Rei had never exactly been the... outdoorsy type. She definitely knew her way around the city, sure, but... well, that was just the thing. It was the city. As much as the commotion of urban life could get to her at times, it always felt... familiar. Being anywhere more remote than a distant suburb had always left her uneasy.
To Asuka, this was the perfect opportunity to drag her reclusive partner out into the wilderness for a weekend-long camping trip.
The redhead's crimson-colored, mud-splattered, trail-ready SUV crawled along the bumpy dirt road as the two neared their campsite; to her credit, Asuka tried to take it as easy as possible, but Rei still didn't look all that comfortable.
"A-Asuka... I appreciate the thought," Rei started, one hand keeping a firm grip on the grab handle, "but is it really necessary to stay out here for an... entire weekend? Would an overnight trip... not suffice?"
Asuka looked over towards her partner; though she made a point to keep one eye on the road, she could easily discern from Rei's reaction that there was some kind of reassuring glint in her gaze. "You said you've never been on a camping trip in your entire life before, yeah? Figured if I'm gonna take you on one, I wouldn't wanna half-ass it... that, and it's four hours to get back to Tokyo."
"...I suppose that is a fair point."
"Natürlich! Stop worryin' about it, alright?" As the path began mellowing out, Asuka took one hand off the steering wheel, gently resting it atop Rei's. "You've got me if anything does go wrong. Don't forget that." She didn't get a verbal response, but that was alright; an understanding nod and Rei's cheeks glowing pink told her all she needed to know.
Soon enough, the two would reach their destination; Asuka's SUV passed between two evergreens into a small clearing, ultimately coming to a stop near the starting point of a walking trail. To Rei's relief, the site her partner had picked wasn't completely barren - a picnic table, firepit, and a small restroom were among the amenities provided. Perhaps this wouldn't be as unpleasant of an experience as she'd feared.
"Hey, don't worry about setting everything up," assured Asuka as she shut off the engine and swung open her door. "It's not much anyway, so I'll take care of it. Just... make yourself comfortable, alright?"
Rei nodded, her lips curling into a slight smile. "...I will do that. Thank you, Asuka."
As the redhead climbed out of the truck and went to retrieve their tent, Rei wandered over towards the picnic table. Once she'd sat down, she took a moment to soak in her surroundings; the seemingly-endless expanse of forest in all directions made her, as someone who'd spent the vast majority of her life in Greater Tokyo, almost feel as if she were on an entirely different planet. The mating calls of various birds echoing through the trees acted as the soundtrack, so to speak... and it all felt surprisingly comforting.
Sure, there were still a few lingering hang-ups she had. Sleeping in a tent wasn't something she looked forward to, no matter how idyllic her surroundings. Still... it couldn't be that bad, right? Especially not with Asuka at her side.
"Erledigt! That's pretty much everything!"
"W-wha-?!" Rei wasn't expecting Asuka to literally be at her side so quickly... but sure enough, once she'd snapped out of her stupor, everything they'd brought was fully-assembled right before her eyes. "O-oh... that was... impressively quick."
Asuka tilted her head, looking a bit puzzled. "Eh? Not really... that took me, what, fifteen minutes? That's pretty normal."
"...it's been fifteen minutes?"
Rei didn't exactly blame her partner for erupting into giggles. "What, did ya start daydreaming again?" Asuka took a seat beside her, a playful smirk on her face. "I mean, if it was about me, I don't blame you."
"Well... partially, yes, that I will admit," Rei admitted as the pink glow from before returned to her cheeks. "Aside from that, something about being in a place so... relatively untouched by humanity... I cannot deny that it is mesmerizing, in a way. It... feels pure, I suppose I'd put it."
"Yeah, I totally get that! Honestly, goin' camping is pretty therapeutic for me... just wish I could do it more often, y'know?" Turning to Rei with a glitter in her sapphire-blue eyes, Asuka continued, "Well, we're here now... what do you wanna do first, Liebling?"
Rei brought a finger to her chin, mulling over her options... until she saw a pair of fishing rods lying in the back of Asuka's SUV. "Is... there a lake nearby? We could go fishing."
"...So just to make sure you're not screwin' with me... you've seriously never gone fishing before, Rei?! Like... not even once?"
Rei shook her head. "Not as far as I can recall. I suppose it would not be... impossible in the city, but... the thought of doing it never crossed my mind."
The two continued down the dirt trail that would bring them to the lakeshore, Asuka leading the way with a crimson fishing rod in one hand and a box of bait & tackle in the other. Rei followed closely behind, holding the other rod - this one a pristine shade of white - over her shoulder. Given the color, she couldn't help but wonder if Asuka had bought it in preparation for this very moment...
"Y'know, speaking of... when was the last time you even left Tokyo?" wondered Asuka, looking back towards her partner. "I mean, I get it, not that much reason to... but still."
Come to think of it... that was a good question. Rei tried to recall her last venture outside the city's confines, but nothing came to mind - at least, nothing within the past couple of years. Anything beyond three or so years ago was already enough of a blur in her mind that she didn't even bother trying to remember that far back.
When was the last time she left Tokyo?
"...I cannot recall," she finally responded, the tiniest hint of frustration in her voice. "I-I apologize, my memory is... not the best. At the very least, it... must have been before we got together."
"So, like... two years, then, at least. Man, I've gotta start bringin' you on more of these trips then, huh?" Asuka closed her eyes, grinning as she began to wonder where she could take Rei... maybe back home to Germany, even?
As the redhead's mind wandered, she continued to trek towards the lakeshore - completely unaware that Rei had come to a complete stop until she called out to her from a couple hundred feet behind. "Asuka, wait... if you don't mind, I... want to take a look at something."
"Was ist es? " Asuka turned to find Rei staring off into the woods... exactly why escaped her. This campground wasn't exactly known for the wildlife aside from fish... whatever it was, though, it was enough to catch Rei's interest, so she set her rod and tackle box down and jogged back over towards her partner. "Rei, I'm tellin' you this now, but if it's some kinda animal, don't even bother."
"It's not an animal, it's... I-I'm not even entirely sure."
The redhead peered into the forest alongside Rei, squinting as she tried to make out whatever she was supposed to be seeing through the trees... until Rei went and stepped right into them. "H-hey, don't just leave me behind!" she called out, but Rei seemed pretty set on going to get a closer look at... god, what even was it? With a defeated shake of her head, Asuka began following Rei to a soundtrack of exasperated grumbling.
Rei seemed unfazed by the thorny plants and uneven, branch-blanketed ground as she continued onward, while Asuka - despite being far more familiar with these types of environments - did the brunt of the complaining as sticks and thorns scratched up her unprotected legs.
Thankfully, it wasn't long before Rei stopped, holding an arm out to make sure Asuka did as well. "That clearing over there." Asuka followed the direction of Rei's finger, and sure enough, a clearing was right there... one circled by several fallen tree trunks.
Might've had something to do with the massive severed head of a statue sitting right in the center of it.
"...Heilige scheiße."
As the two approached the crumbled statue, Asuka felt Rei first take her hand, then squeeze as if it were a stress ball. Uncomfortable, sure, but it was hard to blame her - this was downright bizarre. If there was anything else in store for them that'd top this, she... didn't really want to know.
For now, though, it was just them and the stone visage... and what an ugly visage it was. For one, the head appeared to be longer than it was wide or tall. That was odd enough. The fact that it had no eyes or nose to speak of blew that first fact out of the water. The only feature this unnerving, uncomfortable-looking... thing possessed was a massive mouth, sporting a chilling grin from nonexistent-ear-to-nonexistent-ear.
The grin still wasn't the worst part of it, though. No, the worst part to Asuka was that, for some fucking reason... she couldn't shake the lingering feeling that she'd seen this head somewhere before.
Not wanting to stare at it for too long, she turned to face Rei... who looked like she'd been watching her intently for a while. Wearing an uncharacteristically clear look of concern on her face, she asked, "A-are... you alright, Asuka? You looked particularly, um... shaken... just then."
"M-me? Y-yeah, I'm fine... it's just, I mean... you're seein' this thing too, right?"
Rei nodded, then looked back towards the head. Steeling her expression, the blue-haired girl stepped forward to give it a more thorough inspection.
"How this ended up here escapes me, but... whatever caused it, it must have been an extraordinary event," she academically observed, running her ghost-pale hands over each of the statue's indents and details... well, the ones she could reach, at least. "Furthermore... who would even sculpt something like this? If we are to believe there is more to this statue, then... intact, it must have been massive."
Could this have been a remnant of an ancient civilization, one predating Japan as they knew it by hundreds - perhaps thousands - of years? Perhaps even an extraterrestrial race? To Rei, no possibility seemed too far-fetched when it came to something like this... and she would've been lying had she said it didn't captivate her.
"R-Rei... are you done with that thing yet?" Asuka eventually called out, still uneasy. "You can come back to look at it some other time, but it's gonna start raining in a while, s-so we should really get to fishing while we still can, yeah?"
"I suppose that's fair. Alright, let us depart, then." As Rei returned to Asuka's side and the two of them began to cut back through the woods to return to the trail, she found herself glancing back towards the statue head a fair few times. To think, coming on this trip would present her with such an intriguing mystery...
...Asuka still seemed rather rattled, however. Perhaps talking to her about it would help. "Asuka... if it is fine with you, I would really appreciate it if you told me, um... exactly why the statue... bothered you so much."
Asuka immediately bit her tongue. Verdammt! Why's she have to be so persistent?!
"...I understand if it makes you uncomfortable, Asuka, and... I know its appearance is quite shocking, but-"
"I've seen that thing before."
Rei stopped dead in her tracks. "...Pardon?"
"The head. I don't remember where, mind you... might've been in a nightmare, maybe it reminded me of some monster in a cartoon I used to watch, I don't know. But that face... that goddamn grin... it's... it feels way too familiar."
"...I... I see."
If there was one thing people knew about Rei, it was that she'd never been much of an empath. That didn't mean she was oblivious, though, especially not when it came to her partner... and it was clear that Asuka was feeling particularly distressed.
Thus, Rei felt it was only right to pull Asuka into a comforting embrace from behind, gently wrapping her arms around the redhead's waist. "It'll... it'll be alright, Asuka. We don't have to go look at it anymore."
For a moment, Asuka remained silent. Just as the fear that she'd messed up somehow began to brew in Rei's stomach, however, her partner began giggling. "Well, hell, Rei, looks like you've been takin' notes from me, huh?"
"I-I... suppose you could say that." Rei's face was starting to heat up again. "But... everything will be alright, okay? We're here to... enjoy ourselves, after all."
"Isn't that what I've been trying to tell you this whole time, Liebling?" With Rei's reassuring words seemingly rejuvenating her, Asuka took her partner's hand and started off once more towards the lakeshore. "Well, c'mon, then! We've still got fishing to get to, don't we?"
That night, the sound of torrential rain greeted Asuka as she jolted out of her slumber.
For a few minutes she simply sat there, nearly motionless in the darkened tent. The downpour from outside filled her ears... and the images her dreams had conjured up filled her head. Images from her own point of view, alone in the cockpit of... some sort of super-weapon, locked in vicious combat with titanic humanoid creatures. She'd held her own in the bloody battle for a time, but... it didn't last forever.
Asuka barely remembered anything before that massive crimson lance skewered her - no, the machine - no, her through the eye. More lances followed, and pinned to the ground in agonizing pain, she could do nothing to stop those beasts from gruesomely devouring her... their sickening grins the last thing she saw before the scene faded to black.
Had this been a one-time thing, she would've dismissed the horrific vision as nothing more than a nightmare. This wasn't a one-time thing. She'd lost track of how many times this exact scene had played out in her head a very long time ago. This time, though, something had changed.
She finally recognized those creatures' faces.
Asuka reached for her backpack, frantically rummaging through it to retrieve her phone. Once she got it, she opened up her camera roll, taking a look at the photos she'd snapped of the statue she and Rei had discovered earlier.
It was a perfect match. The terrifying grin, the lack of eyes... all of it lined up to what she'd been seeing in her nightmares for months.
"... Was zum Teufel? N-no, that can't... h-how..."
"Asuka...?"
The redhead nearly jumped out of her own body as another voice called her name in the darkness; once she'd swung her head around and seen Rei's blood-red eyes glowing ever-so-slightly in the darkness, though, she calmed down a bit. Come to think of it, she was probably the only person who could say that.
"R-Rei... hey, how're you?" Asuka stammered, still recovering from... well, everything that had happened since she'd awakened. "You, uh... need to talk about somethin'?"
"Yes, but... would you mind turning on the light first?"
"Eh? What li- oh, the lantern? Yeah, sure." Setting her phone down, Asuka felt around until her hand fell on the lantern she'd brought, and she switched it on without a moment of hesitation. As its light filled the tent, she turned back towards Rei - now able to see the worried expression her partner wore on her face. "Rei, Liebling, what's up? You look like something's wrong."
Rei hesitated, gulping and taking a couple of deep, shaky breaths before she opened her mouth. "Do you... remember the statue that we saw earlier?"
I've been tryin' not to. "Unfortunately. What about it?"
"...I... I remember now. It seemed vaguely familiar, but... I didn't understand why, a-and I didn't want to make you uncomfortable, so... I didn't bring it up. B-but... while I was asleep... everything came flooding back."
Flooding back...? Asuka didn't understand what Rei was talking about, but whatever it was, it concerned her. "R-Rei, what does that even mean?" In an attempt to console her partner, the redhead gently wrapped her arms around her. "You sure you didn't just have a nightmare or-"
"Don't you remember?" pleaded Rei, pushing away from Asuka's embrace and staring straight into her eyes. "The Angels... Nerv... Third Impact... the Evangelions?"
"The... the what?" It was almost like she was speaking in tongues or something... what was "Third Impact" even supposed to mean? What were the first two? And what the hell was an "Evangelion?"
Asuka placed a hand on Rei's trembling shoulder. "Liebling... just... calm down, okay? Explain it to me, take your time."
"I-it... it would sound like utter nonsense. I don't know how I could..." As Rei trailed off, an idea popped into her head. Perhaps... perhaps she didn't have to describe anything.
She moved to grab the lantern, bringing it over towards her to better illuminate herself as Asuka tilted her head. Then, once she'd done that, she began making several gestures, almost as if she were playing a game of charades.
Asuka sat in silence in the dim lamplight, watching patiently as her girlfriend went through a series of unexplained, seemingly unrelated motions. She started by... well, getting as close to actual dancing as she could in the tent. She struck a superhero-esque pose, then downed an imaginary bottle of beer. She wrung an invisible object in her hands until it snapped. She got down on all fours and gnashed her teeth.
It all seemed nonsensical. It probably was nonsensical. Yet with each passing scene Rei played out... Asuka could feel old, repressed memories bubbling back up to the surface. They were vague - too vague to truly connect any dots - but something was there.
Then, Rei hurled an imaginary spear. It pierced Asuka's mind. And everything came flooding back.
"I'm Asuka! Asuka Langley Soryu! Charmed, huh~?"
"Let's be good friends!"
"This is the unbreakable Wall of Jericho, Third Child."
"I hate this. I hate everyone. I hate everything."
"No, I'm not mama's doll, I'll think for myself and I'll live for myself!"
"Stay away from me! I'm going to live by my own!"
"I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die. I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"
"How disgusting."
She remembered. She finally remembered. And judging by the look on Rei's face, she'd made it pretty obvious.
As the downpour outside continued to pound against their tent, both Asuka and Rei remained silent, not once straying from each other's gaze. From Rei's perspective, the shock in the redhead's eyes was impossible to hide.
It didn't surprise her in the slightest when Asuka broke down crying.
Tears began streaming down Asuka's face when it fully hit her. Everything she'd just seen play out in her head - from her mother's body dangling from a noose, to her own being ravenously mutilated by the Mass Production Evangelions, the same ones that monstrous statue had depicted... it was all real. "Was" being the key word.
As Asuka choked out her last few sobs, she looked up towards Rei once again. "...Rei... why are we here...?"
"...Why?" Rei echoed, somewhat puzzled. "How do you mean?"
"I-I mean... shouldn't we... shouldn't we be dead or something? I-I'm tryin' to make sense of it, but I don't get how everything that happened... happened... a-and now... what, we're perfectly fine? Dating, even?! I-I mean, gottverdammt, I treated you so fucking horribly, a-and-"
"And I forgive you."
"...Y-you... huh?"
Rei nodded. "After all, there is... no reason not to leave what happened in a past life... well, in the past."
Asuka looked like her brain was probably about five seconds from short-circuiting, which Rei took as a sign to crawl towards her partner and drape an arm over her shoulder. The redhead seemed to appreciate the physical comfort, but kept her bewildered expression. "Past... past life?" she stammered out, wiping her tear-stained, freckle-dotted cheeks. "What does that even mean, Rei? D-did all that actually happen or not?"
Rei held Asuka just a bit tighter, took a deep breath, and picked her words carefully. "To put it simply... yes and no. All of those things, they did happen, but... when Third Impact came, the Third Child decided to rewrite the world as if... as if the Evas and Angels never existed. And... with that, history... more or less started over."
"S-so... this, right now, this isn't a dying dream or anything? A-and all my memories from this life... they're not fake?"
"Not at all. As I said, things started over from the very beginning... though, I suppose you'd be hard-pressed to find much of a difference before the turn of the millennium."
"Then... what about us, then?"
"Hm?"
Asuka looked into Rei's ruby eyes again, her own now mostly dry. "I mean, you said the Angels never existed in this timeline, yeah? Nerv and Gehirn never existed either, then." As far as she knew, at least. "Without those bein' around, then... how the hell did we even manage to meet again, anyway? Those odds have gotta be stupidly small."
"Maybe so, but... I believe there's no point in dwelling on it too much."
As a glowing blush once again overtook her pale cheeks, Rei softly smiled. Taking both of Asuka's hands in her own, she continued, "Perhaps it was destiny, perhaps it was... merely dumb luck. Either way, we-"
"We got a second chance," Asuka finished; pulling her girlfriend closer, she cracked a smile of her own. "You're right... what happened back then's behind us. A-and, um..." Rei raised an eyebrow as Asuka hesitated, her face quickly turning a fiery shade that nearly matched her hair. "...I-I'm really thankful things worked out this time, Wonder Girl."
Wonder Girl. Rei never would've guessed she'd be so pleased to hear that nickname again.
Without another word, the blue-haired girl pulled Asuka close, softly planting her lips against her partner's. The redhead instantly melted into the kiss, and the two held it as long as they could, savoring each blissful second.
It was only after their lips finally parted that Rei whispered, "I love you, Asuka."
"Ich liebe dich auch, Liebling~."
The pair gazed into each other's eyes for a few seconds more, soundtracked by the pouring rain. Eventually, though, Asuka would begin crawling back towards their sleeping bag - and after a not-so-subtle wink, Rei would soon follow.
"Hey, by the way, Rei... I never asked you, is there anythin' you wanna try doing tomorrow?"
"...Kayaking, perhaps? If the weather permits, of course..."
"Sounds perfect~."