10. (Im)Material Things.
Colours are just a pigment of your imagination.
~

# You really couldn't detect it? #

# No! An object tens of millimetres across struck the South Pole at speeds in excess of ten percent of the speed of light! It was beyond modern science's ability to predict, much less prevent! #

# But look at what's happening outside! What good is science? #

"All right, a bonus drop! Come to papa!"

"Augh, I was just about the clear the platform!"

"You snooze you lose, Ikari!"

# Atmospheric flux caused by axial tilt has decreased to three percent! #

# Has it gotten better outside, then? #

# No! There's a tsunami on the way! Incoming at two hundred and thirty metres per second! #

"How do I get to the trapdoor again?"

"You gotta hit these three buttons in sequence – no, the other way around – Whoa, Kaworu, watch what you're doing!"

# Doctor! We must escape! #

# No! My duty is to stay here! #

"What, more of these guys? I'm nearly out of ammo!"

"I'm switching to melee – ooh, that looked like it hurt!"

"Kaworu, you just ate lava, you even paying attention?"

"Hm?" I blinked to attention in time to see my game avatar disappear beneath an animated volcano. "…Oh."

Kensuke snorted. "You're really outta practice, aren't you?" His own avatar jumped down several platforms to collect the items dropped by my unfortunate character, even though he was already far better equipped than myself or Shinji.

# Doctor, dying is easy! But you also have a duty to record the facts – to bear witness to the cataclysmic historical event! #

"Well, the solo mode is less fun," I prevaricated. My distraction had been due to the television in the adjoining room, where through the closed door I could hear Kensuke's aunt and uncle watching a dramatization of Second Impact. (Kensuke had mentioned that each lost a parent in the Third; perhaps this was a grief process? to remind themselves of another disaster, but one through which they had ultimately persevered?)

"Sure, but there are better customisations – look at mine!" He paused our multiplayer game in order to bring up an image from his individual playthrough – his personalised character, with the appearance of a conventionally attractive woman wearing revealing armour.

"Wow, that's cool," said Shinji.

"You mean hot!"

# Professor, in case we don't make it, I need to tell you… #

# No! Don't speak like that, Doctor! You are a man of science, not despair! Look, the aurora is beautiful, despite its terror! Be inspired by it, to strive on in hope! #

# Professor… #

I could not condescend to the Lilim for their ignorance regarding Second Impact, nor the melodramatic fiction they created to express their responses to its consequences. It was a disaster so far beyond the scope of their species' experience, and so unprecedented in the scale of its damage and harm, that they could not be expected to be rational or accurate regarding it.

But the reminders of the consequences attendant to the Angels' return to this world – the beginning of my actual life – seemed to become less comfortable by the day. Kaji may have absolved me, and even my parent, but that did not entirely settle my conscience.

"I guess it makes sense that you're a bit out of it," Kensuke allowed, as his character posed onscreen (her 'combat' stances as practical and efficient as her garb). "Just out of hospital and all."

"Yes, that too," I agreed. Kensuke had insisted on hosting a sleepover to celebrate my discharge – and though Shinji's acceptance had shown obvious reluctance, our prolonged proximity had managed to erode more of his aloofness, after the initial thaw following my ordeal in Unit 00.

"I can't believe a whole NERV base turned traitor!" Kensuke burst out. "And that they got right into the command centre – and in control of an Eva!"

"How do you know all this?" I asked, alarmed. "We tried to be discreet…"

Shinji rolled his eyes. "This otaku likes to hack his dad's work computer for fun."

I raised my eyebrows. "Illegally obtaining classified information could land you in a great deal of trouble."

"Only if I'm caught!" Kensuke held up a finger. "And you guys won't tattle on me, will you?"

I sent Shinji an exasperated look (he glanced away from eye contact with me), before we both admitted in the negative.

"Great! 'Cause he left his laptop here and he's on the late shift!" He scrambled to his feet. "C'mon!"

"What? No way!" Shinji dropped his controller. "Don't drag us into this!"

Kensuke had him by the arm and hauled him upright, then the same to me (slightly gentler due to my injuries). I was surprised by the strength in his skinny frame. "With you guys to guide me, it'll be more efficient."

"Meaning you will be finished sooner?" I suggested, dubious but hopeful.

"Exactly!"

"Yeah, right," Shinji muttered under his breath, but allowed Kensuke to drag him out to the hall.

A cautious look in each direction, then we were scaling the stairs of the suburban house and making our way to the study. The target laptop sat on the desk; Kensuke opened and booted it up with no small amount of theatrical gloating. We all panicked when its startup tone blared out into the room, and Shinji dashed to the study door and peeked around it.

"Nothing," he announced after a tense moment, and Kensuke let out his breath and resumed working.

He soon had up on the screen a wall of computer code. "Uhh – looks like it's for Unit 00. I thought I could read this language, but they're using some weird markups…"

I looked over his shoulder. "It's the main program for debugging the armour, and removing the virus inflicted by Lt Singh. It seems to have executed successfully."

"Cool!" said Kensuke. "Also cool that you can read that."

I thought, but did not utter, It's more logically expressive than the penguin is…

Shinji looked between the screen and our faces blankly, but ventured, "So Ayanami will be safe the next time she pilots it?"

"Well, as safe as anyone is in Unit 00," I mused, and his face fell. Guiltily I tried to recover and reassure: "But the threat from Mumbai is gone," and smiled a little desperately.

He ducked his gaze from mine. "Good," he said, but there was more than relief in the softness of his voice – though I did not know what.

Kensuke had moved on. "Hey, there's some specs for setting up Cage Six – updated measurements, power system compatibility … what's a 'Marrducky'?"

"Marduke Institute?" I repeated, startled – my understanding had been that Hajime Aida worked in the technical division, not personnel.

"Uh, yeah. Here…" He opened the file.

I skimmed the text – the only mention of the agency nominally responsible for identifying pilot candidates was to say that no report had been received from them, or was expected, so there was no need to include personalised facilities. There was a reference at the end of the note, as per communication VT-306.2015.8fF – squeezing in beside Kensuke, I navigated the server to the relevant record.

He adjusted his glasses and frowned. "What're you looking at? Ugh, it's in German…"

"There will be no nomination for a Sixth Child," I announced, and both he and Shinji jumped. "Japan is going to be given Evangelion Unit 09, but on the proviso that only three units are active at one time – and unless something happens to Shinji, Rei, or myself, an additional pilot will not be recruited for it."

"What? Nooo," Kensuke lamented. "I thought I was in with a chance…"

Shinji stared at him. "How can you still want to be an Eva pilot? After seeing everything they put us through – after what happened to Toji?"

"Because it means being able to do something," Kensuke retorted. "The whole world is in danger, and while the rest of us have to sit on our hands being useless, you guys get to go out and stick it to the Angels – to actually fight, instead of just waiting for the end of the world."

"Asuka said something similar the other day," I spoke up, while Shinji digested Kensuke's words. "That when she had piloted Unit 02 in combat, she was actively participating in her fate, rather than 'going stir-crazy'."

"Exactly!" Kensuke agreed fervently. "I think it's tougher for me though, 'cause she at least had the experience already." He fixed his glasses again, after their attempted escape during his speech. "And even though she's leaving the front lines now, she's still going to be working with NERV and the Evas."

Suddenly he grabbed Shinji by the collar and dropped his voice. "And before she goes, roommate here is gonna get me a souvenir." His free hand curled into a covetous grabbing motion.

"Souvenir?" I echoed, uncomprehending.

Shinji was giving him an extremely unimpressed look. "Do you want us both to die?"

"She won't miss one pair of panties…"

"You're a sick man."

At that moment I heard the front door open, and Kensuke's aunt call out, "Welcome home, Hajime!"

"Your father is home," I warned Kensuke, who promptly closed all programs and then the laptop, putting it to sleep. We hurried to the door of the study and he peered around, then promptly spun back.

"He's coming up! Hide!"

Without waiting for our responses, he grabbed our arms again and bundled us into the built-in robe; amongst the spare futon and linen there was barely room for the three of us. I ended up crammed back-to-back with Kensuke (who seemed to have at least six more elbows than usual), while Shinji was so close in front of me that our knees interlocked and his shoulder jammed against the underside of my raised arm, where it pressed on a nerve and numbed it.

His eyes riveted on mine from centimetres away.

The sound of the study door sliding open; someone entering the room and dropping items on the desk. The creak of a chair taking a person's weight.

…Kensuke whispering a swear word…

Shinji's breath was warm on my face, and even in the shadows of the robe I could see the darkness of his cheeks as blood rushed into them. His gaze dropped to my mouth and he swallowed heavily.

Suddenly my throat was dry like a desert. My palms felt cold and clammy, but my own face heated in mirror to his. My pulse hammered in my veins as Shinji's lips parted.

I must have been more frightened of discovery than I had realised.

"Hajime!" came the voice of Kensuke's aunt again. "Come help me choose a wine for dinner!"

An approving grunt from the desk, and the creak of the chair again. More footsteps, receding from the room this time.

Stillness, for a moment or eternity.

A fraction of light as the robe door slid open just a crack. Kensuke was holding his breath, but I could still feel Shinji's exhalations on my tingling skin.

"Clear!" Kensuke declared, and slid the door fully open and we tumbled back out into the room along with a debris of bedding. "Whew! That was close!"

He cast us a crooked grin. "Good thing we were so efficient about it."

Shinji picked up a pillow and hit him over the head.

It is a beautiful day on the Moon, and I am a disembodied Angel.

My physical form, along with those of my siblings, lies beneath the mantle, dormant now for many eons, but now and again my mind stirs and I send my thought up to the surface.

The little world of our exile is sparse and monotonous, after its violent birth and infancy. I roam its expanse freely, basking in the glow of sun and stars, and learning of physical properties through experimentation with psychic manipulation – this substance is rigid and brittle under the pressure of thought-force, while that one is powdery and pliable. The presence or absence of the Sun determines how dynamically the iota of matter behave and respond. The core of the moon transmits to me a downward-drawing impetus, the occasional indulgence in which provides amusement (I decide that, when I complete the shape of my physical form, I shall have wings).

But mostly I look at the World that was stolen from us, and where our parent is yet trapped and overcome.

It is stable now, calmed from the cacophony of the other Seed's arrival, but neither sparse nor monotonous. Its face changes from time to time, meandering lines on the surface where dull mineral browns periodically emerge from its acquired sheen of deep blue and gleaming white.

But today there is something different, something new.

It has been a while, I think, as such things may be measured, since my last awakening, and the world of our thwarted succession has learned a new hue.

- Green, - I report to my siblings. - There is green on the World. -

Most of them do not stir. Our exile was so unexpected, and catastrophic, as to be beyond their ability to parse or will to recover; our fates, once disrupted, seem to only be sealed anew. They sleep now, barely dreaming, and it would take more than their whimsical youngest member to engage them. (Gaghiel was only ever interested in the blue, anyway; Israfel, meanwhile, distrusts light altogether and prefers sound.)

Only Leliel flicks momentarily to my side, and only because travel has always been easier for them, spatial distances more an option than a barrier.

- it is new, - they agree. With physical senses they can perceive in different spectra to those of my projected mind, and at my prompting – and referring to my memories of previous vistas – they turn their attention on the World.

Their shock craters into us all. - it is the lilim! -

- what? -

- that seed's—? -

- impossible! -

- but our parent…! -

More of our siblings send their minds to us – Armisael, Iruel, Arael; even Matriel the corner-dweller, secluded but curious. I briefly Leliel's share perceptions amongst us, with their permission (Arael drags at it rudely, rough as always).

- they have grown a form that is benefited by these hues, - Iruel infers. - they learned it, and use it to their advantage. - They acquire an air of thoughtfulness.

- there are so many of them. - Armisael seems somewhere between afraid and wistful.

- they die so easily, - Arael observes. - do they suffer? -

- They also multiply irrepressibly, - I note. - Else they could not have become so multitudinous as to change the face of their earth. -

- our earth. - The correction comes in chorus.

- Yes, our earth, of course. -

- no matter how many they are, - proclaims Leliel, - an angel's ascension will erase them all. -

Possibility thrills through me. - Will we return? -

They hesitate. - it is not time. -

- the lance yet binds our parent, - Arael reminds me, with no small twinge of fear for that fearsome thing. - we can do naught while it remains. -

- While it remains. - I gaze out at the World, so near and yet so far. - Do they know of the Lance? Of Adam, or Lilith? Of us? -

- they are small and unaware. - Armisael seems to be curious also, despite their trepidation. - they know nothing – they can know nothing. -

- For now, - I qualify. - They have grown and changed this much, might they progress further? Their Seed is of the Knowledge type, after all. -

- how are they doing this? - Iruel ponders.

- when will they stop? - adds Leliel. - where? -

Silent,Matriel merely shivers.

Together we look out on the world that now bears the unmistakable signs of Lilith's offspring. And though my siblings register apprehension at this development, and lament our displacement, privately I find myself more than intrigued. The strangely changed planet before us may be lost, at least for now, to my kind, but to me it yet looks like it could be a home.

"Cyanobacteria! – ouch."

My toe throbbing with pain; I blinked my eyes open and found it to be wedged into the frame of the balcony door.

How did it get there…?

"Mmn … Kaworu?" Shinji's voice, blurred with sleep.

"Good morning," I said automatically, and "Good … morning?" he returned, just as formulaically. "Did you want to go outside? I think it's locked…"

I admitted, "I don't know how I got here."

Kensuke laughed, his own voice rough-edged from recent stirring. "Hah, I didn't know you sleepwalk." He rubbed at his face and yawned.

"Sleepwalk?" I echoed. After a glance out the window – though I could not have said what I hoped to see – I returned to the pile of bedding in the middle of the room.

"You don't know what sleepwalking is?" he said, and when I nodded made a 'hn' of surprise. "Well, it's like a weird half-asleep brain phase, you're dreaming but the paralysis neurochemicals haven't kicked in, so you move around like you're awake – but you don't have any awareness of your surroundings."

"Good thing the balcony door was shut," said Shinji.

"Else I might have dreamt I was flying and sleepwalked off it?" I interpreted, alarmed.

"Sometimes on hot nights I leave it open," Kensuke said cheerfully, and Shinji and I both shuddered at the potential close call.

"Um," said Shinji, "why don't we make breakfast, since we're all awake?"

"Yeah, I'm starving! You'll be head chef, right Ikari?" He pressed his palms together pleadingly and Shinji rolled his eyes.

"I know you can cook just fine."

Kensuke waved a hand dismissively. "Campfire stuff barely counts – when it comes to survival cooking, step one in any recipe is 'lower your standards'." I laughed.

After a little longer lounging around on the futons, we made our way down to the kitchen. Despite himself, Shinji did take charge, and I was directed to 'scramble' eggs in a bowl.

"When did you learn survival cooking?" I asked Kensuke, as he chopped spring onions with more enthusiasm than skill. "Self-sustenation skills are commendable, but not universal."

"Oh, my dad and I used to go on camping trips when we lived in Yokohama." He swept the uneven segments of green into my bowl. "Since we moved to Tokyo-3 he's been too busy with work so I just … go by myself. It's still fun, and gets me out in nature and stuff."

"Isn't it dangerous?"

"Ehh, I take a shortwave radio and beacons, and tell my family where I'll be. But I did get ambushed by Ikari one time," and he cast a grin at Shinji, who chuckled.

"Pretty sure you ambushed me, if anything."

"Not my fault you were off in your own little world," Kensuke retorted. "Wandering around all disappeared into your own head like that – you were the one who could've been in danger."

In answer to my querying look, Shinji explained, "It was after my second fight against an Angel, when I ran away for a couple of days. I just … couldn't deal with it all – I ended up going to leave the city, and go back to my teacher's place."

My hands had gotten splashed with egg, but I leant my shoulder against his, and he froze. "I'm sorry that things were so difficult for you, but speaking selfishly, I am glad you stayed."

"Me too!" Kensuke agreed, and elbowed Shinji on his other side (despite the inferable pain of that contact, Shinji seemed less uncomfortable with it, and I felt a twinge of envy.) "We only became friends after that. Then Kaworu came along, and now we've got a complete Gang of Four!"

I winced. "That is probably not a suitable phrase to appropriate."

"Huh? –Oh, right. Uh, forget that. Um … Group of … Quartet of…"

Shinji grinned. "Asuka and Sugimoto would say 'Four Stooges'."

"Hah, yeah! Oh, speaking of Sugimoto…" Then Kensuke was right inside my personal space, somehow managing to leer with his entire posture as well as face. "Sooo, what's going on there, Loverboy? What's the latest update?"

Over his shoulder I saw Shinji wilt over the frypan, but apparently was unable to resist peering from the corner of his eye.

"Latest?" I stammered, unaccountably nervous. "She – well, she and Asuka – visited me in hospital the other day…"

"And?"

"And then Asuka left…"

"And?"

"And then Sugimoto gave me a gift…"

"AND?"

"…And then she kissed me."

Kensuke whooped and slammed the chopping board (thankfully vacant) into the sink. "Way to go Kaworu! Sealed the deal!"

Behind him, Shinji seemed to find the heating oil in the pan to be of utmost fascination.

My voice was small as I continued, "…And then I said I was sorry that I did not feel the same way."

Shinji's head whipped around to stare at me, but our contact was broken by Kensuke invading my personal space again.

"You what?"

I shrugged helplessly. "I said I liked her as a friend, and that I understood if this was disappointing…"

"Why the hell would you say that?" His expansive gesture almost knocked over the collection of herbs Shinji had assembled on the counter.

"Because I did not feel anything when she kissed me. I have heard that kissing someone is supposed to be exciting, even intoxicating, but mostly it was just…" I held up my hands, emptily dripping egg back in to the bowl. "A thing that happened?"

From point blank range Kensuke fixed me with a look of absolute disgust. "That's not the point."

"Then what is?"

"Just … kissing, dude! Girls! …Ugh!" He threw up his hands and spun away, nearly colliding with Shinji, whose attention was now solely devoted to the unfolding drama. "Ikari, don't burn down my kitchen!"

"Huh? Oh, crap!" Frantically he removed the frypan from the burner and turned the heat down.

"You two should form a club for complete doofuses," Kensuke grumbled, and deserted us to collect the next ingredient from the refrigerator.

I sent Shinji a sympathetic look; he glanced up from his stove-based salvage operation, and meeting my eye smiled ruefully – actually smiled at me!

Shinji's mood stayed improved (and Kensuke's eventually recovered) while we finished preparing, and then ate, our morning meal. What was more, the distance he had put between himself and me over the last few days seemed to contract, and a little of his previous ease with me returned – to the point where when we packed up the bedding from Kensuke's bedroom floor, he allowed our fingers to touch, and even linger, while collaborating to fold the fitted sheets. I realised I had missed that specific blush of his (then wondered how I was able to tell it apart from all the others). In response my own mood ascended to the emotional equivalent of the stratosphere.

In the late morning we bade farewell to Kensuke and his family, and walked to the train station side-by-side, slowly in deference to my ongoing recuperation. My hands were in my pockets, and Shinji's on the straps of his overnight bag, but compared to how it had been lately, I felt almost as blissful as if we had been holding hands.

"So what is … sigh-oh-bacta, anyway?" Shinji asked, as we crossed a laneway. (Initiating conversation! Would joy never cease?)

"Cyanobacteria?"

"Yeah, that. When you woke up from sleepwalking you said it."

"Oh, yes. They are the primordial algae responsible for changing the atmosphere of early Earth to have a significant presence of oxygen through their evolution of photosynthesis, which generates it as a waste product."

He looked slightly dazed by my explanation. "Were you … dreaming about it?"

"In a way. I was remembering a time where I looked out at this world from our Moon, and for the first time, it was green – the colour of chlorophyll. And we realised that the Lilim were so established as to be changing the very face of the planet. It was startling, but I also found it fascinating."

He stumbled. "Wait, 'remembering'? Of primordial Earth?"

I caught his elbow, helping him regain his footing. "Your form of life has made some progress since then, though walking upright seems to still be a struggle for some of you."

"…Hey!"

I walked on, whistling.

After a moment, Shinji hurried up and once more kept pace at my side. "'We'?"

My own steps slowed momentarily. "The other Angels. Specifically Leliel, Iruel, Arael, and Armisael. Oh, and Matriel." I could recall exactly how each of them had assailed the Lilim, and in particular how they had hurt my friends.

"You said … the other day … that you weren't exactly close."

"No – nothing like the sibling relationship of Toji and his sister. During our dormancy we were not often conscious enough to actually spend time together, and then once we came back to this world we were only intermittently aware of one another."

"Like when you fought in Unit 02, against the last one?" He was focused on me, and nearly walked onto the road against the traffic lights; I put out an arm to stop him, and he caught it in his hand briefly before allowing it to drop. "Or when we were at headquarters and that bird one attacked Asuka from orbit?"

"That too," I confirmed. "And I did visit Sandalphon in their volcano before they hatched."

"Oh, I remember that one! Asuka killed it, with the coolant in her suit—"

"—And then the progressive knife, through the weakened exoskeleton. Yes." I was unable to suppress a shudder – even after all this time, the conveyed sympathetic experiences of my siblings' deaths remained haunting.

Shinji saw my flinch, and his brow furrowed. "How do you know that?"

I hesitated, but it was an answer to both of his questions. "The main link I had with the other Angels on this world was at the time each of them died, when their agony was transmitted to me."

He stopped in his tracks. "What."

I attempted to lighten the mood. "Well, I am hardly the only person to have a complicated relationship with their family…"

"No, wait, are you telling me—" as he grabbed my arm, "—that every time I defeated – killed an Angel, or Asuka did, or – or Dr Akagi – that you felt it? Felt their pain?"

I winced away from the horror in his face. "Shinji…"

"All this time, I've – we've – I've been hurting you, and I thought I was doing a good thing – the right thing…"

"You were!" I took hold of his wrist where he clutched me. "You have been, all of you. The Angels threatened your very existence – if any of them had succeeded in reaching Adam or Lilith, it would have annihilated your entire species. You could only have fought to prevent this – you could have done nothing else!"

"I hurt you," he insisted. "So many times – I killed you, Kaworu! I killed you! How can you even stand to look at me? You should hate me!" A sob broke from him. "Why won't you just hate me already?..." as his head bent to press against my shoulder, "…like I deserve?"

My whole body seemed to be shaking. "Never," I managed, my voice wracked. "I would never hate you, Shinji. And you would never deserve hate."

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…"

"I forgive you," I said, and with great effort put my panic aside – that automatic distress in me that was ever summoned by Shinji's own upset – to focus only on my whole-hearted acceptance of him. "The world we live in, that each of our kinds of being has come to, places challenges and dilemmas in front of us at every turn. Try as we might, we cannot wish away all consequences, and it is futile to regret what cannot be changed. Our forms of life were never meant to coexist, and are innately anathemic to each other. Yet meet we have, undeniably, and so we must accept the facts that result."

With a gentle but firm hand under his chin, I raised his face until our eyes met. His breath hitched.

"Shinji, you do not have to forgive me for my part in the dummy plug program – or for being an Angel."

His response was as swift as a reflex. "I do forgive you."

I swayed slightly, but the enormity of his gift would have to wait. "That … is your choice. It can only be given freely, not demanded, or coerced. And so, if you cannot accept the necessity of the consequences to your actions, at least allow me, in turn, to forgive you. Will you grant me that?"

His eyes brimmed. "Yes."

"Thank you," I said, and at last relented to the impetus of my own heart, and wrapped my arms around him with all the welcome I could speak through gesture.

And as his arms gripped me in turn, we stood under the warm Sun of this system, breathing air transformed by his night-unfathomable antecedents, and I thought that there was nowhere I would rather be, and nobody else I would rather be with.

It had taken four billion years, but at last I was exactly where I belonged.