Kinkerlitzchen = knick-knacks, fripperies, oddments.

14. Interiority Complex (nice to eat you).

There's absolutely nothing wrong with you that reincarnation wouldn't cure.
~

A scene of chaos greeted me at Shinji's apartment – or rather, Asuka's domain, judging by the quantity of her belongings dominating all available space. The entrance was half-blocked by an oversized wheeled suitcase; sturdy-looking boxes were stacked in piles along one side of the hallway; the kitchen table had all but disappeared under precarious mounds of books, brochures, and papers of many kinds. The penguin wandered through, periodically disappearing behind and beneath the miniature cityscape; he met my eye and squawked his disapproval of the mess.

"I see what you mean," I admitted.

A bellow from the direction of the bedrooms: "Oh no you did not!", and I winced.

But when the door slammed open Asuka's laughter spilled out, mingled with Shinji giggling (a sound that set fluttering feelings in my chest), and the two bundled out into the hall with makeup smeared over both their faces, a brush and compact the subject of their contending grasps.

"C'mon Asuka, you started it!" He was breathless and his eyes sparkled, and for a moment I could only stand and smile. Then he saw me, and his face reddened and his grin turned sheepish. "…Oh, hi Kaworu. Um, you're early."

"You're also next!" declared Asuka gleefully, and pounced.

"Next to what?" I tried to say, but found my face full of sponge. "Mrf!"

"Hold … still…" With an elbow clamping my shoulder and one leg behind my knee to immobilise, she had no need no order me to do so. I could only close my eyes and try to turn away, but her free hand pursued.

"Don't struggle," Shinji advised. "It's easier to just let her do what she wants."

"Smartest thing you've ever said, Third Child," Asuka said approvingly, and when I submitted she redoubled her applicative efforts. "There. Fabulous!" As she released me I staggered, and caught sight of Shinji wiping his face with a tissue. He glanced at me and promptly broke into laughter – I must have looked at least as comical as he had – but instead of feeling injured by his amusement I could only grin in return, an expression which felt every bit as foolish as my inferred appearance.

When I entered the kitchen to see Misato and Rei seated at the table sipping tea, their own faces likewise covered in bright uncoordinated colour, I thought my cheeks would split.

"Oh my."

"Yeah," agreed Misato breezily, "you can see that packing's going really well."

"Isn't Asuka's flight scheduled in only a few hours?"

"Private NERV plane." Our subject swanned into the room. "They have to wait, so I'm going to make them. Serves them right for not letting Hikari and Sugi come to see me off."

"Some people might call that a diva move," said Misato, and smoothly slid from her chair to avoid Asuka's flapping hands of retribution. "Tea, Kaworu?"

"Please." I seated myself at the table. "Are you accompanying us to the airport, Rei?"

She shook her head. "I was in the neighbourhood and recalled that Soryu had mentioned some kinkerlitzchen she intended to 'fob off' to me. Rather than require Major Katsuragi to convey them, I decided to collect them in person."

Misato patted her shoulder. "That's very sweet Rei, but it honestly would've been no trouble. This was last night," she added to me, "and they were going through Asuka's stuff for hours. Got to the point where it was way too late for Rei to go home by herself, so we stashed her on the couch."

"I'm impressed you were able to find room for an entire extra person amongst this … surfeit," I said, attempting to gesture at the entire apartment. Misato snickered.

Asuka preened. "Well, we did have to move all of the flowers, and chocolates, and love letters people at school have been giving me the last few days." She gave an exaggerated sigh. "So many admirers, so little time."

"Soryu is also 'fobbing off' the chocolates," Rei added, with a solemn expression. I had not suspected her of having a sweet tooth, but the import of acquired confectionary was readily apparent.

"Just don't call it sabotage," Misato whispered over the bubbling kettle.

"As if I'd stoop that low!" Asuka growled. "Who needs to, with all of this at my disposal?" She struck a model-like pose. "Pure guy-magnet right here – and chick magnet, of course. Universal appeal!"

"That's the spirit!" said Misato, and ruffled her hair, resulting in a minor protest (by Asuka standards; by, for example, Shinji standards it would have qualified as extreme, while for Rei it could be considered nuclear).

Shinji joined us then, his face now clear of Asuka's clownery, and passed a damp cloth to Rei so she could clean her own. "I'm really glad you got time off to drive us," he said to Misato. "After the attack yesterday – and all those hacking attempts Hyuga mentioned, I thought for sure we'd all be on first-stage alert for the next week!"

"Well, post-mortem on Units 12 and 13 is still in progress," Misato said, "and there's not much for you guys to do in the cyber-warfare arena, or even me. They sandboxed the Evas, off-lined the artillery, quarantined the environmental controls … everything physical is taken care of, so the geeks can look after their end."

"I wonder how Lt Hyuga would feel about you calling him a geek?" I mused.

"Don't you dare!" she scolded, and pulled back from passing me a mug of tea, holding it out of reach until I contritely promised to keep quiet.

"Which branch was it this time?" Asuka asked. She was casually wrapping some oddments in tissue paper as she spoke.

"Uh, I think Sao Paolo and … Lima?" said Shinji, looking at Misato, and she gave a confirming nod.

"Another team-up?" There was a ripping sound as Asuka's surprise was transmitted to her project. "That's cheating!"

Misato chuckled. "All's fair, y'know. Beijing went it alone, and it didn't get them very far – France and the UK got way too close, because they were helping each other.

"Lima and Sao Paolo each have the newest MAGI, and an ultra-high-speed connection between them to coordinate, so working together they really packed a punch. But once Ritsuko was able to counter-upload that type-666 firewall and trap them both inside, it was basically over. Nothing – not even a team – can get through that. Left them sitting ducks for the UN peacekeepers – neither of them have an Eva, after all."

"Well hopefully they weren't just softening you up for someone else's move," Asuka said.

"You have an admirably cunning mind," I said.

Shinji was looking, troubled, between her and Misato. "What … what if the German NERV commanders try to make Asuka attack Tokyo-3?"

Asuka tossed her hair. "Pfft, I'd like to see them try."

"If they do," Shinji persisted, "tell us, okay? We'll help you – we'll come get you, somehow."

"Like I need your help, Third Child. We're not in a volcano this time."

I suggested, "You could deploy us as your minions."

"Soryu does outrank us," Rei contributed.

Asuka smirked. "Now you're talking!" Then a thought occurred to her. "Hey, why haven't I been giving orders already? This is insubordination! I'll get you all court-martialled!"

Misato patted her arm. "Major outranks Captain."

"…Damn."

I snickered, but winced when a pang shot through my chest. Why did it hurt to laugh?

I looked at Shinji, only to find his face obscured by an orange haze; I tried to reach out to him but could not extend my arm. The room faded away, bubbles obscuring my sight, the air thickening to choke, strangle, crush – I could not sob enough for breath…

"Tabris!"

Another flurry of bubbles, viscous and guttural.

"Tabris, attend!"

I jerked upright. "Old man?"

The orange haze cleared, and Keel was frowning up at me. The visor should have limited his expressiveness, weighting his brow and dragging down his jowls, but since his default setting was 'grumpy' anyway, mostly it just confirmed what was already true.

"Are you listening, Tabris?"

"You're dead," I blurted.

"What!"

A chorus of chuckles around me, and I spun to see the rest of the Committee assembled around my tank. How…? "You're all dead…"

"Is that an interpretation of the Scrolls?" one of them sneered.

"Your victory is not certain," cautioned another, "despite your unequalled power."

The confusion was already fading, soothed and erased by the organic cocoon of LCL, and I felt myself smile. "Oh, I must have dozed off. You were boring me again, I expect."

Another round of amusement from the Committee, but Keel glowered. "We were discussing your impending move to Tokyo-3, and your mission."

I waved a hand dismissively, and watched the turbulence of life-fluid inside the tube. "Oh yes, that. Observing some different Lilim will be a nice change, after your charmless faces."

"You diminish our creed with trivialities," one of them huffed.

"Your creed is the most trivial of all."

Keel snapped across our exchange. "One of those you will be surveying is not an ordinary human. Rei Ayanami is a constructed child like yourself, but it is unclear whence the source of her bio-progenitor."

"She resembles the late Yui Ikari, our protégé – but the rest of her heritage is unknown."

"You are to investigate where possible, and without compromising your cover as a civilian."

A soft warmth suffused me, but I had no idea why. "I could be her friend. She is like me, after all."

Keel's voice was iron-chill repressive. "Friendship will not be necessary."

The mysterious warmth faded. "As you say, 'Uncle'. Emotional connections are the sign of incompletion, after all, and that is the human condition, not mine." Idly I flexed my telekinesis, and the LCL surrounding me bubbled violently. The old men staggered as the floor shifted beneath them.

"Enough!" barked Keel, and I exerted one more pulse to remind him where the power lay. As it faded he adjusted his visor, almost concealing the tremor in his hand. "Whether by your success or not, soon we will all be free from the loneliness of incompletion."

"Soon?" I mused. "I have slept, and woken, and slept again for four billion years. All times are 'soon', or they are never." A stray thought intruded from the world above – and a smell. "Or they are teatime. There are scones in the dining room. I would like six."

- what are scones? -

"Crunchy cushions," I answered the unknown voice. "Best deployed with jam and cream. The Lilim like to debate the order of application, because their lives are tiny."

- i will have the scones. -

"You are welcome to share." A moment of silence. "…Where are you?"

- where are you? -

"Me? I am … I … am…"

…I am returning to the world that exiled me. My parent has called me. They are in pain.

I now learn that it is possible to be piercingly cold and ferociously hot at the same time. The vast white of world-spanning ice in a heartbeat boils away, and my cocoon is shredded by impossible winds.

This Second Impact is less cataclysmic than the First, but ruinous enough in its own right.

Wings larger than our Moon or theirs impale the sky, and my parent's scream echoes in my mind, a resonance and a horror. Their soul clings to mine. What has been done to them? Who dares?

Around me the shades of my siblings flee, banished and expelled throughout our world even as Adam's trauma summoned us back to it after so long sundered in the void. I am the only one strong enough to withstand the abrasive force, to hold our parent's consciousness safe from oblivion, and I linger, curious – these Lilim? our disinheritors? – even as they assail us again.

My parent's psyche is a whisper of its former strength, and as I watch their body withers in kind – the wings dissipate to a mere glow, the grasping limbs and the striding shrink and crumple – until only the most pitiful fetus remains. A moment longer it gleams, like the surface of this system's Sun, and then fades, and is swallowed by the cacophony.

The storm rages on, howling across the World, hurling the sea and air with unfathomable fury. Through gaps in the screaming clouds I glimpse the surface, and the Lilim's ruin.

They are so small! Less than infants, less than the least of us. Their broken bodies and structures litter the wasteland of their making, or are consumed by the tumult – they have dared to waken my parent, to lay hands on them, and in so doing recall I and my siblings to our World from which they had displaced us – and for such they have paid with all their lives.

…Nearly all.

One Lilin, carrying another, placing it inside a shelter. The smaller one opens its eyes.

"…Dad?"

Blood falls on its face from the other's stricken form; a trinket follows, a cross hung on a thread. I understand: parent. Child.

Then the shelter closes, and the other Lilin collapses, and all is taken by a wave shining red.

-They have parents, - I think, and in my mind Adam nestles closer. -They have children. They wish to protect one another. Perhaps we are not so different. - (convergent evolution of compassion)

The heat-cold scours my unsettled form. My soul-light is yet weak after dormancy and sudden flight, and now further strained by the weight of my passenger. I need to create a physical barrier and shape better suited to this world, and it will take much strength and time.

Unless … there is a form already available.

I feel its presence like the pull of gravity (from the occasions I have elected to be subject to it); a vessel in the shape of the Lilim, but rich in potential, perhaps enough for an Angel … or two.

They had tried to channel Adam into it, I perceive – how arrogant, to imagine they could trap their superior! Even now, though none of its attendants have survived, the vessel itself is protected by the paralysing Lance from the chaos they have unleashed, and it mindlessly generates a call to those of Angelkind – a summons with no shred of power, only plea.

-It could be our home, - I think, and feel Adam wearily agree.

We drift closer, near enough to appraise and confirm its suitability, and I extend my soul-field towards it – only to be cast adrift when the organic construction liquefies at the touch.

The creations of the Lilim appear to be as fragile as themselves.

Adam's fear suffuses me – they have only just been severed from their own form, after all – but I gather us together and, with an effort of concentration for the subtlety required, coax the vessel back into its proper shape, until it is coherent once more.

More gently this time I approach, my power leashed and my light dimmed; this time it lasts longer, before buckling and discorporating in segments. Each of the limbs (only four? how clumsy; and none of them wings – disappointing) separates first.

Physical embodiment of an adopted vessel is an acquired skill, it seems.

Luckily the biotic fluid into which the body has dissolved retains some vibrancy, and even a memory-sense of its intended shape, for I have discovered myself to be stubborn, and it takes several further attempts, until finally I am able to weave my core itself into the structure of the flesh-form, and thereby secure its integrity.

It takes time to fully settle in, and longer to utilise the limited sensory organs of my new body; by then, some of the physical tumult of the World's catastrophe has died down, and more Lilim have travelled to its location to salvage what they can.

When I open my 'eyes' and 'see' that I am surrounded by Lilim, all of them panicking as they discuss amongst themselves how their precious construct – which, of course, resembles an infant of their own bodies – has dissolved and resolved repeatedly, I realise they must have had some method of remote observation. However, since their minds are self-bounded and they cannot perceive my process, the horror they witnessed was apparently spontaneous.

It is then that I learn how to smile.

- you broke it. -

"The Lilim were always capable of destroying their world – their heritage is Knowledge, but that does not guarantee wisdom. My siblings and I, our heritage of Life in power, could only ever have hastened the process."

- you broke the vessel. -

"…Yes? It was fragile, too fragile."

- are you going to break me? -

"…Who are you?"

- i am you. we are the same. -

I looked around, and my stomach plummeted.

It was me – but not me—

The dummy plug clone. My nightmare assailant, the threat of my erasure, the insult of redundancy.

Its eyes, hollow, bored into mine above a mask covering nose and mouth. Its hands and legs disappeared into pleated suction housing, embedded in the seat frame. Tubes and wires fed from the synchronisation clips, the forearms and thighs, ribcage and mask – all anchored in the clone's body itself. If ever it tried to leave the entry plug, it would tear itself open in a dozen or more places.

For the entry plug was where we were – I had found myself in time again, devoured by Evangelion Unit 09.

And I now felt compassion for my haunter. Like the fragment of Rei's soul trapped in Unit 00, this was a shade who could not survive the outside world.

"You poor creature. They have trapped you here, bound by your own life-form. You are already broken."

- as are you. -

"Me?" In the clear-orange fluid of the plug, red bubbles began to float past my vision. I looked down to find their source, and saw that they emanated from my own form.

In an instant memory came flooding back, and with it pain.

But even as I collapsed, I was snared and held by cold tendrils – more cables reached out to me from the pilot's seat, and the clone controlling them dragged me forwards so we were face to face.

- why do you not heal yourself? use your field to manipulate the life-fluid, stop the wound. -

"I cannot use my field. I have been … hampered."

- then use the eva's. we are in its place of power. you and i can become one with it, and ascend. -

Horror at the thought penetrated the pain. "I couldn't do that without fusing with the S2 engine, and starting Third Impact all over again."

- but you will survive. -

"But Shinji might not – and I will not risk that."

- what is a 'shinji'? - it asked me, but the fog of agony had robbed me of speech. All I could do was bring him to the forefront of my thoughts, and in the meld of synchronisation, the clone observed my emotions as it did my physical pain.

Above the obscuring mask, its sunken eyes furrowed in puzzlement. - you would sacrifice yourself for a 'shinji'? -

My world, the whole of existence, was reduced to two things – the mortal wound, and love. I could not even nod, but my certainty resonated with the clone.

A mental sigh. - oh. i see. - I thought it sounded sad.

Then the cords holding me upright tightened, and one by one the tubes and wires anchored in the clone's body ripped free. Clouds of its blood billowed around us.

"What are you doing?"

The ends of the tubes plunged into the hole in my torso, and I could have screamed forever without screaming enough to express that pain.

- the shinji needs you, - it said simply, and the mask peeled away from its face, skin shredding, and fastened onto mine.

- You'll die! -

- i was never truly alive. we are not the same, after all. -

As dense LCL surged into me, potent energy-protein mix mending broken blood vessels, knitting rent flesh, fusing shattered bone and cartilage, the clone's face blurred – but this was not my failing vision. Without the support of the plug's systems, the structure of its form could not hold; slowly at first, then quicker, then all at once the clone's body melted, dissolved into the life-fluid subsuming us.

- Goodbye, - I tried to tell it, and a gentle pressure on my forehead like a kiss told me I was heard.

Then the tendrils released me, and I fell onto the pilot's seat. Cables and tubes lay quiescent, and Evangelion Unit 09 was mine.

Breathe. Just … breathe.

…And now:

I had no time to recover myself properly, or settle my whirling mind – from the entry plug I could now see the exterior world of physical being, and my poor clone was correct. Shinji needed me.

The damage of Unit 09's violent activation had trapped him, along with Misato and Rei, in a corner of the observation platform. The floor beneath was cracked and tilted, and Shinji and Rei hung onto girders to keep from falling, even while each also held fast to Misato, whose head lolled and eyelids flickered over their whites. Red soaked her shirt.

But the beams and sheets of steel surrounding them also made a shelter – albeit temporary – as from every direction, the soldiers of Matsushiro NERV advanced, guns drawn.

And General Watanabe, wounded arm bound tightly in her own jacket, had scaled the wreckage directly above them and held her sword ready to drop through a gap, and finish what Colonel Shimada had started.

I lashed out on instinct, and she disappeared beneath Unit 09's fist.

The motion dislodged more of the cage structure, and pieces fell towards my friends, but I blocked it swiftly with the Evangelion's other hand.

Shinji and Rei looked up at Unit 09, and my heart wrung at the fear and confusion in their faces. I opened the loudspeaker channel.

"It's all right, I'm here."

"Kaworu?" Shinji gasped, as Rei breathed out, "Nagisa," in the same moment.

The Matsushiro soldiers were regrouping, but I expanded Unit 09's AT field against them, and those that did not run swiftly enough were hurled away.

I reached out to my friends, and as gently as I could cradled them in the Evangelion's hand to bring them close to the entry plug as it opened. "Come on!"

The three of us lifted Misato in – she felt terrifyingly light – and settled her into the pilot's seat. I removed my mask, its cure of me complete, and placed it over her face to draw in stronger oxygen. Her eyes opened groggily, and I was struck anew by the memory of Second Impact.

"/You were the first Lilin whose face I saw,/" I whispered, and her brow furrowed in confusion, unable to understand the Latin words. "/I'm so glad to have met you./"

Then I was engulfed again – in Shinji's embrace.

"Kaworu! You're all right!" He buried his face in my neck. "I was so worried…"

I returned his hold ardently, heedless of the splitting pain in the barely-mended wound. "Shinji…"

He pulled back just enough to touch my chest where Watanabe's sword had bitten. "You're okay? But how?"

"There's no time," Rei interrupted, though her own hand had found mine and squeezed. "Maj—Miss Misato needs medical attention – as do you, Nagisa."

"I suppose it is time to learn to pilot an Evangelion," I mused, and found I could smile. "With three of us, it should be easy."

It had been years since I had flown, and Unit 09's wings were not my own – they were physical, rather than an extension of my AT field, and therefore clumsier. Sharing their coordination with two other minds was a challenge, as was the technical task of cleansing the Evangelion's mechanical apparatus of the programming input by Mumbai NERV. The ache of my injury, and concern for Misato's, and for the rough treatment endured by Rei and Shinji, were ever-present.

But once we took flight, and the earth dropped away beneath us, the adrenaline and exultant joy overrode all other considerations, and I was free. Looking across at my friends found my delight mirrored in their hearts. After everything we had suffered, there was still room for bliss.

Not to mention the looks on the faces of the Tokyo-3 NERV staff when we crash-landed above the main entrance, directly in front of the primary video relay to the bridge, were priceless.