Shinji opened his eyes, only to found himself in another kind of dark

It was not the same darkness he stared on when Rei pushed him out of the train.

This time the smell was different, a stench of blood was surrounding him. He searched with his hands for walls, and he found them right away. He was in a small room, full of LCL, like the last time he was outside that train.

"So I came back to Unit-01 huh"

The boy pressed his hands on is own face, grieving.

"I couldn't even save her, even when it seemed like I achieved something, it turned out it was just another failure"

The cockpit started shaking violently, something was hitting the EVA from the outside. Shinji tried assuming control, but the EVA didn't have the energy to even use the emergency lights inside the cockpit; it was strange even that Shinji could survive inside the LCL in that situation.

"Shit…not only I couldn't save her. But now her sacrifice will go to waste too"

Shinji had already given up. The feeling of pride he felt, while opening the doors to save Rei, was now an embarrassing thought. He not only grieved his powerlessness, he was shamed thinking that he could be something more than his own coward pitiful self. Even after sacrificing his life. Even after overcoming the fear of boarding the EVA multiple times, even after returning as a last hope only to save Rei, he didn't progress a step further from his old self.

The cockpit just kept shaking and shaking.

"Maybe is better like this"

The boy thought

"Maybe is better if I was just gone. Someone else can take my place, someone else who will be able to save everyone. Someone who's worthy of weight of the world, who's not always complaining about the burden"

The cockpit shook more violently, whoever was attacking him, was tried to pull the plugsuit away from the EVA, crushing part of it in the process.

"Ironic, just like what happened with Asuka. This is just a sign that I really deserve this"

Shinji felt cold inside and totally gave up, he closed his eyes, waiting for the moment in which he would feel death touch on him. Hoping that for once, the touch could be a warm embrace. And something embraced him. And it was warm. But it was not death. It was a nostalgic heat, like a mother embrace. Shinji opened his eyes, and for a second, he glimpsed his own mother. But after blinking, his mother was not there anymore. Instead she could hear a voice, it was Rei's.

"Please accept it Ikari"

"Rei? Rei where are you? Please Rei reply to me"

"It will be useless if you die"

"What would be useless? Nothing will be lost with my departure. The world could even be better off without me"

"I…will be. My feelings would be. Misato's pain would be. Asuka's burden would be"

Sometimes, to understand how stupid the voices in your head are, while telling that you are worthless, you just have to say it out loud. Sometimes is not that our life has no worth, but it's that we cannot see the worth in it. It's like being colorblind, but seeing only the colors that makes us feel bad. The feeling that was dwelling inside Shinji after Rei's words was this. Reprisal, reprisal against his own self which couldn't see that behind the walls the other people put in between themselves and him, there was some affection. Reprisal against his own self that needed to have that affection shown to understand.

"So…please, try to live"

Shinji opened his eyes again, there was still darkness in the cockpit, but the LCL started heating up, and with an explosion of colors, the UI of the EVA turned back online, in red color. Shinji's eyes turned red too, and the Unit 01, which was on the ground, getting kicked by his enemy, got back up and roared. As the roar pierced the skies, his detached arm grew back, with reddish flesh and the junctures around the EVA opened and started to glow. The sky was that of a sunset, and the image of the 01 rising, resembled a monster.

Shinji couldn't really see what was happening outside his EVA, but the machine was back online and he could feel its movements. It was a strange feeling, because it didn't felt like it was him that moved the machine, but the machine responded to his desires, and he could feel every juncture of the EVA moving, every moving part was connected to his muscles, every sensor connected to his nerves.

Shinji itself was not in a clear mind status. Adrenaline kicked in strong and he was only focused on winning against the enemy to which he didn't even know the identity. And in that situation, the fight couldn't last long. The enemy tried attacking Unit 01, but with an unbelievable strenght, Unit-01 pushed its hand on the enemy face, and crushed it, then it pushed what remained of its head on the ground and started hitting the body. It was not long before the enemy started moving for good, but it took 3 minutes for Shinji to regain control over himself and the EVA.

At that point he could actually make up what was outside of his cockpit, but he didn't recognize the enemy to be a white EVA, because of his dismal condition. What he actually recognized, what a power cable for the EVA near his position.

"Oh, that's good. I don't know for how much Unit-01 will be able to move"

He got up and plugged the energy cable in the EVA, returning all the systems online.

"Rei…Rei…do you receive me"

Shinji heard Misato's voice, which contacted Unit-01 as soon as that became possible.

"Hi Misato. Rei's not here, but it seems like the Angel's defeated"

"What? Shinji? Where's Rei?"

"She went where I was before. We have to try and get her out, I'm sure Ritsuko can…"

Shinji couldn't finish the phrase that it finally got into him. The enemy resembled an EVA.

"Say Misato, Unit-01 was out fighting an Angel right?"

"Yeah, we saw a blue wavelenght from there and Rei went to check it out. We thought that Rei's energy was over and we were searching for a way to send reinforcements, as Asuka is occupied with another fight here."

"Oh, yeah the energy was over it seemed. Rei reached me because of that I think. But the Eva moved even without energy for a while, so I could defeat the enemy and plug in the cable. But still, something's bothering me. The Angel really resembles…"

Shinji was cut short by Misato

"What did you say? A cable? There shouldn't be any power cable at your position"

Everything started to click into Shinji's brain. Covered by the nature, was a deployment point for the Evangelions. One that was not charted on the NERV operations' map. Hence the cable, but that also meant, that what he fought was not a simple Angel.

"Say Misato, how is the Angel that Asuka's fighting?"

"We do not really know, we have no communication on the layer she's in now. She's deep into the Central Dogma"

"Because the one here…really resembles an EVA"

"What? It can't be"

Shinji fot Unit-01 up and went back near the destroyed enemy. It really resembled and EVA, so he checked, he watched on the neck, and he could make it out. A cockpit was there. It was damaged, so it opened and the LCL flew out, together with the pilot. As Shinji feared, there was a pilot, and not a dummy suit. But what Shinji could not image was the pilot's identity. The pilot was still aline, even if she was injured. She had an helmet, but was breathing heavily with the helmet on it. So she took it off. Revealing her blue, short hair. Revealing her red eyes. Revealing that it was Rei.

Shinji was confused and shocked.

He couldn't know

His Rei was inside the train as much as he knew it.

And that should have been an Angel

The Angel against which Rei fought.

But there was something more to it.

And it that moment he couldn't know, but everything would eventually lead back to that man.

To Gendo's desperate love, and to that man Deeds of Cruelty