Disclaimer: Not mine. No sue. Sue bad.

A/N: Wow, it's the long awaited third installment of Safety. -cheers- I"m not particularly pleased with this one, though. It was a bitch to write. -sob- But my muse kept nibbling my ear 'till I wrote it. >> Good news is, I've finished the next part (the Interlude) and am planning the chapter after that. -cheers-

I am aware that the very beginning of this is the same as the end of the last chapter. That's me being stupid, sorry. 'Comatose' will be re-uploaded with the right ending when I feel like it. Which should be Thursday or Friday... Enough of me, onto the fic.

Chapter 2 – Ore Sanguine Asperso

Sirens wailed in fear throughout NERV headquarters and Tokyo-3, screeching of death and misery to all who stayed. Unit 02 had one hand curled around the neck of Unit 01, and the other hand held its prog knife, gleaming wickedly.

Rei's screams echoed all the way to Terminal Dogma.

And deep within NERV, Lilith stirred on her cross. The pale, flabby body could do no more than twitch, before becoming motionless again; though the many eyes continued to stare, waiting for something.

In the upper levels, Misato Katsuragi hung her head and gripped her cross tightly, waiting for the inevitable end. After all, there was no one left to save them. The First Child had gone to join the Third Child in a land far beyond. The Second Child lay comatose, the Fourth Child was most likely dead as well. And the Fifth Child hovered in the air above Unit 01 and its pilot, the sinister shadow of Unit 02 behind him.

Ritsuko had told her, of course. She knew who, or what, Kaworu Nagisa was and what he was meant to do. She had just never figured on this happening. On Rei failing, on Shinji dieing, on Asuka giving up so completely.

The cross was digging into her skin, drawing blood, but she paid it no mind. This was, after all, the end. The end. She couldn't wrap her mind around it. Somehow, they had failed. Everything NERV, SEELE, the Akagis, Gendo, Asuka's mother, Yui, she herself, and her father (oh so many people) had done had been in vain. Adam may have failed fourteen years ago, but Tabris was exacting a terrible vengeance. The situation's black humour would normally have been appreciated by NERV's third-in-command, but today she knew that praying was the only thing she could do.

If an Angel killed you, could you still go to Heaven? That was the last though one Misato Katsuragi ever had, as she looked up through the viewing screen into the barrel of a beam cannon. She didn't scream, because she just wasn't that kind of woman. Ritsuko didn't either, though no one knew that. Maya Ibuki did, and Hyuga, who had smiled at Major Katsuragi earlier and said he would be happy to die with her, did too.

He probably wasn't happy, though. He wasn't the kind of person who wanted to die, no, not him. He was the kind of person to say things that sounded good and make up reasons for them later. He wasn't the sort of person who screamed usually, but this was a special instance, and no one noticed anyway.

Maya was that sort of person though. Maya screamed because she was frightened, because she was weak and afraid, oh so afraid, and because she was damnably human. Misato didn't scream because she understood, because she knew that this was Judgment Day. She and Ritsuko knew the truth about Kaworu Nagisa, and there was so much anger and loathing tempered with fear and self-control running through them that screaming was laughable, even then.

Saf.et.y

As the building crumbled around her, one medical assistant assigned to room 673 wheeled a bed haphazardly out the door, shoving it into an area that had not been damaged, before falling to the ground. Her head was bleeding, vermilion coating her almost white hair. She choked on the fluid running into her mouth and her nose from the massive head wound, but tried to call out one last time. 'Save us, Asuka!"

And Asuka drifted on, her mind confined within a cage it made for itself, still unawares of the death and destruction around her. She could not see falling rubble bury Shinji's still untouched body. She did not hear Rei screaming her humanity out in a final defiance to Tabris. And she did not see one Hikari Horaki struggling futilely to pull Kensuke's body from below a concrete pillar, wishing Toji were there and trying to pretend the Fourth Child wasn't dead.

Kaworu did not see Hikari either, and he didn't really care. NERV was destroyed, every one if its members incapacitated, and SEELE had been…dealt with. He chuckled to himself as he recalled their reactions upon seeing him there.

----

"Tabris….but….the prophecy. The Scrolls."

He suppressed a chuckle as best he could. "Who was it who gave you that prophecy?" Red eyes smiling, his laugh never heard but felt around the room, no trace of malevolence showing.

"We found them. They were written by man."

"And you honestly think the Lilum could accurately predict that much? Even the greatest mystics would have gone wrong before now." His laughter's deafening now, no Lilum could listen to it and emerge unscathed.

They didn't want to answer him, he knew. They were afraid of Tabris. Not of Kaworu Nagisa, fourteen year old boy, but of Tabris, Angel of Free Will. But his eyes narrowed and he smiled broadly.

"All records point to the Archangel Gabriel. That is all we know."

This time he could not help but laugh. This time out loud. This time they could listen to it and not cringe. This was the laughter of Kaworu Nagisa, not the laughter of Tabris. "That explains it. The Archangel Gabriel, kind and wise above all others, does not have the best memory in heaven."

----

That had ended it, he knew. And Kaworu Nagisa, or was it Tabris, smiled as he walked through the destroyed Tokyo-3. The Evas stood silently behind him, warped monuments to the final failure of mankind. He couldn't stop laughing, laughing as he walked over Shinji's impromptu grave. He couldn't help it. The laughter bubbled up choking him and prying his cold lips open even against his will. So Kaworu walked on, walked over the grave, never looking back. And he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, not noticing the flecks of blood it left behind.

/Exeunt Chapter 2/

Reviewer Responses (cause I"m the shiz):

Nico-Chan: Aww...sorry I killed Rei. She had to die. Of course Gendo cares, in his own...special way. -takes cookie- YAY COOKIE:DDD

LilAngel12558: Hahaaa -makes you cry- :P I feel mean.

AnimeGirl622: THANK YOU!

-ego overload-

Review, arigatou?