Neon Genesis Evangelion

Neon Genesis Evangelion

A Debt Repaid

By: Lord Deathscythe

Disclaimer: I do not now, have ever, or will ever own Neon Genesis Evangelion. Don't sue me.

The young girl lay lifeless in a hospital bed, her red hair spread out from her, a young boy entered and sat next to her. His dark blue eyes had almost hollow from the pain he felt just looking at her. Shinji had just defeated the 17th angel, Kaoru Nagisa, his friend. He had had to crush the young boy in the hands of Unit-01 to save humanity, but he felt as if his soul had been taken from him. As he gazed upon Asuka, his roommate and fellow pilot, he felt as if, even though he had saved Earth from the angels, he had failed to save her.

"What good is protecting and saving humanity when I can't even save one person? Someone I love. I couldn't save you Asuka, and I had to murder Kaoru." Shinji said to himself. "Asuka, please wake up. I never thought I'd miss your slaps or your insults, but now I'd give anything just to feel the sting of your hand." Shinji squeezed the girls hand and stayed with her, hoping for some sign of life from what used to be the fiery and determined young girl. But now she was just a shell, a memory of all the pain he had endured. And for what? He had lost everything he had gained since coming to Tokyo-3. Misato was never around anymore, hunting the secrets of Nerv in a blind attempt at revenge towards the organization she held responsible for hurting Shinji and Asuka. Rei wasn't even Rei anymore, just a clone of Rei, which was much harder to take now that he knew she was also a clone of his mother. Touji, Kensuke, and Hikari had left Tokyo-3 after Unit-00 destroyed most of it against the 16th angel.

Shinji Ikari had lost everyone, and could only hope for the others to come out of this nightmare in as few pieces as possible. He kept gazing at Asuka, softly crying until he fell asleep in the chair next to her.

--

Asuka, while completely silent to the outside world, was lost in the depths of her mind. She was wrapped in darkness, not wanting to come back. She felt she was worthless, a failure… ugly. She curled up into a ball in the corners of her soul and wept.  She was attacked by her own memory of things gone by with no escape. No rest came for the weary young girl, as she continued to sob out "worthless" over and over like a dark litany. Suddenly another voice intruded on her self-imposed prison from reality.

"You're not worthless my dear Miss Langley," said a calm voice from the darkness.

"Who's there? Get away from me." She shouted. Asuka did not want anyone to see what she had become.

"I'm here to help you. I'm a friend. I won't harm you, don't be afraid," said the voice. From the darkness walked a boy, about her age wearing a white shirt and black slacks, similar to Shinji's. He had gray, unruly hair and deep red eyes. To Asuka he almost looked like a male version of Rei. Unlike the first child however, while he was calm he wasn't an emotionless automaton.

"Who are you?" Asuka asked timidly. She was still sizing the boy up, and wondered how he had gotten here.

"My name is Kaoru Nagisa; I'm a friend of Shinji's"

"How can you be in my mind if you're a friend of Shinji?" she asked, too stunned by the statement to care that before her another presence was entering her mind.

"For that you will need a little background information Asuka, may I call you Asuka?" Asuka merely nodded, too weak from all the pain and sorrow of being mind raped by the fifteenth to fight anymore. The boy squatted down next to her, coming a bit closer then he had been before.

"This may disturb you to know but I am an angel, the seventeenth to be precise. My true name is Tabris."

Hearing that this young boy was an angel reignited a fire in her. The angels had done this to her and seemed to be coming to gloat. "Get out of my head you bastard, your kind did this to me!" she screamed.

"While Areal is responsible for your current state, I was against this tactic. Destroying a lillim like this is unbecoming of our kind. I'm here to put right what she did, and help you back to reality. I owe Shinji that much for what I did to him."

"What did you do to him you little bastard? Did you screw with his mind too? Did you hurt him like you did me and now you're coming to admire your handiwork?"

Kauro took her anger and accusation with a placid patience. He knew she was hurt and took things very carefully, knowing how she reacted to confrontation from his talks with the young Ikari. Fortunately, patience was a virtue angels had in abundance. 

"I did hurt him, I admit that. But I am not pleased with what has happened to you both. You have been put through much during your lives and I hope to give you some peace in return. You did not deserve these things; you did not deserve to feel all this pain. That is why I am here, to try to at least right one of the many wrongs towards you both."

"You said you owed Shinji, what did you mean by that?"

"Well you see he was my friend. A very good friend at that, I understood him better then anyone else had before. I comforted him when he was dealing with his pain, weeping over losing everyone he cared for, especially you I might add. I even told him that I loved him. And for all his friendship I repaid him with betrayal. I used Unit-02 to get to the very heart of Nerv to obtain my goal. However, upon realizing that it would destroy humanity if I did, I surrendered to Shinji. I made him kill me in the giant hands of his Eva"

Asuka was stunned; this angel had confessed to her all these things. The worst of all was his betrayal of Shinji. She may have hid her feelings from him, but what Kaoru had just told her was unforgivable. She knew Shinji would rather die then take another persons life especially that of a dear friend, even if that friend was the enemy. He almost had during the battle with the thirteenth angel, not even knowing who was in the entry plug. This was unforgivable, and no amount of penance could right that wrong.

"How could you do that to him, he was feeling bad enough from everything that happened! To have to kill his best friend must have completely destroyed him! Do you know what this means? He might just get depressed enough to kill himself!"

"I know, which is why I am here. I owe a great debt to Shinji Ikari, and I intend to repay him, at least in part."

"Then why are you here? I can't do anything to help. I'm useless, a failure, he could never want to be near me after they way I've treated him."

"That's where you're wrong. If anything you are the only one who can save him now. He is alone now, lost. The only thing he can do now is go through the motions of living. If things don't change soon for him, then his life will end by his own hand. Time is short, and if you stay here too long the damage will be irreversible. Let me show you some things I saw in his mind before I came here."

In a flash she saw a scene of her and Shinji. It was the just as he jumped into the volcano after the 8th angel to save her.

"I won't let her die, I won't. I have to save her."

Another flash in the darkness, and Asuka was watching herself coming closer. It was the only kiss they had ever shared from Shinji's point of view. She could feel her air running out as he had, but the asphyxiation was secondary to his enjoyment of her kissing him. She felt his hurt when she finally let him breathe, and ran to the bath room to wash her mouth out. The shame he felt was almost unbearable to her.

The light came again, this time she was sitting in a shelter. While she watched the people huddled together a large part of the wall caved in. There she saw Unit-02's head, bloody and severed from it's body staring at her. She recognized when this was, the fourteenth angel had neutralized her by dismembering Unit-02. She felt a surge of panic in her, what Shinji felt as he saw the great head of Unit-02 stare at him with lifeless eyes.

One more flash came, and she was sitting in Unit-01's entry plug. It was dead, lifeless, without any power syncing the man to the machine. Unfortunately there was power to the comm. system. She could hear her own screams as the fifteenth angel torn through the walls of her mind, and laid everything before her to live over and over again. She could sense Shinji's feelings of helplessness as he was forced to hear her suffer. Asuka felt Shinji damn himself for not being there instead of her, where he could have done something. This was followed by the aftermath, Asuka watching through Shinji's eyes, her tell him she hated him.

Then they were back in the same dark room. Asuka was digesting what she saw, unable or unwilling to accept the meaning of it all. Everything he had felt towards her, everything he had thought about her resonated through her mind thanks to this angel. It was just like when the fifteenth had ripped through hers, but not physically painful. It was horrible none the less though, having to see things through another's eyes. To see how her actions had affected Shinji after that kiss hurt almost as bad as what she had been through.

Eventually she was able to stammer out, "He did all that for me? Every single bit of it? I hurt him so badly. Why does he still want to be around me?"

Kaoru sat down next to Asuka and pulled his knees up to his chest and sat with a calm demeanor.

 

"This may come as a surprise to you, but he is in love with you. I know you don't think he could but he does. I think he has ever since you two first met on the 'Over the Rainbow'. Why do you think he never once retaliated against you? His friends have bugged him about it for all this time, wondering the same thing you have. How can he be in love with her? How can he take all the abuse? How can he even think of liking a bitch like her? But he does, for no other reason except for that. He loves you because you're a bitch, because of the abuse. He loves you for being you. He just never said anything because he, like you were afraid of what it would mean. That you would abandon him like all the other people he loved in his life. His mother was stripped from him while he watched; his father just plain threw him away until he could use him. He was afraid you would do the same, and you would have because where he runs from others to escape the pain, you drive them from you. You and he are the same in that you avoid the pain by being alone, but the methods are different. But by being alone, by keeping others from getting too close to you, you feel another pain, the pain of loneliness. That's the pain he's going through right now. Made a hundred times greater because of me and what I did to him."

"Why should I go back? My soul is so dirty, wouldn't he be better off without me? I've caused him nothing but pain, I pushed him away when he wanted to help me. I insulted him when he did nothing but care for me. Why then would he want me back?" She confessed to Kaoru. She still couldn't believe anyone would want her, that her soul was too dirty and dark for anyone to want to be around. Even with what the angel had shown her through Shinji's eyes.

Even as Asuka spoke, she knew that this angel was right. How else could she explain Shinji's acts towards her? He had never hurt her, never attacked her even though he had reason to. The only reason she could come up with would be that he loved her.

"But I can't, if I love him, if I let him get close he'll be taken from me. Even if it's the last thing he wants, I'll lose him like everyone else."

"No, you may lose him in body. He may die in battle, die from an accident, or even taken by force by his father. But he would never leave you truly. His spirit, his soul would be with you always, even when his body cannot. And if you go back to him, to the world, Shinji Ikari will be strong enough to stay. So will you, together there is nothing you two lillim can't do. But, if you stay here you both will die. You in this hospital bed, and him, if not by his own hand or in battle, will lose his soul to grief and sorrow. Go to him, love him, and be loved by him. You can save each other from the darkness. That is the most important victory you could ever win. All you successes and failures in Eva pail in comparison to saving one life, the life of the one you love."

"No, he doesn't deserve to be pulled down by me. I'm not worth his concern."

Karou had almost ran out of things to convince her of her importance, and had to pull out his final ace. He was reluctant to do so, it would be very disturbing for her to see this, but it was the only way to convince her.

"Do you want to see what will become of Shinji if you refuse to leave this place? Do you want to know what will become of him should he not take his life?"

Karou bent the fabric of the darkness again in to an image of Shinji's future. Asuka thought the angel had mad a mistake for a moment, the image in front of her looked like Commander Ikari. As she looked closer she saw subtle differences; the lines on his face were not as defined as the commanders, nor did he wear those amber tinted glasses. Because of that, Asuka could see right into his eyes – his dark blue eyes.

Asuka let out a horrified gasp as she saw Shinji Ikari ten years from now, a dark mockery of the boy she knew. This was worse then anything she could have thought happen to him. Even death would have been better then what she was seeing. She turned to Karou, and saw a sad look in his eyes.

"This is his future without you. He will become like his father, only worse. Gendo Ikari still has a chance to change his fate and open his heart to his son. Shinji will not, he will become something even worse then his father. A person with no soul whatsoever, no hope of any redemption. He will fall so far into the darkness that nothing will be able to save him after this."

"Nothing at all? Not even Misato?"

"Only you can reverse this course. Major Katsuragi may be able to slow it's progression, perhaps even prevent it. But the shadows of this future are strong now, and she more then likely will not be able to stop it. If you stay here, you condemn both of you to a nightmare nothing will be able to wake you from."

Asuka took all this in, and knew it was right. She had fought to save all of humanity, but what did that matter if she did nothing to save one boy. The boy who loved her for no reason other then she was her, and that she loved for the same reason. She had made her choice now, to fight for him and save him from the darkness that had almost won over her.

"Thank you, for an angel you're not that bad a guy."

"If anything I should thank you. I am the angel of free will, and of my own free will betrayed a friend. This will partly repay a debt that can never truly be repaid, and it will make you both stronger then you ever thought possible."

Karou offered a hand to the Second Child, knowing his work here had finally been finished.

"I'll lead you back now. Take my hand, and don't be afraid."

With that, Asuka took the outreached had of Kaoru Nagisa, the 17th angel known as Tabris, and walked with him to the light.

--

Shinji had awakened from his troubled sleep after, in his dreams heard Kaoru's voice say to him "I owe you a great debt, one which I can never fully repay to you. I hope this will help you and partly make up for what I have done. Live, Shinji Ikari, and know that you are never alone. Wake up now, someone is waiting for you."

After hearing the voice of his friend say that, he awoke just before Asuka did. He pondered the meaning of the words of his friend that he had heard in his dream. "What did he mean by a debt that can never fully be repaid?" Shinji thought. Just as he was becoming fully awake, he saw Asuka stir. He rushed to her side and took her hand. Then her eyes opened and looked into his, the fire back in full force. They looked at each other, and Shinji began to cry again, this time in joy, for the girl he loved was returning to him.

"Shinji, you look terrible." Asuka said softly, weak from almost two weeks in coma.

"You've looked better yourself." He said through the tears, he now knew what Kaoru had meant. After almost losing her forever, he made a decision. One he would never regret even if she didn't feel the same.

"Asuka, I love you." He finally said. After all this pain, saying those three words made him feel finally and completely happy.

Asuka looked at him and smiled a small smile. "I love you too, Baka Shinji."

At that he gave a weak chuckle, his Asuka had been returned. He held her close, afraid to let go, as she did the same. They both heard Kaoru's voice in their minds. "Love each other, and be loved by each other. That is the greatest victory you will ever achieve."

Author's notes

Hope you liked that, My take on Tabris is that even though he would betray Shinji, he would try to make up for it. After all what are friends for? Some may be pissed because of Asuka's portrayal in this fic. So what? I believe that after she went into that coma, she was broken and scared. She would have been weakened to the point of not wanting to fight anymore, to curl up and die if you will.  And Shinji, well how hard is it to do a depressed, not quite but almost suicidal person like him. He has plenty of reason to be that way. Wouldn't you want to put a bullet in your head if you went through what he had? God knows I would. Thank the Maker we don't have to and have something like Evangelion to show us the way. I love a series that makes you look at yourself and ask what would you do in that situation.

Authors notes on Version 2.0: After having this story out for several months, writing other stories and the like, I went back and looked at it. I wasn't especially happy with some of the scenes and thought some of it was too fast. So I went back now and expanded everything I felt needed expanding. The flashback scenes especially needed expansion, so I made them Asuka flashing back from Shinji's POV. Tell me what you all think

Thanks to Matt Williams for his assistance Pre-reading. Thanks to Ender for hunting down the mistakes that were still left after all that.

Lord Deathscythe

E-mail: cwsmith1@qwest.net or cwsmith25@msn.com

Website: www.darkscribes.org

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