I'd like to thank a select few for reviewing this story, I'd post the names but my review thing is being gay and I don't remember them… One or two of you said something about me making some mistakes, but being nice enough not to flame me for it because I had a reasonable excuse. PLEASE! If you have a mistake to point out, please tell me! I could really care less about my pride, as long as I can make this story better. One of you also stated that I should finish watching the series for the second time, because my brain IS a little bit fuzzy but… I DO have a broad history of shooting myself in the foot, plus I'm impatient. You might think Asuka, Misato, Rei and Shinji out of character right now, but I assure you that I've fallen back into my comfortable little writing groove after not writing for so long and the characters will start to show their original colors once again as well. The reason everybody is acting so differently is a result of both pressure/tension taken off of the pilots and Misato after locking the Eva's away for the most part. The plot of this story of course does not involve either movie, so the chars are really just starting to realize how much room they have to let change of character happen now. But hey, I'll do the best I can. Thanks for the reviews!
'No regrets, that asshole deserved it! NO REGRETS!' Panicked, Shinji ran all the way home, surprisingly not being stopped by anybody seeing as he was franticly dashing down a public sidewalk stained up to his elbows in blood. He made it too the apartment, and was up the staircase in less than five seconds. "Fuck, godamnit! FUCK!" He shouted in a fit of frustration, fumbling with the keys to open the door. It flew open and he stepped inside, locking it behind him. He ran to his room, closing the paper sliding door behind him as well. He collapsed onto his bed in a heap, crying and screaming all at once. They say that the human mind bends and warps in order to cope with stress and pressure, but eventually if warped enough, it can snap in two.
"Godamnit Rei… Why did you have to leave us like that…" He whispered, tears staining his pillow. 'Why… Why is this hitting me now?' Why didn't he react this way before? Sooner? Why now? Was it because in the heat of all that was happening at NERV he hadn't the time to grieve until now? He didn't know for sure… But in the middle of all this crying, he noticed something strange. The time on the clock was wrong, in fact the entire clock was wrong in every way. It should have been about 'Seven by now, the time that school would have gotten out, but instead his digital clock read 6:66. It lay where he had thrown it early that morning, but wasn't plugged in, so he didn't know what it was doing on in the first place. A chill ran up his spine when he realized the strange coincidence of the number that was on his clock. "What the hell?" Shinji questioned aloud. Puzzled, he wandered into the kitchen. The apartment was dark, but he could still see most of the glowing clock faces, all digital. Every single one in the apartment read 6:66.
"What the hell is going on here? I—" He stopped in mid sentence, thinking that he had heard something coming from his room. He opened his door, and heard it again. The noise was very faint.
"Shinji…" It was a ghost of a whisper. It wasn't coming from outside, and… It sounded like, Rei. It seemed to come out of nowhere. Another chill scratched and slithered it's way up Shinji's spine. He went to turn the lights in the apartment on, but none of the light switches would work. A very faint light poured through some of the windows, just barely making things visible.
"Shiiiiiinji…" The glowing 6:66 on his digital clock would flicker everytime the whisper would sound. His eyes widened, and his breaths grew quicker, shallower. He broke out in a cold sweat, his heart pounding like a sledgehammer on an anvil.
"Shit, Jesus fucking Christ I'm going insane!" He fell to his knees, balling his fists on his head and clutching his hair. "I'm going fucking insane!"
"No Shinji… You
are not…" The whisper contradicted him.
"Who is
that?" He half shouted. He went to go check the door and see if
anybody was trying to get in, but as soon as he tried to leave his
room he heard it again.
"Don't leave Shinji…"
"Who is that?…" His knee's grew weaker by the moment and he started to shake. 'What the hell is going on? Is this real, or am I just finally snapping?' He collapsed back onto his bed, curling up in a fetal position. His left eye quivered as the whisper continued to sound. Reaching over, Shinji grabbed for a glass of water that he saw there that morning. Without a thought he upturned the glass, and dumped the water on his head, hoping that it would cause him to wake from whatever kind of strange dream this was. It splashed against his temple, soaking the collar of his shirt and his hair. A bead of liquid dripped onto his lips, and he licked them clean.
'What? No, what is this?' A look of puzzlement flashed across his face and he placed a hand on the back of his head where it was the wettest. He brought it back around to his mouth, and licked his fingertip. In the darkness of his room he could hardly make out the orange hue of the liquid.
"LCL?" He questioned aloud.
"Yesss…" His heartbeat grew heavier as this strange and ghostly whisper sounded again.
"Who is that? Where are you?" He questioned the eerie voice,
"It's me… The one who's death you celebrate today…"
"R-R-Rei?" Shinji's eyes shrank into the back of his head, and they started to fill with tears again.
"Yes…" Shinji could have sworn that the room was dropping more and more in temperature by the second.
"Rei, where are you? WHERE ARE YOU?" He shouted franticly and desperately. His shouts turned into sobs, and he buried his face in the pillow.
'What the fuck is going on?' His shouts continued in his own mind. 'What is this? Is it real? Is it here? Or is it a dream? I don't know anymore… I just don't fucking know…' As of now, for Shinji Ikari all that was chaos and all that was reasonable was blended into one amorphous mass of questions and truths. He turned over, fixating his vision once again on the ceiling above.
"Well, where are you Rei?" He said between sniffles.
"I could… Be here Shinji…" His eyes widened and glossed over with a hint of question.
"What… What exactly do you mean?" In his state of bewilderment and confusion Shinji no longer even bothered to think whether or not he was really speaking to Rei, and assumed that he was.
"I mean… That with your help I could be living amongst you all again…But…"
"But what?" Shinji retorted, desperate for an answer.
"Would you lend your soul to the devil for me? To bring me back?" His thoughts raced for a minute or two, but he knew the answer all along.
"Yes…"
"Would you spill the blood of another angel for me?"
"…"
"…"
"…Yes." It was true. Shinji Ikari was willing to go through twice the hell that he had with the angels, in order to be able to touch, feel, see and smile upon Rei Ayanami again.
"Then… Meet me in the LCL… In the womb…"
"You mean in Unit-01?"
"Yes…"
"Hey! Wait!" No response.
"Rei?" Still no response.
Shinji didn't know what compelled him to do it, but he decided to pay a visit to Unit-01 at headquarters. He got on the first bus heading to that part of town, swiped his card at the entrance and stepped into the first maintenance elevator that lead down to the Eva Unit docking bay. The sector had been temporarily shut down about a month ago, so that meant no lights. Shinji already had a flashlight ready. Within five more minutes, Shinji was standing on the catwalk next to his Eva. He slipped his headgear on and the Eva, recognizing the pilots thought pattern, opened up halfway ejecting the plug. Shinji jumped down onto the unit and prepared to jump in. He noticed his bloodstained shirt and became quite disgusted. He peeled off his shirt and threw it aside before entering. Once inside, the hatch closed over him and the plug sank back into Unit-01.
He didn't fully activate the unit, but bled a hint of power into the electrical system, allowing for the internal lights to illuminate. Without the main optical screens on, the lights filled the cockpit with luminous and gentle shades of purple and blue. LCL proceeded to flood through the vents around him. It was icy cold, creeping up his shins, past his knees, and up to his chest. He focused on the ripples dancing across the top of the fluid surface, while the LCL elevated to his chin. This was the one part that he always had trouble growing comfortable with, blowing out that last breath of air and inhaling a liquid life source. The transition always gave you a drowning feeling, and Shinji could always feel the LCL level start from the bottom of his lungs and rise until it completely choked the air out of his body, leaving a small pocket of air on the roof of his mouth where it arched. Now, completely filling the plug, it's orange hue changed the combination of purple and blue to a soft minty green, something he didn't see very often because he was usually gazing through the Eva's eyes at the outside world. As if waiting, Shinji found a comfortable position and splayed himself out in the pilots seat. He laid back, utilizing his tongue in the game of toying with the pocket of air left on the roof of his mouth. This game grew quite old after five or so minutes.
'What am I doing in here?' Shinji thought. 'I know that I'm just imagining things… She's not ever coming back…' Yet somehow he didn't completely believe, or want to believe this. It might have been wishful thinking, or it might have been his currently unstable mentality. Nonetheless, after thirty minutes or so of contentment with his thoughts, Shinji drifted off into a deep slumber inside Unit-01.
He only slept for about fifteen minutes, dreaming multiple weird dreams and scenario's, the most re-occurring being the one that had something to do with Pen-Pen, a fifth of JD and him in a giant banana suite. His nap was a light one, and thus he was easily disturbed, however he felt strangely comfortable inside of the Unit-01. It was probably the reason that he fell asleep so easily. At one point, he was unconscious but not quite asleep. It was utter silence inside of the Eva.
"Shiiiiiinji…" A wind of a whisper caused him to shift in his sleep a little. Then, in a bone chilling manner the temperature dropped rapidly. His eyes shot open, and laying on his side the first thing he noticed was a numeral readout on one of the synch ratio displays next to his face. The numbers flashed.
666
Also, it seemed that the inside of the plug had gone almost pitch black, except for the red glow on the Synch readout. Shinji's blood ran cold, ice cold. Every vein and blood vessel in his body screamed in freezer burnt agony.
'…Jeezus!…' Shinji sputtered and choked in panicked coughs. His breathing sped up again, he could hear his heart pounding in his ears.
"Shinjiiii…………" Even though he was completely submerged in fluid, he could swear that he felt a tear run down his cheek.
'That whisper… If felt as if… It were right in my ear…' His eye twitched uncontrollably, and his entire body began to tremble. A few involuntary whines and whimpers escaped from his lips.
"Shinjiii…" He could feel something hot brushing against his ear, an intimate breath perhaps.
'Shit! shit! shit! fucking shit!' He was turning into a panicked mess, refusing to turn his head to face upwards, for he was afraid of what he might see because out of the corner of his eye a white luminous glow danced.
"Shiiiiin………Ji!" The whisper grew substantially louder when it came to the last two letters of his name.
"Huh?" In a scare he rolled over onto his back, turning his head swiftly only to meet two crimson circles, only inches away from his face. "Aaaaaaah!" Shinji pressed himself as deep into the seat as he could go. "Rei!" An onset panic attack began to take place, and his breathing grew uncontrollable in shallow, short drawn breaths.
"Yes… Shinji… It's me…"
"But, you can't be real! You!"
"You…"
"…You…"
"Died?" Shinji gulped nervously. His panic attack had a constricting grip on his chest.
"Calm down, my dear Shinji…" Rei's ghost as Shinji would call it, floated only a few inches above him. The sheet white foggy apparition placed it's hands on his chest. Her fingers were ice cold, and felt no more solid than a winter's breath on his bare chest, but still his lungs loosened up and he could breathe again. He closed his eyes, trying to calm his nerves. All he cold feel was the coldness, and closeness of her entity above him. The ghostly one spoke.
"Shinji… Do you…"
"Yes?" He replied.
"Want me back?
"Of course I do! It's miserable here without you!"
"What would you give to have me back?"
"Everything…"
"What would you do, to bring me back?"
"Anything…" Shinji's eyes shot open, his eyes were filled with care, softness and compassion now. "Anything that I had to…" Rei's eyelids fluttered a few times, her eyelashes like the wings of a butterfly.
"If this is so Shinji Ikari… Then place upon my lips, your truest kiss…And fulfill a favor that I will tell you when our faces part." Her eyes shut suddenly. Shinji hung there awkwardly for a second. He had never truly kissed a girl before, and the fact that the girl was a ghost he only half believed to be really there made things very hard. Finally, he shut his eyes too and lifted his head up off of the seat an inch or two, pressing his lips against her spectral mouth. His lips froze over momentarily with a glaze of cold LCL, but it soon melted away. His lips began to warm up, and hers did as well. They grew firmer against his, and with structure came softness. Once their faces parted, her misty fog of a body started to solidify. Her features started to grow fuller. The delicate curves of her shoulders, rear, and the arch in her back and hourglass shape morphed into elegant structure. As she took on physical form, she floated down and landed upon him as soft and gentle as a winters snowflake.
"Thank you… So much…" The glow disappeared from her body, and she now lay cradled up against Shinji, head on his chest. "So… Cold…" Rei hugged him tightly.
'What kind of cruel thing is this, that it can be so joyful?' Shinji thought. 'This can't be real… It can't be happening…'
"Rei… How am I to know it's you?" Shinji questioned softly, still deeply enveloped in denial.
"Why would you ask? I'm here, and I'm speaking with you, cradled against you." She said in a Rei kind of tone.
"Because… I saw… Your Eva explode… Nobody could have survived that…"
"And I didn't… Perhaps you would feel more assured, if I told you something only you and I would know?" She asked, tilting her head so that her eyes would meet with his.
"Well… Why don't you tell me, what I said to you after we defeated the Fifth angel… When I forced your entry plug open to see if you were alright."
" The first thing you said… Was "Don't ever say that." You told me… Never to say goodbye before a mission… That it was too depressing… I should have said it on the last mission though… I wish I could have said goodbye to you, and to everybody…" Despair welled up in her eyes, and she closed them.
"Why?" Shinji asked. "You're here now aren't you?"
For minutes upon minutes, they sat there shrouded in silence. Rei cuddled against his body for warmth and he accepted her gratefully, snaking his arms around her waist and pulling her close. Rei upturned her gaze and met his eyes once again. Her chin resting on his chest whilst she looked up at him, she was beautifully and elegantly adorable. An innocent fire danced in her eyes. Before they looked so despairing, so… void of emotion. But now, they held a new sparkle. Shinji smiled warmly and softly down upon her.
'She's so close… She's here… She is to me, what nobody else has ever been…' Without warning, an impulse shot through his head, and his mouth followed suit before the rest of his brain could.
"I love you…" Shinji panicked internally, not letting it show exteriorly. 'Shit! What did I say? What do I do now?'
"I love you too… Shinji Ikari… It's just a shame, that I couldn't have said it, until now… Because I did not know it, nor what love was, until now." She moved up closer, now cradling her face against the side of his. Rei's small, infantile breaths brushed against his ear in playful liquid fantasia, whilst her angelically soft hair brushed his cheek floating on a small current of LCL. His arms sunk tighter around her delicate figure, and he could feel her breasts press up against his bare chest, they were as soft as snow, the same color of her skin. Obviously comfortable, she placed a kiss on his cheek.
'This is crazy! Unbelievable! But… It's pleasant… It feels… Right. She seems so much more, present though… Before, she felt… So far away…'
"Hmmm…" Her eyes closed, Rei just sat there in his arms with her own wrapped around the back of his neck, resting beside him. A blush spread on his face in a riptide of red, and he felt somewhat bashful for a second, but his thoughts were broken fairly quickly. Shinji felt a small vibration. He assumed that it came from Rei at first, but the second time that he felt it, he could feel the entire unit vibrate as well. The percussion repeated itself a few times, growing by a smidgen with each repetition.
"What the hell do you think that is?" He listened as a few more vibrations rattled the Eva. "Got any ideas Rei?" She stayed silent for a few more seconds, before turning to look at him.
"It…" A sorrowful eyes accompanied a frown on her face. "It, would be that favor I asked you to take care of earlier… Because I knew that you and Unit-01 could do it..." Shinji shook his head.
"Wait, what? What the hell are you talking about? Unit-01? Why would this have anything to do with Unit-01?" Shinji's face contorted into a look of confusion. "Rei, what's going on?" Another shake rattled them. This time it was accompanied by a low rumble, as if an entire skyscraper was being dropped from the sky somewhere on the outskirts of the city. "Shinji… The seventeen angels… were just the calm before the storm…" Just then a monstrous tremor quaked the Eva, and the maintenance dock around it Shinji judged when the Eva continued to shake long after the sound of the initial percussion. He took on a look of despair.
"Shinji… You have to fight, for all peoples sake. This thing is up there right now, with the intention of destroying Tokyo three, and the Geofront along with it."
"But Rei, I…"
"Sssssshhhh… There is not enough time to debate Shinji If you don't fight right now you won't have anything to come back and fight for. This would have happened, had I have come back or not… But I knew you needed help, so they sent me to give it to you."
"Rei, who sent you?" She shook her head.
"I don't have the time to explain." Rei stated. Shinji sighed.
"Somehow… I don't think I have the time to ask how you know all of this… So I'll simply ask the questions… Does this favor require me to activate Unit-01, and engage another creature in combat?"
"…Yes…"
"Is this creature as great of a threat as any of the angels?"
"…Yes… At least three times as powerful as the strongest of the seventeen angels… I'm sorry to ask you of this, just when you thought that you were finally free… But… If you don't do this, you will have no life to go back to, for it and all life on this planet will have ended…" Rei hugged him even tighter.
"Is it big?"
"Very" She responded.
"I have just one more question…" Shinji's voice was monotonous and emotionless. "Do you really love me, or were they words to help coax me into receiving whatever responsibility for this "favor". It was deadly and utterly silent in the cockpit of the Eva for a minute or two, before Rei finally spoke.
"I do love you… This might be quick, and it might be sudden, for I even do not fully understand love nor anything of these emotions… Of feelings… But I fear that if I don't reveal to you the truth about heaven, hell, and the true meaning of instrumentality very soon, I won't have very long to say that I love you very often… But those things can wait until later… Right now Shinji, I must ask you too fight." Shinji sighed.
"Please… Don't be mad at me, Shinji Ikari…"
"I'm not mad at you… What I'm really mad at, I don't even know what looks like yet… But I guess I'll see when we breach the surface." With that said, Shinji activated Unit-01. Rei seated herself behind him, isolating her thoughts to herself so that Shinji could concentrate on bringing the Eva to life. It took a few minutes for his synch numbers to stabilize, but once they were all in order Shinji activated the main visual screens and looked once again through the eyes of his Eva.
"Damnit! The powers not on, which means the elevator isn't working right now! Hold on… I'm gonna try to call somebody and get some power down here."
"No Shinji, you don't have time. They probably already know about the problem, but it'll take too long for them to restore all of the power. You'll just have to climb the shaft."
"Fine then." Unit-01 pushed the catwalk away and turned in the sea of liquid in which it had stood dormant for almost a year. Shinji placed one bio-mechanical foot on an indentation in the wall, and then another. After the last incident where NERV was struck by a massive power outage, Misato made sure that they had made a way for the Eva's to get up any of the elevator shafts in the case that they had lost power. Eva Unit-01 required no external power source, for it had acquired an S2 engine awhile back, and thus required no hindering umbilical cords. Shinji continued up the shaft, climbing on for about five or ten minutes. The upward journey finally came to an end when they arrived directly underneath the large titanium blast doors that covered the shaft. Shinji tried his best to pry them open at first, but they were too stubborn to open. He aimed a punch at them, and Unit-01's fist rattled the blast doors but Shinji lost his footing and almost fell.
"Alright then, I guess we'll just have to try something else." Shinji drew the unit's Progressive Knife and cut away at the edges of the opening. He gave the two doors another punch, and they gave way this time. Shinji pulled himself up onto the surface, digging his fingers into the soil once he could reach over the lip of the entrance. Unit-01 fully emerged from the man-made hole in the ground. Shinji was just bringing Unit-01 to an upright position, when he noticed that the ground before them was completely enveloped in shadow and darkness, even though the day was brightly sunny and a cloud wasn't to be seen in the sky. Another earth rattling quake shook the ground and Shinji was thrown slightly off balance. Unit-01 stumbled forward a few times before catching itself. Shinji was facing the city, the rumble was still fading. Quickly he turned in the direction from which the sound came.
"Rei, I think three times as powerful as any of the angels… Was a bit of an understatement!" Shinji exclaimed after casting his vision about Two-thousand feet upward into the sky. Rei's "favor" was a somewhat human shaped rock behemoth of a creature that towered at least twenty times higher than any skyscraper in Tokyo-3. It's eyes were not even visible to the naked eye for it's head was so far up above the ground. Everytime it took a step, totaling a length of three fourths of a mile the ground rattled as if an atomic bomb had gone off in the earth's core.
"You have got to be shitting me."
