "I had learned how to understand what I felt, I am not being taught to forget about them again."
Again?
"Asuka, can I ask?" Shinji timidly.
"Ask what?"
He became suddenly warm, comfortable, and nothing like the abyss and the interrogation that he seemingly was receiving from Asuka. His ears was filled with the soft humming of the fan that slowly reciprocated to and fro, filling the small bedroom with flowing and cool wind. Mari was there, staring straight at him, her head resting on a white feather pillow.
He finally remembered where he was, "sorry, was I talking?"
Standing up, Mari sighed, but it was that of an understanding sigh. It was not the first time she was woken up by his weird mumblings during his sleep, but this time it was different.
"What were you gonna ask, Princess," she asked, reaching up onto a small table beside her and placing her glasses on her face, "that was all I heard by the way…"
"Can I ask, can I ask…" he repeated to himself, sitting up.
Shinji tried to play back what his brain showed in his brain. All he remembered was the weight and regret that gave his heart a thing to sink down with. He does not know if he regretted what he did, that is the question that he is trying to solve. For a child who barely lived his life and experienced what it was like to have a normal life, was he the best one to be given the pen to the world? His conscious said that there would have been someone better, and he agreed no doubt. However, he keeps trying to argue that what he wrote, especially with the details to do with all the people he knew, was more than enough to be satisfying. There he would go and ask himself, satisfying to himself? The child that was forced onto fighting for the sake of the world, who sacrificed all he knew for one Rei, and was not able to even keep himself alive after Kaworu's death, was all this happiness just for him?
His nervous system shocked itself as Mari came to sit down beside him and pushing his body down to have his head rest in the pit of her crossed legs. Her fingers danced and weaved on and through the heavy strands of hair. Starting from his scalp, to his head, down to his body, and across himself, he rested. However, his mind kept running and dragging itself across the floor.
How much does Mari really love him, and how much of it is him writing her to love her?
"I don't care how many times I have to repeat it, Puppy Boy," she hummed, continuing to scratch his head, "I love you. I love you through and through."
She was almost there, though his heart was satisfied, his mind was not. Shinji sighed, sinking down onto her legs even more, "Mari, did you like be before we got here?"
"Hm, about that, huh?" the brunette weighed, giving it a solid moment to think about the question and packaging an answer she can settle on, "I think so, but after meeting you in the anti-verse, and feeling you confidently take on Gendoh to fight for your own reality, I definitely fell for you. I really don't know how to answer your question properly though, so I hope that was more than enough."
That's right, I did grow, he thought to himself, but did I grow enough?
He thinks so. Replaying the moments that transpired in the anti-verse, he had the heart to finally face and fight his dad, and even after, he let go of the weight of the world. There was no doubt that what he knew of the world and how people worked was slim to nothing, but he is satisfied that he let the souls he knew choose what they wanted. Of the little he knew, knowing someone for even a thousand years, you may not truly understand someone. His world was not understand by Asuka, Rei, nor Misato. Kaworu was almost there, but never did Kaworu know what he wants in a woman.
Maybe, maybe this will let him rest. Shinji, for what he is, is a child that truly found a way to make everyone happy. His mind will never truly find if he was worthy to play and change the world like a god, but he knew that at the very least, the people that he met are alive and well. The souls that he interacted with in his short life are free beyond the tall walls of Eva, and even his own life he evolved into something he can grow with. One day, he hopes, he will not worry about what had happened, one day.
He smiles, "thank you, everyone…"