Disclaimer: Eva is not mine. How sad.
A/N: This is the longest chapter yet (which doesn't say much) and is the pivotal chapter. From here on out the tragical elements of the story will not be revolving around death and destruction, but on Asuka herself.
Also, this chapter is completely unbeta-ed, but I wanted to get it out as soon as possible. . So, enough of my blathering.
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)(Chapter 3- Tadaima)(
How long had she been falling? How long had she been lost in these sheets? If you were to ask Hikari Horaki, she would tell you in a worn, flat tone that it had been five years, six months, fourteen days, eleven hours, eight minutes and thirteen seconds since Asuka has opened her eyes. Naturally, the hours and minutes and seconds are approximations, numbers she's pulled from thin air. But she knew the days and the months and the years. She knew, oh she knew like no one else did anymore, knew this all by herself. It had been five years, six months, and fourteen days since she died. You see, Hikari didn't consider herself to be alive anymore. Oh no, she died trying to pull Kensuke from the rubble, died crying for Toji.
She was the last. Asuka didn't count, hadn't counted for five years, six months and fourteen days. She was the last survivor of Tokyo-3, the last living being to see Kaworu Nagisa laughing at their demise. It still gave her nightmares sometimes, and she wondered if she was channeling Rei or Shinji at those times because he was always stabbing her with the horrible knife or reaching up to break her neck or something like that and she woke up crying every time. She didn't just know whose dreams those were, except that he was always calling her Rei….or Shinji. And the way the Angel said Shinji's name made her spine tingle and her face flush and wish it were her name he was saying, but she would have never admitted to that.
Hikari pressed the back of her hand against Asuka's cheek, checking her temperature dutifully. To tell the truth, she was tired of being the one to take care of the comatose ex-Evangelion pilot. But the Council had decided that, as a childhood 'friend' of the other girl's, it was her duty. Duty, her foot. It wasn't so much duty as a distraction. The Council figured that if they let her supervise the only other Tokyo-3 refugee, then she would stay quiet. Quiet about what, she wasn't sure. Hikari just guessed that they assumed she knew something she didn't.
With a sigh she turned from the bedside, giving Asuka one last pitying look before the door slammed shut behind her. The hollow bip.bip.bip.bip echoed through the room, reverberating through Asuka's chest.
)(Saf.et.y)(
The wind whistled past her naked body in a harsh caress. Her hair fell in a sheet before her eyes as she plunged farther into the darkness. It was a warm, moist feeling, a world with no colors save the dusty red of her hair in front of her face. If she looked to the sides, as she sometimes did, she could see people. Some of them she didn't know, others she did,
There was Shinji his head down, always muttering, "Betrayed, betrayed, betrayed…" And Rei, naked as the day she was made, wings sprouting form her back. Asuka suspected that Rei could fly, but didn't know it. She saw Kaji drifting down, tried to reach out to him, but he only turned away. Misato and Ritsuko were arguing about something in their descent, gesturing violently and referencing figures Asuka had never heard of. Even Commander Ikari was there, with Yui, smiling for the first time Asuka could remember. She looked for her mother, searching for a glimpse of hair, listening for a voice screaming up from the abyss. Her mother had been a screamer, Asuka thought, but her daughter wasn't. Well, maybe, but she wasn't really a screamer. She didn't scream when frightened or when hurt or anything like that. No, no, no, no. Sure, she yelled and she hated others and she was so horrible to Shinji. But it didn't matter now, because no one talked here, no one even breathed, really.
Except her. She felt her chest rise and fall, felt the air whistle out of her lungs. It baffled her, as she watched other fall gracefully, more graceful than she, down this abyss. It felt like her limbs were struggling upwards of their own volition. The cooling wind on her flesh was replaced by a heavy, sultry feeling, warm and wet against her skin, filling her mouth. She struggled against the overwhelming darkness, tried to claw it out of her throat, bloodying herself with her nails. 'It is not that time for you, my dear. You still have suffering to bear.' The voice floated down to her, androgynous and soothing, despite its words. She released her throat and gave in to the overwhelming darkness.
)(Saf.et.y)(
And she woke. For the first time in five years, six months, fourteen days, eleven hours, eight minutes and thirteen seconds Asuka Langley Sohryu opened her eyes and saw the world. It was white. The ceiling, the first thing to enter her field of vision, was white, or had been white. The walls were the same way; faded and discoloured with age. The sheets, however, were a crisp and starchy kind of white, so completely devoid of color that for a moment Asuka thought she was still there, or that she had passed beyond some new and mysterious veil to a second, maybe even third, otherworld. However one look at the obviously outdated medical equipment beside her was enough to tell her that she was most definitely in the 'world', the world that she only barely remembered as a place of blood and fear and failure. Needles were jammed into her disgustingly pale, blue-veined arms, injecting her with the fluids necessary to life. The ex-Eva pilot tried to pry the metal form her flesh, but five years of no movement had caused her muscles to atrophy, and in the end, it was too much work for her.
The heart rate monitor beside her was in a bit of a frenzy, having, for five years, beat a steady bip.bip.bip. It was now forced to register the biiip.bipbipbip.bipbip. of Asuka's erratic heartbeat as she tried to calm down and became frantic in turns. After her initial shock at waking up and seeing a world she thought she had forgotten, Asuka's eyelids began to droop heavily. She fought to stay awake, however, digging into her palms with as much force as her weakened body could muster. It wasn't much, but the tingling sensation kept her awake until the nurse on duty made her customary stop by Asuka's room. The red-haired girl didn't actually know of the nurse's existence, but she guessed that someone must check on her occasionally. When the nurse opened the door, ready to give the prone body a quick check-over and to check the IVs, she was faced with the sight of the previously comatose patient struggling to prop herself up against the wall. Immediately, the nurse flew to Asuka's side, aiding her efforts.
Once Asuka was comfortable, and the IVs had been replenished, the nurse scurried off to find her superior. He'd be interested to know that the comatose Evangelion pilot had mysteriously awoken five years after entering her coma. Maybe, she thought to herself, all that cock-and-bull about Angels really was true.
Meanwhile, Asuka was bored out of her mind. All she could do was watch the IVs deposit fluids into her system. Drip. Drip. Drip. The liquid into her veins, she could almost feel it. She had been thinking about the otherworld, the void that was filled with the people she knew. Everyone from NERV was there, and she wondered if it had been some sort of dream of hers, filled with the people she saw everyday. Those thoughts were rising up again, taking her attention from the needles.
Until the door reopened and three people began to speak simultaneously. The nurse began to recount her tale of discovery, the doctor rushed to her side and began to fire questions at her, and the third person's voice could barely be heard. When the doctor had received Asuka's halfway coherent answers and the nurse was done elaborating on her adventures, their companion spoke again. Asuka realized she recognized the speaker, though five years had certainly changed her face.
"Okaeri, Asuka-san."
Asuka struggled with the Japanese, trying to sort through her brain. Finally, it came to her. "I am...aren't I?" Her laugh was weak and more like a cough or shortness of breath. "I'm home, I'm home." The proper Japanese phrase came to her. "Tadaima, Hikari-san, Tadaima."
)(Exeunt Chapter 3)(
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Reviwer Responses:
Jashin: Well, Shinji's stone dead, so I doubt he'll be killing Kaworu any time soon. Kaworu's fate will remain a secret for some time, just because I'm evil.
AnimeGirl622: Yay! Hopefully, the disturbingness will continue, albeit in a slightly different way. Asuka's reaction here was fairly lackluster, I fear, but as she regains her strength it should get more interesing.
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