Omake. Inner Wor(l)ds.
The tragedy is not in dying. The tragedy is what dies within you as you live.
~

The Fighter

What will I do when the Angels are gone?

Wow. What a question. It's so weird to even be thinking it, to actually have it be relevant. My life, without the Angels. I didn't think something like that could exist.

For so long I've been focused on the Angels – more than that, I've been transfixed by them. 'Career' or 'passion' didn't do it justice, more like 'obsession'. Every waking moment, every effort and action ultimately led back to defeating the Angels – for my father, for Shinji and the children, maybe even for myself or humanity – the Angels were the key, the fundamental antagonist to my existence. They were the background everything else happened against, when they weren't everything that was happening at all.

Except we've been fighting enemies that aren't Angels. And now I have to find space in my head for that.

One day the Angels could all be defeated, but life will go on. Actual, real life, with challenges and struggles and conflict, with death and threats – everything that the Angels had dominated, had defined in my mind, will still exist when they don't.

But what will be left of me?

My pretend life – my constructed family, my transient home, my work aimed at a single subject – will anything endure once the cause disappears? Everything I've done, everything I've made, was built on the scaffold of the battle against the Angels. Once that foundation is gone, I don't know if what's left will be strong enough, real enough, to stand on its own. I don't know if I'm real enough to stand on my own.

Will Shinji still want to stay with me? He's legally my ward now – I asked him to think about it after his father died, but he surprised me by immediately agreeing (and then I embarrassed him by crying, and then he cried, and then I cried more because of him crying … it was that kind of day). No matter what happens – with Evas, or Angels, or NERV – my commitment to him isn't going to change, but with everything he's been through, I couldn't blame him if once we're free of it all he never wanted to see me again. The most precious person in my life, and I have to accept the possibility that he might choose to say goodbye.

They say Third Impact happened already, though nobody remembers it. They say the sixteenth Angel tried to fuse with Unit 01 and Unit 02, erasing us all, but instead we all got to make a choice. I chose to live, they say – to dare suffering, and loneliness, and uncertainty; I chose to take the risks of life.

I hope that's right. I hope that, in the truth of my soul, I'm someone who strives. Because only with that will, that yearning and drive, can I possibly create something real.

So I don't know what I'll do, or even what I'll be, when the Angels are all defeated.

But one thing I do know...

I'll be glad to be around to ask the question.

The Professor

It was not going to succeed, not with Ikari's son and that construct in charge. Shinji on his own might have fallen to the allure of Complementation – he was fearful and lonely enough – but, like all humans, he gained strength from the presence and support of someone he cared for, enough to brave the uncertainty and pain of individual existence. As for Kaworu Nagisa, SEELE's clone of Adam, their tool who rebelled, subjugating his ascension to that of an ordinary human, I would not believe it.

No, Instrumentality could not succeed with such defiant key souls, and so I elected to retain my delineating AT field … for now.

There remains only one way for me to see Yui again, to realise her unmatched ambition for humankind, and that is yet my life's only goal. Compared to that wish, all the ties of this world are fleeting; all other desires are nothing more than trivial diversions, to be disregarded and cast aside. Every task and project is subordinate to that ultimate aim, and every effort serves to fulfil my scenario – every effort, and every person.

Rei Ayanami, our own construct drawn from Lilith, survived Third Impact with her soul intact; that part of her that is of Yui's essence is the material with which to recall her from exile. Her divided heart – in Rei and in Unit 01 – will be mended and at last we will be together, once the last Angel is defeated, and we cast off these limiting forms.

At last we will be able to actualise the true potential of our species, to mark eternal in the universe the proof that humankind ever existed; when the innumerable sins of our existence and history are wiped away, the fruit of Knowledge will finally ripen.

The last attempt failed, because the Keys did not have the will to sacrifice life as it is for the eternity that could be. I will not make the same error; I will pay the price – any price – to see Yui once more.

Then, finally, I will be complete. All of us Lilim will at last be Complementary.

Just a little longer, Yui.

The Scientist

Before Third Impact, life was difficult, but worthwhile. I had my work; I had my cats; and most intoxicating of all, I had a place in Gendo Ikari's affections. I was approaching, if not happiness itself, then a definition that I felt could one day apply to me.

No, my situation was not ideal. Cats are not humans, after all; though they have their charms, a pet is not a viable substitute for an interpersonal relationship – at least, one that can be publicly declared.

The position of Chief Scientist, with near-unlimited budget and scope for research and experimentation, was all I could have dreamed of as a young and ambitious student. My dreams, however, would have cast me as the bold and revolutionary artisan – not my mother, not Yui Ikari; the view from the shoulders of giants could make one feel small indeed.

As for Gendo Ikari … I had sworn, all those years ago, that I did not need the me that is a woman. I was not going to be like my mother. But he reached out to me, said he needed me … it felt good to be needed. It was satisfying to support him, to be the only one to stand by him and share everything with him.

I believed that I could chase away the shade of his lost wife, believed that one day he would see only me. I just had to show him my worth – had to prove myself to be dedicated and devoted, capable of bringing his dreams to fulfilment. His ambitions were mine; his vision was everything, and I gave everything I had to it – to him. Soon, when we completed the great work, he would see that I was the one he truly needed and wanted. Soon he would be mine, all of him, mind and heart and soul.

Now he is dead. Gendo Ikari is dead, and my light died with him.

So I have to keep going with the Instrumentality Project. To honour his memory, to fulfil his legacy, and most of all, to bring about his admirable goal – the ultimate evolution of humankind: our salvage from obscure destruction and ascension to the infinite. I believe in it as strongly as I believe in him; next to their vast significance, I can have no ego or shame. I must be ruthless and whole-hearted. I gave my entire self over to him and to the Project, and I stand by that. Only by completing this destiny will I prove myself worthy of him, and have peace … perhaps even happiness.

One thing will change, though: I will not use that poor girl. Not her – that pale Yui-doll, object of others' projection – that image of my inadequacy. Not while I have any other choice.

There is another candidate, not just born of the Angels but an Angel himself, and I already have the tools with which to subjugate him.