With that little admission out of the way, let's have a chat. Firstly, apologies to an author on this site: sprite. Sincerely and honestly, I am sorry for the title of this work – it is virtually the same as yours. I've had this floating around on my computer for a very long time now… and I feel as though I would be betraying something if I changed the title now. Please, I am truly sorry.
Evangelion: All is Right with the World incorporates the series and EoE fully – ie, I haven't messed with the storyline. Most of it takes place immediately after Third Impact. The real story starts two seconds after the movie finished.
That said, Chapter 01 IS A RETELLING OF END OF EVANGELION WITH A FEW PREVIOUSLY UNSEEN BITS. Skipping it will have no effect on the story. Think of it as a prologue, if you like.
Finally, I am a new fanfic author here, though I have been writing for a few years – mostly fantasy and sci-fi, I have some work on StrangeMinds.com and a few other places. I hope you like my story… I've always stubbornly believed, as Yui does, in a brutally simple philosophy: everything will be all right. I prefer the uplifting endings… don't you?
Take it easy,
RENEGADE
______________________________________________________________________________________
ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD01. The End
Shinji Ikari, the fourteen year-old Third Child and pilot of Evangelion Unit-01, gazed at his shameful right hand. He could not bring himself to look at the face of the comatose girl in the hospital bed before him. He collapsed to his knees and bowed his head.
"I'm so fucked up."
* * *
In the wretched darkness of NERV's underbelly, a conversation was finishing.
"The fate of destruction is also the joy of rebirth!" thundered the voice of a SEELE member.
"Through the sacrament of death, humanity, God and all living beings will be united and reborn as one!" proclaimed a different SEELE hologram.
"Death creates nothing," hissed Gendo Ikari coldly.
"Your death," the hologram answered darkly, "will create an opportunity."
* * *
Merciless JSSDF special forces had overrun NERV headquarters intent on eliminating everyone in sight. As troops occupied tactical positions around the Geo Front, their commander ordered depth charges to be fired into the lake, where Evangelion Unit-02 was situated.
The shuddering impacts were felt even inside the reinforced entry plug. Curled up in a ball, waiting for the end because she had nothing else to live for, was the pilot: Asuka Langley Sohryu. Once she had been indomitable, invincible. And now she was nothing. She didn't know what Shinji saw in her.
The impacts had shaken her free from catatonia. Within the LCL that filled the plug Asuka's blood began to run cold. She felt so alone and afraid. She began to whisper a mantra.
"I don't want to die."
Her mother, through her death, had taught that to her.
"I don't want to die."
But she had forgotten it until now.
"I don't want to die."
She didn't want to stay here.
"I don't want to die."
But she was afraid of death.
"I don't want to die."
A presence…
"I don't want to die."
You're still alive
"I don't want to die."
You can't die yet
"I don't want to die."
I won't let you die
"I don't want to die."
You mustn't die yet
"I don't want to die!"
Thunder in her mind. Razor sharp images of terror.
"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"
A blue light, a ghostly caress and the love of a spirit filled her soul.
"Mama?"
A hand reached out to grab the hand of a tiny child, alone and abandoned, a child with fiery red hair and azure blue eyes. With maternal love it grasped the outstretched hand, even as the small child became a fourteen-year-old girl with a proud heart and an indestructible spirit.
"Mama! You've been here all along?"
There was a smile… a smile that she could not see but felt in her heart.
"Mama! Now I understand!"
A blinding force of light exploded upwards, the manifestation of a joyful, vengeful spirit that burned into the eyes of the watching soldiers even as their hearts turned to ash. A battleship on the lake began to rise as Evangelion Unit-02, resplendent in its wrath raised the enemy ship above its head. Explosions thundered all over and around Asuka as her gaze fell on a heavily fortified area.
"Eat this!" Asuka flung the battleship like a child's toy. Not a single soldier in the area survived the massive detonation.
Asuka raised her eyes to the heavens as newly invigorated blood burned through her veins. "I understand now! The meaning of the AT Field!"
Like an avenging angel she leaped high into the sky as explosions blanketed the air around her.
"You were always protecting me! Always watching over me! We were always, always together, Mama!"
Missiles struck. Bombs landed. Soldiers in aircraft attacked and died as Unit-02 swatted them aside like flies. Asuka was alive. For the first time in a long time, she felt free.
"The cable! Focus all your firepower on the cable! Use whatever you've got!" screamed the JSSDF commander into his radio.
Asuka angrily stole a glance behind her as her umbilical cable severed and the power countdown began. She did not halt her vengeful advance into the JSSDF lines. Instead she turned to gaze down on the soldiers, narrowing her eyes. And grinned just like the old Asuka had done.
"Even without my umbilical cable attached…"
Missiles and bombs crashed off Unit-02 without even scratching the paint.
"I've still got twelve thousand plates of fortified armour!"
A squadron of aircraft moved up to target the head…
"And I've got my AT Field!" Asuka screamed in wrathful anger.
Such was her control that her AT Field twisted from an impenetrable force field into a terrible weapon. It shrieked through the sky and with a deafening chorus of destruction the entire squadron of aircraft descended to the ground as flaming wreckage.
Asuka turned her attention to the rest of the JSSDF and roared into action.
"There's no way I can lose!"
* * *
Rei Ayaname stood watching the floating remains of her clones.
"Rei."
She turned slowly at the voice that had controlled her existence from the moment she had been forced into this world.
"I knew I'd find you here."
She said nothing in reply, just stared at the man with her usual impassive gaze.
"The time has come," said Gendo Ikari. "Let's go."
* * *
"The Eva series?" murmured Asuka, gazing at the winged white Evangelions that circled lazily above her. "They've been completed…"
* * *
Frustrated and desperate, her bullet wound growing more and more agonizing with every passing moment, Misato Katsuragi pushed Shinji Ikari up against the wall of the elevator that would take them to Unit-01. She clutched his face close to hers with two bloody hands and gazed into his eyes. He stared back, afraid and heartbroken, utterly defeated.
"God knows, I'm not perfect either," she said bitterly. "I've made tons of stupid mistakes and later I regretted them. And I've done it over and over again, thousands of times, a cycle of hollow joy and vicious self-hatred. But even so, every time I learned something about myself."
Shocked, Shinji was gazing at her with his blue eyes. Over the course of their time together, Misato had come to love those eyes. This… was her son.
"Please, Shinji…" she pleaded with him as her voice became softer. "You've got to pilot Eva and settle this once and for all. For your own sake. Find out why you came here. Why you exist at all. Answer your own questions. And when you've found your answers… come back to me. I'll be waiting."
Shinji stared into the eyes of the woman who had been his guardian, his mother, his big sister and his best friend.
"Promise me," Misato whispered.
How could he refuse her? Even through the heartbreak and the pain, through the tears and the horror, even through the sorrow and the loneliness that he felt, Shinji realised that although Misato Katsuragi hadn't always been with him when he needed her… he had not always been there when she needed him, either. But even so, they had gained more than either of them had ever hoped to gain by their interactions with the other. Though they had failed one another on occasion, neither of them had ever been alone.
"Yes…" he whispered.
Misato smiled peacefully, the answer she had expected. Reaching up, she undid the pendant that she kept around her neck - a white cross. Gently placing it in Shinji's palm, she pressed his fingers closed around it. She stroked Shinji's cheek.
"See you soon," she whispered.
* * *
Screaming with all her pent-up rage, Asuka Langley Sohryu massacred the Eva series. The fluids that passed as blood for an Eva ran in rivers and Asuka laughed grimly as she carved one of the enemy Evas through the torso, cleaving it in half.
"I cannot be defeated! Not with Mama watching over me!"
* * *
Misato was dead. Shinji was ruined. But he had honoured her last command. He knew his mother was inside Unit-01 and she had sensed what had to be done, extending her arm to create a bridge across the Bakelite that filled the Cage. Shinji was now seated in the entry plug.
He moved to the chute that would take him to the Geo Front.
* * *
She had won. Asuka had destroyed them all. But they had returned to life. And the heartless, soulless monstrosities had smiled at her before they swarmed over Unit-02 like buzzards.
Asuka did not admit defeat, even with the death of Evangelion Unit-02. Her fury and hatred fuelled her to continue even from the brink of violent death.
Clutching her remaining eye in one hand and reaching up with the other, she whispered her own mantra.
"I'll kill you… I'll kill you… I'll kill you…"
An incoming Eva spear sliced Unit-02's - Asuka's - arm in half.
In came the rest of the Eva series' spears. Unit-02's remains were impaled another eight times.
* * *
The JSSDF commander's knees turned to jelly as the eerie ethereal tentacles extended from the blast crater. A hideous ghostly shrieking filled his ears and he almost relieved himself on the spot when the ghastly form appeared. Floating on celestial wings as dark winds whipped around it, the massive figure rose like an avenging demon of hell. Even from this distance the man could see the nightmarish mask it wore.
"Evangelion Unit-01!" the commander gasped in terror.
"It's the Devil himself!" shrieked a subordinate.
* * *
Shinji reached the Geo Front. His heart was steady and his mind was numb to everything but what Misato had said. He had nothing else to do but go on. It was too late to die now.
Piece by piece he took in everything.
Circling above him like vultures was the Eva mass-production series.
All around him was the devastated remains of what had once been a sanctuary for the human race.
And before him, slaughtered and dismembered, was the corpse of Evangelion Unit-02.
He felt the blood drain from his face. He felt his pupils dilate. He felt the last vestiges of his strength flee from his soul.
Asuka, the girl who had refused his help, the girl who had resisted him all this time, the girl who insulted him every chance she got, the girl who, despite all this, Shinji wanted to be with forever, was dead.
Shinji screamed.
* * *
Glowing with a soft internal light, Rei Ayaname floated upwards towards the breast of the gigantic white figure crucified on the red cross.
"Rei! Please! I beg you!" Gendo Ikari, helpless for the first time in his life, sprawled on the walkway below her. He clutched the stump of his right arm. The body of Dr. Akagi floated in the LCL behind him.
"I can't. Ikari is calling me."
She floated upwards and for the first time in her three existences, Rei Ayaname felt at peace.
"I'm home."
Welcome home
* * *
The ghostly, serene figure of Lilith that held the strangely beautiful shape of Rei Ayaname rose up from the core of the world to cradle the Black Moon. This creature was both the genesis and the apocalypse of the human race. From Lilith we came, to Lilith we shall return.
* * *
In the NERV command center, the elderly Vice-Commander Kouzou Fuyutsuki gazed calmly, sadly, at the spectacle before him. In another world, in another life, he might have considered the ascension of Lilith to be a wondrous, beautiful moment. But now, he was just tired.
His three companions stared with a mixture of awe, terror and wonder. Hyuga Makoto sat slumped in his chair, shocked and afraid as he heard the thumping of his own heart in his ears. Maya Ibuki sat curled in a fetal position, whimpering, terrified to look at the surreal spectacle but unable to look away. And Shigeru Aoba sat stunned, his mouth hanging open, unable to comprehend what was happening.
These three had served NERV throughout the Angel attacks, Fuyutsuki mused. They had defended their erstwhile home when the murderous JSSDF invaded. He had told them everything - no point in hiding classified information now. The three operatives had the information, but whether they understood it… well, Fuyutsuki sighed, most likely it wouldn't matter.
On the screen, Evangelion Unit-01 rose higher and higher. The whimpering of Shinji Ikari was still audible. "I can't take it any more. I can't take it any more. I can't take it any more…"
Fuyutsuki felt pained. He truly regretted what was happening to Shinji. The poor child was utterly broken, mentally, physically and emotionally. Fuyutsuki was not a cruel man, but he had come too far with Gendo Ikari to turn back now. The Human Instrumentality Project was not something that he had undertaken lightly. He wasn't even sure if he agreed with it. The only hope I can give you, Shinji, Fuyutsuki thought sadly, is that in a few minutes you will not feel any more pain. Forgive me.
"Twelve thousand feet and rising," came the neutral voice of a Magi announcement.
The Lance of Longinus, having newly returned from a lunar orbit, ceased its slow circumvention of the Eva, guiding itself towards its exposed core. It pierced the chest of Unit-01, and Fuyutsuki clenched his eyes shut for a moment as it instantly spread throughout the Eva's body like an infection, transforming it into a gigantic, cross like shape. Instantly Shinji's sobs faded into static. The thing that had taken over Unit-01's shape grew larger, longer, resembling the roots of a tree - which was not far from the truth. This was Sephiroth.
"The Fruit of Life is held by the Angels," Fuyutsuki told the others calmly, never taking his eyes from the haunting phenomenon. "The Fruit of Wisdom is held by man. Unit-01 now possesses them both, and therefore… becomes God. Once the source of all souls, the Tree of Life has been formed again. Will it be an Ark to save humanity from the vacuum of Third Impact? Or is it a demon that will destroy us all? The fate of mankind now lies in Shinji's hands."
Feebly grasping at Shigeru Aoba's sleeve, Maya Ibuki sobbed, "Tell me… have we done the right thing?"
Helplessly, Aoba glanced at her. "How the hell should I know?"
Fuyutsuki bowed his head. Just so. How could anyone possibly answer that?
* * *
An ecstatic smile on her face, Lilith tilted her head back and the sacrament of rebirth began, the start of the salvation / damnation of the human race. The unearthly being with Rei's shape tugged gently at the world and gradually, around the Black Moon tiny, sparkling lights appeared, each one representing a human soul, a person, a child of Lilith. The souls of the billions of living and recent dead were pulled from their bodies… as each light was drawn to the Moon and from there into Lilith, it knew both the greatest joy and the greatest terror possible as it surrendered its individuality to return to its original home. A human life is nothing but a spark in the darkness, flaring to catch the eye for just a moment before fading and dying, to be replaced by newer, brighter lights. But now all people would live forever as one. Humanity had reached the pinnacle of both its ruin and its perfection. Now, there would be just one light. And it would never fade.
* * *
Evangelion Unit-01 descended from orbit towards the forehead of Lilith. As if to welcome it, a cavity opened and Unit-01 - with Shinji inside - became one with the progenitor of humanity. A hundred trillion thoughts, images, emotions, understandings, words and memories came flooding, thundering into Shinji. Here, he was no-one. He was just One.
Slowly, Instrumentality began Shinji's absorption, the process by which he would surrender his self, his mind and all concepts of individuality to create the perfection of the single being.
A vision…?
"You don't understand anything. You just stay away from me," Asuka snapped.
"I… do understand," Shinji protested feebly.
"You couldn't possibly! You jerk!" Asuka spat. "You think you can ever know me? You think you can even help me? Don't make me laugh! I can't believe how arrogant you are! You're such a moron! You will never understand!"
"How can I ever understand you if you won't say anything?" demanded Shinji in frustrated anger. "You never talk to me but you expect me to understand! That's impossible!"
"Did you ever really try to understand?" came Rei's voice.
"Of course I did…"
"Idiot," sneered Asuka. "I know all about your little jerk-off fantasies about me. Go ahead and do it like you always do. I'll even stand here and watch you. But if I can't have you all to myself…" she leaned in close, "then I don't want anything from you!"
"Then why don't you try being nice to me?" whispered Shinji.
We are nice to you.
"Liars!" Shinji screamed miserably. "You hide behind those smiles but you intentionally keep things ambiguous…"
"Because the truth causes everyone pain," stated Rei. "Because the truth is very, very traumatic."
"But ambiguity only causes me more pain…"
"That's just an excuse."
"But it scares me!" cried Shinji. "Because I don't know if everyone will stop wanting me again! I feel awkward and uneasy! Let me hear your voice! Don't leave me, I'm begging you! Please, care about me!"
* * *
This world is overflowing with sorrow. Its people are drowning in emptiness. Loneliness fills their hearts.
The corridors of NERV were choked with the dead and dying, reminders of the terrible battle that had taken place only moments before. But now, beside each body stood a figure with blue hair and red eyes, dressed in a Tokyo-3 school uniform. Soul fragments of Lilith that carried the shape of Rei Ayaname, the former First Child. As each human being perished in the ceremony, Rei was there to guide the soul into the loving embrace of Lilith.
Across the world, the AT Fields of human beings ceased to be and their bodies vanished, only to have their souls drawn into Lilith.
* * *
A ghostly Rei crawled across the computer desk to Hyuga Makoto, who gasped in fear and tried to shrink back into his chair. Rei took on the shape of Misato, a woman who could never be his, and flung herself on the terminal operator. Hyuga had time for one gasp of fear before his AT Field vanished and his body splattered into LCL. His soul returned to Lilith.
Shigeru Aoba screamed in pure terror as more Reis floated towards him. Desperately he tried to escape but he could not will himself to move. Instead he just clutched his head and screamed… his AT Field vanished and his form dissolved into the orange liquid. His soul returned to Lilith.
Kouzou Fuyutsuki smiled serenely as a Rei took on the shape of Yui Ikari and floated down towards him from above. "Ikari," he murmured as Yui / Rei / Lilith gently held his face close to hers, "Did you finally get to see Yui too?" His AT Field vanished, his body liquefied into LCL and his soul returned to Lilith.
"The… the AT Fields… they're all disappearing," Maya Ibuki stammered, eyes locked on her laptop. Her fingers were shaking too much to work the keys. "Is this… is this the answer I was looking for?" Suddenly, gentle hands reached down from around her shoulders and flew over the keyboard. Only one person Maya knew could type like that.
"Maya…" The Ritsuko / Rei / Lilith figure drew the young woman into an embrace.
"Dr. Akagi!" Maya gasped, before smiling happily and returning the hug. "Ritsuko! Ritsuko…"
Maya's AT Field vanished and the LCL splashed over the floor. Her soul returned to Lilith.
* * *
"I've waited so long for this moment to arrive. I will finally be with you again, Yui," Gendo Ikari lay on his back, gasping painfully, staring up at the face of his dead wife. "When Shinji is near me, all I ever do is cause him pain… I thought it would be better if I did nothing at all."
"Were you afraid of Shinji?" Yui asked softly, smiling.
"I didn't think anyone could love me," Ikari told her pitifully. "I didn't deserve to be loved."
"So, you were running away. You rejected the others around you so that you would not be hurt. You were terrified by the invisible bonds that people form."
"You were afraid," said Rei, appearing nearby. "And so you closed off your heart."
Gendo Ikari's heart filled with guilt and regret. His voice was stronger. His eyes were open. "And so this is my retribution."
A gigantic Evangelion Unit-01 clutched Gendo in its hand, baleful eyes locked on him.
NERV Commander Gendo Ikari faced his future calmly and spoke the first words of emotion he had ever said to his absent son: "Forgive me, Shinji."
The Evangelion-demon bit down.
Gendo Ikari's AT Field vanished and his guilt-ridden soul violently returned to Lilith.
* * *
Blood mingled with the LCL of the entry plug and Asuka lay semi-conscious and close to death. Her eye was mangled, her arm had been dismembered. Only the plug's powerful life support systems kept her alive. Her entire existence was agony. But at that moment, she felt none. Her remaining eye was fixed on the figure that floated towards her.
"Wonder Girl," she whispered weakly, before coughing up a spurt of blood.
Rei smiled and took on the shape of Shinji. Asuka's eye went wide.
"You raised a barrier around your heart," Shinji / Rei / Lilith said softly as he floated closer. "You refused to understand those who love you. And in doing so, you came to not understand yourself. You forced yourself into anger and so came further away from who you truly are."
Asuka stared. A single tear, the first waking tear she had shed since her childhood, escaped the corner of her eye. "It hurts," she croaked. "Idiot."
Shinji / Rei / Lilith smiled and caressed her cheek. Asuka looked into his eyes. She did not turn away. "Kom sosser tod," she whispered.
Her AT Field vanished and her body dissolved, mixing with the LCL of the entry plug. Asuka's soul returned to Lilith.
* * *
One by one, the holograms flickered out of existence as the SEELE members returned to Lilith. Finally, just one remained, and he was satisfied, awaiting his rebirth.
"The beginning and the end are one and the same." Keel Lorenz smiled peacefully. If he had still had eyes, he would have closed them in ecstasy. "All is right with the world."
As his AT Field evaporated, his body liquefied and the LCL that had once been Keel Lorenz splashed over the desk and floor. His remains - a robotic skeleton - clattered to the ground where they lay spitting electricity and sparking.
The one who had dictated the course of man's future was not really a man himself. But that didn't matter now. Becoming one with Lilith meant that such details were irrelevant. For Keel Lorenz, this was the neon genesis of mankind.
* * *
Instrumentality continued…
Shinji and Asuka, alone in their kitchen. Shinji approached the redhead. "I want to help you, Asuka, I want to be with you…"
"Liar."
Shinji gasped.
Asuka shoved Shinji away from the table, sending him sprawling.
"Somebody… somebody, please, help me…" Shinji whispered. He didn't want to be the only human being that was by himself. "Please… don't leave me alone! Don't abandon me!"
Asuka glared at him.
"No."
Shinji stared at her in horror. Suddenly his hands gripped her throat. His pain and despair and misery spilled into the world / void and he was assailed.
Then he was fully submerged in the stream of Lilith's consciousness. People he knew, people he loved, things he had seen, places he had visited, thoughts he had contemplated, words he had spoken thundered through his scattered, despairing mind.
"No-one understands me," said Shinji bitterly.
"You never understood anything," replied Rei.
"I thought this was supposed to be a world without pain… without uncertainty."
"That's because you thought that everyone else felt the same as you do."
"You betrayed me! You betrayed my feelings!"
"You misunderstood from the very beginning. You just believed what you wanted to believe."
"Nobody wants me. So they can all just die."
"Then what is your hand for?"
A gentle caress from another mind in the well of souls…
"Nobody cares whether or not I exist. Nothing ever changes. So they can all just die."
"Then tell me… what is your heart for?"
A quiet warmth from within…
"It would be better if I never existed. I should die, too…"
"Then why are you here?"
A peaceful gaze from ghostly eyes…
"Is it okay for me to be here?"
Frustrated and terrified, Shinji's psychic soul-scream echoed across the void.
Images
Asuka
Thoughts
Father
Memories
"Do you want to become one with me?"
Pain
"We are nice to you…"
Longing
"The truth causes people pain."
Misato
Truths
Mother
Lies
"Did you try to understand?"
Rei
Anger
I wish that I could turn back time…
So, where is my dream?
It is a continuation of reality.
Then where is my reality?
It is at the end of your dream.
The assimilation of Shinji Ikari had come as far as Instrumentality was able to bring it. He was now nothing. He was no longer a he. He just… was. He was a part of the One. All he had left was one small corner of his mind… the concept of his self. Now, he - and he alone - had to make a choice.
He was with Rei. The real Rei. The Rei that had returned the soul of Lilith to its body. They were together. The only two individuals in a world of nothing.
"Ayaname…? Where are we?" Shinji asked curiously, forcibly building the walls of his self, pushing back the tide that threatened to scatter him throughout humanity.
"This place is a sea of LCL," Rei replied quietly. "The primordial soup of life. A place with no AT Fields, where individual forms do not exist. An ambiguous world, where you cannot tell where you end and others begin. This is a world where you exist everywhere and yet you exist nowhere, all at once."
Dreamily, Shinji asked, "Then… this is death?"
"Not quite," Rei replied. "This is a world where we are all one. This is the world you wished for."
"But… this isn't right," frowned Shinji. "This feels wrong…"
Rei nodded. "If you wish for others to exist, the walls of their hearts will separate them again. And they will all feel fear once more."
"Okay then." He reached up and took her hand, squeezing it. She did the same. She was so kind. "Thank you. I just felt pain in that reality. So I thought it was all right to run away. But there was nothing good in the place I escaped to, either. Because I didn't exist there… and so no-one existed."
Kaworu appeared before them. "Is it all right for the AT Field to separate you and cause you all pain again?"
Shinji would have cried, if he had truly had eyes. He looked up into the eyes of Rei, a new calmness overcoming him. He even smiled... sadly.
Shinji looked up. "I don't mind that."
* * *
And then…
Lilith's eye began to bulge, stretching and warping until it burst open and from within came Evangelion Unit-01, returning from the prison / freedom of non-existence once more. And with Shinji's return to this reality, Lilith began to fail.
Her head began to slide from her neck, the weight of it pulling the body apart. Slowly, in a crescendo of silence, Lilith's body fell to the earth as her short life came to its conclusion.
Scars appeared on the Black Moon, weeping wounds of blood crisscrossing its surface and dripping down onto Lilith's twisted torso. The first few human souls escaped through the rift and returned to earth.
From its position high above Lilith, amongst the crucified corpses of the mass-production Eva series, Unit-01's bestial victory cry echoed across the eternal plane. Its power returned to it, coiling itself up like a dying spider and Rei's gentle voice came to Shinji.
"You must regain your lost form of your own volition," she smiled. "Anyone can return to human form as long as they are able to imagine themselves in their own heart."
* * *
Shinji found her. As more souls regained their individuality and fled from the corpse of Lilith, he found her.
"Don't worry, darling," she whispered, holding him close with her ghostly arms. "All living creatures have the power to be brought back to life, and the will to go on living."
Shinji shut his eyes and pressed himself into her shoulder, and though he said nothing, he took in each one of her words.
"Anywhere can be paradise," she smiled into his eyes, "as long as you have the will to live. After all, you are alive… so you will always have the chance to be happy."
Right there, right then, Shinji Ikari was able to believe it.
"As long as the Sun, the Moon and the Earth exist," said his mother, "everything will be all right."
For the first time in a very long time, Shinji smiled peacefully. He closed his eyes and leaned into the touch of his mother's caress, even as the ebbing tide of souls forced them to drift apart.
"Will you be all right, love?" whispered Yui Ikari. She had a smile on her face. The smile that Shinji had felt so often when in the entry plug of Unit-01.
"I still don't know where my happiness lies," he replied quietly. "I'll still wonder about why I'm here and whether or not it was good to come back. But… that's just stating the obvious, over and over."
He looked at his mother. She gazed at him, full of maternal pride.
"I am… myself," Shinji said finally. "But mother… what will you do, mother?"
Yui Ikari smiled at him.
One last vision… a playground. Three people. A timeless moment.
"When we created Evangelion," asked Professor Kouzou Fuyutsuki distantly, "were we trying to create a clone of God?"
"Of course," smiled Yui as she held a giggling baby Shinji to her. "Man can only exist on this earth, but the Evangelion can exist forever, along with the human soul that dwells within it."
Kouzou and Yui looked at one another, a glance of mutual understanding.
"When the Sun, the Moon and the Earth are all gone," Yui told him, "Eva will exist as long as just one person remains. It will be lonely, but as long as one person still lives…"
"It will be eternal proof that mankind ever existed," smiled Kouzou, returning to gaze over the plain.
* * *
And with that, Shinji closed his eyes… and in peace, he let go.
"Goodbye, mother."
______________________________________________________________________________________
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Okay, how did you like my stunningly original, never before seen tale of salvation and sacrifice? *snort* So, I loved the movie, I just had to write this. And come on… we all know that Shinji loves Asuka and that Asuka loves Shinji, but Shinji is too wuss to approach her and Asuka is to proud to confess. In Evangelion, the romance was touched on but never went anywhere (because of other emotional problems) until the very, very end of End of Evangelion, when Asuka strokes Shinji's cheek. That is the moment she finally confronts her feelings, finally being true to herself. So what happens afterwards is allowed to be a little more romance heavy, right? Um… right? Don't worry… I much prefer characters to REMAIN in character, and realism is something I strive for. But that's up to you, I guess. So please review, and remember… my self-esteem is in your hands.
