Disclaimer : I do not own Evangelion, although like many others I wish I did. I own none of the characters. This is a normal Eva fic, not sure about Eva battles because I am trying to focus on Shinji's torment and hopeful revenge, hehe. Read and Review, I need criticism and I need to know people are reading this garbage. Anyhoo, on with the show!

Right then

'Thought'

"Speech"

"(Actions in speech)"

QUICK NOTE : MAKE SURE YOU HAVE READ RESUBMITTED CHAPTER 7 FIRST! OTHERWISE THIS WON'T MAKE ALL THAT MUCH SENSE!

The light burnt his eyes, it passed effortlessly through the silken veils that Shinji had draped over his windows and straight onto his eyes, he felt the tinted orange light on his eyes and he wearily opened them. The first sight he managed to capture was the glistening effect of the various veils he had draped over the windows the night before in order to make his room romantic for Asuka. He brought up his left hand with ease to block the light as he tried to piece together the fragmented memories of the night before. He looked around and remembered the assortment of gifts, presents and general items he had purchased for Asuka, he then went to bring up his right arm but it was pinned beneath something. After taking in the sights of the room and remembering their purpose, his first thought was that Asuka would be lying beside him. But as he brought his head across other memories began to surface and before long he was faced with another beauty, the slumbering visage of Rei Ayanami, complete with multi-tinted light on her face. To any other male on the planet, such a wake up would have stirred a pleasure greater than any other imaginable, but to Shinji it was something else. True, he loved her, true he wanted her, but he could never have her. Rei was the one thing he held constant in his ever changing life, she had been edging closer and closer into his life over the past weeks and he knew that soon, he wouldn't be able to live without her. Yet he did enjoy her presence, it soothed him and he also knew that his presence had a similar effect on her. Although they both lay half naked in each other's arms, there was nothing sexual involved, he felt none of the feelings he did with Asuka. Just the sensation of touch on their skin was enough, enough to allow them to feel comfortable, for a time. In a way Shinji likened it to maternal relationship, Rei would soothe him like a mother would soothe a child while what he was to Rei he was unsure. Perhaps it was best described as a brotherly relationship. That was certainly how Shinji was willing to leave it, he never wanted to lose Rei, never.

"Morning, Blue."

Shinji looked into Rei's, now opened, eyes and saw a slight smile on her lips, at first he didn't know what she meant but after a moment he thought that his eyes must have been normal colour at that point. Shinji was about to answer in kind, but he quickly remembered that Rei disliked red and that the fact she had to look at the colour every day in the mirror must have been painful on her.

"Morning, Rei-chan."

"Do you feel stable this morning?"

"I am still trying to simply ignore it, but I will face it later on… thank you Rei. But I will have to face that moment alone, but you staying with me last night… that meant a lot to me."

"It wasn't any inconvenience, I wished to help."

"I know and that's what makes it so important."

Shinji hugged Rei again, he wasn't sure when she had decided that her bra also needed to be taken off but still, he didn't really think of it like that. He didn't think about her pert nipples sticking into his chest, he only thought of the warmth from all her skin resting against his. As he lay there he could feel the bursting in his head, like the thoughts surrounding Asuka had formed a single battering-ram ready to beat down the block he had put them in. As he hugged Rei the thumping got louder and louder, each bump he tensed more, squeezing tighter and tighter, eventually he was brought out of it.

"Shinji, perhaps we should have some breakfast."

"Yes, I think we should, do you have anywhere in mind?"

"Well… many eating establishments have not yet begun regular opening times since the city was given the all clear… Although statistically there should be at least one th… What?"

Rei had sat up straight, talking to the invisible audience in the top corner of the room while she went over the various points on her hands, this not only looked entertaining, but the fact that she was doing so half-naked left Shinji laughing. In fact by the time she had stopped, Shinji had propped himself up on his right arm, while laying on his right side, simply staring at her with a large goofy smile. When she finally turned to him he smiled more and tickled her ribs causing her to begin a series of small giggles.

"How about I make breakfast?"

"You… em… embarrass me."

Rei managed to state between pants as she attempted to regain her breath, Shinji knelt up and shuffled past the girl, sending both hands up each side of her body causing her to arch backwards. She giggled hysterically and tried to use her arms to block him but he over-powered her and she ended up half off the bed by the time he stopped. She lay back, blushing heavily and breathing just as heavily, Shinji simply smirked and walked towards the kitchen.

"Kawaii, Rei-chan."

Rei's blush got a little deeper but she was unable to respond, in truth she had never been handled in such a way before.

"You are going to confront the thoughts of Miss Soryu now, am I correct?"

Shinji looked up, Rei was just stepping over the threshold of her apartment when she spoke, Shinji just stared at the ground.

"Yes, I have a place I go to in such situations."

"Understood… be careful… I don't want you to hurt yourself…"

"Don't worry Rei, I'm not depressed."

"I'm not worried about such wounds…"

"Oh."

Rei finished her step into her apartment, she then turned to Shinji whose vision was diverted away from where she was. Her face was perhaps the most emotion-filled Shinji had ever seen, it was unfortunate that those emotions were anxiety, jealousy, worry, fear and sympathy. Shinji just looked into her eyes and brought his hand up to her face, be bent down to kiss the girl on the lips but made sure it was nothing more than a peck. It was enough for Rei to feel calmed, enough for her to let go of his other hand. Once freed Shinji's hand returned to its place at his side, he bowed to the girl and turned, although he didn't take a step for a moment.

"Once this is over… I'll come back to you…"

"I understand."

Without another word, Shinji walked on, leaving Rei's corridor, the floor until he was out of the apartment block, Rei moved over to the edge of the balcony like corridor and watched Shinji until he had left and was gone from her sight.

"Be safe."

"You ready for this Professor?"

"What are you up to Ikari? What is significant about that area that we need to keep careful surveillance on it?"

"Watch."

"Wait, isn't that…"

"Hmmm, not a word. Not a text or call, not a page or letter or email. Heh. I knew I would never get inside that girl's heart. HELL! I doubt she even has one."

Shinji was pacing around his usual spot, he stepped through the area that had once housed his life diagram, passed the rock that had been cracked down the centre because of his fist.

"She's gone, Eva Unit 02 is gone, there is no reason for her to come back and she would never come back for me! Why am I so unimportant? WHY ASUKA? WHY?"

This latest outburst was followed back a swing as his right fist impacted the same unfortunate stone that he was perched on last time, although this time instead of blood and a delayed cracking, there was a thunderous roar and dust filled the area as the rock crumbled. It was like the area was hit by a missile, there was a shockwave in all directions as the stone turned to dust before Shinji's eyes, yet somehow he was unsurprised. He simply pulled his hand away, checking it for any broken bones but simply found that the skin was barely even broken.

"All that effort for you! All those talks! All the times I said I love you! Do you even love me? Or did you love me simply because I was there? If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with? I can't even hate you Asuka! I can't even bring myself to associate you with hate, I just want to understand… WHY?"

This time it was both hands clenched together into a single mound of flesh, that he threw into the ground having moved on to more solid terrain the ground crumbled beneath him, much like the shadow angel that swallowed unit 01. After that it was only a couple of seconds before Shinji rolled from the crouched position onto his back, he then lay, staring at the sky. It was a nice day, it was sunny, there were few clouds in the sky and the birds were singing, even as far out as he was. He could see right up into space from where he was, straight through the air to the blue that lay between him and the great beyond. That was until the clouds shifted, dissipating like some great force pushed them aside, that was when Shinji saw the light. Coming from roughly the direction of the sun a large object was falling from orbit towards Tokyo-3, he knew it couldn't be an angel, he would have been alerted. Although he realised, his phone was at home and he was perhaps too far from the city to hear sirens. He panicked but then watched the object explode from a single barrage of battery fire. No angel was ever destroyed by the city's built-in defences.

"Wait, if that wasn't an angel… what was it?"

"We've confirmed it, it was an N2 mine, more than likely launched from a Eurasian launch facility near Germany."

"Have we confirmed it?"

"No Ma'am, the Magi are still working on it."

Misato spun around to look up to the Commander's desk but found that Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki was already bent over, talking into the Commander's ear obviously questioning the same things the young Major was also questioning. Although whether or not that was true its debatable.

"Do you think it was the Germans?"

"Of course it was, once Unit 02 was in their grasp they tried to make sure that we would cease being a threat."

"How does this affect the scenario?"

"At present, I am unsure but I believe we shall know very soon."

"Commander?"

"Call in both Evangelion pilots, prep both units for launch! If we see any more objects I want them to ensure they are destroyed before they reach the city!"

"Yes Sir! Hyuuga, get a hold of Shinji!"

"Ma'am, we have no idea where Shinji is! He isn't answering his phone and intelligence is reporting him missing."

"Just great, at the very least get Rei in here now!"

The technicians flew around like they were all stuck in fast-forward, gliding from station to station on their chairs, typing frantically checking the directions of the in-coming missiles. Misato just watched, there was little more she could do in such situations, the automated defences would do a good enough job stopping the missiles. Although the missiles weren't her major concern wasn't the missiles, but Shinji's location, every government official in the UN knew that Tokyo-3 could defend a missile barrage, it must be a distraction. Years of tactical training told Misato that, use the big guns to distract while a team slips in and dispatches an undefended target. But what else could she do, it was outside of her jurisdiction to yet at the intelligence department to find Shinji, she was only in control of Eva combat. She watched the techs fly around some more, she then turned attention to the telemetry on the screen, but still she was unable to hold in her suspicions.

"Commander…"

"What is it Major Katsuragi?"

Gendo glared down at the Major, his usual calm distorted into an angry tone that scared the pants/skirt off of the young woman.

"…I believe that the Third Child may be in some form of danger. I believe the missile attack is a distraction."

"That is obvious, Major!"

Gendo continued to glare down like Misato was some sort of lesser life form that couldn't quite grasp what was going on around her. She stood there for several seconds, she shook a little and just simply tried to compute what this meant.

'He knows Shinji is in danger… why isn't he acting? I know he doesn't care all that much for him, but Shinji's our best pilot.'

"Sir…"

"That is enough Major! Let's see what Shinji can do…"

The last segment of Gendo's speech was too quiet for all but Fuyutsuki to hear, the taller man simply smirked and let his attention drift back to the missile telemetry. Gendo wasn't even looking at the main monitor, he was looking at the small screen before him, the one that was linked to the external surveillance equipment set up all around Shinji's little 'shrine'.

'Whoa, rock!'

Shinji brought his legs up as tightly as he could to his body as he flew over the hidden obstacle in the demolished section of town. He then allowed a single leg to dangle as he landed, pushing off almost immediately to pass down the debris-filled street, jumping from rock to rock and occasionally sprinting down the few flat surfaces he could find. Shinji looked as the fire rain came down from the sky, dozens of missiles falling from the heavens only to be stopped by the city's automated defences. It would have actually been quite impressive, if a single one of the missiles couldn't wipe out most of Tokyo-3 in a single go. Shinji's speed increased with each step and he was beginning to feel how he did in the airport only the night before. That was when a single object appeared on the horizon in the distance, an object that rivalled the size of the buildings. He slowed to a stop as the giant blue monolith appeared and began shooting the N2 missiles at far greater distances with its particle rifles.

"Rei…"

Then as he stood perfectly still, he felt a tingle in the back of his neck, like all of the hairs there were standing on end, he wasn't alone.

'I'm being watched, we're being attacked… snipers…'

Shinji dived into an abandoned building as he heard the sound of a ricocheting bullet rang out from the ground behind him. He quickly pushed himself, hard into the corner of the building making sure that he was as hidden as possible. As he brought his arms and legs in to become as small as possible he began to smile slightly, his hair began to go darker and his eyes went quite grey.

"This is obviously just one of those days…"

Shinji pressed as hard as he could against the wall when he heard the sound of quiet footsteps in the road outside of the building. He knew that soldiers were on the move, normally a person wouldn't have been able to hear the silent footprints, but Shinji wasn't a normal person. He could hear every step and make out the brushing sound of the clothes as they shuffled, even through the loud explosions above. But the part that made Shinji a little confused was the feeling he got, like he could feel the soldiers moving on the other side of the wall, like they were invading his personal space. He felt the air move around them as they walked, as they moved further around the walls he realised that the building was quite secure, the sniper must have lost his shot and they had been sent in to flush him out. There was no way Shinji was going to give them the satisfaction of an easy kill, so he scanned the empty building for anything he could use as a weapon. He found three large poles, probably used for construction that were just the right length for hand held weapons, although he had one more than was necessary.

'What should I do with this one? Hmmmm…'

Shinji grew a massive smirk on his face. Outside the group of five soldiers moved around the outside of the building, their black armour having no identifiable markings on of any kind. They each held a large assault rifle and it was apparent that they each had a small arsenal planted all over their bodies. The leader looked up to a tower a few hundred metres away, then back to the door of the building, he knew that his target was inside, he knew that he just had to kill the poor child and his mission would be complete. It wasn't the type of mission a hardened soldier could ever prepare for, it was barely humane and it certainly didn't follow any sort of chivalry. He would be forced to terminate an unarmed, defenceless child and he would feel bad about it for the rest of his life. Fortunately, the rest of his life, wasn't all that long.

"Commander!"

The soldier's behind were unable to do anything to save their commanding officer as the large metal pike shot out of the wall. It came out through the brick and plaster, moving so fast it passed straight through the Commander's head and out the other side, leaving the more deceased soldier hanging in mid-air, a careful equilibrium between his weight and the wall that held the pike still. The soldiers immediately turned and began firing at the building, hoping that at least one of their bullets passed through and struck their target. After they had emptied their magazines they just stood still, waiting for a sound to be heard, their hearts in their throats as they waited for a similar fate to their Commander. Yet still, nothing happened, there was a complete absence of sound for a moment, then the wall crumbled a little, and while the soldiers studied the wall, one of them suddenly became racked with fear. Because he knew what was coming, he saw that the section of wall before him had be shot in a sort of circle, completely weakening it and allowing any person to jump through, almost unaided. It was not long for his premonition to come true, within a second the wall fell down as Shinji jumped through, smashing the soldier in the face with a metal pole. He was hit with such force that he spun, Shinji grabbed him with one arm and used the now dented metal pole as a spinning pike that knocked one of the other soldiers. With the tingling sensation returning Shinji turned and allowed the sniper bullets to imbed themselves in his human shield before he grabbed the gun from its holster and shot the sniper with the small pistol, a fete that Shinji was pretty sure he never could have accomplished normally. As he turned back to the two remaining soldiers he kept his human shield and shot at the two with the pistol, emptying the magazine into their bodies. After that all the soldiers simply fell to the floor and Shinji was the only one left standing, he looked down at his body and it was covered in a mixture of dust, mud and blood. His eyes had turned the deepest red and his hair was practically pitch-black, he just looked down at his opponents and smirked.

"Don't underestimate me."

This moment of pride was a mistake as a single cowardly soldier appeared from behind some rubble and pointed his gun at Shinji. There was a momentary silence as Shinji saw the soldier and closed his eyes, his hands were empty and the soldier was too far away to hit. It would appear that his own pride had gotten him killed, although that didn't bother him, at least he died fighting on his own, without the Eva. At least he managed to take some of them with him before he died, at least his life had been worth living. As the gun fired he felt time slow, the bullet left the barrel so slowly, Shinji could feel it piercing the air.

'Well, it was a good run, and I did my best.'

Suddenly Shinji felt an overwhelming fear, it was true he did his best, but he wasn't finished, now wasn't his time to die. He had defended his friends and family from angels, big and small, he had saved the world ten times over but he wasn't finished. If he were to die now, what would happen to NERV, would they be able to defend from this new human threat, would Rei be able to survive it. How could Rei defend all of NERV on her own? Maybe they would draft Touji and Kensuke to the defence, maybe they would bring forward conscription, maybe they would do whatever it takes to defend the city from the enemy. Maybe they would lose, maybe soldiers would descend upon NERV and take them all prisoner, taking Misato and Maya, Ritsuko and Rei, all the women and do horrible things to them.

'No, I'm not finished, I haven't fulfilled my promise, I haven't finished protecting them yet, I need to survive, I need to live. I need to fight!'

Shinji's eyes shot open and his face became distorted for an instant by an effect resembling heat haze as he watched the bullet fly towards him and then simply stop. The bullet hovered in mid-air, shaking violently as all its energy was changed into vibration, Shinji focussed on that single bullet as the soldier screamed and began shooting frantically. Each and every bullet warped around Shinji's body as an invisible wall surrounded him, the soldier continued to scream even after his magazine was empty. Shinji then focussed on the soldier, the invisible wall began to glow as a series of octagonal bars appeared slowly moving towards a central point where the bullet was floating. Eventually about six sets of bars had moved to this central point and their combined glow was practically blinding the poor soldier, and there was nothing he could do when Shinji brought his hand up and fired the bullet back with enough speed to pierce the soldier's head and several walls behind him. Shinji then remained still for a moment, contemplating his own existence for a moment, his body and his newfound ability to create this light, the light of his soul.

"Ikari… was that?"

"Yes Professor, it was an Absolute Terror field, Shinji has managed to achieve a level previously unattained by man."

"Is that what you were waiting for?"

"That is what my scenario required."

"Ikari… Shinji?"

Rei looked up in the entry plug of her unit 00, for a single moment the cross hairs of her particle rifle began to jump around randomly. Rei's head lifted and she began to scan the horizon for something, she knew what she had felt but she was unsure what she was searching for, Unit 01 or Shinji. She saw bars of light shooting from the ground to the sky, she saw the bars impact tiny objects and immediately become engulfed in a giant ball of light. Then for a second she felt another hair on her neck stand on end, then almost a pull towards one of the artificial lakes of Tokyo-3. She quickly scanned the surrounding buildings and roads.

Rei? Is everything all right?

"Wait a moment, Major."

As her eyes scanned the landscape she passed over a small area, the buildings were mostly reduced to rubble, but at the centre there was a single darkened figure, stood like a statue in the centre. Around this single statue were several pools of blood, with broken and deformed bodies, lying at their centre. Rei could make out the red without too much focusing, when she accessed her Eva's ability to zoom she almost jumped out of her skin. As it focused she was sure that the figure in the centre had long grey hair, as it stopped zooming and rested on the face of the figure, the figure's head turned and looked right at her. The face was familiar but different, while the features were in the right place the red eyes and the long grey hair were all wrong.

"Nagisa…"

'Unit 00, eliminate optical data feed to Command centre.'

She stared at the figure for a few moments, watching as the grey hair slowly changed back to the usual brown, and the blue eyes quickly returning to view. Even though several miles of air and several feet of Eva stood between the two, they peered directly into each other's eyes. But while Rei looked she felt a deep pain in her heart, because directly above Shinji there was a glow, but not the type she had hoped, perhaps the sun piercing the clouds, no it was the light of a descending N2 mine.

Rei, stop that missile!

"Ikari!"

Rei's rifle immediately began firing at the missile, but each shot passed the metal cylinder and it reached the Earth unhindered, hitting Shinji almost directly.

"What the hell is going on? What is Rei doing?"

"Where is unit 00's visual telemetry?"

The two most senior female members' of NERV yelled out in chorus, both focussing their words on the unfortunate technicians before them, who could do nothing but frantically type away on their keyboards and half mutter an answer. The command centre was in chaos, as Unit 00 ceased firing its particle rifles at the targets, although there was little worry about stray missiles, it was more of a question of the pilot's condition. Misato glared in Hyuuga's position, but the young man could do little more than sit there.

"What is she looking at?"

Ritsuko pushed through the chaos of screaming and beeping, directing her voice towards her direct subordinate, the unfortunate Maya Ibuki.

"Extrapolating, judging from Unit 00's position, the MAGI believe it is somewhere in the D-4 sector of the city."

"I thought that was a deserted area?"

"It is, although our sensors in that area were damaged in a previous attack, so…"

"Theoretically an angel could be sat there and we wouldn't know?"

"Affirmative, if it's AT-field was kept on short range, we wouldn't be able to tell it was there."

Maya sat as all the technicians and senior officers stared at her, she began to twitch a little and her face went bright red, so she quickly rotated her chair to put her back to all of them and she typed a few more commands.

"It's due to lack of funding… and… I'm sure there are no angels in area D-4…"

"Calm down, Maya, try whatever you can and find out what is there."

She nodded quietly and began to frantically type, but this was cut short by Hyuuga pushing back from his console slightly.

"There won't be much of anything there… an N-2 mine just passed through the defence net and is set to hit D-4."

"What?"

"Rei, stop that missile!"

Misato jumped further than all the other staff members as she turned up to the throne above the rest of the command centre, to the throne where Gendo stood, both hands on the desk and a tone of genuine concern in his voice. Gendo was quickly answered by the data screen showing a series of blasts directed towards the offending missile, and his breath seemed to catch in his throat as each and every one of them missed. He could do nothing but watch as the missile impacted near his surveillance equipment and the entire area disappeared. Gendo quickly began typing on his small computer, flicking through each of the surveillance cameras that had been planted, but they all showed static. The entire area was gone.

"Ikari…"

Gendo slowly slid onto his seat, his head was held downwards, Fuyutsuki held his hand on his former student's shoulder. It was a strange experience for him, never before had he seen Gendo react so visibly, not since Yui was taken away. Misato looked up at the commander with genuine question, then back up to the main screen, after a few seconds the cogs in her head began to turn.

'The Commander is upset… Rei has fast reflexes, but not that fast, she was already looking at area D-4… What could possibly be there that Rei and the Commander would be concerned about? What would Rei…'

"Doctor Akagi, detecting erratic readings from within Unit 01!"

"Unit 01?"

'Shinji… Shinji… SHINJI!'

Author note : I'm sure giving Gendo some sort of soul is going to get me burned, but hey, he's only human.