Interlude.
Shinji sat completely still, having no idea how long he would be trapped here, or if he would ever be rescued. Suddenly a terrible scent invaded his nostrils.
Wha—what's that? he thought, trying to place the smell. On the realization, he gagged furiously. Blood! It smells like blood! He clawed at his face, trying to make the smell go away. The LCL churned furiously around him as he flailed his arms.
With awful finality he lay still, wishing for escape. Somehow his thoughts calmed, and he could realize only one thing.
I'm so terribly cold…
****
Above-ground, the shadow had ceased expanding, and the angel now floated in the air, silent once again. Asuka and Rei had disembarked from their Evangelions, which crouched, dormant, at the makeshift camp NERV had erected near the shadow.
"And to think, Commander Ikari isn't even here," Misato muttered darkly. Dusk was on in full and large portable lights had come on all around the camp. The acting commander joined a sizable group of NERV staffers who had gathered around a blackboard, where Dr. Akagi was explaining the problem.
"The shadow stopped expanding at roughly sixteen hundred meters from the NERV base, six hundred and eighty meters in diameter. However, the shadow's thickness is a mere three nanometers. Our scans have revealed what appears to be an inverted AT field, creating within it what science knows as a Sea of Dirac."
Everyone looked at everyone else, anxiously awaiting an explanation.
"The Sea of Dirac is almost entirely theoretical, even today," Ritsuko said, noticing the confused looks. "No one has ever actually been inside one—or if they have, they've never come out to say what's there. In short, what we're dealing with is pure speculation."
Many people began to grumble amongst themselves, wondering aloud how they were going to extract a huge robot from a place that may or may not exist.
Misato wondered, more to the point, how they would extract a pilot.
****
Shinji lay in the blackness and the silence. He had begun to physically sense the LCL around him, something he had not felt for a long time. The filtration systems must be breaking down by now, he thought absently. He activated his Eva's nonessential systems for a moment and looked at a small timer. It had long ago stopped working and Shinji wondered how much time he had left.
I've been down here…hours. Hours. My life support can't hold out for that much longer…can it?
It's tiring…being here. It makes me tired.
A voice sounded in his head.
"Are you…Ikari Shinji?"
"Yes…who are you?"
"I am Ikari Shinji."
"There's two of me?"
"There are many of you. The Ikari Shinji in each person's mind. The Ikari Shinji in Kaji Ryoji's mind. The Ikari Shinji in Katsuragi Misato's mind. The Ikari Shinji in Ikari Gendo's mind. The Ikari Shinji in Sohryu Asuka's mind. The Ikari Shinji in Ayanami Rei's mind…all of them are real Ikari Shinjis. Even the Ikari Shinji in your mind."
"But…but I am Ikari Shinji…"
"That is true. And even you have your own perceptions of yourself. Your own ideas about what is good and bad, to you. A different picture of you from anyone else."
"What about Father…? I hated him, but…but he praised me. He called me by my name… Now…now I don't know what I feel about him."
"He represents pain for you, does he not?"
"He…he did…so I ran from him."
"You run from pain, Ikari Shinji. Do not run from pain."
"But…I don't like…pain…"
"You deceive yourself, when you run from pain. You ignore what is the experience of being you. You simply feed yourself the same happy memories, over and over."
"What…What's wrong with that?" Shinji asked, his voice steadying. "That's what everybody does!"
"No man can survive on only memories. Memories are beautiful, but they cannot feed you, cannot fill your stomach up. You must live life to continue on. Even when that life is painful."
"But…I don't…like…pain…"
"Pain is as integral a part of life as pleasure; even you cannot deny that, Ikari Shinji."
Shinji gripped his head as if to drive the voice away.
His cry echoed back to him in the strict confines of the entry plug.
"But—But I don't like pain! What's wrong with that!"
