27. Ephemerae.
You say 'abomination' like it's a bad thing.
Some time previously I had heard the idiom 'to look like death warmed up'; on seeing Commander Fuyutsuki I was provided with a vivid case example. Hollows stood out in his cheeks and under his eyes, stark in the harsh lighting of the commander's office; his posture, usually ramrod straight and composed, now hunched him over the desk. An intravenous drip disappeared into the sling binding his right arm to his chest.
I knew I looked worse for wear myself, after the vehicle crash of two days ago, but I at least was able to stand on my own feet to face him (though my eyes tracked again and again to his hidden right hand).
"Shouldn't you still be in hospital?" I asked, as though I had not just come from the recovery ward.
He waved his free hand dismissively. "That's not your concern," he said, his voice as strained as his expression. "You're here to answer for your conduct in the battle with Unit 06."
I was reminded of Shinji's recounting of the confrontation with his father after the destruction of Bardiel and Unit 03 – the bleak oppression of the room and its occupant, the sick despair summoned by authoritation disregard for the human stakes and suffering under their command. I doubted I would attempt to attack this Commander, as Shinji had his, but I empathised with him all the same.
"Well, Nagisa? What do you have to say for yourself?"
At his side, Dr Akagi spoke up. "Kaworu, this is a very serious situation. Because of your actions, Unit 02 was put at unnecessary risk – and therefore the whole base and everyone in it."
In my mind, Kyoko and Asuka cried out for one another.
I regarded the commanders coolly. "Have you ever heard a parent scream in mortal fear for their child?"
Akagi's brow furrowed; Fuyutsuki said quietly, "I have."
I did not press him for detail. "Imagine you heard it not with your ears, but your heart."
They both stared at me.
"Did you make contact with Unit 02's soul?" demanded Akagi.
"What do you think synchronisation is?" I scoffed rhetorically. "Because of my actions, Unit 02 and her pilot are closer to peace than they ever have been."
"You merged it with another Eva using the Lance of Longinus!" Fuyutsuki snapped. "Its compositional integrity has been almost entirely compromised – who knows how long it will take to stabilise. You've rendered it inoperable!"
I shot back, "And by doing so rescued Asuka from being forcibly assimilated into Unit 06's system. Berlin NERV had all but turned her into a dummy plug."
His hand slammed onto the tabletop, jolting his IV, and he winced. "Those were not your orders. Your mission was to defend NERV and Central Dogma, not expose its only protector."
"How did you even know it would work?" asked Akagi, and Fuyutsuki made a cutting gesture to bar her change of topic.
"Such reckless conduct is unacceptable in any subordinate," he said, and I was reminded vividly of Keel Lorenz. I wondered whether Commander Fuyutsuki would appreciate or be insulted by the comparison.
Then a glimpse of sincere concern broke through his anger, and the resemblance vanished. "Against an Angel it could have cost us everything. You know the stakes, Nagisa – your survival is in the balance too. Do you think Asuka would have wanted you to risk the whole world?"
I shrugged. "Let's ask her."
Dr Akagi glanced at her clipboard. "Her psyche-cleanse won't be completed for another thirteen hours, and she'll be in isolation afterwards."
An impatient huff escaped me. "I already told you, she's completely free of Unit 06's contamination and Berlin's neural programming. This is unnecessary."
Fuyutsuki's voice was dry. "Forgive us not unhesitatingly taking the word of a loose cannon. Your record puts you on thin ice, Fifth Child."
I glared at him. "I have only ever acted wilfully to protect my friends."
"Which is why you are now on probation," he said coldly. "So that such 'wilfulness' doesn't happen again."
Probation! Heat bloomed in my chest, making fractures and bruises flare with pain. "I hope it won't, but that is up to others, not me."
"Others?"
I felt light-headed; words loosed from me of their own volition as subconscious understanding finally surfaced. "My friend was being physically and psychically invaded, her AT field forced to subjugate to another." I looked pointedly towards the Commander's right hand. "I sincerely hope that circumstance doesn't arise again."
Utter silence fell.
Akagi's fists clenched. Fuyutsuki's face was perfectly blank, but his eyes deepened with renewed anger.
Why, why, why did I say that?
He gestured to the Section Two agents flanking me. "Take Nagisa to the detention wing," he said, and my stomach dropped to my feet. "He is to have absolutely no contact with the First Child."
Each of my elbows was grabbed roughly. As I was partly dragged, partly shoved towards the door, I craned back to speak over my shoulder.
"Don't misunderstand what she said. Rei isn't truly choosing me, but rather Shinji's happiness. She rejected his father, if you didn't know."
Fuyutsuki's expression drained, but before he could demand me returned for interrogation his right arm jerked spasmodic and he collapsed against the desk with a groan. His medical monitors beeped in agitation as Dr Akagi swooped in to attend him.
I straightened my back, against the protests of seemingly every nerve and cell in my body, and marched from the commander's office, dragging my captors with me.
My defiant bravura lasted until the cell door closed behind me, plunging the room into darkness, and I was left as alone as I had ever been.
Heavily, aching, skull swimming, I sat on the bunk and sank elbows on knees, my head hanging almost between them.
"Feckless fool," I groaned. "What did that accomplish? How can you possibly support her now?"
The only answer was my laboured heartbeat and the rasp of my breath. It was so dark I could barely see my hand in front of my face; I shut my eyes (what was the point of keeping them open?) and breathed deeply, in vain hope of finding calm.
I had known darkness before – nights on the moon, either during ventures to the far side or before its rotation had locked to mirror the Earth, had been abyssal next to this. Leliel's mind-self (their title being, indeed, Night) surpassed all else for pitch-depth; I remembered the sense of smothering dislocation during our instances of mental contact, and this was as bright midday by comparison.
So why did I feel so lost, so helpless? Why such a sense of threat from this shadow-drowned now?
Taking human form had gifted me so much, but at the cost of vulnerability beyond any anticipation.
Behind my eyelids, inversions of vein-pulse pressure manifested as deeper lineations of nothingness. Non-shapes oozed into abstract unpresence, forming without form suggestions of inferred pattern.
Some of them coalesced into a bipedal figure, armed, winged.
- tabris. -
- Hello, Father, - I replied silently.
The hollow centre of Adam's torso, the gap that represented possibility itself, with the dark-vision was rendered a pulsing glow. There was my source, my origin and ultimate home; my one-time cocoon that could be again.
Suddenly I knew what was 'homesick'.
- they have trapped you, - said Adam, - as once they did me. -
- They do not know they have caught an Angel, else I would be dead. -
- perhaps. all possibilities are not closed to you, my child. -
I wanted to reach out to them, though I knew my hands would touch nothing. I wanted to open my eyes, though I knew I would behold nothing. I wanted to release my field and subsume into my parent, becoming one with them, though I knew – who better? – that my heart's sickness would not thereby be cured.
- i would welcome you, - said Adam, - always. you are the only remaining child of mine, since you refused armisael. - The First Angel was not capable of such pettiness as disappointment; they merely related fact.
Tears welled beneath my lids. - Armisael hurt me. They would have broken and obliviated me. -
- what is 'hurt'? -
At the last instant I conquered the reflex to blink in surprise, instead squeezing my eyes tighter shut. If I admitted the cell's dark reality I would lose this – lose them – and I wished not to be alone.
- You know what it is to 'hurt', - I reminded my parent, - as my passenger, and from your own suffering. -
Adam's wings spread umbral webs across my denied vision. - what is 'hurt', when compared to death? to ascension? to the godhood eternal, that you and armisael might have attained together? -
Breath caught in my throat. - Death or union with another, it would make no difference – even Third Impact. In each case, the individual self of Tabris, of Kaworu, would be no more. This mind, this heart, would be erased and lost. And so … if all I might do is choose how the end comes… -
I felt their wings touch my shoulders, and knew it for only pitiful illusion.
- …Then I choose to end as myself. -
Adam's deeper-than-black silhouette wavered. - 'free will', - they mused, as though they themselves had not bestowed on me the title and essence, - freedom to wilfully deny one's birthright, to turn one's back on those of one's own kind. freedom to surrender. -
A chuckle surprised its way out of me. - If you think the Lilim's way of life is 'surrender', then you have not been paying attention, my dear parent. -
- they are weak, - Adam stated, - tiny and desperate. they can only lament their incompletion, only strive vainly to connect with others. -
- Is that so different from the urge of each Angel to return to you, or to Lilith? Each of us laboured under the imperative of union with a Seed of Life, whether or not we understood why. - Memory of Armisael's invasion crawled over my skin, making me shudder. - Is Life-in-Power truly more sufficient than Knowledge-through-Learning, if all of us yet yearn to bond with another? -
- it took them four billion years to approach the possibility of complementation, of perfection. any angel could have achieved thus from the moment of your birth. -
- What are 'years', - I threw back at them, - when compared to the eternity of immortality, or of oblivion? The lifespan of worlds and stars is the metric of your creators – they understood the long germination of potential, and so they poured their will into such far-flung hopes as yourself, and as Lilith. -
- lilith… - The shadow-not-shadow of my parent richened with colours beyond the perception of human eyes or thought. - you could unite with her shard, that pale creature who embodies her lineage. you could bring me to her if you chose. you know this – you accept this, when you would not accept your own sibling. tabris, why? -
Because I love her, when I never loved any Angel.
I sat back, my head thudding against the wall. Rei, dear Rei… I had thought that with Commander Ikari's death she would be free, but she was yet beset by the selfish grooming of those who would use her for their own purposes. My only chosen sibling, I wish, I wish that I might be by your side…
Adam observed the turmoil of my mind – they had not empathy, nor compassion, but on some level they valued my happiness, if only as far as it advanced their own will. - that child is an embodied seed, - they stated, without actually trying to reassure me, - and you are yet the most potent of this world's lifeforms. you will find one another again. i see her shape in your future. -
I almost wailed aloud. - What potency do I wield? My power has been stolen – I am smothered, sundered from it. I cannot forge my fate, cannot fight for my own will. I am as the Lilim are, or less. -
- tabris my child, soul of my soul, - Adam murmured in my marrow. - you have told me that they are equal to us, have you not? -
- Yes, - I admitted. - But they embody their power, the gift of generational potential. I have neither their heritage, nor their bequest. -
- their power is in collaboration, - Adam agreed, - and that you can access. -
- How? -
- you carry me, do you not? - The black-depth of their silhouette sharpened, puissant like the heart of a galaxy. - they have stifled you, true, but they do not suspect me. when your need was dire, i answered. i will answer again, tabris, my child, my soul. -
- Father…! - I began brokenly.
Thck … thck, thck-thck, thck.
My eyes opened, and Adam receded from my sight. A sequence of taps, as though of knuckles against the wall. I had not imagined them? yes?
Thck … thck, thck-thck, thck.
Again! Real!
Wiping my eyes, I set my own knuckles to the wall.
Thck … thck, thck-thck, thck.
A pause.
Thck … thck, thck-thck, thck … thck, thck.
The pattern had grown. I copied it again.
Thck … thck, thck-thck, thck … thck, thck.
My breath was uneven as I waited.
Thck, thck-thck … thck-thck … thck-thck, thck … thck, thck, thck … thck-thck, thck … thck-thck-thck.
It took me a moment to recognise the Latin letters in Morse code, but translation was easier.
Kaworu.
Frantic, but forcing my motions to calm clarity, I answered.
Thck, thck … thck-thck … thck-thck-thck … thck-thck … thck … thck, thck, thck.
Misato.
'yes,' came the reply.
More busy tapping: 'How … you … knew … me?'
'didnt … recognise … shave … and … a … haircut.'
'Recognise … what?'
'exactly.' (Exactly what?) 'why … you … prison? what … happened?'
My head spun – where to start?
At length I composed my staccato testament:
'I … regret … nothing.'
