Unravel

by Homer's Disciple

Shinji rejected Instrumentality, but he made so many mistakes. He has one last chance to set things right, to unravel everything and save what matters. A retelling or altering of the series, an altered version of Shinji with an altered past. Life takes a different path, but do all paths lead to the same destination? Is Shinji doomed to never know happiness?

29. Unraveled

Hey guys, I'm back.
Long wait, I know. I had to move, took a summer job, life got in the way.

This is the last chapter of the memory arc. A pivotal chapter in the story. Very long.

WARNING: I suggest reading this chapter in multiple sittings.

Please, use the 'Part' labels as bookmarks as needed. Maybe take a break around Part 3.
Thank you all for your patience and understanding, I've had a lot of fun writing these chapters. Exploring the Other Timeline. But it's over, time to get back to the Current Timeline.

Chapter 29 - Unraveled.

---

Part 1: Those Whom Sold The World

The Current Timeline.
7 years ago.
Days before the contact experiment and the 'birth' of Eva Unit 01.

Yui Ikari strode into the dark meeting room with Gendo at her side.

Her husband walked anxiously with his hands held behind his back, head tilted slightly, and eyes glued to his feet. A stark contrast to the perfect and pristine Yui, warm and calm, in the face of their superiors.

"Chin up, dear. There's nothing to be nervous about," Yui whispered to Gendo.

"Yes dear," Gendo mumbled. The man took his place in the center of the meeting room.

A series of holograms came to life, projections that surrounded the couple. 12 images of large stone monoliths, along with a series of screens that hovered off the ground.

SEELE had arrived via their technology.

"Welcome, Mrs. Ikari. I take it things are progressing well."

It was Mr. Keel himself who spoke. The man's voice projected through the hologram of his monolith.

Gendo took a deep breath, gathering the proper words. Only for Yui to speak up instead.

"Things are going quite well. I plan to oversee the contact experiment personally."

Yui smiled sweetly at the projected images before her.

Gendo stuttered, once again left speechless at his wife's boldness. She spoke with some of the most powerful men in the world without hesitation.

There was a murmur of voices across the projected images, SEELE speaking privately among themselves, before Keel answered.

"You plan to oversee the experiment personally? Is that wise?" Keel asked curiously. There was little to no concern in his voice, but rather a morbid suspicion underlined by his age.

She only smiled.

"Perfectly safe," Yui lied.

Gendo, dear, it's your turn to talk, she thought. Her eyes flickered to her husband even as Gendo watched the gathered holograms before them.

Gendo Ikari stepped forward, unseen eyes watching him intently, and the quiet man flexed his hands uneasily.

Oh, poor Gendo. You really must learn to control your emotions. You're an open book to them.

Her smile faltered.

"Yui has personally seen the project through, from beginning to end. She is the best possible candidate. She and Dr. Akagi have successfully cloned an Angel," Gendo said. He got straight to the matter, no warm pleasantries as Yui would have done.

The Evangelion Units, all of them, were clones of Adam and Lilith. This marvel of human engineering and pure audacity was made possible by the DNA samples taken directly from the source, samples that SEELE had paid heavy prices for.

"I should think so. With the amount of time and money we have put into your little project, we expect nothing less. The delays have been disappointing, to say the least," another SEELE member said.

The voice protruded out through the hologram. These men and their secrecy.

"All things take time, sir. We are working with powers far above us. Beyond advance, the Angels and their creators were nearly divine in our wake," Yui said simply. She spoke calmly, and with purpose. Assuring them that the wait was worth it.

SEELE liked Yui Ikari very much.

"The Evangelion programs are needed. Have you forgotten the Katsuragi Expedition? The Evas will work as planned," Gendo cut in.

"Ah yes, the doomed expedition. So much money wasted for a sample of 'him'. Adam and his wrath, remarkable if not terrifying the power he wielded that day..." Keel said grimly.

Nearby, one of the screens hovering alongside the others holograms activated. The display of a video playback captured from the last moments of the research team at the Katsuragi Expedition. A record from the moment of Second Impact.

…

Footage of Adam's Wrath

The footage showed the flat plane of ice in the Arctic. Researchers scrambled as they dug through the frozen layers of ice, tunneling, and tunneling deep into the ground, before colliding with something that broke their drills... the air seemed to still. The researchers froze open-mouthed, and the drill workers stumbled back as their machines broke.

BOOM.

In a shower of ice and snow, an explosion from underneath them, a Giant of Light rose from its prison. The First Angel awoke after millennia of sleep, dragging its weakened and deformed body to its knees, rising slowly, it was the size of an Evangelion.

Adam.

"The Angel is hostile! The Angel is hostile!" a researcher screamed into the camera. The man's face was pale and ghost white, fear and panic taking hold as Adam rose.

The First Angel stood atop his former prison, looming over the expedition site, and raised a hand bringing it down on the researcher. Adam swung his arm into the ice in a deep arc that cut through everything in its path. Drills, trucks, construction gear, human beings, all of it was torn apart.

Yui watched unblinkingly, reviewing the footage of the Giant of Light, of Adam, rising from his slumber. Gendo flinched at the sight of it, at the deaths of so many.

"Launching the artifact! Get away! Evacuate the base!" a voice was calling. Dr. Katsuragi himself, the father of Misato, yelled in the distance. Ordering his team before heading off to save his only child.

The footage showed Adam looming menacingly over the research base. The First Angel raised his hands high, head tilted up as if in prayer, and the air itself hissed. The ground shook, the temperature changed violently, hot then cold, ice steamed off the Arctic grounds. The sky itself darkened at Adam's call...

Then the artifact flew through the air, launched by the research team in their final moments. The Spear of Longinus came to life as it tore through the harsh winds and struck Adam.

The Spear pierced through Adam's chest and exited his back, an explosion of LCL like Angel blood fell below, and the First Angel roared.

Survivors stumbled to their knees at Adam's agonized roar. Their ears bled at the monster's voice, their skin visibly burned, and shrill cold tears fell from their eyes. Those that remained ran as the First Angel bellowed. They fled in a desperate gambled that they knew would fail...

Adam was brought several feet into the air, the Spear of Longinus drove itself further into his body and pulled the Angel up with it. The artifact held the Angel's great power back even as Adam struggled for life.

The First Angel exploded leaving almost no traces of his body, as a massive wave of energy erupted in his wake. A blast that spread far beyond the base of panicked people stationed below... the air itself seemed to burn, the force of the blast moved faster than the sound of its boom. The force of the explosion broke the sound barrier.

SEELE's footage shrieked and hissed, frames deteriorating bit by bit, as Adam was defeated. Dr. Katsuragi and the team gave their lives in the process.

The blast didn't stop, it spread up into the atmosphere where its effects would be felt across the entire planet. The power of the blast grew as Adam lost more and more mass in the explosion.

HISSSSS.

The footage stopped. Too far gone to be of use. The video became a heap of static feedback followed by a blank screen.

…

"Second Impact..." Keel said at last.

SEELE murmured among themselves, unsure what to make of Adam and his wrath. Yui and Gendo stood amid them, watching their reactions as well as the footage.

Awake for less than 30 seconds... and Adam killed one-third of Earth's population. Two billion dead within a week, Yui thought. She had watched the footage without flinching even as Gendo looked away.

It had been their biggest risk, SEELE and the Ikari's putting the lives of billions at risk and gambling that they could stop Adam in time, but it had worked. The Second Impact had been a sacrifice, another step in the road to the Human Instrumentality Project.

"You believe that Adam didn't just cause Second Impact... that he called his children as well?" another SEELE member asked suddenly.

Yui beamed at the hologram, like a teacher approving a good question, and spoke.

"Yes. What data we gathered suggests as such. A kind of 'signal' that our technology can barely understand. It does fit with the writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Adam and his children. Angels three through sixteen," Yui answered sharply.

"And the Spear? Is it truly lost?" Gendo asked stepping forward again.

"It disappeared. Lost in the blast... if Yui Ikari is correct, then we do not believe it is gone. Not destroyed, only lost," another SEELE member answered.

It will be found again. However long it takes, it will respond to an Eva pilot when the time comes, Yui thought. Even now, SEELE was making plans to begin searching for the Spear once again.

"They, the other Angels, will come for their progenitor. They will come for Adam. They would revive him. For our plans to work, they cannot be allowed to do so. We must control the process, not the Angels," Gendo added simply. He steadied himself beside his wife.

"For all his power, Adam will work for us. We have his remains, his 'soul' even. We've kept him frozen for now, better to contain him just in case. When the time comes, he will do our bidding. Adam and Lilith will commence the Human Instrumentality Project, on a day of our choosing. Until then... Adam's children are a problem. I expect the Evas to do their duty. We are placing a lot of trust in the two of you," Keel said through his hologram.

Yui bowed her head respectfully.

"I foresee no issues. The Human Instrumentality Project continues as scheduled," Yui lied. Gendo stood at her side, an assistant standing firm with his superior.

"The Human Instrumentality Project continues!" the voices of SEELE boomed around them.

Then, one by one, the holograms began to disappear. The projected monoliths faded away into nothing until only husband and wife remained.

…

"You lied to them," Gendo said once they were alone.

The lights turned back on, the meeting room was illuminated, and Yui tilted her head at her husband.

"Did I?" Yui asked with a raised eyebrow.

Gendo shifted uncomfortably. The tall older man seemed to shrink before his wife's gaze.

"It's not safe. Yui... my love, don't do this. Let someone else. We don't know how the Evas work... not truly. They're artificial Angels. They don't have Angel Cores, they have Entry Plugs. We've never tried piloting. It should be someone else," Gendo said.

The man stepped forward to take Yui's hands. Pleading with her to stop this madness.

Oh, Gendo. You are far smarter than SEELE realizes. And oddly sweet, in your own way, Yui thought.

"Everything will be fine. Don't worry, dear," Yui said, patting Gendo's hand with her own.

Before her husband could protest, Yui took his hand in hers and walked off with him outside the meeting room.

The two emerged onto their research base, generously provided by Mr. Keel himself, and walked along the underground tunnels. A wall of thick safety glass revealed an un-armored Eva Unit 01.

A clone of Lilith, Unit 01 sat with its skin nearly completed, exposed muscle visible in the sterile environment on the other side, and a network of tubes protruded from its back that provided life support to the ever-growing Evangelion.

The clone lay like a baby that would be born as an adult. Yui's greatest creation... the Eva.

Dr. Naoko Akagi, the mother of Ritsuko, was there. The woman stood on the other side of the safety glass, clipboard in hand, going over their calculations again.

Always the hard worker, Yui thought. She tapped the safety glass as she and Gendo passed by.

Naoko looked up and nodded her goodbye to them. Her eyes lingered on Gendo as the two left.

…

Daycare.

"There's my Shinji," Yui said beaming.

She reached down taking the 7-year-old boy into her arms. Gendo signed the papers for their son's release.

The daycare was a little thing. A one-story building with few occupants, less than twenty kids. She often worried about her son. Shinji never got along with the other kids, even now, he stood apart from the others.

"Mom. Can we go home now?" Shinji mumbled softly. The boy spoke under his breath, avoiding the other kids.

So much like his father. He never plays with the other children. So alone. Ah, Shinji... I have such plans for you. You will be the key. Oh, my boy... you have a hard road ahead, Yui thought.

"Of course. Are you hungry, dear? I'll make us some dinner," Yui said sweetly, pushing her thoughts aside.

It would be years before her son became an Eva pilot. Something Yui neglected to tell her husband, better that way. She knew how Gendo could be... the man would not have approved.

"Thanks, mom," Shinji said hugging Yui close.

---

Part 2: The First Angel

The Other Timeline.
Memories of the Original Shinji Ikari.
40 years after Third Impact.

Adam did not hide from them. Did not flee or cower in fear. The First Angel simply waited for them to come. He had hunted them for ten years, bringing about the end of mankind in the process, and at last, they came to him.

The First Angel stood perched atop a mountain in the barren and frozen landscapes. The outskirts of what had once been a thriving megacity. All of it was gone, barely a hint that humanity had even existed.

Do you feel him? The strength he wields… Lilith whispered into Shinji's mind. The Second Angel stood perched atop the Eva's shoulders.

Shinji closed his eyes, reaching out with his Angel senses, and he found it. The mark of the First Angel, Adam did not hide.

I can… like looking into the heart of a dying star... Shinji thought. His hands shook at the sensation. The sheer power that radiated off Adam.

Eva Unit 01 gripped the Spear of Longinus tighter.

Yui stirred uncomfortably from within the confines of the Eva. She shuddered from within the Other Place where her soul had a physical form.

"Mom, calm down. You're lowering our sync rate," Shinji said softly.

…

Yui tilted her head at that, nodding slowly.

For 40 years she had avoided this, avoided the possibility of Adam or Lilith returning. The chance that both of them could come back from Third Impact, and now here she was. Face to face with the two most powerful Angels to ever exist. Fighting alongside one to kill the other.

…

Above them, the First Angel glared down at them. The Giant of Light stood completely healed now.

He raised his hands high, as if in prayer, then clenched his fists. The air hissed. The wind roared as it materialized into the atmosphere.

The ground frosted over, particles in the air froze, and layers of snow and ice began to take hold over Unit 01's plate armor. Adam could change the weather at will, could bend the climate in any way he wished, and it was by far the scariest thing any Angel had ever done.

It was what had killed mankind in the end.

…

"Use the Spear. Use it now," Yui pleaded. Her skin crawled even from within the relative safety of her Eva body.

…

No. It's what Adam wants. If you throw the Spear he will drive it off… do not throw, Lilith said. The hurricane winds grew stronger even as she spoke.

Eva Unit 01 stood still and uneasy, Spear of Longinus held up defensively, as the world around them was enveloped in darkness.

The Sun hid its face from them, the winds ripping past them so fast that the Eva could barely see. The light vanished from their eyes, slowly, bit by bit, and in seconds the world had been cast in darkness and the cold.

A blizzard of biblical proportions. Adam took their visibility away from them.

…

"Shinji. Throw the Spear," Yui called pleadingly.

Horrible images flashed by in her mind's eye, memories of the Second Impact. Yui could remember images of the two billion dead, of the wrath of the First Angel. And that had been a wide attack on mankind, 'this' was focused on only the three of them.

…

From within the Entry Plug of Eva Unit 01, Shinji narrowed his eyes. He listened carefully to the two women before holding his ground.

"Adam isn't there anymore," Shinji said slowly. He considered things, what would he do if he was their foe?

True enough, the Giant of Light was missing. The lone figure was no longer perched above them.

Adam wasn't foolish. Their enemy knew that Shinji held the Spear of Longinus, the weapon designed to kill Angels, built by their creators.

Lilith rose from Unit 01's shoulder. She flew up into the air and spread her dark featherless wings, a shadowy figure in the blizzard around them. Then, in an explosion of light… Lilith's small frame disappeared, no longer the spitting image of a 26-year-old Rei.

No longer human-sized, no longer the enigmatic Woman in the Dark. Lilith's true form was revealed… another Giant. Similar to Adam, but thinner, smaller, and radiating shadows that danced off her body.

A polar opposite to the First Angel. A Giant in the Dark.

…

"Fascinating," Yui murmured to herself. She watched Lilith peel back the form she had taken for years now, showing her true features at long last.

The Second Angel.

…

Lilith stood beside Unit 01, the two titans holding their ground, and spread her dark wings.

They held their vigil alone in the blizzard, unable to see anything a few feet from them, the sun itself robbed from them. Surrounded by darkness and ice.

"Mother! Get ready, something's coming!" Shinji called out harshly. His Angel senses went haywire as he suddenly felt a cold shiver running down his spine. A kind of 'radar' for Angels.

Shinji brandished the Spear of Longinus just as a third figure materialized amid the blizzard with them, another Giant rushing after them.

Lilith flickered and she moved at incredible speeds.

The Second Angel caught the intruder by the throat, yanking the creature up and throwing it to Shinji and Unit 01.

Shinji stabbed the monster with the Spear. He lifted the red metal up and pierced the Giant through the torso, lifting the 'thing' up into what little light was visible in the blizzard.

"That's not Adam," Shinji said slowly, in disbelief… as a strange white Evangelion glared back down at him.

The White Eva had no eyes, only a long wide mouth with razor-sharp teeth. It hissed as Shinji held it up impaled by the Spear.

A Mass Production Eva… SEELE's weapon against Nerv. How? That's impossible! Asuka fought them and they died after the Impact.

The ghostly MP Eva struggled, reaching deformed hands down, trying to grapple with Shinji and Yui. The creature seemingly confused as to why it was not healing, why it had been wounded so easily, a flicker of fear visible in its frantic movements.

It lay dying impaled on the Spear, the one weapon that negated Angel and Eva powers, that could destroy AT Fields and even stop an Angel's regenerative abilities.

Adam. He resurrected them. He cannot create more Angels, but he could bring these horrors back, Lilith whispered into their minds.

"These things were a nightmare the first time," Shinji said sternly. Wielding the Spear again, he brought the MP Eva down to the ground with a heavy thud, before stomping on the monster's faceplate with such force that its head was crushed.

CRUNCH.

The MP Eva died for the second time.

Shinji pulled the Spear free, mesmerized by the strange blood leaking out from the ghost-white Eva. Adam's blood… the First Angel had put pieces of himself into the corpses of the MP Evas, bringing them back and putting them under his control.

How many did Adam bring back? Shinji and Yui thought gravely. It reminded them of years ago, when Shinji had been 14-years old and piloting. When the two of them had faced the strange Angels, Adam's Children, head-on.

They were not happy memories.

BOOM.

Light flashed and thunder roared out, the bolt moving faster than the speed of sound, as Lilith was struck by lightning.

Shinji snapped his attention back to her, Spear of Longinus at the ready, as Lilith stumbled back. Smoke steamed off her pale white skin as she recovered from the burns.

"AT Field," Yui called to her son. Shinji nodded, raising his Eva's free hand up. With a low roar, the shield erupted into existence. A brilliant collage of colors formed around Unit 01. A split-second later lightning struck them.

The bolt slammed into the shield and rippled around the field, arcing in all directions away from Unit 01. Shinji grunted from the effort. Lightning inside a blizzard? What madness was that?

Lilith flickered in and out of existence, moving so fast that he could barely keep up. Lightning struck around both of them, the bolts arcing around the land, but never scoring another hit. Adam tested their defenses.

"Shinji, we can't stay here," Yui said, calling to him from inside the Eva.

"I know… Adam won't come. He knows we have the Spear," Shinji said bitterly. He was worried for Lilith's safety whilst he stood protected by his AT Field.

The Second Angel flickered into existence beside him and raised an AT Field of her own. Eva Unit 01 and Lilith stood back to back, covering each other with their AT Fields. The two Shields hummed from within the blizzard. A dual ember in a sea of blackened wastelands.

"Your plan was to try and draw Adam out? To take him out fast with the Spear?" Yui called from inside the Eva. Her soul shifted uncomfortably as the three of them stood freezing amid Adam's winter.

"No plan survives first contact with the enemy," Shinji muttered to himself. Something Kay had once mentioned to him, an old military saying.

Beloved, we cannot stay here, Lilith called to him.

The Blizzard roared harshly around them. Layers of ice emerged on Unit 01's plate armor, the Spear of Longinus held surprisingly resistant to the cold. Shinji noticed to his surprise that the Spear was flawless, no dents or wear and tear, no signs of damage whatsoever, and immune to any and all temperature effects. The ancient weapon was almost alive, rejecting Adam's wrath with a steady calm.

Something came rushing past them, another silhouette in the dark, slamming into Shinji's AT Field with a heavy thud.

Shinji grunted, holding his ground as Yui did the same. Unit 01 stumbled but did not fall as the MP Eva ran off into the dark.

Lilith did the same. The Second Angel held off another MP Eva that came rushing past them and slammed into her AT Field before the creature ran off into the darkness again. Adam's servants seemed to be plotting 'hit and run' attacks from within the blizzard surrounding them.

Shinji closed his eyes, reaching out with his Angel senses, and found them... Adam and the MP Evas. Three resurrected monsters, and the First Angel trapping them within the blizzard.

"There's three of them. The MP Evas."

Shinji opened his eyes again. He had found the 'mental presence' of the resurrected Evas. They were like zombies, mere thralls with little thought of their own. Adam commanded, and his puppets followed.

…

Then we fly, Lilith said.

The Second Angel lowered her AT Field, spread her dark wings, and flew off high into the air. She slipped past the freezing air and the monsters hiding within.

"Mom, you know what to do," Shinji said reaching into himself, bringing forth his Angel powers to better control the Eva.

Wings of Light materialized on Unit 01's back, Yui's secret power kept hidden until the Third Impact when she had flown the Eva into the atmosphere.

Sync ratio 170% Shinji observed, glancing at his old display.

Together, Yui and Shinji dropped the AT Field and flew into the air after Lilith. The Spear of Longinus clutched tightly in 01's hand as they left the darkness behind.

Lilith and Eva Unit 01 hovered above the blizzard, watching the scene below in a mixture of awe and terror. A massive white cyclone of snow with layers of ice covering the barren landscape below.

WHOOSH.

A brilliantly bright beam came rushing through the blizzard below, tearing through the wind and leaving singed air in its wake... striking Lilith head-on. An energy blast that scored a direct hit.

The Second Angel stumbled back with a cry and fell through the air.

"Lilith!" Shinji called out, his old voice harsh and rough even now.

Eva Unit 01 caught Lilith by the arm. Shinji and Yui held the Second Angel up. The two of them steadying themselves carefully as they hovered thousands of feet up in the air.

No, beloved, look out! Lilith called out.

Then Shinji was shot.

Eva Unit 01 stumbled back as they were hit by the same beam that had struck Lilith.

Adam rose from the blizzard below. The Giant of Light soared up with wings of his own, the resurrected MP Evas drifting behind him. The Angel's brilliantly bright eyes steamed from the energy discharged. The sight was a haunting image from their worst nightmares.

As the First Angel rose, the cold went with him, wild harsh wind rising alongside the Giant of Light. Particles in the air froze over. The ghost-white MP Evas flashed their deadly teeth as they hovered beside their new master.

Shinji grunted, his chest burned him via the Eva's phantom sensations, and he fought to regain control. Unit 01 stretched its Wings and steadied to slowly hover mid-air.

Lilith hovered beside him, the Giant in the Dark watching warily as their foes came to them.

Unit 01 lifted the Spear of Longinus up, a warning message to Adam. 'Come and face me', Shinji welcomed the First Angel in an open fight.

Adam did not respond.

Instead, the MP Evas flew through the air. Ghostly white monstrosities, eyeless, with wide mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth. Beastly Angels they were.

Bastard. He won't come... not so long as I hold the Spear, Shinji thought grimly.

"He remembers, Shinji. Adam knows what stopped him the first time. Second Impact," Yui called to him from the Eva.

"Lilith. We need a new plan," Shinji called, his Angel senses reached out for his companion.

Beloved. I will draw Adam away. Destroy the MP Evas and then find me.

"What? No. You told me that he was stronger than you-" Shinji began, only for Lilith to ignore him.

The Second Angel flickered in and out of existence as she moved at tremendous speeds.

BOOM.

Adam fired a shot, a beam of pure energy that came rushing out of his eyes, directly at Unit 01. Shinji recognized it, Adam was using the energy beam that Zeruel had used.

Unit 01 raised a hand, and an AT Field erupting into existence. A split-second later and Shinji felt the force of a moving truck collide into him.

CLANG.

The AT Field shattered... destroyed with a single shot as Adam came for them. Unit 01 was sent reeling back, Shinji and Yui barely managed to hold the Spear at all.

"Fight me. Not him," Lilith called to Adam.

The Giant of Light tilted his head at her.

The MP Evas flew off for Unit 01, leaving the two 'pure' Angels to face off.

Another energy blast flew through the air, a purple beam of light that scorched the wind itself, striking out moments before Lilith span mid-free fall. Lilith dodged the attack even as she made for Adam.

"It is our fate. To meet this way. Again and again. Today it ends... brother," Lilith spoke to Adam. The sorrow of untold millennia in her voice.

The two Giants stared each other down. Raw power radiated off both of them. As if the stars themselves were racing for a battle.

Shinji cursed and made to fly after them, willing the Eva's Wings of Light to move. But Yui stopped him, his mother resisted him as his sync ratio fell...

Mother! Let me go! Shinji thought bitterly.

"No. Adam is too strong. You have to-" Yui began.

SCREECH.

The MP Evas roared, and the ghostly white creatures flew through the sky for Unit 01.

"You're going to pay for what you did to Asuka-" Shinji began, glaring at the monsters coming for him.

When suddenly, Adam tilted his head reaching a hand out palm up, as something 'unseen' shot forth. A pulse of raw mental energy, a probe, that struck Eva Unit 01.

Shinji froze... unable to move from inside the entry plug of the Eva. The world was undone before his eyes.

He was both inside the Eva, and somewhere else at the same time, his mind went haywire as he felt Adam's mental strike reaching deep into his memories.

"Ahh!" Shinji grunted, nearly screaming. The old man closed his eyes tight. His mind was bleeding, Adam reached inside and tugged on his deepest most traumatic memories.

Just like Asuka. Arael, the Fifteenth Angel, had done something similar to the German girl when they were all 14 and piloting. Asuka had tried to engage the Angel, and had been hit by a mental attack so powerful that it had nearly broken her. The nightmare had ripped into her mind, forcing her to relieve the worst moments in her life, forced her to face the most traumatic memories she had buried long ago.

Now... it was Shinji's turn. Adam attacked his mind.

"Shinji! Shinji! We need to run-" Yui was calling. Eva Unit 01 struggled to move as its pilot was left wounded and dazed with the MP Evas fast approaching.

But Shinji could barely hear his mother, he was screaming silently, having fallen from his seat he knelt with his head in his hands. He pulled on his feral unwashed hair so hard that he thought he would rip it from his scalp.

"WHY DO YOU CRY, SHINJI IKARI? THIS IS THE WORLD YOU CHOSE. EVERYTHING THAT HAS HAPPENED WAS BECAUSE OF YOU. I LIVE BECAUSE YOU FAILED. ALL THE BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS... DROWN IN IT." - Adam to Shinji.

The language of the Angels was not a vocal one, but mental. And Adam's voice was like an explosion of a star being born, a point-blank blast into Shinji's mind. Loud and booming, it made Shinji's ears bleed.

Adam's MP Evas crashed into Unit 01 mid-air, and Yui was left struggling to hold them together. The white Evas bit and clawed into the massive machine. Unit 01 dropped the Spear of Longinus, and the MP Evas yanked the Evangelion from the sky.

Shinji and Yui stood at the mercy of the MP Evas, the three of them crashed down to the ground with a heavy thud. The Spear landed elsewhere. They had lost the only thing that could stop Adam.

…

The First Angel smirked, moments before Lilith slammed into him.

"LEAVE HIM ALONE. Your fight is with me. Not him, me!" Lilith screamed, like the shriek of a banshee.

The Second Angel drove her hands across Adam's face, tearing into his eyes, Angel blood wept free as Adam lost his eyes.

Adam had crippled Shinji and Unit 01, but it had left the First Angel open to attack. An opening that Lilith had seized on, Adam was paying the price for his mental attack on Shinji.

Husband! Fight him! It is only your mind! Fight him! Lilith called to the old man in the fallen Eva. Her mind reached out to him pleadingly and found no answer.

Adam roared, Lilith's fingers digging deep into his eyes, and the two Giants span through the air. The First and Second Angels thrashed against each other in a whirlwind of movements, like two gods in the ancient paintings of man.

"Let him go!" Lilith cried, fighting her 'brother' with all her might.

Lilith sank her fingers deeper into Adam's eyes, the Angel blood dripped down into the palm of her hands.

In response, the First Angel yanked the Second free of him, now blinded, Adam reached a hand around her throat.

Adam squeezed and pulled, trying to rip Lilith's head from her body.

The Second Angel brought a hand to the First's face, and an unseen force struck him. Adam was forced back, yet never lost his grip on Lilith.

…

Back with Eva Unit 01.

The Evangelion landed with an explosion of upturned gravel, barren wastelands that were broken by the massive creatures crashing down upon it.

The MP Evas bit and clawed their way inside the Eva, cutting around and through the old plate armor. Unit 01 struggled to even move under their weight, razor-sharp teeth bit down on the Evangelion and drew blood.

"Shinji! Shinji! You have to get up!" Yui was shouting to him.

Yui Ikari took control of the Eva, struggling against the attackers that surrounded them in a pit of violence, but the Eva was pinned and vulnerable.

Husband! Fight him! It is only your mind! Fight him! Lilith's voice called to Shinji. His teacher called to him amid the torture and agony that he was his head.

Shinji lay screaming silently inside the entry plug. His head was killing him, the worst moments of life ripping at him. Adam's mind reached inside his 'mortal' head and tore at the old man from the inside.

---

Nightmares:

Misato was sending him up to his Eva the day the world ended, bleeding from an unseen bullet wound...

A middle-aged Asuka lay in the field where she'd been shot... Akane... Mari... the image of so many dead glared down at Shinji.

"Not real... not real..." Shinji hissed. So many ghosts that haunted him, coming to life within his mind's eye. Taunting him. Hating him. Attacking him. Calling from him to join them in their suffering.

"You let me die..." the voice of a once loving daughter, distant and cold.

I'm sorry... I tried-

"You left me. You just walked away," Mari's voice called to him. Her eyes were hollow and dead, a mother who had lost her son and then her lover. Abandoned and later killed at Haven.

"I never wanted to hurt you!" Shinji shouted back. He foamed at the mouth, clutching his chest, unable to stand at the sheer weight of it all.

"Goodbye," the memory of his mother, Yui Ikari, leaving him behind. He saw the memory playing in the back of his mind, his mother taking the Eva with her as she departed Earth. Left a 14-year-old Shinji alone...

Shinji screamed again.

A figure emerged over him.

The eerie image of his father loomed above him. Gendo Ikari looked down at him with cold mocking eyes, taunting him from beyond the grave. A reminder of everything that had happened.

"Who are you to have ever judged me?"

Old Shinji flinched, shrinking before the ghostly vision of Gendo Ikari.

"Stupid boy. Always running away. Useless. A failure to the very end," his father said.

The gathered dead, ghosts from his past, summoned by Adam to terrorize Shinji, trampled the old man. The specters formed a pit of agony around the broken Shinji, and his knees buckled under their weight.

He could barely breathe. Shinji lay suffocating under the phantoms that haunted him. The pain dog-piled over him. He lay lost in a hell of his own mind, an attack that cut deeper than anything physical.

---

In a span of minutes, Adam had shown that he could use the powers of his children, the other Angels. He had resurrected the MP Evas to serve him, had divided Lilith and Eva Unit 01, had stripped them of the Spear of Longinus, and had crippled Shinji.

Adam, the most powerful Angel.

…

Eva Unit 01 punched outward, slamming a fist into the MP Eva that was clawing its way past the plate armor. Yui Ikari did her best to hold off the three monsters that had pinned them down.

Her son was useless to her now. Unable to even stand against Adam's might, the mental torture that had nearly killed Asuka a lifetime ago.

"Pain is a part of life. If you never learn to move past it, you will never accomplish anything," Shinji hissed to himself. The words came slowly, each emerging from his clenched teeth alongside a haggard pant.

The memory of Asuka and her words flashed by his mind. During the 135 days he had spent with her, the two of them, a pair of teenagers in an empty battered world, she had told him as such. It was a lesson that had never faded.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Shinji planted his hands on the floor of the Entry Plug. Unit 01 shook as the MP Evas clawed and bit at them, leaving them unsteady.

The images wouldn't fade, the faces that haunted him. Adam ripped and tore at him from the inside, using Shinji's own memories and guilt against him.

"I know... I know that I failed. I know what I am," Shinji rasped, pushing past the agony no matter how much Adam pulled.

That was the key, Shinji knew what he was. He knew who he was. He accepted it and let himself breathe in the agony, the truth hurt but it was nothing to shy away from.

Shinji rose with his hands raised, head tilted up as if in prayer, and reached out with his Angel powers to find Adam.

…

The First Angel fought furiously with the Second.

Adam and Lilith crash-landed on the wastelands below. Lilith was faster, but Adam was stronger. Both of them constantly healed themselves, regenerating, but it wasn't enough. Adam was too strong.

The earth shook as their fists met. An explosion of force erupted out as Lilith stumbled and Adam held his ground, eyes bleeding. Lilith cried out as her arm was broken.

SNAP.

All the while, Adam never once dropped his mental attack on Shinji or his control of the MP Evas. The First Angel fought all three of them, Lilith, Shinji, and Unit 01 at the same time.

...

Far away, Shinji stood his ground within the Entry Plug.

"Stay out of my head," Shinji hissed. He reached out with his own broken and bleeding mind, using the bond all Angels shared, to meet Adam's mental attack with one of his own.

Distantly, Adam laughed.

Shinji's mind reached out to the mental probe that ripped and tore at him, plaguing him with the worst experiences of his life played on repeat.

His body felt like it weighed a million tons, his ears were bleeding, his muscles ached, and they just wouldn't stop. The haunting faces of everyone who had died, surrounded him, blaming him, cursing his name.

"You let us die!" they called. Misato, Ritsuko, Kaji, Asuka, Rei, his children, Mari, and countless others.

"Stay the hell out of my head!" Shinji roared, and he broke the mental probe in his head. The man pushed the probe out and ripped it apart. He overpowered Adam's mental attack with sheer willpower.

…

Adam flinched at the process.

The First Angel stumbled back at the ache within its head. What?! That should not be possible! A human, a Lilin, fighting back?! Pushing him out?! No mere man could overpower the mind of an Angel... yet one had.

This 'Shinji Ikari' is an abomination. One that needs to be dealt with, Adam thought.

Lilith took the opening to attack, launching forward as Adam recovered, striking the Giant of Light on his torso. She cut deep into Adam's chest whilst the First Angel roared in pain.

…

Shinji breathed and the images vanished, the ghosts that haunted him disappeared, banished. He found himself free of Adam's mental torture.

"I'm back. Mom! I have a plan!" Shinji shouted. He took his place in the cockpit again, piloting once more even as the monsters above raged against them.

…

Three ghost-white MP Evas pinned Unit 01. They held the massive machine down by its limbs, the MP Evas tearing pieces of plate armor off and biting at the flesh underneath.

Yui screamed as these monsters ate pieces of her new body.

The phantom sensations of the Eva brought the pain to Shinji too. He could feel the monstrous Evas ripping into 01 as if they were ripping into his own skin. He could feel the teeth digging deeper and deeper into his arms and stomach. Could feel the weight of three bodies atop his own, the clawing at his chest, the cracks along his skin were he was 'bleeding'.

Not my wounds. The Eva's, Shinji thought, grunting slightly.

Shinji raised the Eva's fist. He punched one of the monsters across the jaw.

The MP Eva snarled at him, sickening saliva flew everywhere before the monster gagged as Shinji brought Unit 01's hand into the monster's mouth.

"What are you doing?!" Yui cried to him. Fear and pain creeping into her voice, struggling with the 'pit' of monsters atop Unit 01.

The MP Eva closed its mouth around Unit 01's hand. It snarled at him, razor-sharp teeth digging deep into the Eva's wrist.

"This," Shinji whispered.

An AT Field erupted into existence, appearing from Unit 01's open palm. The brilliant multicolored lights formed a solid shield... one that materialized from inside the MP Eva's mouth.

With a sickening sizzle of burnt air, a splatter of LCL like blood, the MP Eva's mouth came undone. The monster's head slid apart as if sliced diagonally across, and Shinji's AT Field decapitated the monster from the inside.

The MP Eva slumped over, half its face missing, the ghostly white monster twitched and jerked as its body fell with a heavy thud.

BANG.

Shinji brought the Eva's hand across his torso, slamming the edge of his AT Field into the head of another MP Eva, using the shield as a battering ram to force the monsters off of his Eva.

With a quiet shout, Shinji brought the AT Field down upon the third monster pinning him down. The blow sent the creature stumbling back.

"You did it," Yui said, panting heavily as she recovered.

Shinji and Unit 01 rose.

CLANG.

An MP Eva, having recovered from Shinji's 'battering ram', tackled 01 from behind, the collision of metal echoed through the wastelands.

With an abominable shriek, the MP Eva locked its teeth around 01's neck. Trying to bite and tear its way into the Entry Plug. The AT Field started falling apart... fading in the wake of the attack.

Shinji glanced behind him and was met with the sight of the bay doors bending, followed by the screech of structural damage. The sound of metal being crushed rang in his ears as the MP Eva brought its teeth closer and closer to his seat. Death came for him inside the cockpit. The Entry Plug itself was in danger of being ripped out and swallowed.

01 brought its hands back to throttle the MP Eva biting the back of its neck, Shinji and Yui grabbed the monster by its throat and yanked hard.

With one monster free, another tackled them.

Unit 01 slid back as two of the MP Evas were on them. Two pairs of razor-sharp teeth bit down, piercing deep into the plate armor, and brought the Evangelion to its knees. Claws scratched at 01's chest, the shrill screams of metal being scraped, and still, Shinji did not fall.

Shinji Ikari and his Eva stood their ground from a kneeling position, holding their vigil and refusing to be brought down even as the would-be Angels raged against them.

Just like Asuka... these things were tough as hell, Shinji thought bitterly. He remembered his 'sister' and Unit 02 struggling against SEELE's abominations before her original death, remembered how Asuka had been nearly overpowered multiple times, yet the German girl had never yielded. She had fought to her last breath on the day of the Impact...

Old Shinji yelled, his muscles ached as he pushed them against their will, Unit 01 responded in kind. The Evangelion Unit lifted the two MP Evas, the monsters clinging to the plate armor, teeth embedded deep, only for Shinji to throw them off!

He yanked the monsters and their fangs from Unit 01's body and tossed them aside.

THUD.

THUD.

The MP Evas crashed into the ground with enough force to level stone, the roar of the impact echoed throughout the land. Eva Unit 01 stood tall once again, and with it, Shinji Ikari.

Yui Ikari marveled at it. At the sheer will that her son displayed. Pushing past the phantom sensations of the Eva, pushing past the aches in his muscles, the cracks along his bone, pushing past it all. The man was driven to an inhuman degree.

Shinji ignored the injuries around his Eva's chest and shoulders, turning instead to the MP Eva he'd nearly beheaded with his AT Field.

The monster was recovering, healing itself slowly. Strange flesh twisted and turned, reaching out and coiling around itself as it expanded, slowly re-stitching itself back together piece by piece. SEELE's worst creations were incredibly hard to kill. They healed.

Shinji rushed to the healing MP Eva, he had to be fast. The nearly headless ghost-white Eva twitched as it tried to stand, aware of its foe coming forward, and Shinji raised an AT Field for the second time.

BASH.

Shinji brought the AT Field down on the recovering creature's neck, using the Shield to slice through the white armored flesh. Shinji brought the AT Field into the monster's body, again and again, cutting his way through its torso.

"What are you-" Yui began.

"S2 Engine. No power, no healing," Shinji answered sharply.

Unit 01 dug a hand inside the headless MP Eva, reaching past the monster's internal organs for the only thing that mattered. The S2 Engine, the nearly limitless source of power that fueled the creature.

With a sickening splatter of white blood, Shinji pulled the S2 Engine from the monster's chest, literally yanking it out in a rush of steam and discharged energy.

Yui flinched at the burning in the Eva's hand, but Shinji barely noticed it. The headless monster slumped to the ground, powerless and unable to heal, 'dead' for all intents and purposes.

01 dropped the S2 engine to the ground, letting the steam brush off its hand.

One down, two to go, Shinji thought. His eyes were wild and wary, on the lookout and never once did he lower his guard.

"We need the Spear. Mom, fly me up and I'll find it," Shinji said, his voice harsh and raw. Quiet yet forceful, a fierceness that she didn't know he had. He wasn't the little boy that Yui remembered him to be.

Wings of Light emerged from Unit 01's back, and Yui did her part. Evangelion Unit 01 rose into the air. It soared higher and higher, whilst the two surviving MP Evas recovered.

The ghost-white monstrosities rose from their wounds like undead nightmares, foul beasts that resisted death at every turn, and together they came for Shinji and Yui.

Shinji reached out with his Angel senses, ignoring Yui's panic at the remaining MP Evas, he would deal with Adam's servants soon enough. He reached out, feeling for the Spear of Longinus.

The Spear was almost alive, it responded to Shinji once again. All these years and his connection to it had never been cut. The strange metallic red staff stirred...

"You found it," Yui said in disbelief.

Shinji opened his eyes, reaching for his controls in the Entry Plug, and sent 01 flying up into the air at full speed. The Eva's wings of light appeared as jagged lines, streaks of light reaching for the sky.

"They're coming for us!" Yui called to her son, glancing down with the Eva's eyes to see the MP Evas flying up after them. Like something out of a nightmare, twin white dragons coming for a lone knight.

Shinji brought Unit 01's hand out, stretching out with his Angel senses.

Suddenly, the Spear of Longinus flew through the air. The weapon emerged from where it had fallen, screaming up at them as it came to the one who had called it. The Spear zipped past the MP Evas and straight into Unit 01's hand.

SNATCH.

Now! Shinji thought.

Eva Unit 01 span mid-air, dive-bombing the MP Evas with the Spear in hand.

Shinji and his Eva went into free fall, rushing down below whilst the MP Evas flew up to him. The three came to a brawl in mid-air, Unit 01 fell upon them.

Before the monsters could scream, Shinji brought the blade of the Spear, the very tip of the red alien metal, down on them.

Shinji decapitated one through the chest, and the other he beheaded, all in a flurry of movement. The act was not graceful, not elegant, but with raw pain and willpower pushing him forward. The fury of a once kind man.

The resurrected MP Evas, Adam's servants in this final battle, died not with a roar but with a whimper. The Spear of Longinus canceled out the Angel's healing process, cutting their very 'souls' apart and putting an end to them once and for all.

"That was for Asuka," Shinji whispered. The memories of his sister bleeding out, bruised and bloodied, from her fight with the monsters so long ago, was fresh in his mind. The damage to Asuka's legs that had persisted even after she'd been brought back from Third Impact.

Unit 01 swerved moments before they would have crash-landed into the ground, breaking the dive bomb now that the MP Evas were dead. Yui panted at the sensation, staring at her son yet again. At what he was becoming.

At what ten years of training with Lilith had done.

---

Shinji flew the Eva through the air, searching for Lilith and Adam. He reached out with his new senses, looking for the two oldest Angels in existence.

They were not hard to find.

It was like something nightmares trembled from. A ghastly taint upon the earth itself, it was unreal, not just barren and lifeless, but completely dead and faded. A patch of land far far away, a streak of burnt ground and collapsed trees, buildings, and even mountains that had been torn apart... all of it leading to a single stretch of flattened earth.

Two God-like beings battled, like ancient painting depicting the myths of old, a Giant of Light vs a Giant in the Dark. Adam vs Lilith... and Lilith was losing.

The First Angel loomed over the Second, two AT Blades extending from his fists. A unique power that only Adam seemed to have, the First Angel brought both blades down upon a massive AT Field created by Lilith.

Lilith was missing an arm and Adam had lost an eye. Both were healing, both extraordinary hard to kill. Yet slowly, ever so slowly, Adam was winning. The First of his kind was more powerful than his 'sister'.

"Lilith! I'm coming!" Shinji shouted, his voice hoarse and raw as if she could hear him. But Yui did, his mother trembled from within the Other Place, she cowered at the sight of the First and Second Angels.

Unit 01 shot through the sky like a bullet. Shinji and his Eva broke the sound barrier, a sonic boom erupted in their wake.

Hold on Lilith. Just hold on, Shinji thought.

Lilith's shield broke, the Giant in the Dark fell to her knees from the force of the blow. Adam raised a single AT Blade for a beheading strike...

Shinji raised the Spear of Longinus. The red metal seemed to vibrate in anticipation, almost alive it longed for its target. The Spear had been forged to stop Angels by the ones who created them.

Do not throw. If we lose the Spear we lose the war, Lilith's words echoed in Shinji's mind.

Eva Unit 01 came slamming down atop the Adam, Spear of Longinus aimed straight for the God-like being's back. Shinji gritted his teeth, aiming for a stab through the back of the heart.

It failed.

Moving at a speed that rivaled Lilith's, Adam turned mid-strike, and the First Angel brought an AT Blade to Unit 01's shoulder. Adam's other hand caught the Spear of Longinus by the shaft, by the long cylindrical metal between the hilt and the blade.

CLANG.

The force of the blow met its match, a collision of g-forces that caused violent redirection.

Shinji buckled, the wind was knocked out of him and his ribs cracked from the blowback. Yui groaned as 01 slammed into Adam at a speed that had broken the sound barrier, yet Adam did not falter.

The Giant of Light did not even stumble. Adam took their assault point-blank and tanked it. The Spear lay held between them both. The tip of the blade was inches from Adam's heart.

"Gah! Screw you!" Shinji shouted through blood-stained teeth.

He shrugged off his wounds and fought to push the Spear forward. So close, so close! Shinji thought enraged.

Adam held them back. A single fist enclosed around the Spear's shaft alongside Unit 01's.

There was a burning sensation in his shoulder, Adam's AT Blade cut deeper and deeper into Unit 01's shoulder. The Spear formed an awkward brace that kept Adam from cutting 01's arm off completely.

Adam smirked coldly at him, mocking him as he failed.

Lilith came forward, wounded and weary, flickering with her speed as she came for Adam... only to gasp as the First Angel dropped his AT Blade and caught the Second Angel by the throat.

Shinji hissed as the burning in his shoulder vanished, replaced by a cold sting, and 01's shoulder bled out. Long and deep gashes emerged along the Eva's arm where it had been hit.

...

"He's too strong... we're going to die here," Yui mumbled to herself. Pure, unadulterated, fear caught in her throat. An emotion she had not felt in over 40 years. The scientist shook from inside the Other Place, from inside the Eva and its core.

Frantically, she tried to help Shinji. She put everything she had to help her son push the Spear forward, and they failed again.

Adam was stronger than them.

...

The First Angel stood, one hand around Lilith's throat, the other holding the Spear of Longinus back.

Wings of Light emerged on Adam's back, and the Angel rose into the sky bringing both 01 and Lilith with him as they struggled to fight. Unit 01 and Lilith were held captive in the Giant's grip.

Ah! Can't let go of the Spear... can't... it's our only chance, Shinji thought.

"He'll kill us even with the Spear..." Yui whispered, panic overtaking her even as she spoke.

Adam's eyes, bloodied and battered, lit up and a blast of energy shot out. Adam used the power of Zeruel once again.

BOOM.

Lilith was hit at point-blank range, unable to move, unable to escape Adam's hand around her throat.

Ahhhhhhh! Lilith screamed, her skin was burning, her bones were cracking, and in Shinji's mind, he could hear the remains of Rei inside. The piece of his wife that was buried deep in the collective consciousness that was Lilith screamed... and something in Shinji just snapped.

Gritting his teeth, Shinji let go of the Spear of Longinus, releasing the only weapon that could stop Adam, and brought Unit 01's hands to Adam's chest.

Two AT Field erupted from 01's open palms, two AT Fields materialized and struck the First Angel across the chest as they formed. Just like the old man had done with the MP Evas. The attack shoved Adam back and the Angel grunted more surprised than anything, even as the Spear fell for the second time.

Shinji's trick did not work completely on Adam, the AT Fields could not cut his nigh-invulnerable skin, all they could do was hit him with brute force. That was what they had to work with, brute force, and Shinji had an idea.

"Mom! Now! Everything we have! The Beast! We need the Beast!" Shinji shouted.

He brought 01's head slamming across Adam's, headbutting the First Angel. He brought his raised fists down atop Adam, again and again, in mid-air, the First Angel hissed and was forced to release Lilith.

Every punch hurt, the phantom sensations made every strike feel like he was punching a solid chunk of diamond. Like his knuckles and fingers were breaking every time they met Adam's face.

Yui relented, letting everything out all at once. Sync ratio at 400%.

Eva Unit 01 opened its mouth and roared. Berserk mode, Shinji no longer had control of Unit 01 as Yui's used the Evangelion's full power. Everything it had.

...

Lilith fell through the air, landing with a heavy thud. Smoke trailing off her body, she watched weakly as Shinji and Yui faced Adam alone.

...

Berserk Unit 01 drew blood from Adam. The Beastly Evangelion raked its claws against the Giant's throat, bringing its fists down upon the Angel with such force that Adam shook in its wake.

HRRRRRRRRRRRR! The Eva roared.

Eva Unit 01 opened its mouth and snarled with inhuman rage. A feral savage breath that rang harshly in the air. Its muscles bulged as they increased in mass. The plate armor shifted as the Eva grew stronger. The AT energy pulsed around its hands, adding to its power, as Yui brought out everything she could muster.

The Beastly Eva's eyes, strange monstrous things, were wide open and glaring at the First Angel.

More Beast than machine.

...

Lilith brought herself to her knees, reaching out ever so slowly and rising. Missing one arm, burnt and bleeding, the Second Angel limped onward. Going for the fallen Spear.

…

Adam and the Beast of Eva Unit 01 landed with an earth-shattering thud. A crater formed in their wake.

Yui reached deep into her very soul and channeled it all into her glorious Eva, the dream she had worked years to achieve, she used the Evangelion's full power and pleaded with the universe for more.

It wasn't enough.

"NO MORE," Adam bellowed. The words of the Giant echoed across their minds like death itself.

Adam's fist rose, striking the Beast of Eva Unit 01 across the mouth.

SPLAT.

Teeth were knocked from the Eva's mouth... the strangle flesh underneath the plate armor rippled and the Beast stumbled back. Its jaw broke and nearly tore free of its mouth, 01 stumbled winded and battered from a single punch.

Adam rose from the crater. And the berserker, the Beast of Eva Unit 01, the full power of the Evangelion, retreated in his wake.

Yui Ikari faltered deep within the Eva, the haunting gaze of the First Angel seemed to pierce her soul. A look of absolute hatred that chilled her heart and threatened to overwhelm her. And she knew... knew that Adam could see her deep within the Eva, and that he was coming to kill her.

The First Angel glared into Yui's own eyes, not the Eva, and stepped forward.

Eva Unit 01 let out a world-ending roar. Primal and raw, the Eva struggled to even stand with its deformed mouth, before rushing for the First Angel. The Berserk Eva roared as it brought a claw-like fist for the enemy of mankind.

Adam raised a fist of his own.

Both hands collided with one another. The Beast of Unit 01 vs Adam. Their knuckles slammed into each other...

In an explosion of flesh, a splatter of strange LCL like blood, Unit 01's hand came apart... the Eva's hand tore as the fingers were ripped to shreds. The knuckles shattered, the palm was simply gone, bones shattered and torn from 01's wrist...

Adam's fist tore through Eva Unit 01's.

Yui screamed and the Eva screamed with her. Long and raw, a pain like no other, bone protruded from the mangled stump that had once been a hand. Yui felt tears running down her face, her hand was an explosion of agony, raw and exposed.

Adam backhanded them. The First Angel's hand struck 01 across the face and Unit 01 went flying. Berserk mode faded, Shinji landed on his back, his Entry Plug dented, and the man screamed as the computer systems went haywire.

01 collapsed on the ground, half its teeth gone, a broken jaw, deep cuts along its shoulder, and a missing hand... Yui lay unable to move the Unit at all. The Beast of Eva Unit 01 defeated for the First Time.

...

Lilith limped forward, the Giant in the Dark reaching for the Spear of Longinus. The red metal lay unceremoniously where it had fallen. The Second Angel ached, fighting tears of pain, as her fingers touched the Spear...

SMACK.

Adam's foot found Lilith's face. The kick sent Lilith rolling to the ground, her fingers sliding off the red metal.

Adam took the Spear of Longinus.

The Giant of Light emerged triumphant against Lilith, Shinji, Yui Ikari, and even the Beast of Eva Unit 01. The First Angel stood almost uninjured from the entire fight, only its eyes hurt at all. And even that healing rapidly.

Beloved... Lilith called to him. Her words a whisper in Shinji's mind.

Weakly, Shinji rose from his seat in the Entry Plug. Unit 01 lay unresponsive as he moved, the Evangelion was near death as it lay on the ground, beaten and bloody.

"No... it can't end like this," Shinji whimpered. His eye hurt, he thought he was weeping but it turned out to be blood. His ribs were cracked, and the phantom sensations made him feel like he'd lost a hand and broken his jaw.

The air hissed and a horrible scream filled Shinji's mind. Not Lilith... the Spear of Longinus itself.

The Spear was almost alive, and it sang to him. Sorrowful and bittersweet, it called to him, as Adam clutched the red metal with both hands.

Adam pulled, using his near immeasurable strength, calling forth his powers as ice formed around the Spear of Longinus. The Spear itself screamed in protest, a silent cry heard only by Shinji. The skies darkened overhead.

CREEEEEK.

The Spear began to twist, bending as it was pulled it apart. Hurricane winds passed the three of them by, layers and layers of ice covered the Spear as Adam twisted it.

BANG.

The Spear of Longinus broke apart with an earth-shattering bang. The red metal came undone, fragments flying off in all directions as the thing exploded into dozens of pieces.

Created by the First Ancestral Race, the Spear seemed to weep as it died. Destroyed after countless ages had come and gone.

"Please... It can't end like this... Akane..." Shinji whimpered.

Adam roared. The shout echoed across the landscape, the victor at long last. The Giant of Light loomed over Lilith. The Second Angel cowered in pain, weakly trying to get to her feet. Adam came to her.

Shinji grasped the controls of his Entry Plug. He forced himself to stand up, his body may have been numb to pain, having died so many times now, but this pain lingered. It was beyond physical, it was the prospect of failure.

"No. It's not over... not yet," Shinji rasped through harsh and low breaths.

Eva Unit 01 rose with Shinji. Ever so slowly, the Titan pulled itself up. Bringing the Eva back from the brink of death, Shinji pushed forward with pure will.

…

Yui watched in awe. It was inhuman, the man's ability to keep going. To take the pain and bare it. A corpse whose soul refused to leave its body.

…

Shinji eyed up Adam, blood running down his face, his ribs screaming at him to stop, his shoulder stinging him, and brought 01 up taking one step at a time.

"Shinji, it's over. We lost," Yui called to her son. She reached out to him from deep within the damaged Evangelion's core.

"No," he hissed back.

Yui trembled, hands on her face, her soul's physical form shuddering at all that had happened. Her 'perfect' body of Eva Unit 01 was ruined. Her son had been twisted into a walking scarecrow of a man, and now they found themselves in a hopeless battle that would not end.

"I can get us out of here. Please. We can leave... fly away. Leave the planet, Unit 01 can survive out in space forever," Yui pleaded.

"Then what? Huh, mom, we run? Leave Lilith to die! No... no. Adam would hunt us, he only stayed for Lilith. There is no running from him. And I have a job to do, there is no one else!" Shinji said through gritted teeth.

Adam was taking his time, hurting Lilith slowly. Breaking the Second Angel piece by piece, his vengeance for over 40 years of waiting. Her screams were terrible to hear.

Eva Unit 01 moved, getting to its feet via Shinji's command.

Yet the Eva stumbled, Yui resisted Shinji and the two came to a gridlock.

01 lay unable to move without a proper sync rate. Shinji wanting to fight. Yui wanting to run.

Two ideas that could not be resolved without surrendering to the other.

"Please! We can escape! Shinji, it would be okay. Just the two of us! You could survive with the Angel part of you. We could live out there amongst the stars. Together!" Yui pleaded with him.

Her soul reached out to him, yet Shinji only closed his eyes.

Surviving is not living. I will not stop. This is all I have left, Shinji thought. His sync ratio was stuck at 55%.

His mother fought him here. Wanting to run.

---

In the Other Place.
Where souls had a physical form.

The Broken Man emerged into the white void across from his mother. Their souls stood within the 'core' of Unit 01.

Yui Ikari smiled sadly at the sight of him. She would make him understand. Fighting Adam was pointless, the First Angel was too powerful, she may have left him behind so long ago... but she could make up for it. She could keep him alive and they could survive.

They could leave Earth behind, forget this madness and flee.

"I'm not leaving," Shinji said simply. His red eye met Yui unblinkingly.

Yui's mouth fell open. After all that she'd given to help him... and he'd throw it away just like that?

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"You're going to get us killed. Shinji-" she began.

"There's nothing you can say to change my mind," Shinji said flatly. His eyes were stern and cold, bittersweet. Eyes that were driven, old with aged harsh lines etched along the sclera. It was both scary and astonishing to witness.

The lengths a broken man would go to.

"He killed my daughter," Shinji added softly, a dark whisper that sent Yui flinching back.

Silence followed. Mother and son, so close yet so apart even now.

"I'm gonna finish this. If you're not going to help, mother... then get out of my way!" Shinji said, and his soul overshadowed hers.

It was something that should have been impossible, Yui was the soul inside Eva Unit 01... but Shinji had stolen control away from her.

…

Shinji ignored the sync ratio. It didn't matter anymore.

Yui watched silently, mouth open in utter astonishment, as Shinji piloted without her help. He forced his Eva to move all on his own.

Adam stirred, lowering his fists from Lilith's battered body, even as Unit 01 dove for something on the ground.

It was a fragment of the Spear of Longinus. A piece of the blade, the tip of the Spear that could pierce AT Fields, Angels, and disrupt their powers.

Adam shrugged the beaten and battered form of Lilith away. Moving at incredible speeds, the Giant of Light came for Shinji and Unit 01.

An AT Blade erupted into existence from Adam's fist.

STAB.

Adam stabbed Eva Unit 01 through the stomach. The AT Blade pierced completely through the plate armor and the flesh beneath it, the blade materialized out of Unit 01's back in a shower of blood and solid light.

Shinji grunted in pain, a searing hole seemingly in his chest, the effects of the phantom sensations, and time seemed to slow down.

In this moment of perfect clarity, Shinji felt everything... the weight of so many failures upon his life, the sorrow and losses that he had endured, the guilt for the choice he had made as a 14-year old boy. For him the world ran in slow motion, time flowing as if in liquid, he saw Adam bringing the AT Blade up, running the sword through his Eva, his internal organs screaming all the while.

Shinji ignored his body's anguish, letting Adam get in close. The Eva's body and armor were cut and burned, blood and metal sizzled. The Eva steamed glowing bright red as the AT Blade moved across its torso... reaching up for the Entry Plug.

Still, time moved at a snail's pace for Shinji. This perfect moment where he faced the First Angel striving to decapitate 01 in one swift motion. Adam moved to put an end to him once and for all. Shinji didn't look away, he didn't even blink, he faced this 'death' head-on.

STAB.

Shinji brought his Eva's hand forward. The old man stabbed the remains of the Spear tip into Adam's heart.

The Fragmented Spear Tip cut into the Giant of Light, breaking through his invulnerable skin, piercing through what passed for ribs, and striking true. Adam's heart... the Angel Core itself, was struck.

Adam gasped with a low whisper, a sudden loss of air... and the First Angel paused. The Giant of Light's eyes widened in awe and terror at the man who had dealt him such a blow.

The world grew silent. The AT Blade faded, disappearing into nothing and releasing the impaled Eva Unit 01.

Shinji Ikari stood, 01 stood with him. Tall in the face of their many wounds.

Adam stumbled back, the fragmented Spear piece lay impaled deep inside his chest. The wind blew, breaking the silence, and the First Angel tried to roar.

BOOM!

In an explosion of light, the Giant of Light shattered.

The First Angel broke apart, his arms collapsed like shattered glass, his legs breaking like melted ice, the most powerful foe Shinji had ever fought... undone.

---

Part 3: More Angel Than Man

On the ground.

Shinji stepped out of the barely functioning Entry Plug.

Lilith stood to his side, no longer the Giant, but instead the Woman in the Dark. She wore the face and body of a 26-year old Rei, her wounds lingering even in this more 'human' form.

The two walked on as Yui watched in disbelief from the eyes of the kneeling Eva Unit 01.

The Broken Man and the Woman in the Dark stood over the crumpled heap of flesh at their feet, the figure lying in the crater where Adam had been stabbed.

A single embryonic form lay in the ashes where the First Angel had fallen. The figure on took the shape of an almost 'human' embryo, about the size of a palm, and lying in the ruins of the battlefield.

He killed the human race. Second Impact... two billion dead... and then 40 years after Third Impact he came back... and did 'this'... Shinji thought bitterly.

Lilith and the Broken Man took the remains of the First Angel, the Adam Embryo. This weakened form that SEELE had sacrificed billions of people for, so long ago.

Adam squirmed in Shinji's hand. The embryo was very much 'alive' and terribly hurt, barely able to move, reduced to this clumsy bundle of cells. Less than a baby.

"You have something I need," was all Shinji said. Adam was silent, his mouth gone, unable to speak, unable to act.

Lilith leaned on Shinji's shoulder, her wounds taking their toll, as she reached out placing a hand on Adam's reduced body. Shinji reached out with his Angel senses once again, Lilith by his side.

---

The Other Place.
Where souls had a physical form.
The Network that connected all Angels.

Shinji and Lilith stood in the deep void of white nothingness. The white seemed to stretch on forever, just like when Shinji would speak to his mother. But this was different somehow, harsher, primal, and cold.

Adam crouched before them. A withering husk, a mountain of collected souls that had been forged into one an eternity ago.

A Giant of Light. Beaten and battered, on his dying breaths. The soul of the First Angel brought to its knees.

"Brother," Lilith said in greeting.

Adam's soul knelt. Too weak to stand, he seemed to bleed out before the two intruders.

"YOU BETRAY US... SISTER," Adam said. What once was a booming voice that destroyed ears, was now but a whimper. A wheezing breath in the night.

"No. Adam, this is not what our parents wanted. We have forgotten our purpose," Lilith answered softly.

"WE WERE TO CREATE LIFE. TO SPREAD IT ACROSS THE STARS. YOU DENY ME, YOU RESIST, YOU-" Adam trembled.

"ALL life, brother. Not only Angels. Not only you and your children."

Adam glared weakly up at his sister, brought low by his wounds.

Lilith shook her head sadly.

"The First Ancestral Race did not want this. Our parents would be ashamed. Humanity is not perfect... but I believe they are what our creators wanted," Lilith whispered. She tilted her head, almost pityingly at the fallen Adam.

Shinji watched the exchanged with flat, exhausted eyes.

Adam laughed harshly at Lilith. A wheezing sound that resembled weeping.

"YOU AND YOUR 'LOVE' FOR THESE LILIN. YOUR CHILDREN, AND HIM."

Adam moved his gaze from Lilith to Shinji.

"HE IS UNWORTHY OF YOUR DEVOTION. UNDESERVING OF THIS 'LOVE' THAT YOU CLAIM. YOU ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE CORRUPTED BY A DEAD WOMAN," the First Angel wheezed.

Shinji felt his good hand curl into a fist.

Lilith smiled sadly at her brother. An act that caused Adam to pause mid-speech.

"I would not expect you to understand. And for that... I am sorry," Lilith said.

The First and Second Angels met each other's gaze.

"OUR CREATORS WANTED-" Adam began.

"I don't care what your creators wanted. I came here for a reason," Shinji said bitterly, speaking for the first time.

The Broken Man strode forward, and Adam's soul flinched. The Giant of Light cowered in fear, stumbling back as Shinji approached.

"For all your power, you were just a tool. A means to an end for SEELE. Now, you're going to help me set it right. I killed you once, and I'll do it again," Shinji said.

Adam shrunk before Shinji, an Angel that knelt before a man.

"YOU WOULD KILL GOD?" Adam spoke, the Giant defeated and small, broken and battered, on the last throes of mortality.

Shinji reached forward, Angel power rushing through his veins, as he plunged his hands directly into Adam's soul.

"I would kill you," Shinji whispered, ripping Adam's soul apart from the inside.

The true death, the death of the body, the mind, and the soul.

In a flood of light, Adam's soul fell apart. A wave of gathered individuals fell apart, accumulated souls that had been brought together and merged into a collective being an eternity ago. The bonds were undone, the unraveling of the consciousness of a near God-like being, 'near' being the operative word.

---

The Real World.
On the ground.

Adam died, and with his soul and consciousness gone... only the withering body remained. A shell of immense raw power.

Lilith brought the shell of Adam into Shinji. Literally pressing the bundle of flesh into his chest, letting her powers do the work. Mixing his DNA for one final time, bringing the Adam corpse into the man she loved. Lilith granted Shinji the power of the First Angel, a piece of Adam inside him.

Shinji closed his eyes from the process and was brought to his knees in a primal shout of pain. He felt the rush of raw energy flooding his veins. Every cell, every nerve, it all came for him. The power of Adam at his touch.

His skin lit up, just as the First Angel's had. The power took hold within his body. Now he really was more Angel than man.

Lilith helped him up, the light fading from his skin, her final gift to him. A way to survive the power flowing through his body... for now.

---

Part 4: Truth

Days later.

Shinji didn't time travel after Adam's death. Not right away.

That would have been too easy, and if life had taught Shinji anything, it was that life was not easy.

They spent days recovering, healing, and on Shinji's part... learning.

Adam's power was never meant for a human, never meant for a mortal. It threatened to rip his body apart, literally killing him from within, at times. Lilith and her sorcery kept him intact, the Woman in the Dark healed him and made further and further changes to him. She spent hours every day teaching Shinji to manage the great power within his body.

The Woman in the Dark and the Broken Man, they sat together day after day talking and working for hours on end. Theirs was an unusual relationship, student and teacher, companions for ten years.

Yui would watch, from the ever healing Eva Unit 01's eyes, as her son floated several feet off the ground with Lilith.

Shinji looked through memory after memory, not just his own, but through all the scattered memories that remained of Instrumentality. Lilith guided him as he searched for final answers in his mad plan to time travel, to go back and stop all this 'mess' as he called it.

It scared Yui, to see her Shinji become less and less 'human' with every passing day. To watch as her son sat with Lilith day in and day out.

Yui knew what he planned to do, if not every piece of it, she knew the overall plan. Go back in time, kill all the Angels once again, stop the Third Impact and those responsible... SEELE and Gendo... and perhaps... one more. One other whom had had a role in the things to come.

It scared her.

Yui shifted uncomfortably as Unit 01 healed, her precious immortal body repairing itself.

…

When she ran, Yui told herself that it was better this way.

That Shinji and his plan would never work, that even with all the pieces of the puzzle, that it simply would not fit. That no matter what actions Shinji took, he would have no control over time once he changed it.

So, one night when Shinji and Lilith were sleeping... Yui took off with the Eva.

Wings of Light emerged from the back of Unit 01, and Yui flew off without a goodbye. Eva Unit 01 shot off into the distance, leaving Earth for the second time. Leaving her son without a final word at all.

Or so Yui had thought.

A flicker of shadows stopped her. It reached out. A dark cloud that contrasted the evening sky, struck the Eva.

Lilith. The Second Angel landed atop Unit 01 mid-flight, and the Woman in the Dark worked her sorcery, putting a stop to Yui's escape.

"Ah!" Yui cried out as the Eva's wings vanished... the Evangelion Unit fell to the wastelands unable to move, as Lilith once again plunged her hands underneath the plate armor and into the flesh beneath. Unit 01 was a clone of Lilith after all.

No... no that can't be. I was safe. Adam was finally dead. I could have lived on forever without any threats. Safe at long last, Yui thought.

…

THUD.

Yui and the Eva landed on the wastelands below. Dead trees and ashes rose up in a shower of lifeless clutter. Lilith knelt crouched atop the Eva, her hands having disappeared into the flesh underneath the plate armor, holding Yui in place with no escape.

Shinji was waiting for her when the Eva landed on their small patch of land. The man who had killed Adam strolled towards Eva Unit 01 once again.

Yui panted as her son placed a hand on the Eva, and reached out with his Angel powers again. He no longer needed to be in the Entry Plug, not anymore.

---

The Other Place.

"You left me again."

The Broken Man emerged into the white void with his mother one final time. His eyes hollow and cold, and they met his mother's trembling form.

"Shinji... I-" Yui began.

She winced at the sight of him. Even now, she could feel the change in her son.

The Power of Adam flowed through Shinji's veins. Like the heartbeat of a star, contained within her son, his body and soul were barely able to contain it. It was something so bold that even Yui would not have thought it possible.

"You never wanted to help me, did you? No. You only wanted to stop Adam. Stop him from chasing you, like you knew he'd do one day. Like you knew that he would rise again. That he wouldn't die after Third Impact," Shinji said sternly.

Yui swallowed hard, stepping back from her son in shame.

They planned this... Shinji and Lilith. They knew that I would run. That after Adam was defeated... 'if' Adam was stopped once and for all... that this would happen. Oh, my son... when did you get so cold? Yui Ikari thought.

"I wanted to help you. I did, Shinji," Yui whispered.

"But," Shinji said softly, his voice dry and tired, waiting for an answer.

Yui looked away, unable to meet her son's eyes. Caught red-handed as she'd tried to flee, to leave this madness of time travel and be free.

Shinji never let his gaze fall, the First Angel's power radiated off of him whether he wanted it to or not.

"Look at me. Tell me, but what?" Shinji said, an old pain emerging into his voice. A tremble of the lips.

Yui closed her eyes, taking slow deep breaths, before finally, ever so slowly, turning to face her son. Facing the man... no... the thing that her son had become.

"But I- I was afraid," Yui said at last.

Shinji waited for her to continue. He gave her nothing to work with, no sign of emotion at all, a perfect mask that hid his feelings even from her. Something not even Gendo could have done.

"Shinji, my boy, I... I don't want to die. This plan of yours, it won't just send you back. It could destroy this entire timeline. There is no guarantee. You could die in the process. This could all fail, and for what?

Oh, my son... it wouldn't be you. This plan of yours, to go back and 'fix everything', to make a life where you could have lived with your family... it would NOT be you.

This 'you' would only be a spectator. A ghost. And another man with your face would walk off with the life you built. A new Shinji Ikari living the life you wanted. Not you, but him," Yui said. Breathing hard and facing the old man at long last. No more distractions or missions, their talk at long last.

Shinji didn't even flinch. Nothing he had not told himself countless times before.

"You're a parent, Yui. You should know that a parent's love changes a person. It's not about you anymore, it's about them. I know, I've always known that it wouldn't be me. It's enough to see them live on in a life that I could never have. I'd have thought my own mother would understand that," Shinji said.

His voice was stiff and dry, but his eyes blazed with a drive that knew no limits. A willpower that had allowed Shinji to defeat Adam.

Yui gaped at it. At what her little boy had become.

Before she could speak, Shinji interrupted.

"Tell me something, were you happy out there? Huh? Living out among the stars for 40 years, drifting- no running away, with the Evangelion for a body. Immortal at long last. Tell me, what was it like being alone up there?" he asked, his eyes never leaving her.

He took a step forward and Yui stepped back.

"I was immortal. I was a shining beacon, a lasting legacy to mankind," Yui answered slowly. The woman who had left her son in a post-apocalyptic world 40 years ago.

"Humph. A lasting legacy to mankind? Well, mom, while you were up there with your immortal Eva for a body, with Unit 01... I was down here. On the battered remains of Earth. On the ground. I had to survive on my own until the others came back," Shinji said somberly. Bits of bitter cold resentment workings its way into his voice.

He took another step forward, and Yui shrank before him. Guilt pressed against her heart, almost crushing.

"I had to forge a life in this ruined world. And I lost everything in the end. You left me behind, you didn't even try to help. You didn't warn us about Adam... do you even remember what you told me that day? The day you left?" Shinji asked, his eyes burning with questions.

"I- I told you that. That I-... oh Shinji it doesn't matter-" Yui stammered.

"You forgot!" Shinji shouted.

Yui flinched.

He let out a small bitter laugh. His own mother... what a woman after all. Not the saint he had romanticized for years.

"You don't even remember. You told me 'you are alive. So you will always have the chance to be happy. Anywhere can be paradise as long as you have the will to live. The hope to go on'. Humph, as if. I clung to those words. A saying from my mother, but you were wrong," Shinji said throwing Yui's words back at her.

"Fine. You're right. I abandoned you. I was afraid of Adam, and now I'm afraid of you," Yui said suddenly. She stood her ground and met her son's gaze with her own.

Shinji shook his head, breathing out a mirthless chuckle. A cold acceptance of just who his mother really was.

"I know what you did. I can see the memories leftover from Instrumentality," Shinji said.

Yui blinked at him in surprise.

"That's what you've been doing since Adam died... looking through the memories you gained. Learning things that you could never have known otherwise. You can see a... a framework. A snapshot of mankind's collective memory. That's... a human could not hold all the information in their head," Yui said with wide eyes.

The scientist in her ran wild with speculation. The idea of a single person having access to the memories of the dead and gone. Not all of them, to be sure, but enough to piece together a puzzle from the past.

Shinji nodded, his eyes never leaving his mother. Unblinking, cold, and tired.

---

Flashes of the dead went by Shinji's mind.

The Angel's power stirred in his blood, perfect memory. Not only his own, not anymore, but the memories of others as well. Various members of Nerv and even a few of SEELE, memories from his parents as well.

All that information was open to him with perfect clarity, like looking through a book. Moments that he had not witnessed himself.

…

Memories:

Yui Ikari lecturing in a dark room, the projected images of SEELE gathered around. Listening to her report.

Gendo working alongside his wife, uncovering what information they could from the Dead Sea Scrolls. The two of them speculating on Adam and Lilith, if the Angels would have been hostile. Of just how many people would die once Adam woke, making predictions of how bad Second Impact would be.

Yui speaking directly to Mr. Keel Lorenz the Chairman and leader of SEELE.

Of Yui's plans to unlock the Eva's full potential. And to take it, to achieve life everlasting, having to work within SEELE to do it.

---

He knows... he knows the truth now, Yui thought, watching as her son's eyes moved.

Shinji's eyes, both of them, red and brown, moved as if seeing something only he could see. The Abomination that was her son peered through memories that Yui could not follow, but she didn't need too.

She knew what he was watching, there was only one thing to see after all. The Truth.

"It was you, mom. You and Gendo were the ones who found Adam. The two of you, and SEELE, you sent the expedition. Knowing that Adam would be hostile... that he would kill billions during the Second Impact. That he would call his children," Shinji said shaking his head.

"We didn't know for sure. I theorized-" Yui began quickly.

"Liar. You knew, you always knew. I always thought Gendo was the one, but it was you. Yui Ikari, playing SEELE and your own husband, all so that you could cheat death. So you could take Eva Unit 01. Isn't that right?" Shinji said bitterly.

Yui narrowed her eyes at him.

"I had to. The Angels were coming. Remember Tokyo-03? The other pilots? All those times I helped you? I saved your life countless times. Without me, the Angels would have killed you," Yui said bitterly.

"Without you, Adam would have never woken the first time. Without you, the Angels would never have come at all, and the Evangelions would not have been needed," Shinji countered.

"I am not the monster you think I am! Shinji, listen. I did what I had to do, to ensure that humanity could survive," Yui countered sharply.

Shinji laughed. A manic sad thing that Yui hated.

"Look around us!" Shinji howled, bitter laugh fading. His eyes hollow and empty, haunted by things Yui could only imagine.

Yui crossed her arms at him.

Shinji gestured to the outside world, to the ashes that lay outside the Eva and this plane of existence.

"Humanity is dead. All your plans and this is where we are. I am the one thing you didn't expect. The loophole that no one, not you, not Nerv or SEELE, could see coming. Lasting legacy of mankind? Is that what you told yourself all those years. Huh, mom? That you were some 'hero' carrying out a mission?" Shinji spat bitterly.

"If things had gone my way, then I would have been," Yui said firmly.

Did I ever really know you, mother? Shinji thought.

"Pfft. So you would have let Third Impact happen in the end? Played everyone along, plots within plots, secrets within secrets, and you won in the end. All that mattered to you was getting the Eva, a new body that would never age or die. Living forever," Shinji said coldly.

Is death so frightful? Do you fear it that much? Dying is easy, it is living that is hard, he thought.

"You don't understand. Don't try to judge me, don't put words in my mouth," Yui hissed.

"Was anything I said wrong?" Shinji countered flatly.

"I- Shinji... it wasn't supposed to be this way. I tried to play things differently. I couldn't control what Gendo would do. How could I have known that he'd start hiding things from SEELE? That Nerv and SEELE would come into conflict? Have you forgotten all that your father did? That man, that bastard, all in my name! I killed him for you!" Yui said, nearly screaming in anguish as tears emerged in her eyes.

"I don't believe you. I think you killed him for yourself," Shinji said quietly.

Yui gaped at him, open-mouthed.

"Did you even love him? Gendo of all people? He was a monster, a real bastard, but he was weak. Was he just another tool for you? One that you couldn't control in the end. Tell me, mother... did you love me? Did you love any of us?" Shinji asked.

The Broken Man stood inches from his mother. Images from his past, some of his earliest memories, of him and his parents together flashed by him. A family, yet somehow not. Distant, and Shinji the child alone even then.

"I love you, Shinji. You have to believe that. You just have to," Yui said, having to take a deep breath just to answer.

If you had, you would have stayed. Not just for the Third Impact, but before, with the Eva. You wouldn't have left a seven-year-old boy who needed his mother, Shinji thought numbly.

Shinji tilted his head at her, wishing he could have believed her, but he didn't. If she had loved him, it had been in a different time. A different life, not the woman here and not the man standing before her.

The two of them were strangers now. Their old lives were almost meaningless in comparison to the here and now. Had they really known each other at all?

"It doesn't matter anymore. I've made my choice. I have nothing more to say to you," Shinji said at long last.

He turned, leaving the Other Place where souls had a physical form.

Yui called to him.

"Don't do this! Shinji, please... you could kill us all! Time travel is dangerous! It's not worth it! It wouldn't be you anymore, it would be someone else. A new Shinji Ikari!"

He ignored his mother. Never once looking back.

"I don't want to die..." Yui whispered.

Shinji vanished, leaving Yui Ikari alone inside the white void. Her soul hidden deep within the Eva as it had been for decades.

There are fates worse than death, Shinji thought.

…

He opened his eyes back in the real world. He removed his hand from 01's plate armor, three fingers where there should have been five, and turned his back on the machine.

Lilith knelt perched atop 01's shoulder, watching Shinji with sad sorrowful eyes.

---

Part 5: Goodbye

A week later.
Ruins of Tokyo-03.
The Unraveling.

Time travel is not easy.

It is so dangerous that the creators of the Angels forbid them from ever doing it.

His former home was mostly gone by now, the building having long ago been buried by the ice and snow of Adam's wrath. Ten years where the monster had killed the human race.

Yet Shinji recognized the spot even now, the ashes of the Geofront. The place where Lilith and Adam and been joined via Gendo, both Angels forced to merge with Rei as their instrument. SEELE and Gendo had each tried to bring their plans to fruition, only to be thwarted by Shinji and his choice. Stopped by the love Rei had had for her husband.

"We're here," Shinji said at last. He hadn't spoken in days, not since his last conversion with his mother.

Yui Ikari watched on solemnly, held prisoner within Unit 01 and unable to leave with Lilith watching over her. Her plans had failed too, no invulnerable body, no dream in which Yui traveled the stars forever.

Shinji knew his mother was watching him through the eyes of the Eva, her soul observing him with blank hollow eyes as he and Lilith made their final preparations.

"You will be alone. It will be the hardest thing you have ever done. Stopping Third Impact, building a world where your family could have lived... you will have to kill all the Angels again," the Woman in the Dark whispered.

"And SEELE, the world isn't safe with them in it. I can't let them ever try something like this again," Shinji said.

The two of them stood overlooking the faded red sea, the place where the sea met the shore. Barren and lifeless. The ruins of the world from before.

"I cannot help you there, beloved. Tread with care," Lilith said. She tilted her head at him worryingly.

Shinji nodded, his eyes distant but not cold.

"I've looked through the memories. I've seen what their plans were, what Gendo did too, even my mother... and I think I can stop them," Shinji answered distantly.

Lilith sighed. A remarkably human expression.

"This is the end of our journey, my husband," Lilith said, bright tears forming in her red eyes.

Shinji turned to her, reminded of his wife. Ten years he had spent with the Second Angel, surviving and waiting for the Eva and the Spear to return. Ten years where Lilith was his teacher, and he was her student. She healed him, bringing him back from the dead, each time waiting for him as he woke, making sure that he was never alone when he came back. A kindness he had never realized until now.

"I- thank you, Lilith. For everything," Shinji said, he took the Angel's hands in his own. Weathered and scarred flesh upon pale and perfect skin, cold upon warmth.

Lilith smiled at that, tears never fading.

"You need not thank me. Rei loved you, and I love you. Through her, I learned so much. The joy and sorrows of life. The pleasures of the flesh, the warmth of another soul, of a marriage. I do not regret all that I have learned. I do not regret helping you," Lilith said. Her hands never left his.

Her words made Shinji close his eyes, and his words caught in his throat. He stood unable to answer her, he had never loved her that way. Never loved Lilith the way he had loved Rei. Yet she had not cared, she had given everything for him.

She brought her forehead close to his, almost a kiss, but not quite there. A loving act, but platonic, Lilith knew that he did not love her as he had loved his wife.

Even now, a kindness.

"Let us begin," Lilith said at last.

---

Lilith and Shinji raised their hands. The powers of the First and Second Angels at their disposable.

Yui watched from the prison that was Eva Unit 01, the titan rendered passive and immobile by Lilith, as her son and the Angel worked. The scientist watched in terror at the power they wielded.

The Woman in the Dark and the Broken Man never moved, everything else did. Space itself folded at their command, the stars and planets above seeming to twist and turn around them. The universe folded itself into a sphere around them, a ball of space-time with them at the center. Witness to all its awe.

The center was a 'bubble' of space for Shinji, Lilith, and Eva Unit 01. A space where the entire universe had been folded around them, all of time itself bent for them to see.

It was infinitely complex, with weaves and weaves of threads of reality branching off, the same locations but spread apart in all the different spaces in time where it was, is, and would be. Time was laid bare in all its entirety.

The unraveling revealed time as a circle... no, a sphere of infinite dimensions.

Shinji felt the burn in his chest, the Angel part of him, the Power of Adam fought him, resisting him. Even Lilith trembled, her body turning against her. A warning from the Angel's creators. Programmed into them an eternity ago, a restriction. A final warning that time travel was forbidden.

But Shinji was not Adam, nor was he Lilith. He was a loophole, something that not even the First Ancestral Race, they whom created the Angels, could have foreseen.

Shinji continued, ignoring the warning in his body, this foreign blood, and skin that fought him. The Angel in him screamed at him to stop.

Time travel.

They used Eva Unit 01 as a reference point. Used the Evangelion to find the right place in time, its own birth, to travel to. For time is infinitely complex, without a reference point you are lost in its stream.

Yui tried to fight it, but Shinji and Lilith were stronger. The Eva's past was used, allowing them to reach a point in time to travel too. Together, Lilith and the Broken Man brought a semblance of order to the chaos that was time unraveled. They stood like ghosts in the past. Shinji watched as from afar, watched the past from a 'bubble' that separated them from it.

The timeline laid bare, the day Shinji's mother had disappeared the first time. The Contact Experiment that had 'birthed' Eva Unit 01.

Stepping into that space, inside that moment, would change things forever. It would create an entirely new timeline. A new universe. A new Shinji Ikari created by the actions of the Original.

"This is it. Go. I cannot follow, my love," Lilith whispered. She wiped the blood from her face and smiled sadly at him.

Shinji turned to her... and he saw it. No, he felt it via the bond that all Angels shared, one that he was now a part of too.

Lilith was dying.

This process of time travel, of using all the powers of the First and Second Angels, of going against her restrictions, was killing her. There was nothing he could do. The First Ancestral Race had forbidden time travel, even helping him as she had was killing her.

"I... I'm sorry," Shinji said feeling tears in his eyes. All of this, all for him, and Lilith had known. She had known that sending him back into the past would kill her.

Lilith quieted him, bringing a gentle finger to his trembling lips.

"Thank you..." Shinji said for a second time, his voice cracking.

"Goodbye, Shinji. There's no going back. Remember me, that's all I want. Remember me," Lilith said stroking his face gently.

"I will," Shinji whispered, his voice cracking up the entire time.

A final moment for the two. Ten years they had spent together, ten years with whatever remained of his wife's soul buried within Lilith.

Lilith died. Her body turned to ash... her soul fell apart even in the real world, just as Adam's had. A rush of collective souls that had been bound together, undone, falling apart... and one reached out for him... a single drop of consciousness in the ocean of souls that had been Lilith.

Rei... his Rei reached out to him one last time. A being of pure light, a familiar figure with features he had never forgotten, the soul of his wife.

Shinji reached for her, trying to grab onto her soul... The last remnants of Rei Ikari. His wife lingered at that moment, freed from the collective that had been Lilith, and though she reached for him their fingers never quite touched... and she vanished too.

Rei's soul faded away into nothing. Less than ashes that scattered with the wind. Dead and gone, nothing left from which to return. Lilith had given everything she had so he could go back.

Shinji closed his eyes in anguish, far deeper than anything physical, and turned to go.

Now he truly was alone.

He stepped out from the center, the 'bubble', leaving his timeline behind.

"Shinji! Please! Don't do this... I'll die too! Please-" Yui cried after him, having watched Lilith's sacrifice in horror.

The Broken Man leaped from the center, the 'bubble', and swam through the rivers of time itself. Leaving Yui and Eva Unit 01 behind.

In Shinji's wake, the universe was undone. Reality itself fell apart. An entire timeline dying as it was broken, shattered and wiped out.

Yui Ikari had been right. Time travel destroyed an entire universe. One timeline erased in the wake of one yet to come.

Yui screamed as she faded out of existence. A savage bloodcurdling scream that would haunt Shinji for years. Eva Unit 01 faded, the Earth faded, the stars themselves faded, the end of an entire universe.

And the birth of a new one. A new timeline forged by the death of another.

---

Part 6: Unraveled

The Current Timeline.
7 years ago.
Day of the Contact Experiment.
The Birth of Eva Unit 01 and the 'disappearance' of Yui Ikari.

The atmosphere around the base was one of excitement and caution. The researchers milled about, double and triple-checking all their data.

Mr. Keel Lorenz, chairman of SEELE itself, strode through the complex. He walked beside a beaming Yui Ikari, who moved with a professionalism that was beyond her years. Impressive in Keel's eyes as always.

"The Evangelions will function as promised. They will defend Earth from Adam's children until the time comes for our plans," Yui was saying as they walked.

"So you have said many times now, Yui. Don't let the other investors rattle you and your work, this funding was necessary. Your work will save mankind, and usher us into a new age," Keel said in kind, the older man turning to her with an almost softened expression.

He had taken a liking to Yui. She truly was brilliant, perhaps the greatest scientist of her age. Surpassing Gendo, Fuyutsuki, and even Naoko Akagi. Yui stood as one of SEELE's greatest assets, leading them through the breakthroughs with the Dead Sea Scrolls and their understanding of the Angels. A major player in the Human Instrumentality Project, alongside her rather quiet husband.

Gendo Ikari. Hmm, how a man such as you married Yui is a mystery, Keel thought offhandedly.

The man himself, Gendo, trailed behind his wife and Mr. Keel, head held low. Gendo seemed content to let Yui speak, she was head of the project after all.

"It is exciting, isn't it? Instrumentality will be years away at best, but today is the first step towards that goal," Yui said, unable to stop the tremor of awe in her voice.

"Indeed. For SEELE's plans to continue, Adam's Children must be stopped. I trust your Evas will get the job done. I trust that the other Units are coming along as scheduled," Keel said.

The three of them, Yui, Keel, and Gendo, left the general area of the complex behind.

"Dear, would you mind?" Yui said sweetly, turning to her husband lurking behind them quietly.

"The other Eva Units show promise. It isn't wise to keep them all in one location. For now, Japan is holding Units 00 and 01. Germany is working on Unit 02, and Unit 03 is still too far behind to say," Gendo answered simply. His eyes lay hidden behind tinted glass, and his voice was distant as if distracted.

"See that it gets done," Keel said sharply.

The chairman of SEELE did not approve of Gendo and his distant nature. But the man was a master of logistics. Perhaps even material for Commander of Nerv, if Yui refused to take the job. A mental note Keel would keep an eye on.

"I have seen enough. I regret that I cannot stay for this monumental achievement, the piloting of an Evangelion. But I have duties to attend to," Keel said. The leader of SEELE stopped to shake hands with the Ikari team.

"Yes sir," Gendo said shaking Keel's hand.

Yui beamed and shook his hand.

Keel leaned in saying, "SEELE thanks you for your dedication and ingenuity, Yui. None of this would be possible without you, and we will remember that. You have my word."

The older man took Yui's hand in both of his hands and bowed his head respectfully, before taking his leave of them. He left the research complex and headed for the helicopter to take him out of the city.

---

"Please, don't do this" Gendo urged her for the countless time.

"Nonsense. It will be fine, dear" Yui lied.

"The Contact Experiment isn't ready. We don't know for sure what will happen. We could delay the test, try to pilot the Eva a month or two later. It doesn't have to be you... I could find someone else. Yui, please," Gendo pleaded. The man took his wife's hand in his.

Yui shook her head, patting her husband on his arm, he could be a sweet man when it came to her. His weakness, his love for her, she could count on that in the days to come.

"I will pilot. I insist," Yui told him simply.

Gendo made to protest, but Yui stopped him.

"Everything will be fine," Yui lied. She smiled sweetly at him.

Husband and wife stood outside the command center, Gendo having pulled her aside to talk. As if everyone inside couldn't hear them.

She pulled him gently along, entering the command center to check in with the others before the Contact Experiment commenced.

Inside, they found a team of scientists, along with Kozo Fuyutsuki and Naoko Akagi arguing over the little boy in the room. A 7-year-old Shinji Ikari sat by himself, off to the corner, away from the adults with a bundle of toys scattered on the floor.

"The boy should never have been allowed in here," Fuyutsuki was saying.

"He's Ikari's son," Akagi answered, not even glancing at Shinji or Fuyutsuki.

"Ah, Gendo. This isn't a daycare. This is too important to have distractions," Fuyutsuki said, turning to face them just as Gendo and Yui entered.

"I'm sorry, Professor Fuyutsuki. I brought Shinji here today," Yui said, brushing past the team in the room and moving to her son.

"Yui? But this is your experiment today," Fuyutsuki said blinking in surprise.

"That's why I brought him. I want to show him how bright our future will be," Yui said.

She reached down to pat her son on the head.

Fuyutsuki made to protest, but sighed, and let Yui have a moment with her son. Gendo moved to triple-check the readings from their computers, being extra cautious.

"How you doing, Shinji?" Yui asked her son.

The young boy looked up at her and smiled meekly.

"How long do we have to be here?" Young Shinji asked.

"Not much longer. I'm gonna have to leave you again, just for a bit. Alright, hon. Behave now," Yui said. She ruffled Shinji's hair and smiled sweetly at him.

"Okay," Shinji said, seeming to brighten up at seeing her again. Just a kid, but he was very quiet at times like his father.

Oh Shinji, the days ahead will be hard. My little Eva Pilot. Listen to Gendo, he will take care of you after I'm gone. We'll meet again, years from now when you fight the Angels. I will need your help, Yui thought.

She gave her son a quick hug, before standing to face the others.

"Is everything ready?" Yui asked, back into professional mode, not the 'doting mother figure' she became with Shinji.

"Ready as we'll ever be," Fuyutsuki answered.

"Then here we go. Commence the Contact Experiment. I'm heading out," Yui said. She beamed at them as she left the room.

Gendo watched her go with a worried expression, Shinji glanced up at her before turning back to his toys on the floor.

---

The hangar was massive. The subject had been moved here for the test.

Yui walked forward without fear, excited more than anything.

The Clone of Lilith, designated as 'Evangelion Unit 01' knelt out in the open. A series of tubes lay connected to the flesh underneath the Plate Armor, and with a command from the control room, the Entry Plug slowly released itself.

She stepped inside Unit 01's Entry Plug, Yui operating the controls herself, reinserting the Plug into the Eva. The hangar deck was cleared as the non-essential staff was evacuated for their safety.

"Contact Experiment beginning. Standby," Gendo called through the comm. His voice boomed out over all of them.

Yui smiled from within the Entry Plug, Eva Unit 01 lying dormant and just waiting to be brought to life.

The experiment began, the power turned on, 01's internal computer systems came online. The Eva Unit woke, coming to life before their eyes for the first time.

Now. It begins for real, Yui thought.

"Stop! Something's wrong!" Gendo's voice came through the comm system.

…

In the Command Center, Gendo and Fuyutsuki watched in horror as they were locked out of the computer systems. The Eva began to reject their commands.

Shinji sat not understanding what was happening, not even knowing what an Eva was, only that his parents worked in this strange building. The lonely little boy dropped the toy he'd been holding.

…

The Evangelion needs a soul. It is a clone of an Angel but without an Angel Core. An Entry Plug is simply not enough. 'I' will be that soul inside Unit 01, Yui thought.

Everything was going exactly as she had planned. Her soul and body would be absorbed into Eva Unit 01, she would wait for when the time came, and the Eva was deployed. She would fight alongside the others, destroy Adam's children, the other Angels. When SEELE's plan came to fruition, Yui would act at long last.

She would take the Eva for herself, would take this immortal and ageless body and live forever out among the stars. A lasting legacy to mankind.

Yui smiled at it, the dreams of her plans. All the work she'd had to do, working within SEELE for years, never telling anyone the truth, not even her husband. Not even Gendo. Whatever became of SEELE and humanity, she would be separate, apart, and immortal.

"Something's wrong! Yui! You have to eject! Get out of the Eva!" Gendo called into the comm.

Yui Ikari closed her eyes and turned her comm unit off, throwing the mobile device to the floor of the cockpit. She crushed the device with her shoes, the machine broke with a small fit of shrieking electronics.

She sat patiently inside 01's Entry Plug, distantly she could hear Gendo and research team panicking. The Eva was forming higher and higher sync ratios, the electrical grid in the complex straining as Unit 01 drew more and more power.

"Goodbye Shinji, Gendo. This is it. I-" Yui began, only to stammer as something happened.

The emergency lights flickered on and off as all around her, Eva Unit 01's computer systems went haywire, disturbances in electromagnetism... before 'it' stopped and the systems settled.

Yui Ikari had to grab the controls to stop herself flying from the sudden impact, the Entry Plug itself shook as suddenly more weight was added.

A figure emerged inside the Entry Plug with her. One moment was all it took for the man to materialize in front of her.

There was no bang, no strange sound, no sign of his appearance, he simply emerged before her in the blink of an eye. The newcomer displaced the air around him as he pushed his existence into the space inside the Evangelion Unit.

Yui Ikari got to her feet in horror, her hands on her mouth as the figure was revealed to be a ragged adult. An older man, rough and worn out. A man with dark greying unwashed hair, dressed in rags, and a face lined with the look of one aged before his time.

His skin was lighting up, no... the man's veins were lighting up. Bright white light shone from beneath his skin, and just for a moment... it formed the outline of a Giant of Light. The flickering of Adam's power.

Then the light died down, the man stumbled to his knees catching his breath. He hissed in pain, the man's skin seemed to burn him, and time itself bent for him.

"You're always leaving me behind. Ah... why?" the Broken Man said, panting to the stunned and terrified Yui. He stood on unsteady feet, his skin feeling it was on fire before slowly cooling, his bones aching to their core.

Time had seemed to stop outside the Eva, people in the background, the testing site, the hangar, the men and women trying desperately to eject the Entry Plug or shut Unit 01 down, all of them stood frozen and unaware of the events transpiring... stuck in one place within time and space.

Like Yui and the man before her, they occupied that exact time in space with no interruptions. One perfect moment of isolation.

"I... what are you?" Yui asked staring at the man with wide eyes. Terrified, but the scientist part of her mind reeling from what had just happened, thinking of how space-time had bent for this man.

His eyes... his eyes... Yui thought.

The man before her stood gazing at her with hollow empty eyes, the eyes of a man who had seen the best and worst of humanity. A man who had seen what life had to offer and was not impressed, a person who did not fear death.

One of his eyes was brown, and the other was red.

"Mother. It's me. I'm your son."

Original Shinji had done it, had time-traveled to the day his mother had disappeared. The day she had left him behind to take Eva Unit 01. From his perspective, it had been instantaneous.

He could remember his Yui, the one from the Other Timeline, screaming as she was erased from existence. Dying along with the Other Lilith and the entire Other Timeline. The death of an entire universe.

"I... no that's impossible. Shinji is-" Yui stammered.

The Original Shinji breathed out heavily, still recovering from the ordeal of time travel. It was a physical process that had pained him, had forced him and his Lilith to use all of their combined powers to achieve.

But it was more than the physical that weighed him down. Being here... seeing all this again from a different perspective was hard. Seeing his mother before she had abandoned him the first time, it brought back old pains that he had closed himself off to in his own timeline. The little lonely boy inside him reached out to look at his mother. A part of him wanted things to be different.

"Shinji is down there, my younger self. He doesn't know what you're doing, what this 'test' is. He's here sitting alone as you 'die' in the incident. He will spend the rest of his days aching for the mother he lost, and his father will abandon him to chase after your ghost," Original Shinji said haggardly, his voice breaking, worn down by a sorrow he had carried for most of his life.

Yui winced at the sound of the man's voice. He sounded so very old and so tired. The hollow eyes, rough aged skin, and battered appearance of the man standing in the Entry Plug with her left her unnerved.

"Years will pass, and Shinji will pilot Unit 01. And then, during the Third Impact, you will finally speak to him. Telling him that you love him, telling him goodbye as you take the Eva into space to live forever," the Broken Man said flatly.

He had to steel himself, armor himself up, just to get the words out. Whatever part of him that was still human was aching as he spoke about his past, spoke of a future that loomed over everyone and everything.

Original Shinji breathed hard at these words. His body stung him, the Angel part of him screamed in agony at what he had done, his body being ripped apart from the inside. A punishment for daring to travel through time. He didn't have the Other Lilith to heal him anymore.

It doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to be that person, mom. The woman who left me, who forgot her last words to a 14-year-old boy. You don't have to walk that path, not anymore, Shinji thought desperately.

Original Shinji grabbed her hand, his rough aged hands taking hers, old scar-riddled flesh touching clean untouched skin.

And Yui knew. She knew that this old man standing here was her son. That this was Shinji. Somehow, he had grown up and come back to see her.

"Shinji," Yui breathed. Words failed her and Shinji watched as emotion welled up from within her, tears finding their way to her eyes.

She placed a hand on his face, feeling the rough old skin, lined with the wrinkles and scars of a harsh brutal life. He watched and thought that something broke within her at the sight of him.

"My boy... oh my boy. You... you're older than me... What happened to you? Why are you here? Why are you like this?" Yui moaned. Her other hand squeezed his, feeling the tiny scars along his palm.

Time travel... time travel! How is this possible?! Yui thought, even as she held her son from the future. This mysterious man who had materialized into the Entry Plug with her, who had swum through the rivers of time itself. Had given them this one moment to talk.

"Don't you get it, mom? You won. In the end, everyone else loses. Gendo, me, Asuka, Rei, Misato, even SEELE... we all wither away. We die. But not you... no. Yui Ikari, victorious at last. Immortal. God-like, and roaming the depths of space forever inside the Evangelion," Original Shinji said, speaking as if every word hurt him.

"I- … it works? But you... why are you here? How is this possible-" Yui said, unable to stop the momentary edge to her voice at the fact that she won.

"I'm here because of you," the Original Shinji Ikari told his mother.

Tears welled up in his eyes, both of them, brown and red. As his mother looked at him in shock.

And so he asked the same question again, the question he had asked his mother in the Other Timeline. He asked a younger version of her and hoped for a better answer.

"Why did you do it, mom? Why? Was there ever a part of you that loved me? Tell me, please. Did you ever really love me?" the broken Shinji said, tears in his eyes.

He could still remember his fight with the Other Yui, remember her telling him that she did, and how he hadn't believed her. No matter how much he had wanted to.

"Shinji... you know that I do," Yui stammered. That woman's eyes were in shock, looking him over, trying to touch his face. Trying to comfort him. Yet it felt hollow.

"Then why!" he interrupted in a roar. The sorrow and hurt changed to agonized rage in his heart, he had lived with so much for all these years. All of this because of her and the others. She was his mother... and she had left him and his family all alone in the dark and the cold. Left him in the ashes of a dying world.

"Why did you work with SEELE?! Why did you want to live forever so badly! Why are you leaving your 7-year-old son behind right now?!" Shinji cried out, so many emotions brought out of him at long last.

He knew the truth now, and it hurt as it always did.

Yui flinched back at his words.

The broken Shinji placed his hands on his mother's face and felt himself sobbing weakly.

I don't want to do this. Don't make me, please... it doesn't have to be this way, he thought.

"Mother... just go. I've seen how this ends, in my timeline, I don't want to do it again. This is your chance to make it right. Leave this place. Forget you ever saw me. Just go. Your son is still out there," Original Shinji said.

He gestured outward, to the world frozen outside of the Eva and the Entry Plug.

"My younger self is waiting for you. Go to him. Go and be the mother for him that you never were for me. I can handle the Angels, and SEELE, keep my secret and live your life. Oh mom, be there for your son. Don't let him be all alone," Shinji pleaded.

The new Shinji, the boy out there, I-... don't let him be like me. Don't let him be all alone, Original Shinji thought.

Yui only stared at him.

Please... just leave the Entry Plug. That's all it takes. Don't ever look back, don't ever question it. I can take it from here, he thought pleadingly.

"I can't. SEELE is still out there. My way is better. Oh, Shinji... my way is better. Humanity will survive through me," Yui said, caressing his face softly.

Shinji released his mother, stepping back and shrinking before her concerned gaze. In that moment, reduced to just another lonely child, before taking a deep breath and meeting her gaze with his hollow empty eyes.

"You don't need to live forever. Just live your life," Shinji whispered.

"No. Shinji, I love you, I do, but this is something I have to do," Yui said shaking off his pleads.

She had come too far to stop now, working with and within SEELE, setting everything up years in advance. She loved her son, truly, but some things were bigger than that.

"I want to believe you. I want to believe that you love me. I want that more than anything. But you're lying, and now you won't even admit it. You can't even say the words, can you? Just say it... That you wanted your dream more than you 'loved' me," Shinji said flatly.

Yui flinched back as if struck.

"That's not true," Yui lied, lied even to herself. A mother refusing to admit that she had a choice. That she could stop all this once and for all. All she had to do was leave the Entry Plug, and never tell anyone what she saw.

Shinji couldn't even look at her, turning away as if hurt. Facing the grim reality for a second time, facing it now in both timelines.

The broken Shinji wiped the tears from his eyes and stared unblinkingly at his mother. He was a man with nothing to lose and everything to gain, a man who had gone so far and done so much already, what was one more sin to him?

"Oh, mom. I came here to stop you. I'm so sorry," Shinji said, dying inside all over again. Reliving the events of his timeline once more, his fight with Yui, their disagreements, and her death as she was erased along with that entire universe.

It always ends this way...in every timeline, every universe, mother... why couldn't you just choose me, he thought bitterly.

Then the Broken Man grabbed his mother by the throat and squeezed. Yui Ikari gasped and struggled against his grip, clawing at his face, but the Original Shinji only stared at her with grim absolute hollow empty eyes. Even now... knowing all of Yui's crimes, a part of him still loved her, this was the hardest thing he had ever done.

Shinji broke his mother's neck with a snap.

Time started to flow again. People were going crazy outside, no one able to stop Eva Unit 01 as it began to absorb anyone inside the Entry Plug. No one knew what was happening anymore, no one knew that there were now two bodies inside the Entry Plug.

"I have no tomorrow. But there's still hope for the future," the broken Shinji whispered.

He reached out with his Angel senses, and he found his younger self watching from afar on the outside.

The new Shinji Ikari, the boy from this timeline that would be changed forever. The Younger version of himself that was watching what 'he' believed was his mother dying.

The Original Shinji used Adam's power one last time, reaching within the First Angel's abilities, the ability to use the powers of Adam's children... Accessing the powers of both Arael the 15th Angel, and Armisael the 16th Angel, the powers of both infection and mind penetration, mixed together and stood at his call.

The Broken Man raised a hand, palm up, and he fired off a strange unseen pulse that cut through space itself to reach its target.

---

Young Shinji stood watching in horror as his mom was stuck inside the Eva, but he did not understand the events happening around him. He would not understand it for years to come.

When the unseen pulse struck him, he was sent flying backward as his veins burned. He screamed.

The boy flailed wildly, feeling like his skull had been cut open. Infection, and a piece of the Original Shinji's mind placed inside his younger self. The infection would keep the younger Shinji alive, it would spread to his brain and remain localized there whilst the mind was 'connected' with his future self's.

Young Shinji fell to the floor, unable to speak, his mind was flooded with emotions, images, and thoughts that were his and yet not his. The lonely little boy twitched on the floor as if in a seizure.

Then, in the first of what would be many conversations, the thing inside the young Shinji's head spoke.

I am you, and you are me. We have a long road ahead. I will be with you, always. One day you will understand. Even if you never forgive me... even if you hate me, I accept that. I'm sorry. For everything.

The young Shinji screamed, grabbing his throbbing skull and terrified of the sudden voice in his head.

This day... everything changes.

Young Shinji lost consciousness, his veins feeling like they were on fire, his skull feeling like it had been cut open. Images flooded his mind, and a voice in his head spoke, the first symptoms that would one day land the boy into a mental ward.

---

Inside the entry plug of Eva Unit 01, Original Shinji opened his eyes knowing that it was done. He would be in two places at the same time. Inside Eva Unit 01 AND inside the mind of his younger self.

He let himself and the corpse of his mother be absorbed into the Eva. Such was his control of both himself and Unit 01, that even his clothes were brought along with him. The powers that Lilith and Adam had given him.

The broken Shinji did not scream as his body was ripped apart, torn to shreds, cell by cell and reduced into an LCL like state before being taken into the Eva. What was pain to him anymore?

...

The Other Place.
Where souls had a physical form.
The 'core' of Evangelion Unit 01.

Original Shinji's soul remained intact, and his consciousness with it, even as the remnants of his mother's soul was absorbed along with him.

His soul grabbed onto the thrashing remains of Yui Ikari, the soul, and consciousness of his mother. The two souls, Shinji and Yui, appeared as 'beings of light' from within the void that was Eva Unit 01.

"NO! NO! You're ruining everything!" the soul of 'this' Yui Ikari shouted. His mother from this timeline.

She tried to fight him, to shove him away, but to no avail.

Shinji pulled his mother close before killing her again, literally ripping her soul in two as he severed 'head' from 'body'.

Death of not only the body but of the mind and soul as well. The true death, no coming back, no resurrection or cheats. Yui Ikari was gone... and nothing would bring her back. Just like the Other Adam.

Original Shinji did not cry, did not weep, as Yui faded. He let go of any feelings for this woman who had given birth to him. He no longer cared for the woman who would have sold not only him but the entire world for her pitiful dream.

I didn't want it to be this way... not this cold. I didn't want the ends to justify the means... not like Gendo... I didn't want this at all. Humph, it never mattered what I wanted. This is what I am now. Broken... what they forced me to be.

With the murder of his own mother, becoming something more than human, being absorbed into Eva Unit 01 in the place of Yui, and the infection and altering of his younger self, Shinji Ikari unraveled time itself.

Putting changes in store that would ripple for years to come. All for a chance to set things right. But at what cost?

---

…

"I rejected Instrumentality. And I failed everyone in the end. My wife, my children, Asuka, Misato... the list goes on.

This isn't about me. Never me. It's about them. I will stop SEELE, the Third Impact, the Angels. All of it. I will, I've come so far now. There's no going back.

I will give them a better world. A world where they could have all lived. Where my children will never know the horror that I have seen."

-The Broken Man.

…

---

The Current Timeline.
Present Day.

WEEEOOOEEE.

WEEEOOOEEE.

The alarm blared, a siren that cut through the morning drills. The Nerv staff stumbled in shock, listening for directions, or else startled at the suddenness of it all.

"All unnecessary staff, evacuate the hangar now!" Ritsuko shouted into the comm. The doctor's voice projected across the compound.

Nerv staff followed orders and evacuated. Eva Unit 01 activated for the first time in two months. The enigmatic titan was more alive than machine these days, and it stood bolted into a launchpad and imprisoned. Now, something was happening.

Aoba watched his computer terminal, nearly spilling his coffee, in shock at the readings. The sync ratio was off the charts. The Entry Plug was being released.

All on its own. No input or commands from them at all. Even the camera was down, it had stopped working the day Shinji Ikari had been absorbed.

Ritsuko rushed ahead of the evacuating staff, a team of medics following closely behind her, just as they entered the hangar.

Misato was there, the boy's guardian racing to the hangar despite the order to evacuate.

"Shinji! What's happened to Shinji!" Misato shouted. The poor woman hurried after the slowly receding Entry Plug. The long metal tube left the back of the Eva's neck with a whirl and gush of compressed air.

Members of the staff ignored orders, watching as at long last Evangelion Unit 01 returned their pilot to them. Two months of wondering, of research and tests, experiments to free Shinji Ikari, all of it met with failure. They watched in horrid fascination.

"All units, stand back!" Ritsuko called out. The nervous medics stumbled back as Unit 01's Entry Plug shot out at long last.

Two months and the pilot was released.

CLANG.

The Entry Plug landed with a heavy thud, the metal tube slamming into the floor of the hangar.

Misato barely avoided the crash landing as it did so. The hunk of metal, the tube that had held a 14-year-old pilot, opened with a hiss of compressed air.

What came out was a heap of clothing. An empty plugsuit that fell out as the Entry Plug wobbled and rolled from its fall.

More and more staff emerged onto the hangar, researchers coming to see, support staff, and finally Commander Ikari himself. Gendo watched from the observation deck, his face expressionless.

"NO! What good is all your science if you can't save one boy!" Misato wept. She clutched the empty plugsuit and held it close, the fabric wrinkling as she squeezed it fruitlessly in her hands.

LCL dripped down onto the woman's hands.

It was all too much for Misato. Two months of waiting helplessly and unable to assist in the rescue operation, two months of useless debates and orders, of watching the scientist have no answers, and now they had all failed.

We failed… Shinji's gone. I- no… what is that?! Ritsuko thought. Emotions ran through her head at a rapid pace. Fear, to shock, and now awe.

A hand emerged from the upturned Entry Plug. The metal tube lay on its side, as slowly, a figure emerged from within.

Naked, covered in LCL, and with a substance steaming off his bare skin, a 14-year-old teenager stumbled out… Shinji Ikari.

The boy fell to his knees. Before he slumped his shoulders, silent, and unresponsive to the collective gasp that filled the hangar.

"Misato!" one of the medics called. The woman looked up to see the boy she'd come to care for, the boy who had called her the closest thing he had to a mother, a title that Misato struggled with at times.

She ran to him, ripping her jacket off and throwing it to the naked boy sitting silently.

Shinji didn't take the jacket, didn't flinch as the fabric slammed into him. He barely seemed to notice it all.

Misato hugged him, crashing into him, even as Ritsuko and the medics came forward to inspect him. Two months inside the Eva. Who knew what that could have done to the boy? Why was he covered in LCL? What was the steam coming off of him?

"Shinji! My god, we thought-" Misato stammered, the words caught in her throat

The medics stopped in their tracks, and Ritsuko pushed two of them aside… and saw it too.

Shinji's eyes were red. Not an illness, not a symptom of some disease, but a change. His iris had changed into a deep red, with the outer eye white.

Just like Rei. A change of eye color.

Ritsuko marveled at it.

Misato noticed the next thing first. The woman reached over to take his hands in hers and tried to get him to talk.

"Hey, it's okay. You're safe now. You're out. Shinji? Hey, Shinji? Whatever it is… it'll be okay. I promise," Misato was saying. She spoke in a low whisper, doing her best to cover the naked boy, trying to shield him from the curious and terrified gazes of the others.

Shinji was crying.

The boy wept silent tears that trailed down his face. He blinked his red eyes, so much like Rei's, yet different, and only nodded. His low breathing was one of the only signs that he was awake.

He was bawling like a baby, but entirely silent. An inner turmoil or pain that only he could feel.

That wasn't the worst part, it was the emptiness behind his eyes. The lost look in him. As if the boy's entire world had been shattered. So fragile, the 14-year-old barely hanging on by a thread.

Misato shook him gently, trying to reassure him, but it was like the boy was looking right through her. Shinji cried softly, uncontrollably, his hands trembling, and silent. Revelations that had shaken the boy to his core.

Shinji… what happened to you? Misato thought.

The stunned crowd stood gathered around the boy with red eyes, crying silently, eyes lost, and the adults at a loss as to what had happened.

Eva Unit 01 stood above them all, bolted into the launchpad, a lone figure that loomed over the scene.

---

Young Shinji is FINALLY out of the Eva. Out of the memories of his future self.
He will be changed after this. In more ways than one.

LONG chapter, Yui's backstory, to Adam's fight and death, Shinji and Yui, Lilith's sacrifice, the Unraveling, all leading up to the return of Young Shinji.

Was it too much for one chapter?

For those paying close attention, there are parallels to how Original Shinji and 01 defeated Adam and how Young Shinji defeated Sachiel in his first piloting run.

I admit to changing the lore, fanfiction and all, but in general, I always had strong feelings about Yui. A lot of Eva fans just seem to give her a free pass, this fic is a very different approach with her. In canon, she still did 90% of things here in Unravel. She worked with SEELE, manipulated events, and abandoned her son twice.

Thanks for Reading and please Review!