Chapter 6: Home
"I have already joined with Adam." He speaks and I listen, watching as he coaxes the glove from his hand. For a moment, I can see his palm, but it is only for a passing second until he turns it away. There was something in it, twisting his skin into a crude and unfamiliar structure…
Adam; the first angel.
"The only way I will ever see my Yui again is through the forbidden fusion of Adam and Lilith…"
The commander look down at me from behind his glasses, but for once, there seems to be something hitching in his voice...something alien to him…something that doesn't belong.
Does that scare me?
Worries, perhaps but I am unafraid. Such a small thing must be overlooked considering what must be done.
Something breaks into the silence… a long, drawn out wet sound cut short by the soft thud of something hitting the ground. Suddenly, I feel off balance and find my eyes creeping down towards the polished metal floor, following the sound to the artificial surface.
My arm is what lies there; the twisted fibres of garish red are framed by a light, white circle of skin at the point where it broke loose.
I should scream… at least if I were like the other two children I would. Misunderstanding and fear would take hold and push me over the edge at the sight of my decapitated arm; however, neither of these two things holds any sway over me.
I merely accept it for what it is.; A dead combination of protein, fat and carbon. This also leads to another conclusion- The fact that I haven't seen Dr. Akagi for almost a week must be taking its toll on this body. As much as I know she hates to do so, she and her collection of drugs are the only things holding this shell together… but now the resource of chemicals she pumps into me is beginning to run dry.
The commander looks at it as if the lifeless limb were nothing more that a piece of paper out of place.
"We're running out of time, your A.T field won't hold its shape for much longer." He pauses, choosing the moment as the seconds slip by. "Let us begin, Rei; release you're A.T field, the barrier of mind. Discard this unnecessary physical shape."
I close my eyes and concentrate, his words becoming a soft drone in my ear as I start to break it down. I can feel it now… something hovering just beyond my skin that hums like static. It is almost comforting…
"Merge all souls into one and take me to my Yui's side."
But it must go, for that is the way he wishes it to be. With one extra push, I feel it crumple into nothing, leaving me bare. For the first time, I am aware of just how cold the air is in here as I feel the molecules that compose it brush against my skin.
Through the thin film of my sealed eyelids, I sense him move and draw closer to me, infringing on the space between him and I. He is reaching out with that twisted hand.. coming closer… closer…
It touches me. The fingers grace against my chest and I can feel his hand's odd texture as it explores my flesh. It presses down, harder, imprinting itself on me.
And then it passes straight through.
My skin gives, swirling about the appendage as it plunges into me and sinks deep. I… I do not like this feeling, this intrusion of my body…but I will withstand it.
It is, after all, what he wants.
His hand and the thing with in it are so cold, leaving nothing but a chilling sense of numbness as they drag down within me towards my stomach, pushing through my insides as if they were liquid. I feel my face contort against my will, displaying my discomfort and pain for all the world to see. I tighten my eye lids, trying to shut the pain out but still it comes, creeping up into my mind as that hand trails further down, leaving a trail of burning nerves in its wake.
But then something else comes, overriding my current agony.
8 8 8
Shinji Ikari slumped back in the 'throne' of Unit 01's plug, the old familiar stink hovering around his nostrils as the heavy LCL clogged up in his lungs like liquid tar with each breath he took. In his short absence, he'd forgotten just how much it smelt in here and right now, it was enough to make him whish he could retch his dry stomach clean of anything that might still be lingering in there. Even when he'd been stuck in here for more than half a day, watching the liquid turn murky brown as it decomposed right before his very eyes, the reek had never reached such sickening potency.
It tasted of blood,
(Just like Kaworu's)
It tasted of
(when you crushed him between this monster's hands)
Death.
He wanted nothing more than to rip and tare the metal holding him apart and tumble into the clean air, getting as far away from this god damn thing as possible. He hated it, god, just the thought of the purple colossus made him feel ill. All it and its equally monstrous ilk were good for was burying an even deeper hole inside him, one that swallowed up all the light that haplessly wondered into it to leave nothing but an empty, painful darkness.
How many people had he lost to it? Toji had nearly died because of him and it. Perhaps… if only he hadn't been so afraid and taken control before the chance spiralled out of reach then that lug wouldn't be the broken, decapitated mess he now was.
Who else to add to the list? Oh yes… Rei. Again, he'd done nothing but watch, jaw slack with sick, cold horror right along with the rest of them at NERV when the shapeless angel had tried to assimilate the helpless first child. Trapped inside her own freakish Eva, she'd gone and done the only thing she believed she could… activated the self destruct sequence and just by pressing a single button, Rei Ayanami succeeded in wiping both her mech and the sixteenth messenger of god clean off the face of the earth. At first, he'd thought the androdinous girl had some how miraculously survived the explosion but that too turned out to be yet another lie to add to the impossibly long list.
The truth, what he'd seen in that chamber, was more than Shinji's fractured mind could bear.
So that left Asuka. Funny, he'd never have thought the self-righteous, egotistical wrecking ball that was the second child could ever be broken…
Instead, she shattered… and in a way, the fault lay at his own two feet. Where she'd fallen, he'd rose, ascending on a spree of victories which were just beyond her desperate reach. The thought that someone could surpass her formidable skill let alone equal it was far too much for the red haired valkiry to bear and she was already crumbling long before that angel of sheer light wormed its way into her cranium and ate her,
(IT'S RAPING MY MIND!)
From the inside out. When he'd seen her lying on that hospital bed less than a day ago, he couldn't physically bring himself to believe that pallid, blank, catatonic thing was really Asuka. It was as if someone had chiselled out a perfect doll from inanimate wood, one that fitted all the dimensions but could do nothing but stare dully out at the world it inhabited.
Asuka would never behave like that…
So, was that why? Was that why he'd gone and done that filthy thing the moment the covers accidentally rolled back?
Shinji clams his eyes shut, the skin creasing like folding metal as he tries to stop his memory from reeling back to that sunny afternoon, the echoes of spilt tears squeezing out from the thin line of flesh like blood forced from a shallow cut.
God, he just wanted to run away, just like he always had and probably always would. But now? How could he bring himself to do such a thing after all that had happened? Misato… if he cut now, her sacrifice would have been all in vain. Was he so heartless, such a snivelling weakling, that he could bring himself to break the last request of a now dead woman?
Misato… he could still taste her on his lips, the scent of her tongue, an acrid cocktail of blood and nicotine and last night's beer swirled about his mouth like some musty wine.
No… he couldn't run. Not now, everything had just slipped that little too far for him to be able to turn his back. He'd do what he'd been made to; to help Asuka. Like some vibrant phoenix, she'd risen from the ashes…
'And how…' Shinji silently added to no one but himself as his eyes drag themselves over the scenery about him. The geo front looks like a total war zone; great gouges in the ground below Unit 01's feet look up at the sky, their raw, earthy brown like the red of a wound. Trees lay shattered as if some great tempest just tore through them, ripping them by the roots from the soil that once held them and everywhere, there is the familiar tone of blood. Shinji watches for a moment, captivated with a cold, morbid curiosity as he watches the crimson fluid glisten and sparkle in the light of the over head sun.
He locks down on the shrill scream bubbling in his throat, buttoning it behind his tongue.
Darkness, something passes over the sun and its black shadow runs along the mess below. It flits over the great form of the purple Evangelion and as it dose, its young pilot looks up, eyes meeting the dark silhouette. At fist, it's nothing but a dark mess of shapes that could make no sense, not even to the most twisted of minds… but then things slowly begin to reveal themselves to the boy's adjusting eyes. Angular shadows become the beating form of a flock of wings and the mass splits out in separate entities.
'They... they look like Evas. Dose that make them the Eva series?'
Given a second, Shinji would have solved the riddle but then he sees something amongst their midst which brings that train of thought to a crashing halt. For a moment, the child can only stare, inaudible words churning from his lips as he tries to argue with the vision before him as if his silent words can twist reality and deny this infallible sight.
But words are only words.
That scream returns, and this time, the third child can do nothing to keep it back. His grasp on it slips and suddenly the sharp sound of his shriek floods the plug.
Far above him and obliviously deaf to the sound, the resurrected Eva series float on by, gory wounds and all. Still, from half ruined faces they grin that stupid grin and from their blood stained hands hang the desecrated remains of Unit 02. They fly on, teasing the air and dragging the ravaged, gore soaked wreck behind them, dangling it like some shattered, grisly puppet from its bear entrails.
Still, Shinji goggles at their dead cargo and suddenly that intelligible sound ripping from his mouth forms into a single word.
A name, to be precise.
"ASUKA!"
8 8 8
His hand still moves and shifts, slipping between my insides as if they were nothing but sopping, thick gunk. Time has passed… how much exactly I cannot gauge. It, like me is falling apart and already I can feel the death cries of this planet reverberate through my very being as out side the world begins to tare itself apart in preparation for its re-birth. Even though I stand here, below it all, my concise spreads out from this isolated spot like the water from a toppled glass of water, creeping outwards over some cold, sterile floor, assimilating anything it comes across.
My mind stretches beyond these wall… out beyond the confides of NERV. It passes through these walls, slipping through the tight bundles of atoms that compose them as silent as a ghost. Effortlessly, it floats through the layers of blood red bakelite that clogs the halls with their heavy, solidified mass and the lifeless NERV personnel trapped with in the frozen liquid, suspended like flies in amber. For a moment, I can feel the fear still imprinted on their stone cold minds as the memory of their last moments fade into blank nothing.
Their fear and isolation… it comes into me.
It saddens me greatly. Even those who still breathe are filled with these heavy, dull emotions that override their feverish dread of what is to come. They no longer understand the world around them and for some, that all that is needed to push them over the edge and into that consuming pool of black insanity that waits patiently for us all.
Is this why Ikari will have me do this? Dose he want to free all these souls from the lonely seclusion that bounds them all and yet keeps them apart? Is he also another victim to this affliction of segregation?
And then something else enters my mind, barraging in like some sharp, brilliant explosion.
"Ikari…" The first child. For a moment, my outstretched mind touches his and we connect. His terror invades my thoughts like a torrent of black water and I am submerged, drowning in his torment.
So deep…
So much pain…
My eyes crack open and the link is severed as the familiar setting of central dogma fills my vision, however, that rush of feelings stays with me for a moment, dissipating like some dying echo.
"It appears to have begun…" Before me, the commander looks up, his gaze piercing the dark that hides the impossibly high ceiling as if his vision can cut right through the many miles of earth and fortified metal that lie between us and the surface. "Now Rei, it's time to reunite me with Yui once more…"
The blast of sense has run dry, and for the first time, I can hear the commander's words clearly. They etch themselves into my brain as if they were as sharp as crystal and something in them dose not ring true.
He… he is not doing this for the sake of the people, but rather himself.
And then the floodgate opens and every suspicion that has been lying quietly comes roaring out. All of this, the Evangelion, the war with the angels, even my own creation has all been for the soul benefit of Gendo Ikari. The only reason he warms to me, something that he cannot even bring himself to do to his own flesh and blood is because I was manufactured from the few remains of the only person he could ever love. Did he want to be with her so very badly that he was able to bring himself to reconstructed Yui Ikari in the form of a child?
What does that make me then? Who am I, just a warm ghost with a heart that beats? Am I just another tool in his quest to be with her once more, albeit, one moulded in an attractive shape?
This is so… I realise that now… but is this what I want to be?
…
No.
The commander's eyes go wide as my flesh shifts, clamping down on his submerged wrist and his bear whites flashes behind his glasses as sudden shock pulls the lids back.
"What?" Those eyes, once so cold but now drowning in hysterical panic lock onto my own. I sense his fear at this sudden turn of events. He did not see my rebellion coming as any though of non-conforming on my account did not fit with his carefully laid out schedule to which we have all been running to…
…Up until now, that is.
"I will not be a puppet for you to control." As always, my voice retains it's dull, cool ring even though I have just single headedly turned my world upside down. I watch the hidden lines in his face suddenly twist and deepen as I will my skin to tighten, screwing it around his once probing hand. Like some living blade, it slices through his fleshy tissue and hard bone as if they were nothing more than thin paper. The appendage comes loose, detaching from him as he falls back, hitting the ground screaming and clutching at the suddenly limp sleeve of his jacket. He looks up, past his heaving chest and catches my watching eyes. Through the pain that grits his teeth together he gasps two ragged words.
"Rei… why?"
I feel that hand within me dissipated, dissolving into nothing as my body consumes it, letting it and the creature that lies dormant become one with myself. Now, within in my cells and chromosomes, I hold the key to the end of everything; Adam, the first angel who was awakened fifteen long years ago to bring about an apocalypse and the recreation of man.
But I will not fail unlike those who tried before me. After all, is this not the lone reason that I exist? However, that aside, I will not let this man dictate mankind's fragile future and play god.
"Because I am not like you."
8 8 8
Gendo Ikari sits up, grasping at the abrupt stump just below his elbow. Subconsciously, his fingers silently worry at the smooth lump of skin that's replaced his hand as if their frantic picking will some how coax the severed limb into growing back.
It's probably for the best that his mind can't focus on this, since Ikari would be sourly disappointed. Fortunately, fate has provided him with quite the distraction.
Rei Ayanami, the first child and pilot of Unit 00 stands before him, piercing him with her tinted red eyes as the skin around her own missing limb begins to bubble and twist, moulding itself into something new. Her pale flesh blooms and flares as if something searing hot is boiling away under its thin membrane and it grows, hanging at her side as it reforms back into her lost fore arm.
Gendo can do nothing but blink with dull shock, but then the panic bites into him once again.
"Rei, please!" He shuffles to his feet but it's already too late; the young girl's already turned her back on him and that only answers him with a cold silence. She takes a step but the foot dose not come down again; instead, it leaves the ground all together and takes the other with it as she lifts off into the air. She floats up into the air towards the great, white giant who's watching this all with unseeing eyes and with the passing of each second, Rei silently raises a little closer to the colossal being and further from the pleading wreck of a man she left behind on that polished floor.
"I beg you, please Rei!"
"I can't…" Her muted voice barely reaches Gendo's ears. "Ikari is calling me."
And with that, she stops, so high above the ground and only meters from the vast angel as it limply hangs on the massive cross it's pinned to. A few more seconds tick by, and in them, Rei finds something she never expected to in all her life; a sense of belonging. All those little questions have finally found the answers they were pining for. What may be a ghost of a smile tugs at the corners of her lips as the feeling rushes over her.
"I'm home…"
Even before the minuet echo from her two soft words has died away, the wall of bleach white skin of Lilith's stomach ripples violently, exploding out to leave a yawning hole. The skin moves like thick water, rushing out and closing in on the motionless form of the suspended girl.
She doesn't even flinch as washes over her, dragging her frail body into the angle and so, hungrily engulfs her.