/In Pain's Wake/
lawless priest -
07 - Punishment
It was six thirty in the morning when I got the call. It was here, the last, the seventeenth Angel. I remember thinking 'Finally, I could end it all.' I don't remember much about that time except that I was wide awake when the phone rang. Misato had cried long into the night and I spent ever hour holding her while she bawled her soul. Only god can tell you what was said that night because it's all a blur to me and considering how many beers Misato had had, I seriously doubt she'd be recounting anything from that time. It was a miracle we were even able to reach the Geo-Front without the car ending up crashed into some store front, of what little remaining stores we had.
Non the less we did make it and I was already in my plug suit and heading for the EVA cages by the time the commanders had figured out what we were dealing with.
Kaoru, they said. Karou was the Seventh Angel.
He was the last and I couldn't believe it, I didn't believe it, but I knew that I wouldn't find out just sitting around in my entry plug. Besides, Asuka would have kicked my ass if she knew that I had done nothing to stop him after we had all come so far and lost so much.
Making it to the shaft that my friend, one of the few, had taken, I barely acknowledged the commands that were being tossed my way. My whole body was numb and my mind was in a haze, obscuring the world around me, while painting everything in blank and grays as level upon level of the Geo-Front pass by my freefalling EVA's view screen.
It was his voice that brought me back, the voice that had comforted me when I thought that there was nothing left for me in this world. How could that sweet voice be the same one as the enemies. It didn't make sense. Kaoru was human, he couldn't be an angel. It just wasn't possible. - which had to be the dumbest thing I could have possibly have thought, considering Ayanami. But still, my shocked brain couldn't or wouldn't acknowledged it.
"You're late Shinji."
He still had that smile on as he stood floating above the crimson giant, Unit 02. That sad grin that always seemed permeated on his eternally happy face, seemed so out of place in our current situation. I couldn't figure any of it out.
"Why, Kaoru, why? Why are you doing this? How can you be the enemy?" I shook the cockpit controls as I screamed in an attempt to somehow project my aguish through the strangling grip I held them with into my Bio-mechanical and out towards the Angelci messenger floating above the two EVAs.
He just kept smiling that same damn smile, "It is our destiny to be adversaries Shinji. We have no say in the matter."
"No! That's not true."
"Ah, but it is. Angels were created to serve and Man was created to follow, yet only yours had the choice whether to obey or not."
"What are you talking about?"
"It's ironic, I'm am the Seventeenth, the Angel of free will and yet, even I have to follow the path destiny has chosen for me. That which was born from Adam, must return to Adam. Such it is the way with us."
Betrayed
I had been betrayed by the one I had called friend. He had listened to me as I confided in him my darkest fears. He had even told me once that... that he loved me. I didn't know what to say to that then and I have no idea what to think now.
Kaoru didn't give me time to think. I was a fly in his way and he tried to use his recently confiscated 40 foot crimson fly swatter to deal with me. Two huge vibrating knives clanged against each other, protecting their wielders from the others intended assault.
My blood began to pound in my head as some dark string music began to play in the back of my mind. My own little symphony orchestra playing the last song to the tragic movie that was my life. Our EVAs danced the beat of those instruments as blows were exchanged, acting out some fight scene that would make any manga mecha fan proud.
Through it all my mind was blank. No thought could penetrate my fog. It was almost like I had been hooked up to the dummy plug system as I let out my frustration on the enemy EVA.
We struggled for sometime, the music continuing on in the background, setting the mood for the demise of one of the two Angel slaying behemoths.
Kaoru just floated below us, watching since the start of the fight. He was my true enemy. The other was irrelevant. So I pushed it out of the way and lunged for him. I would end this one way or another.
But that was not to be.
A boy of fourteen floated in a shield behind a field of orange. That ever present smile looked almost mockingly at the purple demon before him.
An AT field. Before I could raise my own Asuka's precious Unit 2 slammed into me, knocking me away from him and into the shaft's wall.
When I was able to shake the stars out of my had and turn around the red EVA was right above me, piosed and ready with its prog knife to stab me in between the eyes. I don't even remember dodging, but apparently I must have, leaving Asuka's EVA to crash into the wall shaft behind me. I lifted my leg and kicked out at the mecha and succeeded in sending it crashing into the opposite wall.
Wasting no time, I proceeded to stomped the life out of the lifeless husk. An oxymoron, I know, but that's what happened.
By then I had noticed that Kaoru had been missing for some time, but we were just reaching the bottom level so he couldn't be far.
The Strings were rising to their climax, the mood dark, their rhythm heavy and straining with urgency, calling out for the final Act. Soon it would all be over. For one of us this would end forever.
A part of me wanted to be the one who lost. But it was a small part. Too much had happened for me to give in to the darkness now. I held no hope for the light and its much talked about glory, but the gray called to me. That endless void that stood between the two. That was were I had always stood. Right on the edge of happiness and right at the gates misery.
Kaoru... My friend, my betrayer, my enemy.
He floated above a huge figure of white. It was another angel, here beneath Nerv! This most be what Kaji was talking about so long ago that day when we fought the 14th.
'It is said that if an angel comes in contact with Adam, who sleeps beneath us, it will be the end of the world, Third Impact.'
This was it, this was the first, this was Adam. It had to be?
"Kaoru!"
He was too close, I couldn't let him touch it. I made my EVA move. There was no time to waste if I wanted to stop him.
"What, Lilth? I see... A clever trick, Ikari." I barely heard him over my pounding heart but the gain on the external speakers picked it up. I didn't really care for what he was saying though. It didn't matter. Nothing matter except for me reaching him.
"So this is how it ends." He was saying. "I'm afraid this is the end of the line ... for me."
He didn't even offer any resistance as I reached to grab him, snagging him out of the air AT Field of no AT Field. For a second or two there was silence as my EVA held the pale haired fourteen year old seeming young boy who I had called friend, who because of cercumstances that really sucked I now called foe.
But someone had to start the final current call, yet I was still reluctant to do what I knew had to be done.
"Shinji it's over. I thought that I could hold off Adam's call for a little while longer, but that was not to be. All things come to an end and it seems I have run to the end of my own line."
"No, it shouldn't be like this! You called me your friend. You said... you said that... that you loved me... was it all just a lie so you could get closer."
"No Shinji. I meant every word I said, every word. But this was fate. You and I were destined to come to this point, so we should not be sad that it has finally come to this moment."
"Why, why Kaoru? WHY!"
There was only silence. His smile was just as sad as before while he kept his deep red sorrowful eyes on me.
... I could have sworn he shrugged. I must have been losing it.
"You could have stopped, you could have left. It would have been better that this, anything would have been better than this." My voice sounded shrill too me as I yelled out possibilities. As if he could have really run away. He was a bloody Angel for god's sake. Where would he go, what would he do,
"I'm sorry Shinji, but this is how has to be. One of our speices has to die and yours is not the one that should fall this way."
I shook my head and so did my EVA's. I would not, could not do what he asked. It was impossible to even conceive it.
"Do it Shinji. This war has to end and you have to end it. Please, let us end it." The Angel pleaded with me, his voice held a tired quality of one who had reach a great distance, one he had not wished to reach and now wanted only to found a place to rest. He was offering me a chance to do what I had been charged to do the moment I first stepped into the cockpit that faithful day so long ago to protect a girl I had never known, who even now I still knew very little about.
I had dreamed of this day when the final stroke could be made, when all of my enemies would lay at my feet and there would be no more need for EVA, for the pain, for the death and the destruction. Here was my chance, here was the oppertunity... and yet I had no will to even think of finishing it.
"Do it Shinji. Or none of the pain the world has suffered would have been worth it."
"..."
It was just an illusion, just a dream, a figment of my imagination. I wouldn't really hold my friend up like that with my EVA, no that's just foolish. And of course I would never squeeze my EVA's hand like that, no never. So it stands to reason that the insides of my friend's body would not be plastered all over my mecha's hand and my friend's head would never have fallen into the bloody waters at the foot of the the pure white beast strung up before me.
But the image of Toji's mangled body flashed through my vision for the briefest of seconds, barely any time at all, but the damage had been done. I had prayed that that had been just an illuision too. But the truth could not be denied. This... was all too real.
I was the one who wasn't really anymore, I was the illusion.
My internal symphany hit its last note, their strings falling silent in the empty room. The Finale had come and gone, the audioence had long since exited their seats and now no one was left but the lonely conductor and his baton.
"This must be punishment"