Disclaimer: I do not own anything that belongs to GAINAX, Marvel or DC/Vertigo. All rights reserved.
Author's Notes: It was brought to my attention that I mixed some names up… the problem has been fixed. Further revising is here as well.
Chapter Three: An Endless Agenda
"Aim at the target in the center… switch…" Shinji chanted as he went through his training without expression. The plugsuit hugged his body quite snuggly and the LCL still smelled like blood, but even Ritsuko's blaring voice on the capsule's speaker was muffled by his own thoughts.
The EVA Unit 01 shifting from side to side in the tight space, the virtual gun firing at unseen targets. Ritsuko measured the readouts as she normally would while Misato sighed with frustration.
"I'm sorry Misato, but I just don't see any evidence of reviving from a coma or anything abnormal from the internal CAT scan… are you sure he wasn't simply in a deep sleep last night?"
Misato shook her head for the third time that morning. "I shook him for a good minute, and even threw cold water in his face… nothing. He just slept through it. By the time the paramedics came, he was awake. Before that, he was talking to people in his room… people who weren't really there, mind you!"
"Do you want him transferred out of your home?" Ritsuko asked, sensing her friend's discomfort.
Misato considered the option for a moment before replying, "No. Maybe he's just… distraught from everything that's happening."
"His blood pressure is one-hundred fifty-one over one-hundred five, well over the norm for his height and weight… I cannot prescribe medications to lower his blood pressure, most of them would lower his ability to synchronize with the Evangelion."
Misato sighed wearily, passing her curled fingers through her tangled purple hair. "He could die of a heart attack and we're worried about his battle performance…"
"We're doing what we can to keep that from happening…" Ritsuko turned on the microphone after seeing Shinji destroy the allotted number of targets. "That will be all, Shinji, we're going to let you out now." With that, the technicians jumped into a frenzy of procedures that Misato didn't care enough about to fully understand. I just hope Shinji doesn't… try anything with me. Misato pondered the words she heard that night, just as Shinji himself began recalling the events of the previous evening.
His room was a stale space without her presence. It wasn't until he stood there, alone, that he became aware of the void in his heart that Death had left behind. He tried to conjure up some thought to fill it, but as always it fell short, now more than ever. He considered going back outside to Misato, but he already heard her bedroom door close. All that was left was his shower and his bed, just as it always seemed to be; and just as always, he would find no respite in the bath, no comfort beneath manufactured linens, to ease his fall into slumber…
He could feel a presence behind him. Something tugged at his heart, something profound and important; something that filled him even more than his despair. A soft hand caressed his left cheek from behind, too soft to be a man but too strong to belong to a woman. The fingers cascaded about his flesh as hands explored his body, tickling his chest and caressing his arms, making him squirm under the molestation of the unseen… but known… thing that held him.
"Such a burst of misery from my twin sister, I couldn't help but come to see why…" a silky, firm voice spoke. Shinji was paralyzed with mixed feelings of terror and rapture, and the voice continued. "Most men of your age want things with a minor passion, a lowly thing that does not deserve my attention… but you… you want more than most adults who I consider mine."
"I… I'm…" Shinji tried to get out, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as Desire's hands caressed him in places no one had ever caressed him before.
"Shh, the time for words is over, child… you are mine now, now and forever, until you finally meet your lover's touch… it must be so painful, not being able to so much as touch the love of your life."
Misery filled Shinji's heart again as he became crestfallen. Desire's caress halted for only a moment, but continued as he thought more of Death herself. He slowly said between gasps, "I want… to have her… why can't I…?"
"To touch her flesh is to die, for you and for anyone else. As you can imagine, she's quite lonely… you're also out of luck as far as her returning your love goes…"
Shinji's heart sank to the point that Desire relocated his/her hands onto the pilot's shoulders. Another voice chimed in, filled with a dread that hooked onto Shinji's heart like a rusty hook, "It was decided long ago that the Endless may never love mortal beings… and she is one of the Endless, the second to be born since the beginning of the universe. You are mortal now, and will never gain her love. When you die, you will touch her once more, and you will never see her again after that for all eternity."
A rank stench filled Shinji's nostrils and Shinji saw the outline of some obese creature sitting atop his bed, most likely a woman. Desire caressed Shinji lightly along the neck while whispering in his ear, "But I know a way you can become immortal… and you could be with her…" Desire's fingers slid down Shinji's front, "…forever." His/her fingers were about to reach Shinji's nether regions when Desire was quickly jerked away from Shinji by a strong pale arm.
"That will be all, little sister," Dream commanded, a steady anger in his voice.
"Ah, Dream… how quaint," Desire uttered, a smile creeping along his/her face. The large woman vanished from Shinji's bed, as did the smell of stagnant pond water. Shinji spun around to see his assaulter. It had been a man… or woman…? His/her eyes shined with a golden hue, contrasting with the silver outfit that covered his/her tight body. His/her posture was one of arrogance, even as the taller, paler figure of Dream stood behind him/her, locking his/her neck in a choke. "Your arm is nothing more than a symbol of feeling to me, Dream. You cannot truly restrain me from doing my work."
"Making one desire is one thing, changing their fate is entirely not in your power. You will cease now, by my command, by Destiny's wish. By my command because he will enter a deep sleep, by Destiny's wish because you have overstepped your boundaries."
"I'll not leave without a fair fight, big brother," Desire said as he/she slipped from Dream's grasp. He/she faced his/her brother, eyes shining with a challenge.
Dream sighed angrily as he looked at his most hated sibling. "Then we shall battle on the only battlefield we may agree upon… the most ancient game."
"Agreed, Dream, I will begin, as I am the challenger." Desire cleared his/her throat for a moment, causing reality to shift about Shinji, Dream and him/herself. A pulsing red surrounded the mortal and two Endless as the battle over Shinji began. As they challenged each other, images flashed behind them, lucid images of concepts that filled Shinji's mind with awe.
"I am the desire for children, the desire for offspring," Desire began. The image a mother holding a babe flashed across reality.
"I am their dreams, teaching without affection," Dream retorted. The baby's eyes closed and moved rapidly under sealed eyelids.
"I am a childhood, filled with closeness and embrace." Behind Desire was a small child being held and caressed by his mother.
"I am a childhood's nightmare, filled with boogeymen and monsters." The child hid under his sheets, tucking his blanket under his shaking frame.
"I am adolescence, the budding of lust, the cradle of the mortal heart." The boy was growing taller and braver while his eyes wandered across the female body.
"I am realization, the perversion of adolescent love." The boy is seen crying in his bed, the image magnified behind Dream.
"I am the young adult, lust incarnate, bringer of children." The young boy was now grown and with a family of three children and his wife.
"I am adulthood, realism and honesty, lucid dreams and lies." The children began crying as the parents signed the divorce paper. Desire left the young man, until Desire retorted.
"I am the elder, wise in the ways of emotion, experienced to ignore the lies of a dream upon waking, with nothing left to live for except the desire to move on to the next world." Desire smirked as the image of the wise man came up, overbearing and dominant. A powerful, red aura of light surrounded Desire, pushing upon Dream who stood defiant and somber. "How do you reply, brother!"
"I am the dream, to ease him into death on the night of his passing." The wise man was then lying in bed as the breath of life escaped from his chest. A wicked blackness lashed out from Dream, devouring the red in nearly an instant and banishing Desire back to his/her realm. Shinji felt sleep overcome him, and the strange dimension vanished, dropping him onto his bed. Dream vanished into his realm, ready to intercept the youth. As he faded, he whispered, "I have done my part, sister, but I cannot interfere again…"
Once he faded, Death appeared from the shadowy corner of Shinji's room. "I know, little brother… thank you."
The memory of the previous night faded from Shinji's mind as sirens blared throughout the NERV headquarters. Before Shinji's ejection was complete, the process was halted and reversed. "Sortie EVA-01 into the lift, we have an unidentified object coming towards Tokyo-3," the voice of Fuyutsuki commanded over the loudspeakers of Ritsuko's department. The process began once more as Shinji felt the synchronization in his nervous system. Why now…? As the cascading color vortex shifted about him in the capsule, Shinji somehow knew that he was going to suffer once again… in more ways than one.
The hospital room was familiar. The sharp pain in his waist was not. His eyes squeezed shut as the ache filled his nerves with messages of unbearable pain, but the feeling eventually numbed, as did his senses. The morphine dripper made sure of that. His mind was a fog, the very roof above him an indiscernible blotch of white and shadows. He barely registered the door of his hospital room sliding open, allowing unseen people in…
"This is the one you spoke of?" a thick, strong and male voice asked.
"Yep, that's him… for now. It might not be him later, he'll change, he'll be different in the nothing place, but we won't be here for that…" a jittery, ecstatic and female voice answered.
"I… see. He is incapacitated right now… at least for the most part. I only needed to know who he was… let's go."
"He's going to kill us all, brother. He'll be there for each of us, one by one, along with our biggest sister, and he'll make our sister take our brother's book. And we won't be replaced, because we won't be anything anymore. The nothing place will eat it all, all at once in one big gulp, and he will be that nothing place where even our sister won't be able to survive."
"We should let Destiny decide if that's the course of events… for now, let's leave him be."
The door slid again, and the voices left just as quickly. Shinji had slipped too deep into the drugs, and the voices were forgotten along with the pain. For that moment and that moment alone in years past and years to come, Shinji did not desire Death.