Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion...
This story is rated R for violence, language, and sexuality...
Story Title: Masochistic Chapter Eighteen: Holding Your Life in My Hands Author: Mosher-24
Shinji was whistling. It was the best day he had had since before Rei's suicide. The clouds were white and clear of rain, the sun shining brightly. There was a slight breeze, blowing to the west. He was waiting for Kaoru to show up so they could go to the arcade.
Since Shinji had met Kaoru, he had liked him very much. They had become fast friends and hung out everyday. This was the only time Kaoru was late. Shinji didn't mind though, he was used to that. That feeling he had been getting from Kaoru never bothered him anymore and he could look him in the face without seeing Rei.
In fact, he hadn't seen much of Rei over the past week. She had been doing a lot of stuff at NERV, while Shinji and Kaoru weren't. Misato was also at NERV now almost night and day, coming home for a few hours to sleep, eat, and then return. She was a walking purple-haired zombie.
A bird sang over the third's head, soaring high in the air. It was a robin. Shinji smiled and watched it disappear into the blinding sun's light.
'Where is Kaoru?' Shinji thought. The fifth child was now almost twenty minutes late and Shinji was getting impatient.
After ten more minutes, Shinji got up and made his way to the arcade, but no one was there. Kaoru, or anyone else.
'Hm... Strange,' he thought.
His cell phone rang.
Shinji ignored it and looked around the arcade once more.
His cell phone rang again.
"Yes?" Shinji asked, somewhat irritated. His face paled in seconds and he gave full attention to the person on the other line.
"Are you sure?" he asked, a tear falling from his cheek.
"Yes," he hung up and ran. He ran like he had never before, to NERV and through the intricate mazes to the locker room. He changed quickly and went to 01 and got in. The Eva was started quickly and Shinji synched with it.
"Make your way to Terminal Dogma, fast!" Misato yelled from the control room. She sounded tired. So tired. Shinji willed the Eva to the elevator which shot him down, just in front of Terminal Dogma. Shinji jumped through the hole that was already there and looked down. There was 02 floating down with a shining figure.
"Shinji... The angel is Kaoru," Misato said gently as Shinji neared the target.
"What?"
"You heard... The angel is Kaoru, I'm sorry Shinji,"
"No... I won't believe you! Kaoru can't be an angel! NO!" Shinji screamed. For the second time, his heart broke. He felt something snap inside his brain and he descended next to 02 to see for himself. Sure enough, Kaoru was floating next to 02, his platinum hair swaying.
"Kaoru!" Shinji said over his speakers. The boy looked up and smiled.
"Hello, Shinji," he said before turning away. Shinji reached out for him, but 02 grabbed 01's hand. The two grappled and Shinji grunted.
"Why, Kaoru? Why!" Shinji screamed, taking a punch to the gut and countering with a kick to the chest.
"You Lilan wouldn't understand. There are things greater than us, and sometimes, though you don't understand, death can be the only true freedom we have," the angel said. His crimson eyes focused on Shinji and his battle with 02.
Shinji willed 01 to kick 02, who landed in a lake of LCL. They had reached the bottom layer of Terminal Dogma, and Lilith was still crucified in the corner, but she had grown legs. Kaoru started toward her while Shinji pulled his progressive knife and stabbed 02.
The unit pulled its own and stabbed Shinji in the stomach. The third child screamed, his vision going blurry.
"Adam..." Kaoru said with a smile. When he got to the angel's face, though, he frowned.
"No... Lilith? I understand," he said. He turned back to Shinji. 02 deactivated, Kaoru no longer needing it. 01 turned to Kaoru and seized him in its strong hand.
"WHY!" Shinji screamed through painful tears. Kaoru only smiled at Shinji and replied with a sweet voice, "I must live forever, but not here. Shinji, there is nothing more for me to do, please destroy me."
Shinji stopped crying and stared at his friend. His eye twitched. Every person he ever got close to died or left. Everyone... Everyone's gone... I'm alone... All alone... No Kaoru, NO!
"I can't!" Shinji yelled. Kaoru only smiled sympathetically at him.
"Shinji, I love you. Please destroy me," Kaoru said. He closed his eyes and waited. Silence followed for three long, agonizing minutes.
"NO!" Shinji screamed, squeezing his hand. He heard something hit the lake of LCL and looked out fearfully. Blood was dripping from 01's hand in long rivulets. Shinji's mouth fell open and he looked down at the lake. Kaoru's head was floating on the surface, a blank, blissful expression on it.
Shinji didn't cry. Didn't scream. Didn't breathe. He sat there and stared.
"Shinji?"
No.
"Shinji?"
No...
"SHINJI!"
fuck you...
fuck you! fuck YOU! FUCKYOU! FUCKYOU! FUCKYOU! FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU!!!
Shinji blacked out.
Tumbling through blackness, Shinji was falling. He had been for ten minutes. He hit the concrete and spat blood. It was his pillow. His bed. His grave. Shinji choked and wasn't bleeding anymore. He wasn't on concrete anymore.
He was watching his 'real' self, his inner child playing at a park that seemed so familiar. The little kid was playing with a dump truck in a sand box. He was smiling, laughing, happy. Happy? What does that mean again? I can't quite remember...
Suddenly, the child looked up and glared at Shinji. It startled and scared him, because his eyes were now bleeding.
"Happy..." the child said before dissipating into LCL like the Rei's had. No, not dissipate; dismember. That was the word. His head fell off, his torso coming apart and his intestines coming loose. Shinji threw up and found himself in school, watching Rei.
She was staring out the window, a black tear falling from her face. Shinji walked over and she looked up at him. He stroked the tear away and a new one fell. She opened her mouth, but LCL flooded out and she closed it quickly, looking sick.
stop...
She stood up and her back arched in pain. She was lifted into the air on a cross, her face growing seven eyes. She began to bleed profusely down the wooden cross, from wounds he couldn't see.
stop!
Gendo walked up, a giant above Shinji. He reached out and placed his hands on Rei's breasts.
"It's time, Rei," he said soothingly.
STOP!
Shinji shot awake, sitting straight up. He was in the infirmary. It was dark, the fan above him turning idly. Shinji lay back down and stared at the ceiling. He began to think and realized he didn't care. He didn't care about anything. He had no meaning, no purpose. He wasn't there for any reason anymore. Shinji felt so helplessly empty that he wept.
From the shadows, Rei watched him. She could feel his pain, but didn't weep like he did. 'Why?' she thought. Shinji suddenly became aware that he felt her presence also, and stopped crying.
"Rei?" he asked. He had become so use to her 'aura' that he could tell it from anyone else. The blue haired girl stepped forward, holding her left arm with her right.
"Why is it that you cry, Ikari?" she asked. He looked at her with an empty stare and held his hand out for her to come closer. She did, and he stroked her face gently.
"That's why..."
"I do not understand."
Shinji smiled mirthlessly and looked at the ceiling, withdrawing his hand.
"Because I am worth nothing. I have nothing. I am nothing. There's no reason to me being here," he said. She watched him for a long time, thinking hard.
"You have a purpose..." she said quietly after a long time. Her face was now hidden in shadow.
"What is that?" Shinji scoffed.
"So I may learn to love again," she replied softer than before. Shinji didn't reply.
"I don't believe that's possible anymore," Shinji said, not looking her in the face. He still loved her. He still loved her with his entire being, but that apathy was drowning him like a stone attached to his leg in a river.
"I do," she said before leaving. She wasn't angry, just tired and thoughtful. She walked swiftly from the infirmary and went to her quarters. They were clean. She had begun to clean one day and had found a memory hidden of Shinji helping her clean. It was a funny memory, watching herself try to dust.
She was better at it now. Valium was on the nightstand, but she hadn't needed that since she had recovered from the injuries she had when Shinji first saw her. The ruptured spleen had hurt badly. Valium had been the only drug she could take for it; she was allergic to Vicadin or such others. Of course, it always made her into even more of a zombie then many considered her to be already.
Vicadin? Vaylacedrine? What were those? The machine? What? Something had popped into her mind, immense pain, crying, screaming, Shinji. It was confusing and gave her a headache, so she sat on her cot and lay out.
Rei fell into a deep sleep that held no dreams.
Shinji was dismissed from the hospital with a diagnosis of depression and a prescription for Prozac. He went to Misato's apartment and went inside. Misato wasn't there, like normal. He went directly to his room, took the Prozac, put the bottle on his desk and went for a knife. He stared at it after making one long line in his skin. It didn't feel as good as it used to. Nothing did.
Shinji went to the bathroom and looked through the cabinets. He pulled out a bottle of Acetaminophen and popped fifty pills with water. His vision went blurry and he smiled before crashing to the floor, knocking his head against the white tiles. He bled from a cut on his forehead sustained from the fall, and the cut on his arm.
"Major Katsuragi! Come here, sir!" Maya yelled. Misato wandered her way over to the lieutenant and looked at the view monitor. Shinji was laying on the floor, not moving and bleeding. The purple haired woman immediately called for a doctor and 911 and then marched straight up to Commander Ikari, who was with Kozo.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING TO THAT POOR KID!" she screamed. Gendo turned around and looked calmly at her, a cold glint in his eye.
"Pilot Ikari is expendable. I know what I'm doing. I suggest you change your tone, Major. That's insubordination," he left. Misato was so furious she punched a consol and broke her pinky.
"Damn it all to hell!" she yelled. She broke down and cried. The bridge bunnies averted their eyes.
Shinji went through several days of heavy therapy before they released him back home, still alive. He was under constant surveillance. They upped his Prozac dosage and had a guard within fifteen feet of him at all times. Shinji didn't really care.
He didn't care until he received news that Asuka was out from the mental hospital. Out and AWOL. She had run away. Shinji's heart sunk. 'Asuka...' he thought sadly. Quietly, he planned the whole thing out.
The next day, when he was going to eat breakfast, he climbed out his window. The guard rushed in, but Shinji scaled the outer ledge of the apartment. It was fifteen feet to the ground, so he just jumped and landed with bended knees.
He then ran down several alleyways and side paths that no one ever took. There were NERV cars out for him, but he ran through the forest and came out on the damaged side of Tokyo-3. The side he had destroyed. Well, not him, but Rei, who had self-destructed to save Shinji.
The buildings were beyond repair, many taken to the ground. Shinji began a methodical search and went through every building, taking two days for half. On the third day he was so hungry he threw up, but continued his search. NERV cars were driving slowly down the streets, searching for him. He avoided them and went into a building with a shower head sticking out of a hole in the top.
Asuka was sitting in a half-full bathtub, completely naked and pale. She looked famished and nearly dead. Shinji couldn't even cry at the sight. Her skin was wrinkled and her eyes were distant.
"Asuka?" he asked softly. She turned her head toward him, but made no sound. Her clothes were on a chair to the tub's right. Her hair was adorned with dust and cement.
"Can you hear me?" he asked. She only moaned a response. Shinji reached into the tub, lifted her out, and carried her from the building. He was in a daze, not really there. Nothing could have broken Asuka this bad. Nothing...
But he was wrong. Asuka was broke. Bad.
The NERV cars picked him up and he ended up back at NERV, where he didn't want to be. Misato tried to talk to him, but he ran off. He ran off, crying, screaming, being a baby.
That's right, you baby. You're nothing.
SHUT UP!
Fuck you.
Shinji ran to an unused hallway on level four and hid under a stairway. That's when the explosions started.
"All our external cameras are out, and there are special operations soldiers pouring in from the front gates. Many guards are already dead!" Aoba reported to Misato. She sighed and sank to her knees.
"It's gonna be bad this time, guys. Get Asuka to 02, Rei to 00, and Shinji to 01," she reported. The bridge bunnies nodded and Gendo smiled.
"Take care of things for me, Kozo," Gendo said, getting up from his chair.
"Give my regards to Yui," Kozo replied solemnly.
Continued.... Author's Notes: The next chapter will be longer, I promise. Anyway, I hope you like the ending, it's coming here really soon.
This story is rated R for violence, language, and sexuality...
Story Title: Masochistic Chapter Eighteen: Holding Your Life in My Hands Author: Mosher-24
Shinji was whistling. It was the best day he had had since before Rei's suicide. The clouds were white and clear of rain, the sun shining brightly. There was a slight breeze, blowing to the west. He was waiting for Kaoru to show up so they could go to the arcade.
Since Shinji had met Kaoru, he had liked him very much. They had become fast friends and hung out everyday. This was the only time Kaoru was late. Shinji didn't mind though, he was used to that. That feeling he had been getting from Kaoru never bothered him anymore and he could look him in the face without seeing Rei.
In fact, he hadn't seen much of Rei over the past week. She had been doing a lot of stuff at NERV, while Shinji and Kaoru weren't. Misato was also at NERV now almost night and day, coming home for a few hours to sleep, eat, and then return. She was a walking purple-haired zombie.
A bird sang over the third's head, soaring high in the air. It was a robin. Shinji smiled and watched it disappear into the blinding sun's light.
'Where is Kaoru?' Shinji thought. The fifth child was now almost twenty minutes late and Shinji was getting impatient.
After ten more minutes, Shinji got up and made his way to the arcade, but no one was there. Kaoru, or anyone else.
'Hm... Strange,' he thought.
His cell phone rang.
Shinji ignored it and looked around the arcade once more.
His cell phone rang again.
"Yes?" Shinji asked, somewhat irritated. His face paled in seconds and he gave full attention to the person on the other line.
"Are you sure?" he asked, a tear falling from his cheek.
"Yes," he hung up and ran. He ran like he had never before, to NERV and through the intricate mazes to the locker room. He changed quickly and went to 01 and got in. The Eva was started quickly and Shinji synched with it.
"Make your way to Terminal Dogma, fast!" Misato yelled from the control room. She sounded tired. So tired. Shinji willed the Eva to the elevator which shot him down, just in front of Terminal Dogma. Shinji jumped through the hole that was already there and looked down. There was 02 floating down with a shining figure.
"Shinji... The angel is Kaoru," Misato said gently as Shinji neared the target.
"What?"
"You heard... The angel is Kaoru, I'm sorry Shinji,"
"No... I won't believe you! Kaoru can't be an angel! NO!" Shinji screamed. For the second time, his heart broke. He felt something snap inside his brain and he descended next to 02 to see for himself. Sure enough, Kaoru was floating next to 02, his platinum hair swaying.
"Kaoru!" Shinji said over his speakers. The boy looked up and smiled.
"Hello, Shinji," he said before turning away. Shinji reached out for him, but 02 grabbed 01's hand. The two grappled and Shinji grunted.
"Why, Kaoru? Why!" Shinji screamed, taking a punch to the gut and countering with a kick to the chest.
"You Lilan wouldn't understand. There are things greater than us, and sometimes, though you don't understand, death can be the only true freedom we have," the angel said. His crimson eyes focused on Shinji and his battle with 02.
Shinji willed 01 to kick 02, who landed in a lake of LCL. They had reached the bottom layer of Terminal Dogma, and Lilith was still crucified in the corner, but she had grown legs. Kaoru started toward her while Shinji pulled his progressive knife and stabbed 02.
The unit pulled its own and stabbed Shinji in the stomach. The third child screamed, his vision going blurry.
"Adam..." Kaoru said with a smile. When he got to the angel's face, though, he frowned.
"No... Lilith? I understand," he said. He turned back to Shinji. 02 deactivated, Kaoru no longer needing it. 01 turned to Kaoru and seized him in its strong hand.
"WHY!" Shinji screamed through painful tears. Kaoru only smiled at Shinji and replied with a sweet voice, "I must live forever, but not here. Shinji, there is nothing more for me to do, please destroy me."
Shinji stopped crying and stared at his friend. His eye twitched. Every person he ever got close to died or left. Everyone... Everyone's gone... I'm alone... All alone... No Kaoru, NO!
"I can't!" Shinji yelled. Kaoru only smiled sympathetically at him.
"Shinji, I love you. Please destroy me," Kaoru said. He closed his eyes and waited. Silence followed for three long, agonizing minutes.
"NO!" Shinji screamed, squeezing his hand. He heard something hit the lake of LCL and looked out fearfully. Blood was dripping from 01's hand in long rivulets. Shinji's mouth fell open and he looked down at the lake. Kaoru's head was floating on the surface, a blank, blissful expression on it.
Shinji didn't cry. Didn't scream. Didn't breathe. He sat there and stared.
"Shinji?"
No.
"Shinji?"
No...
"SHINJI!"
fuck you...
fuck you! fuck YOU! FUCKYOU! FUCKYOU! FUCKYOU! FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU!!!
Shinji blacked out.
Tumbling through blackness, Shinji was falling. He had been for ten minutes. He hit the concrete and spat blood. It was his pillow. His bed. His grave. Shinji choked and wasn't bleeding anymore. He wasn't on concrete anymore.
He was watching his 'real' self, his inner child playing at a park that seemed so familiar. The little kid was playing with a dump truck in a sand box. He was smiling, laughing, happy. Happy? What does that mean again? I can't quite remember...
Suddenly, the child looked up and glared at Shinji. It startled and scared him, because his eyes were now bleeding.
"Happy..." the child said before dissipating into LCL like the Rei's had. No, not dissipate; dismember. That was the word. His head fell off, his torso coming apart and his intestines coming loose. Shinji threw up and found himself in school, watching Rei.
She was staring out the window, a black tear falling from her face. Shinji walked over and she looked up at him. He stroked the tear away and a new one fell. She opened her mouth, but LCL flooded out and she closed it quickly, looking sick.
stop...
She stood up and her back arched in pain. She was lifted into the air on a cross, her face growing seven eyes. She began to bleed profusely down the wooden cross, from wounds he couldn't see.
stop!
Gendo walked up, a giant above Shinji. He reached out and placed his hands on Rei's breasts.
"It's time, Rei," he said soothingly.
STOP!
Shinji shot awake, sitting straight up. He was in the infirmary. It was dark, the fan above him turning idly. Shinji lay back down and stared at the ceiling. He began to think and realized he didn't care. He didn't care about anything. He had no meaning, no purpose. He wasn't there for any reason anymore. Shinji felt so helplessly empty that he wept.
From the shadows, Rei watched him. She could feel his pain, but didn't weep like he did. 'Why?' she thought. Shinji suddenly became aware that he felt her presence also, and stopped crying.
"Rei?" he asked. He had become so use to her 'aura' that he could tell it from anyone else. The blue haired girl stepped forward, holding her left arm with her right.
"Why is it that you cry, Ikari?" she asked. He looked at her with an empty stare and held his hand out for her to come closer. She did, and he stroked her face gently.
"That's why..."
"I do not understand."
Shinji smiled mirthlessly and looked at the ceiling, withdrawing his hand.
"Because I am worth nothing. I have nothing. I am nothing. There's no reason to me being here," he said. She watched him for a long time, thinking hard.
"You have a purpose..." she said quietly after a long time. Her face was now hidden in shadow.
"What is that?" Shinji scoffed.
"So I may learn to love again," she replied softer than before. Shinji didn't reply.
"I don't believe that's possible anymore," Shinji said, not looking her in the face. He still loved her. He still loved her with his entire being, but that apathy was drowning him like a stone attached to his leg in a river.
"I do," she said before leaving. She wasn't angry, just tired and thoughtful. She walked swiftly from the infirmary and went to her quarters. They were clean. She had begun to clean one day and had found a memory hidden of Shinji helping her clean. It was a funny memory, watching herself try to dust.
She was better at it now. Valium was on the nightstand, but she hadn't needed that since she had recovered from the injuries she had when Shinji first saw her. The ruptured spleen had hurt badly. Valium had been the only drug she could take for it; she was allergic to Vicadin or such others. Of course, it always made her into even more of a zombie then many considered her to be already.
Vicadin? Vaylacedrine? What were those? The machine? What? Something had popped into her mind, immense pain, crying, screaming, Shinji. It was confusing and gave her a headache, so she sat on her cot and lay out.
Rei fell into a deep sleep that held no dreams.
Shinji was dismissed from the hospital with a diagnosis of depression and a prescription for Prozac. He went to Misato's apartment and went inside. Misato wasn't there, like normal. He went directly to his room, took the Prozac, put the bottle on his desk and went for a knife. He stared at it after making one long line in his skin. It didn't feel as good as it used to. Nothing did.
Shinji went to the bathroom and looked through the cabinets. He pulled out a bottle of Acetaminophen and popped fifty pills with water. His vision went blurry and he smiled before crashing to the floor, knocking his head against the white tiles. He bled from a cut on his forehead sustained from the fall, and the cut on his arm.
"Major Katsuragi! Come here, sir!" Maya yelled. Misato wandered her way over to the lieutenant and looked at the view monitor. Shinji was laying on the floor, not moving and bleeding. The purple haired woman immediately called for a doctor and 911 and then marched straight up to Commander Ikari, who was with Kozo.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING TO THAT POOR KID!" she screamed. Gendo turned around and looked calmly at her, a cold glint in his eye.
"Pilot Ikari is expendable. I know what I'm doing. I suggest you change your tone, Major. That's insubordination," he left. Misato was so furious she punched a consol and broke her pinky.
"Damn it all to hell!" she yelled. She broke down and cried. The bridge bunnies averted their eyes.
Shinji went through several days of heavy therapy before they released him back home, still alive. He was under constant surveillance. They upped his Prozac dosage and had a guard within fifteen feet of him at all times. Shinji didn't really care.
He didn't care until he received news that Asuka was out from the mental hospital. Out and AWOL. She had run away. Shinji's heart sunk. 'Asuka...' he thought sadly. Quietly, he planned the whole thing out.
The next day, when he was going to eat breakfast, he climbed out his window. The guard rushed in, but Shinji scaled the outer ledge of the apartment. It was fifteen feet to the ground, so he just jumped and landed with bended knees.
He then ran down several alleyways and side paths that no one ever took. There were NERV cars out for him, but he ran through the forest and came out on the damaged side of Tokyo-3. The side he had destroyed. Well, not him, but Rei, who had self-destructed to save Shinji.
The buildings were beyond repair, many taken to the ground. Shinji began a methodical search and went through every building, taking two days for half. On the third day he was so hungry he threw up, but continued his search. NERV cars were driving slowly down the streets, searching for him. He avoided them and went into a building with a shower head sticking out of a hole in the top.
Asuka was sitting in a half-full bathtub, completely naked and pale. She looked famished and nearly dead. Shinji couldn't even cry at the sight. Her skin was wrinkled and her eyes were distant.
"Asuka?" he asked softly. She turned her head toward him, but made no sound. Her clothes were on a chair to the tub's right. Her hair was adorned with dust and cement.
"Can you hear me?" he asked. She only moaned a response. Shinji reached into the tub, lifted her out, and carried her from the building. He was in a daze, not really there. Nothing could have broken Asuka this bad. Nothing...
But he was wrong. Asuka was broke. Bad.
The NERV cars picked him up and he ended up back at NERV, where he didn't want to be. Misato tried to talk to him, but he ran off. He ran off, crying, screaming, being a baby.
That's right, you baby. You're nothing.
SHUT UP!
Fuck you.
Shinji ran to an unused hallway on level four and hid under a stairway. That's when the explosions started.
"All our external cameras are out, and there are special operations soldiers pouring in from the front gates. Many guards are already dead!" Aoba reported to Misato. She sighed and sank to her knees.
"It's gonna be bad this time, guys. Get Asuka to 02, Rei to 00, and Shinji to 01," she reported. The bridge bunnies nodded and Gendo smiled.
"Take care of things for me, Kozo," Gendo said, getting up from his chair.
"Give my regards to Yui," Kozo replied solemnly.
Continued.... Author's Notes: The next chapter will be longer, I promise. Anyway, I hope you like the ending, it's coming here really soon.