Nights into Dreams
Part III: Dreaming Of You
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Cold.
That is the only word that could describe where a weary Asuka Langley Soryu lay bare and shivering in the endless, dark abyss. This simple word defined all that the surroundings felt, and of the poor child that lay.
Small, eerie footsteps clanked on the opal floor, nearing the helpless child, a resonant echo with each stride. Out of the shadows, a small, green haired child appeared, with a stone face and piercingly cold gray eyes.
Asuka's heart sank. Her every fear, anxiety, insecurity, and negative thought filled her every pore in a crushing blow. Daggers of ice stabbed her heart, reaching to her very spirit, destroying her resolve. It felt as though she had lost everything, even her soul. Her life felt as if it had no reason to be. Asuka's body had lost it's will to breath.
With no resistance at all, Asuka's heart rhythm slowly stopped as her body dryly slumped to the floor.
The being smirked. "If looks could kill..."
*****************************************************************************
'Shinji?'
Misato had called out, leaning over where the wearied boy lay. A short while ago, Ritsuko had said the connection between Shinji and Asuka had been abruptly cut, and Misato had to find out what had happened. She sighed as she rested herself into the nearest chair, taking a sip of her morning coffee.
"What could have happened..." Misato thought aloud, "Asuka's body is missing, Shinji must have the answer..."
Sighing once more, Misato pondered deeper into her own troubles. Yet she wouldn't have much time to do so, for Shinji's body began to move. Misato rushed over to the boy as his eyes fluttered open. Once conscious, he sprang up as if he were in a bad dream.
"A..A-ASUKA!! NO!!" he shrilled in delirium.
Misato attempted to hold him down. "Shinji, it's ok, your at NERV headquarters now, and..."
"ASUKA!! GOTTA SAVE ASUKA!!" Shinji interrupted, and shoved the busty Major off his frail body with the force of a freight train. Misato proceeded to tumble off the bed with such a crash that many NERV personnel came in the room to investigate. He pushed his way through the crowd and ran out the door.
"Security!" Misato screamed, totally flustered.
In only a hospital robe, Shinji ran frantically down the corridor. A visitor was walking by the deranged boy when he was abruptly grabbed by the collar, Shinji shouting hysterically in his face.
"ASUKA? Where is she!?! WHERE IS SHE!?!" he cried directly in the man's face.
"What...who?" the man stuttered, "Who..are you...?"
Shinji began to foam at the mouth. "ASUKA! WHERE IS ASUKA?!?"
Shinji, who was at least 5 inches shorter than the man he was holding in his grasp, amazingly picked the man up and shook him violently.
"TELL ME!! TELL ME PLEASE!!" his hysterical cries finally alerted nearby Security.
"There he is, get him!"
NERV Security ran towards Shinji and the man's position. Seeing his impending danger, Shinji dropped the poor visitor and took of in an unyielding sprint that even NERV Security couldn't keep up with.
He ran outside, looked around and headed for the last co-ordinates Evangelion Unit 02 had been. In the child's mind at the moment, only one thing mattered.
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Asuka gasped.
The sweet taste of oxygen filled her grateful lungs, with her taking in as many gulps as humanly possible.
"I bet that felt good." the child smirked, " Life does has it's pleasures. Plus with this experience to have not even the air you breathe, gives you a new perspective on life, does it not?
"cough...cough" Asuka shook in severe agony, and wearily looked up to her tormentor.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"I do what is needed to get a point across."
Asuka looked at the youngster with a wry, yet painful grin. "Then what is your point?"
The being growled in Asuka's direction, then turned it's robed back to her and crossed it's minuscule arms.
"Why are you here?"
Asuka chuckled dryly. "Heck, if I knew where I was don't you think I would have left? Baka...."
"Not acceptable."
It lifted it's index finger slightly, and Asuka's naked body began to rise. When she was about 3 feet off the ground, it sharply pointed it's finger down, causing Asuka's body to brutally hit the floor. The entity smiled as Asuka picked herself painfully off the ground.
"Upset me again and I guarantee you I can do far worse." It scowled as it crossed it's arms once again.
Asuka pushed her battered body off the floor, and growled at the creature.
"Bastar..."
Before she was able to finish, the child's eyes flared into a violet shade and what felt like 100,000 volts of lightning pulsed through her already battered body.
Asuka's eyes surged out of their sockets, with hot tears gushing down her bloodied face. Her mouth open to cry but no sound came out. Her feeble body crumpled onto the floor as it began to convulse.
"I warned you before," the child snarled angrily, "And I won't warn you again."
Its physical form disappeared so as to let Asuka recover.
The words of the undistinguishable being echoed throughout the darkness.
"I won't warn you again..."
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On the outskirts of Tokyo-3, as morning dew settled on the lush green grass, there lay a boy on a steep cliff side, pondering his sanity, head drooping towards the earth.
"I...I wish....I could understand....these feelings" he stammered, looking into space.
"Ayanami... I need your help..." he pleaded to no one, "Help me understand, help me help...help..."
Tears streamed down his red cheeks, he didn't bother to wipe them.
"Asuka..." he trailed off, shoving his face violently into his hands. Shinji began tearing at his hair, cutting his face with his nails, violently shaking his weary head.
"WHY COULDN'T I HELP!?! WHY CAN'T I UNDERSTAND?!?" he shrieked, tears flowing heavier now.
He began smiling deliriously.
"I'll join you, Asuka..." Shinji beamed, "So we can be together...forever..."
Shinji staggered to his feet, and walked drunkenly to the border of the cliff
" We'll be together in another life, Asuka..." He glowed like a complete lunatic. "For now...Goodbye..."
He leaped off the edge with drying tears on his face, eyes closed in the deep serenity of 'freedom'. In his mind, he was going home.
*FLASH*
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'...Asuka...'
Violently coughing, Asuka frantically looked around the dark room. She had recognized that voice.
A familiar voice.
"Sh...Shinji?"
'...Goodbye...'
"SHINJI!?! SHINJI!! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!?" Asuka bellowed, hoping that her comrade was somewhere, anywhere nearby.
But there was only silence.
With salty tears brimming in her azure eyes, Asuka screamed desperately until her voice went hoarse. After many minutes passed, and her feeble cries went silent, a single, wet tear streamed down Asuka's face and fell onto the opal floor.
That sole, torturous, sinister voice emerged once more.
"See the damage you've caused? See how your existence alone has caused so much suffering?"
Images of all the people she knew and have ever known flash through her head, their faces glowing with visible sorrow and utter rage, overloading her cerebral cortex until she lost all touch with reality.
*FLASH*
Sitting on a chair, the naked girl sat covering herself, surrounded by a crowd of students of her school, NERV personnel and others.
"No..." Asuka frailly whimpered as if she were a little puppy.
Hikari, her best friend, steps out toward her.
"Asuka," Hikari started, in a stern voice "Why do you have to make everything so difficult?"
Asuka looked up at Hikari, slightly shocked. "Stop..."
Misato takes her place on the right of Hikari, the crowd seeming to get bigger by each moment.
"Your life could have been simple, you know." Misato looked deeply into Asuka's eyes with a loathing she had never experienced before. "You had beauty, strength, intelligence and potential, but that wasn't enough for you..."
"No..." she sobbed.
Toji stepped to Hikari's left.
"Scary ass red haired devil..." Toji said, but not in the joking matter she was accustomed to.
"Stop it..!"
Kaji, standing next to Misato said nothing, but he quickly drew he into a welcomed kiss, then looked at Asuka as if to mock her.
Tears were trying to escape her eyes once again.
'No!! It couldn't be them!' she thought in udder horror.
Then, the voice she dreaded the more than anyone else's sounded out around her. All the images disappeared as his voice echoed through the darkness.
"Goodbye...Asuka"
The world's end.
"NOOOOO!!!!"
Prelude to a dream.
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'Hey miss?'
Asuka lifts her tired head, to discover that she is in a park, apparently in her school clothes, and in front of a shimmering clear lake. She steadily turns her head to find the origin of her disruption, and spots a brown haired, dark blue eyed young boy with a yellow t-shirt and white shorts looking at her quizzically.
" What do you want, kid?" asked Asuka, with a slightly annoyed tone.
He pouted, "Watch who you're calling a kid, miss! I'm 5 and ½, y'know..."
Asuka actually giggled at this.
"That's nice, young man," she laughed serenely.
"So..." The boy smiled at Asuka, " What'cha doin' here, miss?"
Asuka slowly stands up, dusting herself off, and taking a good look around. 'This doesn't look like any place in Tokyo-3...'
"I...don't know," she replied. " Where is this place?"
"I dunno, miss..." the boy took a quick glance around. " Whatever you want it to be..."
Asuka paused,"... what do you mean?" she asked.
The boy answered simply, "This is your world."
The landscape instantaneously changed from the lakeside park to a beautiful landscape of what seemed to be and endless bed of flowers. Asuka, wearing a surprised expression, was now wearing a sun dress with a straw hat, sitting on a picnic blanket with a brown haired young man laying on her lap, listening to an SDAT tape.
"What the...?" Asuka said, with confusion evident in her voice.
She abruptly looked down and gasped.
Her face drained of all it's blood.
"SHINJI?!?!"
He opened his eyes and looked at her with his navy eyes and a relaxed countenance.
He sighed lightly.
"Yes...is there....!!"
Before he was able to finish, Asuka violently pushed him off her lap, her face now flushed beet red.
Asuka screamed, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TRYING TO PULL?!?!"
He blinked, as if he were confused.
"Uh...well..." he started, stammering. "you never objected last night when we..."
She pulled back and smacked the poor boy square in the face.
"WHAT THE HELL'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!?!" Asuka screeched, unable to control her raging emotions.
He gathered himself, gently touching where she had just slapped him. Shinji looked at her quizzically, as if he were a child.
"Are you feeling alright, miss?" he asked.
Her eyes widened.
"You..." she growled. "You're that boy! It was you Shinji, all along, you little rat!"
Shinji blinked in confusion again.
"Hey," he began, shrugging his shoulders. " Don't blame me. This is you're world. You couldn't take the truth."
Shinji fizzles out and creates two forms, himself and the boy.
Asuka was now genuinely confused.
"What do you mean?" she inquire, cautiously.
"Why are you here?" both boys asked in unison
She hesitated.
"I don't know..."
"Why?" they asked again, in the same tone as before.
"I don't know." she replied once more.
Yet the Shinji's were not yet satisfied.
"Why?" they inquired again.
"I DON'T KNOW!!" Asuka cried as if to emphasize her final and only answer.
They both turn their backs to her in sync. Both holding a disappointed look on their faces.
"Then go!"
*FLASH*
Emptiness.
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Shinji exposed his eyes to the dawning sunlight.
There he lay, in the right hand of Evangelion Unit 02. He stood upright, recalling how he ended up here in the first place.
"Asuka, why can't I see you again?" Shinji sobbed silently.
He looked down at the gigantic hand beneath him. A memory resurfaced. The day he had to pilot Evangelion 01, and how the Eva had protected him, just as this one did.
With one distinctive feeling.
Comfort.
"M...Mother?" Shinji nervously stuttered.
'No'
"What was that?"
The boy weakly looked around for any person that might be in the area for the message to have originated from. None in sight.
"Who... ah... what are you?" uttered the youth.
'Come inside'
At that moment, the latch for the entry plug hissed open, waiting for a pilot. Cautiously, but figuring he had nothing else to loose, Shinji climbed in, the entry plug securing itself behind him.
Sitting in already used LCL, Shinji sat uncomfortably in Asuka's pilot seat.
'Somehow I feel like I'm betraying her' thought Shinji.
'Do you want to save her?'
"...uh," Shinji muttered, startled. "Of course I do!"
'Then pilot'
"...."
'Now!'
With that, the red beast came to life, 4:59 minutes left in the reserve batteries.
"But..." queried Shinji, with uncertainty. " Where do I start?"
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'Looks who's back...'
Asuka looked around to discover that she was right back where she had started. In the dark room, with the obsidian floor, and the green haired child she had grown to loathe.
"Why are you doing this to me? What did I do to deserve this." She wept pathetically.
The child shot her a cold glance.
"What did he ever do to deserve your constant taunting, your constant abuse?"
Her heart sank to her bare feet.
"Who..." her voice quavering, "what are you trying to...?"
But in her heart, she already knew.
"All he gave you was kindness and respect, all you gave him was disrespect, hatred and countless hours of emotional torture!
Asuka: But surely he didn't take it to hear...
"I saw him," the child interrupted, " I peered into his soul when his physical projection was trying to save you... every curse, every hit, every putdown, every little cold look or even frown were to him like cold daggers in his fragile heart. Yet he hided behind a painted smile as if he were a geisha, listened and put up with you just for the rare moments of kindness that you shared together." It's voice began to soften, "In his mind's eye, he would have taken the stars right out of the sky just to see you smile, even if it was an evil one."
Shaken, Asuka looked into the child's pale gray eyes. A sadness came over her, and her salty tears once again rolled down her cheeks like beads and fell to the floor.
"This cannot be..." Asuka cried frantically, "you have to be lying...I know the idiot doesn't..."
"You ignorant fool!" the child roared, It's empathy now exhausted. "The poor boy treats you like a queen and you treat him like a dime and put him back on the shelf. The only thing you care about is you, not even! How could you even possibly love someone else?!"
Asuka wore a pained face, and quietly whispered. "I...love Kaji..."
The juvenile's eyes flared with livid rage.
"BULLSHIT!!" it hollered. "That pitiful, childish infatuation? You are incapable of love, pathetic excuse for a human being."
As her tears still flowed, Asuka stood up and picked up the small child by the collar of it's sweatshirt.
"WHO ARE YOU TO SAY THESE AWFUL LIES!?!" she wailed, shaking the child violently. " WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?!"
It smiled.
"TELL ME!!" she yelled.
"Poor Lilim..." the child sighed. "You can be fun for awhile, but now you've ruined the game, oh well, guess I'll show my true form."
The child dissolved in Asuka's hands, and then appeared several feet infront of the perplexed girl. The body of the child grow into an about 16 year old looking body. His hair grew till it was halfway down his back, and black angel wings sprouted from his back. If Asuka wasn't completely terrified, and had this been a normal situation, she would have thought this boy to be extremely handsome. This black winged Angel was different from any other ever encountered, like something out of a fairy tale.
"You..You're an Angel!" Asuka was astonished.
"No, I'm Emmanuel." the handsome man answered.
"Ah..." she faltered, "...As in...?"
"As in a name." he smiled, flashing perfect white teeth. " No, I'm not Jesus. Man, am I far from it."
He folded his dark wings and walked towards the perplexed and still unclothed Asuka.
"Then...what are you?" questioned the puzzled girl.
"An outcast, enough said." he replied stiffly.
"Ok...." said the girl, blushing profusely. "but, um, would it be hard for me to have some clothing?"
"Ok," Emmanuel pouted jokingly, " If you insist..."
He snapped his finger and Asuka was instantly clothed in her plugsuit.
"Where are we?" she asked, now comfortable.
"My sanctuary," he tried to elaborate. " Inside the mind."
"....ok...then" Asuka said in a perplexed voice.
"Why?" he queried out of the blue.
"Why what?" Asuka asked.
"Why do you torture him so?" he inquired nonchalantly.
She looked at Emmanuel's pained face.
"I...don't know."
"In a way," he began. " I feel that I am in debt to this boy, but for a reason I do not know."
Asuka smirked.
"Yeah," she conferred. " Shinji can do that to you sometimes."
He sits on the floor, Asuka carefully follows his actions.
"He... cares so much." he empathized. "More than any other human I've seen. The poor boy just doesn't know how to love, since he doesn't love himself. He doesn't take care of himself."
"He is a class act, huh?" she grinned further.
"How can you say that when you are just the same as him?" he stated.
Asuka sharply slapped Emmanuel.
"How can you say that?!?" Asuka howled in an enraged tone. "Me like that pathetic excuse for a male? That wimp, that..."
"He is braver than you'll ever be," interrupted Emmanuel. "Miss Asuka Langley Soryu."
"How dare you..." scowled the girl.
"He jumped into a volcano to save you..." he started.
"But..."
" Looked out for you..."
" Stop..."
" He even kissed you..."
Asuka had had it. "STOP IT!! ENOUGH!!"
Emmanuel sat silently and unmoved as Asuka screamed violently at him for almost an hour, until she tired and fell promptly to deep slumber on the opal surface.
Emmanuel: My poor boy, how could you stand this wild tigress.
He smiled peacefully.
"It must be hard to really love someone for the first time."
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To be continued...
AND very soon, I promise ;-)
Part III: Dreaming Of You
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Cold.
That is the only word that could describe where a weary Asuka Langley Soryu lay bare and shivering in the endless, dark abyss. This simple word defined all that the surroundings felt, and of the poor child that lay.
Small, eerie footsteps clanked on the opal floor, nearing the helpless child, a resonant echo with each stride. Out of the shadows, a small, green haired child appeared, with a stone face and piercingly cold gray eyes.
Asuka's heart sank. Her every fear, anxiety, insecurity, and negative thought filled her every pore in a crushing blow. Daggers of ice stabbed her heart, reaching to her very spirit, destroying her resolve. It felt as though she had lost everything, even her soul. Her life felt as if it had no reason to be. Asuka's body had lost it's will to breath.
With no resistance at all, Asuka's heart rhythm slowly stopped as her body dryly slumped to the floor.
The being smirked. "If looks could kill..."
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'Shinji?'
Misato had called out, leaning over where the wearied boy lay. A short while ago, Ritsuko had said the connection between Shinji and Asuka had been abruptly cut, and Misato had to find out what had happened. She sighed as she rested herself into the nearest chair, taking a sip of her morning coffee.
"What could have happened..." Misato thought aloud, "Asuka's body is missing, Shinji must have the answer..."
Sighing once more, Misato pondered deeper into her own troubles. Yet she wouldn't have much time to do so, for Shinji's body began to move. Misato rushed over to the boy as his eyes fluttered open. Once conscious, he sprang up as if he were in a bad dream.
"A..A-ASUKA!! NO!!" he shrilled in delirium.
Misato attempted to hold him down. "Shinji, it's ok, your at NERV headquarters now, and..."
"ASUKA!! GOTTA SAVE ASUKA!!" Shinji interrupted, and shoved the busty Major off his frail body with the force of a freight train. Misato proceeded to tumble off the bed with such a crash that many NERV personnel came in the room to investigate. He pushed his way through the crowd and ran out the door.
"Security!" Misato screamed, totally flustered.
In only a hospital robe, Shinji ran frantically down the corridor. A visitor was walking by the deranged boy when he was abruptly grabbed by the collar, Shinji shouting hysterically in his face.
"ASUKA? Where is she!?! WHERE IS SHE!?!" he cried directly in the man's face.
"What...who?" the man stuttered, "Who..are you...?"
Shinji began to foam at the mouth. "ASUKA! WHERE IS ASUKA?!?"
Shinji, who was at least 5 inches shorter than the man he was holding in his grasp, amazingly picked the man up and shook him violently.
"TELL ME!! TELL ME PLEASE!!" his hysterical cries finally alerted nearby Security.
"There he is, get him!"
NERV Security ran towards Shinji and the man's position. Seeing his impending danger, Shinji dropped the poor visitor and took of in an unyielding sprint that even NERV Security couldn't keep up with.
He ran outside, looked around and headed for the last co-ordinates Evangelion Unit 02 had been. In the child's mind at the moment, only one thing mattered.
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Asuka gasped.
The sweet taste of oxygen filled her grateful lungs, with her taking in as many gulps as humanly possible.
"I bet that felt good." the child smirked, " Life does has it's pleasures. Plus with this experience to have not even the air you breathe, gives you a new perspective on life, does it not?
"cough...cough" Asuka shook in severe agony, and wearily looked up to her tormentor.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"I do what is needed to get a point across."
Asuka looked at the youngster with a wry, yet painful grin. "Then what is your point?"
The being growled in Asuka's direction, then turned it's robed back to her and crossed it's minuscule arms.
"Why are you here?"
Asuka chuckled dryly. "Heck, if I knew where I was don't you think I would have left? Baka...."
"Not acceptable."
It lifted it's index finger slightly, and Asuka's naked body began to rise. When she was about 3 feet off the ground, it sharply pointed it's finger down, causing Asuka's body to brutally hit the floor. The entity smiled as Asuka picked herself painfully off the ground.
"Upset me again and I guarantee you I can do far worse." It scowled as it crossed it's arms once again.
Asuka pushed her battered body off the floor, and growled at the creature.
"Bastar..."
Before she was able to finish, the child's eyes flared into a violet shade and what felt like 100,000 volts of lightning pulsed through her already battered body.
Asuka's eyes surged out of their sockets, with hot tears gushing down her bloodied face. Her mouth open to cry but no sound came out. Her feeble body crumpled onto the floor as it began to convulse.
"I warned you before," the child snarled angrily, "And I won't warn you again."
Its physical form disappeared so as to let Asuka recover.
The words of the undistinguishable being echoed throughout the darkness.
"I won't warn you again..."
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On the outskirts of Tokyo-3, as morning dew settled on the lush green grass, there lay a boy on a steep cliff side, pondering his sanity, head drooping towards the earth.
"I...I wish....I could understand....these feelings" he stammered, looking into space.
"Ayanami... I need your help..." he pleaded to no one, "Help me understand, help me help...help..."
Tears streamed down his red cheeks, he didn't bother to wipe them.
"Asuka..." he trailed off, shoving his face violently into his hands. Shinji began tearing at his hair, cutting his face with his nails, violently shaking his weary head.
"WHY COULDN'T I HELP!?! WHY CAN'T I UNDERSTAND?!?" he shrieked, tears flowing heavier now.
He began smiling deliriously.
"I'll join you, Asuka..." Shinji beamed, "So we can be together...forever..."
Shinji staggered to his feet, and walked drunkenly to the border of the cliff
" We'll be together in another life, Asuka..." He glowed like a complete lunatic. "For now...Goodbye..."
He leaped off the edge with drying tears on his face, eyes closed in the deep serenity of 'freedom'. In his mind, he was going home.
*FLASH*
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'...Asuka...'
Violently coughing, Asuka frantically looked around the dark room. She had recognized that voice.
A familiar voice.
"Sh...Shinji?"
'...Goodbye...'
"SHINJI!?! SHINJI!! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!?" Asuka bellowed, hoping that her comrade was somewhere, anywhere nearby.
But there was only silence.
With salty tears brimming in her azure eyes, Asuka screamed desperately until her voice went hoarse. After many minutes passed, and her feeble cries went silent, a single, wet tear streamed down Asuka's face and fell onto the opal floor.
That sole, torturous, sinister voice emerged once more.
"See the damage you've caused? See how your existence alone has caused so much suffering?"
Images of all the people she knew and have ever known flash through her head, their faces glowing with visible sorrow and utter rage, overloading her cerebral cortex until she lost all touch with reality.
*FLASH*
Sitting on a chair, the naked girl sat covering herself, surrounded by a crowd of students of her school, NERV personnel and others.
"No..." Asuka frailly whimpered as if she were a little puppy.
Hikari, her best friend, steps out toward her.
"Asuka," Hikari started, in a stern voice "Why do you have to make everything so difficult?"
Asuka looked up at Hikari, slightly shocked. "Stop..."
Misato takes her place on the right of Hikari, the crowd seeming to get bigger by each moment.
"Your life could have been simple, you know." Misato looked deeply into Asuka's eyes with a loathing she had never experienced before. "You had beauty, strength, intelligence and potential, but that wasn't enough for you..."
"No..." she sobbed.
Toji stepped to Hikari's left.
"Scary ass red haired devil..." Toji said, but not in the joking matter she was accustomed to.
"Stop it..!"
Kaji, standing next to Misato said nothing, but he quickly drew he into a welcomed kiss, then looked at Asuka as if to mock her.
Tears were trying to escape her eyes once again.
'No!! It couldn't be them!' she thought in udder horror.
Then, the voice she dreaded the more than anyone else's sounded out around her. All the images disappeared as his voice echoed through the darkness.
"Goodbye...Asuka"
The world's end.
"NOOOOO!!!!"
Prelude to a dream.
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'Hey miss?'
Asuka lifts her tired head, to discover that she is in a park, apparently in her school clothes, and in front of a shimmering clear lake. She steadily turns her head to find the origin of her disruption, and spots a brown haired, dark blue eyed young boy with a yellow t-shirt and white shorts looking at her quizzically.
" What do you want, kid?" asked Asuka, with a slightly annoyed tone.
He pouted, "Watch who you're calling a kid, miss! I'm 5 and ½, y'know..."
Asuka actually giggled at this.
"That's nice, young man," she laughed serenely.
"So..." The boy smiled at Asuka, " What'cha doin' here, miss?"
Asuka slowly stands up, dusting herself off, and taking a good look around. 'This doesn't look like any place in Tokyo-3...'
"I...don't know," she replied. " Where is this place?"
"I dunno, miss..." the boy took a quick glance around. " Whatever you want it to be..."
Asuka paused,"... what do you mean?" she asked.
The boy answered simply, "This is your world."
The landscape instantaneously changed from the lakeside park to a beautiful landscape of what seemed to be and endless bed of flowers. Asuka, wearing a surprised expression, was now wearing a sun dress with a straw hat, sitting on a picnic blanket with a brown haired young man laying on her lap, listening to an SDAT tape.
"What the...?" Asuka said, with confusion evident in her voice.
She abruptly looked down and gasped.
Her face drained of all it's blood.
"SHINJI?!?!"
He opened his eyes and looked at her with his navy eyes and a relaxed countenance.
He sighed lightly.
"Yes...is there....!!"
Before he was able to finish, Asuka violently pushed him off her lap, her face now flushed beet red.
Asuka screamed, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TRYING TO PULL?!?!"
He blinked, as if he were confused.
"Uh...well..." he started, stammering. "you never objected last night when we..."
She pulled back and smacked the poor boy square in the face.
"WHAT THE HELL'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!?!" Asuka screeched, unable to control her raging emotions.
He gathered himself, gently touching where she had just slapped him. Shinji looked at her quizzically, as if he were a child.
"Are you feeling alright, miss?" he asked.
Her eyes widened.
"You..." she growled. "You're that boy! It was you Shinji, all along, you little rat!"
Shinji blinked in confusion again.
"Hey," he began, shrugging his shoulders. " Don't blame me. This is you're world. You couldn't take the truth."
Shinji fizzles out and creates two forms, himself and the boy.
Asuka was now genuinely confused.
"What do you mean?" she inquire, cautiously.
"Why are you here?" both boys asked in unison
She hesitated.
"I don't know..."
"Why?" they asked again, in the same tone as before.
"I don't know." she replied once more.
Yet the Shinji's were not yet satisfied.
"Why?" they inquired again.
"I DON'T KNOW!!" Asuka cried as if to emphasize her final and only answer.
They both turn their backs to her in sync. Both holding a disappointed look on their faces.
"Then go!"
*FLASH*
Emptiness.
******************************************************************************
Shinji exposed his eyes to the dawning sunlight.
There he lay, in the right hand of Evangelion Unit 02. He stood upright, recalling how he ended up here in the first place.
"Asuka, why can't I see you again?" Shinji sobbed silently.
He looked down at the gigantic hand beneath him. A memory resurfaced. The day he had to pilot Evangelion 01, and how the Eva had protected him, just as this one did.
With one distinctive feeling.
Comfort.
"M...Mother?" Shinji nervously stuttered.
'No'
"What was that?"
The boy weakly looked around for any person that might be in the area for the message to have originated from. None in sight.
"Who... ah... what are you?" uttered the youth.
'Come inside'
At that moment, the latch for the entry plug hissed open, waiting for a pilot. Cautiously, but figuring he had nothing else to loose, Shinji climbed in, the entry plug securing itself behind him.
Sitting in already used LCL, Shinji sat uncomfortably in Asuka's pilot seat.
'Somehow I feel like I'm betraying her' thought Shinji.
'Do you want to save her?'
"...uh," Shinji muttered, startled. "Of course I do!"
'Then pilot'
"...."
'Now!'
With that, the red beast came to life, 4:59 minutes left in the reserve batteries.
"But..." queried Shinji, with uncertainty. " Where do I start?"
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'Looks who's back...'
Asuka looked around to discover that she was right back where she had started. In the dark room, with the obsidian floor, and the green haired child she had grown to loathe.
"Why are you doing this to me? What did I do to deserve this." She wept pathetically.
The child shot her a cold glance.
"What did he ever do to deserve your constant taunting, your constant abuse?"
Her heart sank to her bare feet.
"Who..." her voice quavering, "what are you trying to...?"
But in her heart, she already knew.
"All he gave you was kindness and respect, all you gave him was disrespect, hatred and countless hours of emotional torture!
Asuka: But surely he didn't take it to hear...
"I saw him," the child interrupted, " I peered into his soul when his physical projection was trying to save you... every curse, every hit, every putdown, every little cold look or even frown were to him like cold daggers in his fragile heart. Yet he hided behind a painted smile as if he were a geisha, listened and put up with you just for the rare moments of kindness that you shared together." It's voice began to soften, "In his mind's eye, he would have taken the stars right out of the sky just to see you smile, even if it was an evil one."
Shaken, Asuka looked into the child's pale gray eyes. A sadness came over her, and her salty tears once again rolled down her cheeks like beads and fell to the floor.
"This cannot be..." Asuka cried frantically, "you have to be lying...I know the idiot doesn't..."
"You ignorant fool!" the child roared, It's empathy now exhausted. "The poor boy treats you like a queen and you treat him like a dime and put him back on the shelf. The only thing you care about is you, not even! How could you even possibly love someone else?!"
Asuka wore a pained face, and quietly whispered. "I...love Kaji..."
The juvenile's eyes flared with livid rage.
"BULLSHIT!!" it hollered. "That pitiful, childish infatuation? You are incapable of love, pathetic excuse for a human being."
As her tears still flowed, Asuka stood up and picked up the small child by the collar of it's sweatshirt.
"WHO ARE YOU TO SAY THESE AWFUL LIES!?!" she wailed, shaking the child violently. " WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?!"
It smiled.
"TELL ME!!" she yelled.
"Poor Lilim..." the child sighed. "You can be fun for awhile, but now you've ruined the game, oh well, guess I'll show my true form."
The child dissolved in Asuka's hands, and then appeared several feet infront of the perplexed girl. The body of the child grow into an about 16 year old looking body. His hair grew till it was halfway down his back, and black angel wings sprouted from his back. If Asuka wasn't completely terrified, and had this been a normal situation, she would have thought this boy to be extremely handsome. This black winged Angel was different from any other ever encountered, like something out of a fairy tale.
"You..You're an Angel!" Asuka was astonished.
"No, I'm Emmanuel." the handsome man answered.
"Ah..." she faltered, "...As in...?"
"As in a name." he smiled, flashing perfect white teeth. " No, I'm not Jesus. Man, am I far from it."
He folded his dark wings and walked towards the perplexed and still unclothed Asuka.
"Then...what are you?" questioned the puzzled girl.
"An outcast, enough said." he replied stiffly.
"Ok...." said the girl, blushing profusely. "but, um, would it be hard for me to have some clothing?"
"Ok," Emmanuel pouted jokingly, " If you insist..."
He snapped his finger and Asuka was instantly clothed in her plugsuit.
"Where are we?" she asked, now comfortable.
"My sanctuary," he tried to elaborate. " Inside the mind."
"....ok...then" Asuka said in a perplexed voice.
"Why?" he queried out of the blue.
"Why what?" Asuka asked.
"Why do you torture him so?" he inquired nonchalantly.
She looked at Emmanuel's pained face.
"I...don't know."
"In a way," he began. " I feel that I am in debt to this boy, but for a reason I do not know."
Asuka smirked.
"Yeah," she conferred. " Shinji can do that to you sometimes."
He sits on the floor, Asuka carefully follows his actions.
"He... cares so much." he empathized. "More than any other human I've seen. The poor boy just doesn't know how to love, since he doesn't love himself. He doesn't take care of himself."
"He is a class act, huh?" she grinned further.
"How can you say that when you are just the same as him?" he stated.
Asuka sharply slapped Emmanuel.
"How can you say that?!?" Asuka howled in an enraged tone. "Me like that pathetic excuse for a male? That wimp, that..."
"He is braver than you'll ever be," interrupted Emmanuel. "Miss Asuka Langley Soryu."
"How dare you..." scowled the girl.
"He jumped into a volcano to save you..." he started.
"But..."
" Looked out for you..."
" Stop..."
" He even kissed you..."
Asuka had had it. "STOP IT!! ENOUGH!!"
Emmanuel sat silently and unmoved as Asuka screamed violently at him for almost an hour, until she tired and fell promptly to deep slumber on the opal surface.
Emmanuel: My poor boy, how could you stand this wild tigress.
He smiled peacefully.
"It must be hard to really love someone for the first time."
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To be continued...
AND very soon, I promise ;-)