How to Make a Human Being – Chapter 4
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Author's Notes:

Hi. Not much to say here – people say I say too much anyways. I'm just going to let everything unfold before your eyes.

So enjoy chapter 4. That's an order. :D

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Title: How to Make a Human Being
Genre: Short Story
Author: PitViper (pvalpha@yahoo.com)
Created: 08/02/02
Chapter1: 08/09/02
Chapter2: 08/13/02
Chapter3: 08/18/02 modified v2 - 08/19/02
Chapter4: 09/22/02 continued – 12/03/02
Synopsis: Many believe that the character of Rei Ayanami is bound in steel to her duty – She accepts nothing into her life that is not related to Eva or Angels. This is the story of how a few small changes can make a big difference.

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How to Make a Human Being: Chapter 4 – A Generous Helping of Rei

September 15th, 2015 -11:42pm

Nothing seemed unusual in the hospital. People went around their chores as though the evening was like any other. They walked down corridors and visited patients. Nurses sat at intersection stations filing paperwork and keeping watch over the monitors of their charges. Orderlies delivered foods, medicines, drinks… as were prescribed by the doctors.

Yes, everything was normal to the occupants of the hospital, as they went about their business and completely ignored the phalanx of nine First Children that had entered the facility.

-

Rei stared at the ceiling of the small room the major had appropriated for the children in the hospital. Her eyes were just about to close when they suddenly snapped open. The same thing happened with the Second Child in the other bed, only she had been asleep at the time.

"Shinji…" They muttered in unison, and then looked at themselves, then looked at the major on the floor sleeping on a roll out mattress pad.

Rei directed her gaze back at the Second, "It would be unwise for me to wake her from her slumber," She whispered to Asuka. "She is sleeping with her weapon."

"I certainly don't want to wake her." Asuka muttered in an annoyed tone.

"Then we are in agreement?"

"Yes." Asuka said. "Let's go."

-

Had Shinji Ikari been awake in his room, the presence of nine Reis would have had a serious affect on him… at least as far as nose-bleeds were concerned. However in his current unconscious and inverted state, he couldn't see or hear anything. Next to Shinji, in a regular hospital bed, was the broken Fifteenth Ayanami clone. This Rei had ceased muttering the directives set so clearly in her mind, and was staring patiently at the ceiling. Every once in a while, her red eyes would glance over in Shinji's direction, and her form would shudder as she attempted to rise with her brutalized and broken body.

A nurse peered in through the door's window. "Good god, someone should put that poor thing out of its misery…"

"Which one?" A young male doctor asked. "The boy or the girl?" The doctor exhaled loudly, leaning up against the door frame. "I mean, the girl probably isn't going to make it... I mean think about the damage... her hands... her legs... Its amazing that she's still conscious. But she doesn't say anything... nothing at all, in our presence."

The head nurse sighed, "What I don't understand is why she gets… upset when we try to move her away."

"Nobody knows what these poor NERV pilots go through, they may have bonded to each other. God knows with what injuries they've sustained if they'll even survive to see the sun rise." The doctor said softly, "But I could understand it if she was attached to him in some way…" The doctor was interrupted by an involuntary yawn. "God, getting real sleepy…"

The nurse nodded, her eyelids growing heavy. "It's been a long day. Should get some…" A yawn interrupted her speech. "We should get some sleep. Wont… wont…"

The doctor caught her as she almost collapsed, then woke up in his arms. "Yeah, Sleep sounds real good right now…" He muttered.

She shook her head wearily, then regained her balance and stood. "I can't ever remember being so tired…"

"It's just been a long day…" The doctor confirmed as he turned and walked away.

The nurse nodded slightly, and looked back over her shoulder… Then she frowned for a moment, and walked alongside the doctor. "My mind must be playing tricks on me…" She muttered loud enough for the doctor to hear.

"Why's that?" The doctor asked.

"I don't know… for a moment I thought I saw nine blue-haired girls… just like the one in the emergency ward." She yawned again.

As the doctors walked out of sight, the door to Shinji's room softly clicked as someone from the inside locked the door… peering from the other side of the window, Rei III watched the direction that the doctor and nurse traveled down… then turned back into the room's darkness.

-

"Ayanami…" Asuka muttered.

"Yes?"

"What was… that?" Asuka asked, knowing that Rei understood what she was trying to comprehend. The flush, the feeling of 'otherness' that she experienced. Something was happening with Shinji... something powerful. Something dangerous.

"They are there. With Shinji..."

"They?"

"The Dummy System." Rei said softly. "My sisters."

"What… what are they doing there?" Asuka muttered, having heard only part of the story from Rei, having listened as the young First Child explained NERV's most best kept secret with nary a flinch of hesitation or resistance. "I thought that they needed your soul to… you know… live."

"I may have given them purpose enough to live without my particular soul." Rei looked at the hallway before her, fingering her NERV card, knowing that it would open doors sealed to everyone else...

"That can't be a good thing…"

"We will see. " Rei said, leading them down the maze like corridors to Shinji's room.

-

Gendo Ikari peered into the darkness of his cell. He was seated, with a small folding table in front of him, hands in his infamous position. His right eye was blackened, and his right lens shattered in a spider web pattern.

Suddenly, light filled the room, and pierced the cloying darkness of Gendo Ikari's new dominion.

Gendo winced at the light for a moment, before adjusting to the bright light silhouetting the figure. It took him only mere moments to identify the figure standing there. "Rei, you have come at last."

"Rei?" The figure chuckled girlishly. "I think you've mistaken me for someone else, dear."

Gendo's face fell as he saw his visitor more clearly.

"My daughter, you selfish bastard." The woman said, her hand reaching out to flick on a light. "In my anger at what you had done to her… I almost killed our son!" The woman marched up to the desk and struck it with vicious might. The folding table clattered out of the way, then broke against the wall it hit.

Her dark brown hair cascaded before her dark blue eyes, as Gendo watched the LCL drenched figure standing over him menacingly in complete and utter shock.

"Yui…" he muttered once, before the door on the cell swept closed.

-

The nine Ayanami clones stood in the Sephirothic pattern. Shinji was at the head of the pattern, while Rei III stood behind him directly. The other eight clones closed their eyes, as Rei three walked up to the exposed back of the Third Child. She traced a finger down the surgical scar below his hair line… down the center of his back, feeling the odd texture of his spine where the doctors had tried to heal shattered bone.

The third began, and closed her eyes for a second. "To the One we are life." The clones behind her repeated what the Third had said. "To the One, we are light."

The orange glow of an AT Field filled the room.

Rei III concentrated the glow at her fingertip and once again traced the line of Shinji scar.

The wound opened, revealing the damaged spine, as muscle was pushed away from the damage by the Light of the Soul. The AT Field exposed the damaged vertebra to the open air.

Rei III glanced at her wrist. A quick draw of her AT ensconced finger down her wrist, and a smooth trickle of yellow blood appeared.

The Reis all spoke together. "Blood of the Mother, Blood of Life, fulfill our duty… Restore the One known as Shinji…"

-

Rei paused for a moment in the corridor, and then collapsed to her knees.

Asuka stopped and looked strangely at Rei, who was clutching her bandaged wrist. "Ayanami?"

Rei's blood red eyes looked up, "I am injured…"

As Asuka watched, red blood began to flow down Rei's hand…

-

The cell door opened, revealing a blood spattered Yui Ikari. She glanced backwards at the cell, and at its occupant. "Thank you for taking my place…"

Within was a brutalized Gendo Ikari, blood flowed from a thousand cuts, but he was not dead. Rather his eyes were empty – the soul of Gendo Ikari no longer existed within this empty shell.

As the door slid closed, Yui Ikari sighed lightly. "A demon for a demon. I just hope he remembers that he will never be with me until he has served his penance for what he has done to our children."

-

Within the Eva cages, a dim light suffused the eyes of Unit 01 for the briefest of moments, and then vanished without a trace…

-

Rei III held her wrist as she manipulated the light of her soul to seal the wound upon Shinji's back. She had used the Light to shape the LCL into spinal tissue, bone, and human blood, so that Shinji would be whole again.

As she looked over to the other occupant of the other bed, Rei III muttered softly, "Fifteenth."

The other Rei tilted her head as far as the restraints would allow. "Third." She said softly, with painful effort.

Rei III walked up to the tenth of her siblings… "Will you?" She asked.

"For the One," The tenth clone replied blandly, dressed in a black swimsuit. She walked over to the Fifteenth, and laid her hand upon the chest of the other.

-

Rei and Asuka got to the door just in time to see a bright yellow light. Asuka's eyes widened. "Rei?"

Rei was at a loss, still holding her hand, the splint removed so that the wound could be treated, the hand bandaged with supplies from a small storage closet. "One of the fifteen has fallen." She said cryptically.

Asuka tried the handle. "Locked?" She asked, surprised, and then narrowed her eyes, "Well, then…" She muttered, and a roundhouse kick was sent flying at the door handle.

Rei watched with fascination as the door splintered where the handle was, and flew inwards.

Asuka rushed in, instinctively throwing the light switch in the room to on, ignoring the eight standing Rei clones, and rushed up to the young boy in the bed, "Shinji!" She screamed.

"Wha…" Came an incoherent mutter from the inverted bed.

Asuka looked at the exposed flesh of his back. 'Odd…' she thought, 'they performed surgery on his back, where is the scar?' She traced a small white line down his back with her finger tip…

"Tickles!" Came a giggling exclamation from under the bed. Asuka drew back her hand as though scalded… "Shinji?"

"Who wants to know?" Asked the boy. "And why am I looking at a checker-tiled ceiling?"

Asuka blinked once, then blinked again, realizing that he was inverted, "That's the floor, not the ceiling, dumbkopf." Asuka could have sworn that she could hear him blinking under the bed.

"Oh." Came the usual reply.

"You had us scared there for a moment…" Asuka said.

"Who's us?" The boy asked almost flippantly. Asuka practically growled.

"What do you mean, 'Who's us?'" Asuka asked, getting over to the part of the bed where his head was, and ducking underneath.

Shinji's bright blue eyes surveyed her face, and her red plug suit, "Um… Miss? I assume you're a little young to be a nurse.

Asuka's bright blue eyes widened in shock, "You blathering idiot, you know who I am! I'm the Second Child!"

"Well… nice to meet you… I guess… I'm… I'm Shinji Ikari."

"I know that!" Asuka said forcefully. "We're apartment-mates, remember?"

Shinji's brow furrowed for a moment. "M…Misato?"

"Yeah. We live with Misato…"

Shinji struggled for a moment, his eyes closed… Then suddenly they snapped wide open. "Rei!" Shinji exclaimed. "The Fifth angel… she… she was in the Entry Plug. Where's Rei… Is she alright?"

Asuka's eyes widened again, as she realized that he had called Rei's name, and precious little else. Her thoughts turned acrid, 'He remembers her, not me…'

Rei came over and bent under the bed and looked at Shinji. "Ikari. I am fine. But… The… incident with the Fifth was months ago…"

"But I remember it… it was just… yesterday!"

Rei blinked several times. "It must have been the concussion…" Rei muttered for Asuka's benefit - who was speechless at Shinji's apparent lack of recognition. The blue haired girl continued to calm Shinji down, "Everything will be alright. I am well and uninjured…"

Shinji's panicked face became calmer, "O…Ok, Ayanami."

Asuka finally muttered a few words, "Don't you recognize me, Shinji?"

Shinji stared for several moments, his brow furrowing again. "S…Sorry. Your face doesn't ring a bell."

'I'm sorry, your face doesn't ring a bell' The words echoed in her freshly emptied mind. After all, who was she if people didn't recognize her? Especially if that person was someone she had spent the last few months getting acquainted with, living in the same apartment... synchronization training...Asuka's spirits collapsed, but then Shinji said something else.

"But it is the most beautiful face I've ever seen… Miss?"

Asuka blinked several times. "Sohryu. Asuka Langley…"

Shinji smiled slightly. "Well, it is very nice to have met you, Sohryu, Asuka Langley. But I think I should get some rest…" Shinji said, his eyes falling closed, "My head hurts…"

Asuka got up from under the bed, and from under the now sound-asleep Third Child, "Rei…" She said, and was suddenly impaled with stares from ten pairs of red eyes. Asuka blinked several times, as she spotted the Rei with a bandage on her wrist. She was standing next to the clone in the bed. "Rei… what is…" She was walking forward when she stepped in something. "Ewww… what's this orange…gooey stuff…." She was just a few steps from the bed. She noticed that the orange goop was also on the side of the bed, and on the bed sheets…

"That, Sohryu, was the Tenth…" Rei said softly, and sadly.

"The 'Tenth' what?"

"The Tenth Rei." Rei III said, before turning to the exit. The seven other standing clones followed their leader blindly as they made their way from the room.

Rei held the hand of the clone in the bed for a moment. Her eyes closed. Suddenly they flashed opened, "I cannot synchronize with her…"

"What do you mean?" Asuka asked, not having moved from the puddle of orange remains she was standing in.

Rei closed her eyes, then opened them again. "I see." She muttered, "And I understand."

"What is it?" Asuka said, finally realizing that she was standing in clone remains. She carefully stepped away from the puddle, trying not to disturb it too much.

"The tenth gave her existence to heal the Fifteenth. The fifteenth now has a soul…" Rei looked up. "She is no longer an empty shell."

The red eyes of the other Rei opened. "Hello, Mother." She said softly. Rei blinked once in response.

Asuka stared wide eyed, "Mother?"

"I don't know…"

"Of course you do. The second shell contains the spirit of the Mother." The fifteenth said, "Do you not remember?"

"No."

"Then do not concern yourself with it, Mother. You are who you are and I am I. That is what is important… and that the One is safe. We will protect the One."

"Who is the One?" Asuka asked.

Both Rei and Asuka watched as the Fifteenth held up a shaky hand and pointed towards Shinji. "He is the One."





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Author's Notes:
Well, there you have it. The next installment in the How to Make a Human Being series. It took me long enough to write it, I just hope that everyone enjoys it. :)

As always, if you liked it, please review.

Until next time,
PitViper