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?

38. Sohryu III

Hey guys. I went through three different drafts for this chapter.
It took a while. It's very long because it has to be, I hope I've earned your trust in these long chapters of mine.

I put sub-headings if any readers wanted to read this in pieces due to its length.

This is THE Asuka chapter. Again, it's long but it's worth it I promise.
Happy holidays and here's chapter 38 "Sohryu III"

---

"There are moments in our lives that leave their mark. An incident that haunts you. You can try to repress it, to avoid it, or to ignore it. In this way, you become its prisoner. Your identity is locked around that thing you keep buried away. You can build as many walls as you want, but life has a way of tearing them down.

One day, you will have to face it."

- The Broken Man.

---

Part 1: The Ghost in the Machine.

Roughly five years ago
Testing facility in Germany

Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu sat in her office, looking over the reports one final time with her phone in hand.

"You spoil her too much. You've got to learn to say no. We can't go buying every toy that she wants," Kyoko laughed into the phone.

Her husband, Peter Langley Sohryu chuckled over on his end.

"She's our daughter. And she's a kid, I know she's special, but she should get a chance to enjoy the little things now and then. Come on, I never get to spend time with her like this," Peter said.

Kyoko rolled her eyes and shook her head. Asuka, child prodigy and intelligent little girl that she was, knew how to play on her father's sympathies. Her daughter had almost gotten away with asking Peter for a second allowance that she wasn't supposed to know about.

She submitted the report and the computer chimed in response.

"Is Asuka there? Can you put her on?" Kyoko asked.

"Asuka. Asuka, come here your mother wants to talk," she heard her husband say on the phone.

Kyoko smiled as a new voice emerged on the line.

"Hi mama, papa took us to the park. We got ice cream!" the little girl said. She was clearly having fun spending the day with her father now that school was out.

"The park and ice cream? You're making me jealous, my love," Kyoko said sweetly.

"No! We wish you were here too. Dad says the park was my treat for jumping two school years. I studied really hard and everything," Asuka cheered on the line.

"I see. Congratulations again Asuka, we're so proud of you." Kyoko cooed.

She nodded listening along to Asuka talk more about spending the day out in the park.

"Sorry sweetie, can you put your father on? I need to go soon," she said interrupting gently as she checked the time.

"How are things on your end?" Peter said, his voice returning to the phone. He tried to hide his concern, but she knew he was nervous.

In truth, Kyoko was a little nervous herself. But every safety precaution was being taken.

"They're setting the Eva up now. Listen, everything will be fine. Once this is over, we need to take a vacation. I think we could all use the time off," Kyoko said calming herself.

"That sounds lovely. We could do something, I don't know, take Asuka to the zoo? Spend the day there?" Peter said.

"I'd like that. I'll see you later tonight," Kyoko said.

"Goodbye," Peter said a little too slowly. Their time was up, and as much as it pained her, she hung up.

She glanced at the clock and rose from her seat. She left her office and strode through the compound halls heading for the hangar.

Kyoko emerged onto the scene and found the area filled with a variety of scientists, technicians, and looming above them all, was the product of their work for the last few years.

Towering and intimidating, with red plate armor, Eva Unit 02 stood bolted in place and open for all to see. The clone of an Angel that was currently inoperable. With any luck, that might change starting today.

They went over the procedures, going over the simulated data, and decided that theory had taken them as far as it could. It was time. She had volunteered to be the test subject, the second Eva pilot ever.

"Commence the Second Contact Experiment," the manager called as the hangar was cleared.

The entry plug was released, and Kyoko entered it taking a seat in the cockpit. They ran through the process in cold clinical fashion. The entry plug was reinserted into Eva Unit 02 and the sync began.

Kyoko breathed and felt it, she felt the Eva reaching out for her and reached out for it in turn.

"Sync ratio: 22%" She said steadily into the comm unit.

The first person to ever establish a connection with an Eva and live to tell the tale. With the combined data from their test plugs and the failed experiment with Yui, the team had successfully established a bond with the soulless clone of an Angel.

Kyoko felt herself smirk, and distantly… she felt the Eva respond in kind.

She moved the controls and felt the Eva respond. Unit 02 worked. It worked! She had made it work!

No… something is wrong… Kyoko thought.

A weight emerged in her chest and her breath grew shallow and weak. Her limbs grew stiff and her movement slowed.

Her sync ratio was rising of its own accord and the Eva wasn't just reaching out to her… no, it was pulling her in.

Is this what happened to Yui? Is this the last sensation she ever felt?

Kyoko snapped out of it. She could hear the others on the comm units panicking. They were trying to get her out, but the entry plug was refusing its commands.

Her skin shuddered, and she gasped as she felt something pulling at her. Not just her body, but her mind. Her very soul. Unit 02 was taking her inside of it.

Her vision distorted… and she was both somewhere else and still inside the entry plug.

Part of her world was still the same cockpit, the metal tube of the entry plug, and the rest of it was a different place. A void that stretched on forever.

Two worlds that bled into her vision. One real and physical, the other somehow different. Her soul itself was being absorbed.

She felt something happening to her body too. Like it was being scanned, and she knew she had to act. The Eva Unit would take her, it would disassemble her and pull her into itself.

NO! Asuka needs me! Kyoko thought.

She fought for control of the Eva. She pulled against the sync ratio and the numbers on the display fell.

Kyoko strained against the weight of her own limbs as she reached forward entering a series of commands into the console. A prewritten script she had devised as an emergency.

Eva Unit 02 didn't want to let her go, it clung and clung to her. The twisted nightmare of human ingenuity lacked a soul and it wanted hers.

"Asuka…" Kyoko whimpered.

She felt her soul being peeled and yanked from her body, stripped away inch by inch, and she wheezed with bloodshot eyes as foam emerged from her mouth. Kyoko fought to hold it back, resisting the Evangelion's pull with all her might.

Alarms were blaring outside. People were shouting on the intercom.

The computer system chimed, and the console ran her code. The sync was forcibly severed, and the power was turned off, the entry plug was disconnected from the rest of the machinery on a software level and the default procedures kicked in.

With a hiss of compressed air, the entry plug was released.

CLANG

The metal tube slammed onto the floor of the testing hangar. Medical crews rushed forward as the bay doors opened automatically.

Kyoko lay unconscious with blood running down her nose and eyes.

…

In the days that followed, Kyoko Sohryu lay comatose atop a hospital bed. She appeared lost to the world, and her husband and daughter visited regularly.

A small but bright girl spoke to her mother as if she was there wide awake. Asuka told her mother that she missed her. That she was doing so well in school.

Peter only stood solemnly as his daughter spoke to her comatose mother.

Weeks past and people feared Kyoko would never wake, and then on a day unlike any other… Kyoko opened her eyes.

Nurses had opened the door to find the woman sitting up with wide lifeless eyes staring ahead.

For a time, Kyoko was mute. Unable to even speak.

Asuka and her father visited glad to see her back, but at a loss as to what had happened. The woman breathed, ate her food, awkwardly moved if needed, but had lost her voice.

When the doctors gave her pen and paper, she only stared at it.

How they had wished to hear Kyoko's voice again. Only when they did, they'd soon regret it.

"Not right. Half. This… this is wrong."

Those were the first words Kyoko Sohryu said a month after waking.

It happened when Asuka was visiting. She had been going on about getting accepted into college at such a young age when her mother had spoken.

"Mama?" Little Asuka has stammered.

Kyoko laughed, and it was an odd strange hiccup that sent shivers down Asuka's spine.

The laughter continued for several minutes, mixed in with bits of weeping, tears that streamed down the grown woman's face as she breathed.

---

Part 2: Fall.

Present Day

"Eva Unit 02 is the property of Nerv and the UN. It doesn't belong to you, Ms. Sohryu."

Gendo Ikari's words rang in Asuka's ears as she stormed out of the conference room.

Asuka huffed, her breathing slowed as she moved through the hallways heading for nowhere in particular.

Her messy hair got in her way, she hadn't bothered to touch it since getting up today. The shadows under her eyes felt heavier than normal. And the world seemed to have tightened itself around her, an unrelenting pressure that did not yield.

She wobbled, fighting against the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. Asuka Langley Sohryu did not cry, so she didn't. She held it in.

Asuka Langley Sohryu was an adult, a college educated prodigy, who didn't need anyone and could take care of herself. Only little girls still cried for their mother, so she didn't.

Mother…

Just thinking about that woman triggered something in her, flashes of something unpleasant, a deep wound that had never healed, brought forth to the surface and reopened by the Nightmare during the Five Angel Crisis.

Asuka brushed the thoughts off, forcing them back down.

She kept walking until she reached a dead end. She was so lost in her own thoughts she almost walked headfirst into a wall but stopped herself at the last minute.

Asuka scowled and turned in a furious whirl. A man was standing there, having been following her ever since she'd stormed off from the conference room.

Kaji.

The adult stood there with his rugged good lucks and charm at a distance, putting away what air he carried with him from day to day. He was dressed in business casual clothes, hands in his pockets, and waiting for her.

"… leave me alone."

Asuka said the words but it was like someone else was speaking them. Before, she had been enamored with Kaji. Kaji, the grown man, a real man, the total opposite of her father, Shinji, and any other boy that she'd encountered.

But now, things were different. Her world was coming apart and such things felt like they had belonged to another person.

Kaji gave her a pitying look, one that Asuka hated. She flinched.

Not you too... Kaji… I'm not a child. I'm not… I'm a prodigy, a pilot, practically an adult, she thought.

Asuka clung to those words of hers. The sentiment that had guided her for so long now. She had hated the way Maya and Ritsuko had been treating her as if she was made of glass. Weak. And now Kaji… was there anything that wasn't ruined this day?

She was snapped out of it when Kaji patted her on the head gently. She blinked, wincing from the unexpected contact.

"It's okay, kiddo. Let's go for a walk outside," Kaji said softly.

…

Things blurred for Asuka. She followed Kaji to the grounds of the Geofront for some fresh air. She suspected that he wanted her to 'cool off' and she wasn't sure if she should be glad or angry about that.

They walked outside, and when Asuka didn't speak, Kaji did the talking for both of them. She seethed quietly, haggard-faced and with heavy bags under her eyes from lack of sleep.

Kaji was the opposite. The man was so 'smooth' for lack of a better word. Charming and laidback yet serious in his own way.

"It won't always be like this."

Asuka blinked. She'd been so lost in her head that she'd missed what he'd said.

"I- what?" she said.

Kaji looked her over saying, "one day the Angels will be gone, kiddo. No Angels, no Evas, no more of this mess we adults forced you into."

Asuka nodded slowly. Of course, he was right. But the thought left her feeling empty, what would there be to do once the Angels were gone?

What would she do when the Evangelion Program came to an end?

"You did your part. You were a pilot. That's more than most can say," Kaji continued gently.

"I am a pilot," she corrected him, a slight hiss in her voice. She regretted it the moment the words left her mouth, but she let them hang all the same.

Kaji seemed to consider that.

"Yeah," he said at last.

Asuka glanced down at her hands and winced as the tremors in her hand returned. They had started doing that ever since the Five Angel Crisis, particularly when she tried to pilot.

She hated it. This sign of weakness, and worse, she couldn't overcome it.

Kaji watched her hands shaking, and with a concerned expression, he reached over to comfort her. To take her hands and inspect them, but she pulled away from his touch.

Another time, she would have welcomed it. Would have rejoiced in spending time with Kaji, but now things had changed.

Asuka tightened her hands into fists, and slowly the tremors stopped.

Kaji didn't question it, he only nodded and gave her the space she needed. Letting her feel what she felt in silence and stood coolly there with her on the grounds of the Geofront.

"That you are kiddo. That you are," he said. She wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not.

---

The next day

Kaji was kind enough to bring her 'home' after she had cooled off more.

Asuka remembered walking through the apartment numbly and finding her room, avoiding her 'roommates' and going straight to bed.

That night she had dreamed again, the night terrors that haunted her mind even in sleep. The ghostly specter of her mother, a walking husk of an insane woman wearing the face of a once kind and loving figure. The memory of Shinji leaving her alone in that city block with nothing but the Angel corpses. Moments that she had repressed.

When she had finally woken, she rose to the same fog of anguish as before. This 'scar' for lack of a better word that lingered in her, down to her very soul it seemed.

The night terrors were easier when she didn't dwell on them.

"I am Asuka Langley Sohryu," she muttered to herself harshly.

She blinked heavy sleep-deprived eyes and spotted the cup of tea that Shinji had made for her the other day. The cup was empty, with tiny stains of leftover tea splattered on the inside.

Asuka stared at the cup for quite a while, before slowly rising and getting ready for school.

"Gonna show them," Asuka muttered to herself. It wasn't over, she would regain her pilot status and then that stupid man, Gendo Ikari himself, would give her back the Eva.

He had to.

The words felt flat even to her. She could shove the inflections into her tone, could act older than she really was, but the sentiment was empty. The emotions couldn't be faked on the inside.

Asuka shuddered, still recovering from the night terrors, and braced her hands to lean on her dresser.

"Gonna show them," Asuka chanted to herself again. She couldn't meet the reflection in the dresser, the one she'd had imported in from Germany.

Once again, the words fell flat and devoid of the fire that she had kindled within her for years now.

Her room was packed with material luxury and wealth, 'rewords' for her status as a child prodigy and Eva pilot, imports from Germany and America that she had shipped here to Japan. And in spite of it all… her room felt emptier than it had ever been.

Pure cold, the absence of warmth. For even with all the money in the world, there are things which cannot be purchased.

She hung her head low and felt her hands reach up to hold herself. An embrace like the ones she'd had as a child.

Just like Shinji… she thought. Asuka remembered when the boy had cried in his sleep so loudly that he had woken her, how he had sobbed for his mother, how she had found him in his room hugging himself with tears in his eyes.

Asuka felt her lips tremble and she shook it off, forcing herself to lower her hands and let go of herself.

She dressed for school, not even bothering to shower, grabbed her stuff, and left her room.

Moving through the hallway of Misato's apartment, she heard shouting in the kitchen and glanced by as she passed the room.

Shinji was there, sitting at the breakfast table with his guardian miss 'Mama Misato' shouting at him in a panicked and frustrated voice.

Asuka watched the two with a hollow empty expression as the lecture went on.

"You're going right back to school and undoing this! I mean it, Shinji! I am NOT going to sign off on this!" Misato was shouting.

Asuka mused that the woman sounded angrier than ever before. Misato's tone had grown harsh and high pitched as she spoke with hands on her hips.

Shinji only listened calmly, the boy didn't shrink from his guardian's outburst and that honestly surprised her a little.

Asuka caught his eye as she moved onward, stepping through the hallway and passing the kitchen on her way out.

Shinji's gaze lingered on her, but he said nothing and Asuka wasn't sure if she was grateful for that or not.

Misato's reaction was the complete opposite.

"Asuka? Where are you going? Asuka? Hey, we… just go to school! Please!" Misato shouted pleadingly after her.

Asuka walked on even as Misato made to chase her. She opened and closed the apartment door before the older woman could get another word in.

Once outside the apartment, she left the complex in a daze. A kind of autopilot that dragged her feet forward.

And Asuka found that she did not feel like going to school very much that day.

…

Elsewhere

Asuka wandered the city aimlessly. She drifted from place to place, store to store, public space to public space, conflicting desires of wanting to be alone, and wanting company, raging inside.

She considered going to Hikari's apartment, but school was still in session and the girl would be in class.

Asuka wandered and wandered, eventually finding herself at the arcade where she had seen Shinji and Toji play.

The clerk didn't seem to care that she was skipping school, and she paid for the time just as any customer would. She was practically the sole person there, the whole arcade to herself.

She picked a game at random and scowled at the scores displayed on the screen from the previous games. Mari Illustrious Makinami followed by the second player in that round, Shinji Ikari.

The couple had somehow reached the top scores.

Asuka played the game.

She lost, the in-game character fell in battle to its many enemies before curling into its death animation.

She played more rounds, fairing a bit better each time until she made a mistake. A single bad move that had been avoidable. She fumbled as she seemed to get worse and worse in the rounds that followed.

Stupid game. Thing is rigged, Asuka thought her hands shaking.

The German girl walked away from the game, letting the round continue on by itself, not caring that she'd paid for two more lives, not caring that the clerk watched her with a puzzled expression before turning away in apparent boredom.

You let me in during a school day? What's wrong with you? Asuka thought, leaving the clerk behind and slamming the door shut on her way out.

…

She ended up walking to Kaji's place. The apartment she'd had to look up, another Nerv complex.

Asuka knocked on the door to find no response.

Figures. He's at work, she thought feeling stupid. Of course, the man wouldn't just be there waiting for her whenever she wanted to talk.

Asuka sat there outside Kaji's front door, face downcast, heavy eyes hidden behind messy and unkempt hair. A lone child, no… a lone adult out in the city, or at least that was what she told herself.

After what seemed like hours, she got up and left the place seething. She hated this feeling, the concoction of fleeting intense dread, fear, and hints of rage that she knew not where to direct.

The sensations boiled up within her, building an explosive pressure and bottling up with nowhere to go.

She rose from the floor, leaving Kaji's apartment behind. She knew what she had to do.

Another crack at it. That's all I need. I'll prove them all wrong, she thought. Again, the words fell flat even to herself.

---

Nerv

"Shouldn't you be at school?"

Those were the first words out of Maya's mouth when Asuka emerged into the room wearing her plugsuit.

Aboa and Hyuga, Ritsuko's other assistants, glanced up from their displays, giving her a confused look.

"It's fine," Asuka said through gritted teeth.

Maya frowned shaking her head.

"No. You're not scheduled for a test today. Listen, you should be in school. Why don't we call Misato and she can-"

"Run a sync test for me," Asuka cut in rudely. Her eyes were narrowed and unrelenting, cold sharp things that cut away at the warmth that Maya had tried to comfort her with.

The scientists exchanged looks. Maya concerned, Hyuga confused, and Aoba frowning.

"We can't-" Hyuga began.

"Where is Ritsuko? The Commanders said I could still run tests," Asuka cut in again. She was seething with bottled up anguish that left her restless and on edge.

"Ritsuko's setting up a sync test for Rei. It's the first one since she got out of the hospital and the… the crisis. You'll have to wait until she's done," Aoba said simply.

The words hit Asuka like a punch to the gut and left her breathless and wheezing on the inside. Outwardly, she made no sign of her discomfort. She wouldn't let these people and their stupid frowns and looks of pity see her bleed.

Again, the words from the Commanders of Nerv rang in her ears.

"The Second Child is being put on a probationary status. Their sync ratio has reached an all-time low, and their combat status is dubious at best. They will be allowed to train and run tests so long as they do not interfere with the reformed Eva Team Zero's schedule."

Gendo's and Fuyutsuki's words mixed together in her mind, harsh and unforgiving blows to her pride.

"Let me go first. I have the second-best sync ratios," Asuka rasped, her voice low.

"We can't do that. Team Zero takes priority. I'm sorry," Maya said in a quiet tone. The woman put her hands up in a reassuring gesture and that only made Asuka angrier.

The door opened and Ritsuko entered the room.

"Asuka? What are you doing here?" Dr. Akagi asked blinking in surprise.

The German girl turned to her saying, "they won't let me run a sync test. Tell them to do it, I can do it."

"Rei is on her way. She has a scheduled test, and then Shinji after her. Eva Team Zero is the priority, that comes from the Director of Nerv himself," Ritsuko said.

As the doctor spoke, she exchanged looks with her assistants reading the tension in the room and slowly taking in the effect the seething Asuka had had on everyone.

Asuka shook at their words. Before any of them could speak again, before yet another person told her to go to school, she stormed off.

Ritsuko and the others called after her, but she ignored them.

Outside, she stormed through the hall. The conflicting bottled up emotions built up inside her contorting and growing more and more volatile. It rang in her ears like a series of unforgiving drumbeats, a confounding substance deep within her heart that burned away like venom.

Asuka paused at the sight of her making her way to the testing room.

Rei froze at the sight of her, the pale girl stared with those red eyes. The girl stood there in her white plugsuit, arguably the 'weakest' of the Eva pilots, or so Asuka had often thought many months ago.

Now, Nerv was giving the walking doll of a girl more priority than her. Asuka, the child prodigy who had graduated college. She who had worked harder and trained harder than any of the others.

Rei, the so-called hero who had stopped the Five Angel Crisis, and had only hospitalized and nearly killed her Eva partner to do it. Rei, the infuriatingly quiet girl who had suddenly outranked her.

You weren't out there fighting… you didn't face the Five Angels… you faced ONE. One who had been weakened. You didn't face the Nightmare! Asuka thought in a rage.

"Pilot Sohryu. Are you unwell?" Rei said tilting her head.

"… don't talk to me," Asuka said storming past the strange girl just like she had with everyone else.

…

Asuka wandered again, moving through the complex in a haze with her pride reeling. She couldn't quite breathe, and so she ran in the Nerv employee track room to clear her mind. The place was empty, during the day most employees were too busy to use it.

When that didn't work, she changed and went swimming in the pool. She dived in and out of the water, swimming at a semi-professional level. Yet her moves felt off to her, sluggish and every now and then she found herself losing her balance under the water.

She surfaced from the pool, panting heavily and swam to the edge to pull herself out. She breathed in and out, letting herself catch her breath at long last.

I… I shouldn't have snapped at them. It was stupid. She thought, frowning as she wrapped a towel around herself.

She was so on edge lately, ready to explode, and she didn't handle it well.

"Asuka."

A voice called suddenly.

She turned surprised at the interruption to her musings

Shinji Ikari stood by the pool, dressed in his plugsuit, wearing those eye contacts of his again, he always wore those things. He watched her with a carefully masked frown.

"… what do you want?" she asked in a measured tone. She had to fight the urge to hiss or lash out, it wasn't him so much as it was her.

The boy… the boy had been kind to her. Had given her tea that helped her sleep, had not forgotten her when Misato and the others had. Not that she needed to be cared for exactly.

"I heard you wanted to run a sync test. I spoke with Ritsuko and she agreed to cut mine short so you could have a test today," Shinji said.

Asuka narrowed confused eyes at him.

How did he do that? They didn't listen to me… it's because he's the Golden Boy. Perfect Shinji, Mr. 400% sync that came back with red eyes… the one… no… I'm doing it again. Be nice. Just be nice… he's trying to help me, Asuka thought.

She had to squish down the feelings of bitterness and resentment threatening to rise out and come into the world. She struggled to digest them, and they left a severe aftertaste in her mouth.

"… when?" Asuka stammered out.

She couldn't meet the boy's eyes, when had that happened? Since when did she look away whilst he stared ahead?

"Right now. I'll give you some time to change, but head back to the lab when you're ready. Ritsuko will wait for you," Shinji said. The boy seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

"… thank you," she muttered, her eyes downcast.

"It's no trouble," Shinji whispered. He turned to go, giving her the space and the time she needed to collect her things and change back into a plugsuit.

---

The testing labs

When Asuka arrived, she found Shinji already finishing up. From the looks of things, Ritsuko had indeed cut the test short. The boy had synced up and held steady for a few minutes whilst the Magi supercomputers ran a few tests.

Ritsuko called over the intercom saying, "looking good, Shinji. You're done for the day."

Shinji said something over the comm unit he was wearing, and she waited as the test plug for Unit 01 was released from the safety of the lab.

The boy emerged looking no worse for wear. Just another day, another test that he had done a thousand times before. The way she had once left the tests as well.

He cleared the room for her, and Asuka headed for her own testing plug. The plug that Nerv used to sync up with an Eva from the relative safety of the lab, a way for them to try out syncs without the fear of an Eva going berserk.

"Good luck," the boy whispered as he left.

Asuka only nodded, too lost in her own thoughts to leave a proper reply.

Just the sight of the testing chamber made her skin crawl. An innate reaction that had started ever since the Crisis, she felt her heart pounding in her chest as she approached.

Ritsuko called out into the intercom, but she didn't hear a thing the woman said. Asuka breathed, and quieted the fear, insecurities, and chills running down her spine.

With a hiss of compressed air, not unlike the entry plug used when piloting for real, the testing plug opened for her.

I can do this. I CAN. She thought fiercely.

She got in.

"Establishing the link. Try to hold it steady, don't jump too far. Take it slow," Ritsuko called over the intercom.

Asuka breathed in the LCL, following the process as she had done hundreds if not thousands of times.

She felt Eva Unit 02 in the distance. The Eva… no her Eva reaching out to her as she reached back. Like another part of her, some phantom limb that joined her nervous system. An extra muscle that needed to be stretched, exercised, and one that required discipline to use.

"Sync rate: 11%" Asuka muttered to herself staring at the display.

She breathed, in and out, calming herself. Her skin was crawling. Why was her skin crawling? What had happened? Her hand was shaking, and she hated it.

What's wrong with me… why am I so on edge? Asuka thought, struggling to push through.

Then it happened.

Her sync ratio was rising, her 'extra limb' reaching out to join with Eva Unit 02… and then suddenly it emerged. Like a wound inside her psyche that had been reopened, a scar that never fully healed, and it tore bleeding out into her very soul.

Flashes of the Nightmare and something more, something deep within her that the Angel had unearthed from her worst memories. Something that she had kept hidden from everyone and everything… even herself.

"Asuka," the voice called in a raspy whisper.

The German girl flinched, her breathing slowed, her chest grew heavy, and her eyes widened.

She stared at the display, watching her sync ratio. 18%.

Don't look. It's not real. Focus on the Eva, Asuka forced herself to think.

"Asuka… Asuka…" the corpse of her mother called.

A ghostly revenant of Kyoko Sohryu, a specter from her childhood that haunted her even now, emerged there in her mind. Flashes of the Nightmare brought forth once again to tear her down.

"Go away…" Asuka whispered tightlipped, shuddering and refusing to look.

It was like her mother was there in the testing plug with her, there in the cockpit pacing back and forth with that stupid doll of hers.

The dead woman's footsteps sent chills down her spine.

"Sync ratio: 16%. Slow down, just try to keep it there for now," Ritsuko called on the intercom.

Asuka nodded her face a carefully constructed mask of calm threatening to crack at any moment.

Her mother was laughing.

"Hahaha… heh… ahh," Kyoko whimpered. No, not laughing Asuka realized. But sobbing.

Her dead mother was crying. A crazed delusional wail of sorrow.

"Half. Only… half. What did they do? Asuka… what did they do to me?" Kyoko rasped, tears sliding down the woman's gaunt and decrepit face.

"You're dead… you're not real," Asuka hissed under her breath.

Kyoko cried again, sobbing as she slumped to lean against the cockpit. The specter wailed and fell to her knees beside Asuka's seat.

Still, Asuka refused to look at her. She closed her eyes tight, turning away from the reality that she knew to be false.

"… It's not right… it's not right!" her mother shouted, anger, rage, and fear flaring up randomly in the woman.

"Sync ratio: 10%" Ritsuko began over the intercom.

The doctor said more, words of encouragement or perhaps safety. Asuka had stopped listening.

"No one helped me… no one helped… why? Someone help me… kill me… please… kill me… Peter, Asuka… please… end this. Half. Only half. This is not life," her mother sobbed.

And suddenly, Asuka remembered those words. It had been one of the first things her mother had said after leaving her coma, the first signs of the woman's insanity, words that Asuka had repressed. Ancient words that terrified her and sent her reeling, words that she had chosen to forget.

"… mom," Asuka whispered. She felt tears in her eyes, a lost memory that had resurfaced and been brought to life by the scar she carried from the Nightmare.

She ignored the display, leaving the sync ratio behind, and finally turned to see what she had chosen to repress for so long.

Her mother… her mother was crying into her hands, curled up into a ball. Barefoot, with drool creeping down her face, messy and unkempt, suffering in ways that no one could help. The doll, the figure that her mother had obsessed over and had believed to be her daughter in her last months of life, was thrown to the floor.

"Help me… help…" her mother whimpered pleadingly.

Asuka, breathless and shaking all the way down to her toes, reached out for her mother.

Then, like a switch being pressed, a shift, a complete reversal, Kyoko Sohryu changed.

The dead woman stopped crying, she snapped up to attention, leaping from her spot on the floor to stand with deranged unstable eyes. Tears forgotten, the corpse grabbed ahold of Asuka by the wrist and the German girl screamed.

"He cheated! He cheated! Peter! Peter, how could you! Everyone leaves me!" Kyoko shrieked.

The red fabric of the plugsuit clenched around Asuka's wrist as her mother squeezed and squeezed.

"Abort… abort… stop the test," Asuka whimpered but her voice was soft and quiet. Her lips shook and the words never quite came out.

It's not real… it's not real… it can't be, the German girl thought over and over as the corpse screamed and screamed.

"Asuka… Asuka… let it end. Die with me, I've seen it. It'll be better. Let it end," the corpse whispered over and over.

And then Asuka was lost, drowning in memories that had overridden the reality around her. Flashes, moments from her past, overwhelmed her as she wasn't in the testing plug anymore.

She was a frightened little girl again, trapped in a hospital room with the husk of a woman that had once been her mother.

"You're not her. Lies! My Asuka… my girl…" the memory of Kyoko shrieked, the woman clung to a stuffed doll. A doll that she chose over her own flesh and blood.

Then the scene changed, and Asuka was at her mother's funeral. Her father Peter stood solemnly over the grave as a man in a white suit lowered the closed casket into the grave. Her stepmother was there, at the arm of her father.

The Young Asuka scowled, looking away from the pair. Tears were threatening to break their way free, but the little girl held them back.

Her grandmother was at her side, and the kind woman knelt to speak with her.

"I'm so sorry, little one. You're a strong girl, you get that from her. But it's alright if you need to cry. Forget about the others, you feel what you need to feel," her grandmother said sweetly.

The older woman took the Young Asuka's hand in hers.

"No. I'm strong. I have to take care of myself now," the Young Asuka said, dragging the false words out into the open.

Her grandmother bowed her head crestfallen as the little girl pulled her hand free.

"I don't need to cry. Not anymore. And I never will… never again. I am strong, a prodigy. I'm an adult now," the Young Asuka said more to herself than to anyone else.

Then the scene changed and Asuka was back in the testing plug.

She had slipped free of her seat and fallen to her knees in the cockpit. She lay crying into the floor, curled into a ball as the machine whirred and beeped.

"Let me die! Die with me!" Kyoko screamed.

The phantom haunted her, looming over her as she almost went into a breakdown. The corpse was unrelenting, slurring her words together as Asuka tried to drown it out. Asuka was trapped, the world around her closing in and squeezing the life from her.

I don't… I don't, she thought.

"I don't want to die… I don't want to die… mama… I don't want to die," Asuka whispered as the tears slid down her face.

She was breaking, completely shutting down as a person.

"Abort!" Ritsuko's voice called on the intercom.

The testing plug deactivated and the machine opened once again… and yet the Nightmare lingered. Kyoko lingered.

Asuka lay curled on the floor as her mind reeled, her psyche itself wounded. She had lost her voice.

Someone was running to her, they burst into the testing plug and knelt beside her.

"Asuka, it's not real," the Other Shinji said eerily calm.

The boy grabbed a hold of the girl on the floor and shook her gently, taking her hand in his.

"Listen to me. You're in the lab. You're safe, everything you saw is only a remnant. Memories twisted against you. Focus on my voice… you can ground yourself in what's here and now," the Other Shinji said calmly.

Asuka blinked through watery tear-filled eyes and saw the boy holding her firmly.

Her heart was beating faster, whatever had happened still lingered. The phantom of her mother paced back and forth, walking through Shinji even as the boy spoke.

"Hey, I know you can do this. You know what's real and what isn't. It's scary, I get that, to not trust yourself. To not trust your eyes and ears, but you can beat it. Focus on me. On the floor, on the here and now. Ground yourself in what you already know is real," Shinji Ikari said softly.

I can't… I'm going… this is insane. I'm going crazy… just like my mother, Asuka thought on the verge of despair.

He ran his fingers through hers and squeezed letting her feel the sensation, giving her a guideline to what was real and what was distorted memories.

"Focus on me. Ground yourself," the boy whispered.

Asuka breathed harshly, gripping his hand tight, feeling that which was real and… the phantoms vanished. Kyoko Sohryu disappeared. The fragments of her own tortured psyche, scars from the Nightmare, faded into nothing.

The German girl panted heavily, exhaling in and out and blinked back tears as the world came into being once again.

Shinji breathed a sigh of relief.

Others were storming into the lab. Ritsuko followed by her team, the adults stood watching with a mix of horror and concern.

Asuka glanced up at the display, looking for what her final sync was before they had aborted.

"No. Don't… let it go," Shinji whispered pleadingly.

Asuka shook her head wheezing as she looked.

Final sync: 0%

Rejection, cold and hard. Eva Unit 02 had abandoned her.

Zero percent… zero… she thought.

Asuka screamed, a single harsh bellow and she broke down again. She sobbed into the floor, curling into a ball her face hidden.

Shinji knelt down, his face crestfallen and somber.

Ritsuko called a medical team.

Her former Eva partner reached for her, and she pushed him away lashing out.

They had to save me… they had to save me, and I still failed! She thought in an anguished rage. It was over… her piloting days were over.

"Go away!" she shrieked at Shinji, and the boy watched over her silently.

There was no more lying to herself. No more rationalities or deceptions, she was a child in pain and had been for years. Not the adult that she liked to pretend she was. All of it, her repressed memories, her insecurities, her failures, and her fears came rushing out like the opening of a floodgate.

Shinji wrapped his arms around her, never saying a word.

She lashed out at him again, trying to fight him off. But the boy stayed, he held her close and let her sob.

"It's okay," he whispered.

She gave up fighting and sobbed silently into his embrace, letting him hold her the way no one had in years.

---

Part 3: Lost.

The medical team gave her a complete evaluation less than an hour later. She was in bad shape. The damage more psychological than physical.

Shinji watched from the sidelines, unable to do much to help. He had watched as they had taken his former Eva partner and roommate away.

Ritsuko had asked the team and her assistants to keep the news of Asuka's final sync a secret for now. A report would be made later, and no one had questioned that decision.

Still, the Shinji(s) left the Geofront with a heavy heart. They reached a decision and chose to act now rather than later. They left the compound, got into the city and reached a public pay phone.

The phone rang four times before the man on the other end answered.

"Hallo? Wer ist das?"

"Hello. I know you speak Japanese. I'm a friend of-" Shinji began.

"Stop… how did you get this number?" the man on the other end said suddenly. His language changed as sharp as a whip, German to Japanese in less than a second.

"That's not important. I'm a friend of your daughter."

Those words got the man's attention. His voice changed from a stern suspicious adult to one of concern.

"How- what has happened?"

"She's hurting. I think you should come and see her." Shinji began.

…

The next day

Asuka ended up being moved to a hospital after her breakdown and put under observation. She had overheard the adults debating whether to do it or not and ultimately, they decided they needed to play it safe.

It was a decently sized facility, smaller than the one Mari had been taken to after her injuries, and more importantly to the adults… closer to Nerv. They set her in a private room, with an IV bag strapped to her wrist administrating a medical solution to her veins, and gave her drugs to help her sleep.

Misato and Kaji had shown up once to check on her, telling her the news and that if she wanted to talk then they would listen.

Asuka had refused, numb and lost to the world, near comatose in her hospital gown. Her eyes were gaunt and fatigued, with harsh lines from lack of sleep.

A nurse had brought her some food whilst another doctor ran some tests, checking her for signs of self-harm and asking about her trauma. She knew what they were doing, they were playing it as safe as they could, treating her like a piece of glass, afraid she'd have a nervous breakdown again.

So, later that day when the door to her room opened, she expected it to be another nurse at best or Misato at the worse. Instead, a tall middle-aged man with bright blue eyes and European features emerged and Asuka blinked up at him convinced she was dreaming.

"Asuka," the man said slowly.

Peter Langley Sohryu entered the room quietly, sliding the door open and closing it behind him. Asuka's father.

He looked like he hadn't slept in a day or two, with haggard clothing that he had seemingly rushed to put together before boarding an 11-hour plane ride to Tokyo-03.

"… what are you doing here?" Asuka asked distantly.

Peter stilled at her question, confused.

"I wanted to see you. I heard about what happened. Not everything, but enough. Are you okay? How are you feeling?" Peter asked frowning in concern.

Her father crossed the room to take a seat beside her bed. He leaned in close as he spoke and reached to place a hand on her forehead.

She shied away from his touch and the man froze with a look of hurt disappointment on his face.

"… I'm okay," Asuka mumbled.

Peter frowned at her.

"Bitte. Sprich mit mir, Mädchen" her father said in a soft concerned voice. It was a tone that took Asuka by surprise. He had switched to German, a deeply personal thing for them back when she had been a child.

"How are you?" Peter asked again.

Asuka mulled that over, avoiding the man's gaze.

"You flew 11 hours to see me. How did you find out?" she asked instead.

Peter sighed, seemingly use to this kind of disconnect with his child.

"Your friend called me. He's a nice boy. I'm happy that he was there for you."

Shinji… stupid Shinji just had to butt in, Asuka thought. She had a hard time deciding how to feel about that. On one hand, it was an incredibly invasive move into her life, and on the other, it was a genuine act of kindness.

The memory of the boy holding her made her reach a hand up to her shoulder without realizing it.

"Are you cold? I can ask the nurses for more blankets," Peter said suddenly. The man shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He had seemingly latched onto something, anything, that he could do to help.

This was how it always was with Asuka and her father, many layers of separation that had left them distant.

"I'm not cold," Asuka said still avoiding him.

Their silence stretched on for a long time after that, Asuka laying in her hospital bed and staring at her hands, Peter sitting solemnly beside her.

"You won't talk to me. You never do… please child," Peter breathed suddenly.

"I do talk to you," Asuka mumbled.

"About money, about gifts for this and that. Your education and moving here to be a pilot. Asuka… why can't you just talk to me? I'm worried about you," Peter said seeming to shrink before her as he spoke.

… I don't want to talk. About anything, she thought.

"Du bist immer noch wütend? Jahre jetzt, und du lässt es nie los. Habe ich recht? Hasst du mich immer noch?" Peter said solemnly, his German low and quiet.

Asuka flinched at her father's words.

"Nein," she whispered in German.

Peter watched her carefully.

"I don't hate you… dad," Asuka said her eyes glued to her bedsheets.

"I wish I could believe you," her father said sighing deeply.

Peter hung his head in his lap, closing his eyes as if considering something.

"You learned a very hard lesson at a young age. That your parents are not the role models you believed them to be. We all do it, as kids, we put our parents on a pedestal. But after what happened with your mother, you learned the truth. Your parents are human. We are flawed." her father said wearily.

Peter rose from his seat and Asuka watched him with tentative tired eyes.

"I'm going to tell you something I should have years ago. I'm sorry that I got married so quickly after Kyoko passed. I know that hurt you, but your stepmother was there for me when I needed her," her father began.

Asuka scowled and looked away, not wanting to hear it. Her father could be very… German for lack of a better word. Straight to the point and blunt in times of crisis.

"There was a time when I loved your mother. A part of me still does, but no matter what, we loved you, Asuka."

Again, she didn't speak. She sat in her hospital bed wordlessly listening to her father.

"What can we talk about? You're in the hospital, and it has something to do with piloting. I worr-" Peter continued only for Asuka to interrupt.

"You don't have to worry about it," she said cutting him off.

Zero percent sync ratio… zero… inoperable. Even the Eva abandoned me… Asuka thought glumly.

"I'm fine," she lied crossing her arms and bringing the bedsheets tighter over herself.

Peter frowned, watching over her. He reached down and planted a kiss on her forehead, and Asuka had to fight the urge to flinch back. Instead, she let him.

"I worry about you, and I always will. You've grown up so fast, too fast in my opinion. You don't want to talk, that's fine, but I am glad to see you either way," her father said at last.

Peter breathed in slowly, breathing easier and looking much more well rested now that he had seen her.

"Listen. I can't stay too long, but maybe we can do something later. Just think about it, I have to go now, but I'll be here to see you out of the hospital," he said.

He patted her gently on the hand and left her to her room.

Asuka watched her father leave and her gaze lingered on the door long after he had gone. She wasn't sure if she was glad that he had left or not. She found herself staring at the door, half wishing he would come back.

…

Later that same day, she was released from the hospital. Again, she was surprised when her father showed up instead of Misato to sign her out.

The man had been telling the truth, he had wanted to spend some time together whilst he was here.

Asuka changed into a pair of street clothes that Misato had left for her and grabbed her things as her father signed the paperwork. She ignored most of the world, eyes still lost and fatigued from her breakdown.

"Is there anything you want to do? Your guardian Misato said she didn't mind if we took a detour," Peter asked as he escorted her from the entrance.

"… I'm hungry," Asuka admitted distantly.

Peter beamed at that.

"We can get some food. Maybe see the city," he said gently.

He showed her the way to his car. It was an expensive looking rental, it seemed he truly had flown here in the middle of the night without preparing anything. He had bought new clothes, rented a car, all to check on his daughter.

Asuka didn't complain as her father drove downtown with the radio on, he tried making small talk with her, but she didn't respond. She sat there in the passenger seat, distant and unfocused, watching the city through the car window in a daze.

They got pizza in a little shop near a mall. Maybe he thought that would cheer her up.

Asuka sat numbly eating her slice of pizza, listening absentmindedly to her father as he yammered on and on about anything and everything. He spoke about constantly flying between Germany and the United States, about his disappointment in the sandwiches here in Tokyo-03, about his trouble reading Japanese signs.

"You know, I'm surprised that the city isn't more packed. I thought it'd be busier at this time of day," he commented.

"It's the Angels. Lot of people left the city after a few bad attacks," Asuka said distantly. She gave her answer as if reading from a textbook.

Her father's face fell.

"I see… I'm sorry to hear that," he said looking uncomfortable.

But to Asuka, it was all noise. The conversation seemed less and less important as time went on. It ate away at her, her breakdown in the testing plug, her final sync ratio of zero percent. Of the memories that haunted her, that had come rushing back whenever she tried to pilot, of having to be saved. Of being weak. That was the hardest thing for her… the toughest pill to swallow.

Peter tried asking about her life here in Tokyo-03, about her friends and about school over here. Asuka gave him basic one-word answers and he changed the subject again.

His phone rang, and Peter cursed under his breath. He answered his phone, and Asuka watched as he quietly argued with someone on the other end.

"No. I'm busy. Call me later. Not now," Peter said hurriedly.

Always the businessman, she thought simply. Shortly after her mother had died, Peter had left the organization that had grown to become Nerv. He had gone back to his corporate days of working for big companies, making lots of money and being called away around the world week after week.

"Sorry. You remember how it is. Clients," Peter said smiling uncomfortably. He seemed more embarrassed at being interrupted than anything.

"Uh-huh," Asuka muttered. It was nothing she wasn't used to by now.

Come to think of it, she couldn't remember the last time she had eaten a meal with her father. Maybe two… no three years ago? Just as then, he had been interrupted by phone calls. Her stepmother had been there, telling her to eat her vegetables.

The memory made Asuka scowl inwardly.

"You know, I had to get a hotel room while I was here. It's pretty nice and if you want you could spend the night. We could order room service or-" Peter began.

"I'm alright with Misato's place," Asuka cut in softly.

She rose from her seat, leaving her slice of pizza half eaten.

"I'm going to the bathroom," she muttered.

"… okay, don't take too long. Your pizza will get cold," Peter said and Asuka nodded.

She headed down the hallway leading to the public restrooms and kept walking passed them. She rounded the corner and left the area altogether.

---

A few hours later
Misato's apartment

"I don't know where she could have gone. She doesn't usually act up like this," Peter was saying urgently.

Misato sighed.

"She's been through a lot, Mr. Sohryu. We have people out there looking for her. Do you want something to drink? I'm afraid there's not much to do but wait for answers," Misato said doing her best to sound calm.

"No. No, thank you," Peter said awkwardly.

The two adults sat in the kitchen, discussing what had happened while Pen-pen scuttered about looking for food.

Meanwhile, the Shinji(s) listened in from their spot in the living room. The tv blared on displaying the news, and the boy rose from his seat.

You've been quiet lately. You have an idea? The boy asked his Other.

Yes. I know where to go. The Elder replied.

Shinji grabbed his backpack and collected his phone before heading for the door calling, "Misato. I'm heading out."

Misato looked up from the breakfast table with Peter, the adults glanced up at him surprised.

"Be back by nightfall!" Misato called hurriedly as he reached the front door.

"I will. I have my phone with me," Shinji said pulling it out and letting her see it, before leaving the apartment.

…

How do you know this will work?

It is hard to explain. A phenomenon I wasn't aware existed until I arrived in this timeline.

A phenomenon?

Yes. There are… things. Places and people that have meaning to you, to all of you, that don't always make sense. Ripples across time. This place was special to me and to my Asuka. A bond we shared. Knowingly or not, I suspect she is drawn to it.

… I think Ritsuko would be annoyed by that. Something even you can't explain very well, Young Shinji thought.

The boy entered the park hesitantly, looking around at the nearly empty playgrounds and paved pathways, at the pleasant trees that painted the courtyard in a nice green.

Images filled his mind, moments from the Original timeline. The Original Asuka sitting in a wheelchair whilst the Broken Man pushed her along. Him helping the girl learn to walk again, the two and their many arguments in the first 135 days after the Third Impact.

A slap. A lonely meal shared on the park grounds. A 14-year-old Broken Man sobbing that everything was his fault, Asuka glaring at him. An apology. The two teens, at the time the only souls in all the world, drawing on the pavement with chalk.

The memories flooded through the boy as if he was reliving them, a consequence of the abilities that had been shared with him. Young Shinji breathed in and out, letting the memories go.

He walked the park and spotted a lone figure in the little square along the grounds, a playground area for children.

Asuka sat on a pair of swings, a lonely child sullen and distant from the world around her. Eyes downcast and hidden by her long messy unkempt hair.

---

Part 4: The Talk.

Zero percent… zero percent sync… she thought again and again.

The image never quite left her mind.

"Hey," a voice called suddenly.

Asuka looked up to see Shinji of all people making his way towards her

How the heck did he find me? She thought, then inwardly shook her head. It didn't matter.

The boy took a seat on the swing beside her.

"… why are you here?" Asuka asked paying him little attention.

"Maybe I wanted to go for a swing. Come to think of it… I don't think I ever have," Shinji said in an infuriating pleasant tone.

"Ever what? You've never used a swing?" Asuka asked mildly curious.

"No. Not really," Shinji answered rocking back and forth on the seat and giving the swing a test run, he found the balance strange and struggled for a bit before getting the hang of it.

What a weirdo… never used a swing… oh... yeah… I guess he wouldn't have, Asuka thought thinking that over.

She was doing it again, part of her threatening to lash out. So, she stopped it, she cut it out.

"You didn't come here to sit on a swing," Asuka said plainly. Not a taunt, or a mockery, just a fact.

Shinji put his feet down, rooting himself to the ground and stopping the swing.

"No. I didn't."

Asuka looked up and gave him a knowing look. Harsh gaunt eyes peering up through her messy hair.

"I talked to your dad. He seems nice. He was worried because you ran off," Shinji said simply. He didn't shout or yell, didn't threaten her with a lecture the way Misato, Kaji, or even Peter himself might have done.

She appreciated that if nothing else.

"You shouldn't have called him," she said bitterly.

"Maybe. But he's your dad, and I think he would have wanted to know," the boy countered softly.

Asuka scowled under her breath and looked away.

"You shouldn't have told him," she wheezed.

Shinji watched her, and Asuka felt his pitying gaze on her.

Don't. Don't you dare pity me… just don't. She thought.

"Why are you angry at your father, Asuka? He flew 11-hours to see you. He dropped everything, all for you," Shinji said suddenly, his voice hesitant and low.

Asuka bit her lip and turned back to glare at him.

"Why do you care so much?" she asked on the verge of shouting.

Shinji considered that, and what he said took her by surprise.

"Because I'm jealous," the boy laughed wistfully.

Asuka stared.

"You're so lucky, Asuka. So lucky, and you don't even see it," he said his heart bleeding into his words, genuine and vulnerable.

Lucky? Me, lucky?! What does the Golden Boy, Mr. 400% sync Shinji Ikari have to be jealous of me for? Lucky… humph. The favorite pilot. Misato's favorite too… Asuka thought glumly.

The emotions in her stirred once again like a melting pot. Anger at such a bad joke, envy at his pleasantness, sorrow at her own failures, all of it mixed within her.

She opened her mouth to lash out at him. To tell him how stupid he was being, but his next words stopped her and the fury that had been building up in her went cold.

"Your dad loves you. He really does… I'd give anything to have that. A father who cared."

The boy spoke the words in barely a whisper, a raspy tone that stopped Asuka in her tracks, and it was like the world froze in time around them.

Asuka watched him closely, unable to find any words. She saw a pang of sadness in the boy that she had never seen before, maybe it had always been there in him… in her friend, and she had been too bratty and spoiled to see it.

A sorrow, a pain in his eyes. A loneliness that he carried with him but hid.

He wouldn't look at her, he stared ahead further into the park grounds with haunted desolate eyes.

And Asuka saw him, saw the towering and brutally cold figure of Gendo Ikari in her mind's eye. The Director of Nerv, the man with little to no emotion.

The man who left his own son in a mental ward, then shipped the boy off to live with a private teacher and caretaker. A man who brought his son into the Eva program and handed him off to yet another caretaker in the form of Misato.

The man who had yelled at his son in front of everyone for disobeying orders. Uncaring, unflinching, and utterly devoid of any warmth for anyone or anything. The man who had stripped her of her pilot status and dissolved Eva Team One.

Compared to that… maybe Peter wasn't as terrible as she imagined.

"Fine… you win. Your dad is shittier than mine," Asuka said dryly.

"It's not a competition," Shinji said almost chuckling.

"Hmm," Asuka breathed noncommittally.

"I'm just saying, you could do a lot worse than Peter. We don't get to choose our parents."

"… you don't know everything. I don't hate him… I just wanted to be alone," Asuka said sighing harshly.

"Do you still want to be alone? Do you want me to leave?" Shinji asked suddenly, he said the words gently.

Do I want to be alone? She thought. Shinji had once told her that walling herself off didn't help, and as much as she didn't want to admit it, the boy had a point.

That same part of her that lashed out when things got rough wanted him to leave, and something deeper wanted him to stay. The two forces circled each other inside her, and she had to choose.

"… stay. I mean… if you want," Asuka said awkwardly.

"Alright," Shinji said simply. And that was it, he sat there on the swing beside her and the two rocked back and forth.

"My father… he cheated on my mom," Asuka said suddenly.

Shinji froze, stopping mid-swing.

"My mom… she was sick. Real sick. And dad found someone else. My mother's doctor, my new stepmother of all people. Humph, they started 'dating' while mom was sick and locked in a room on meds," Asuka continued nearly spitting the words out.

She blurted the words and let them hang. She realized that she had never actually talked about this… with anyone. Not Kaji, not her stepmother, and not even her father.

The memories of her mother made her flinch, the phantom she had seen in the test plug haunted her still, and so she shut that part of herself down. She continued the story forcing herself to move past the mental image of her mother shrieking at her.

"… and they were together at my mom's funeral. He stood there crying over her grave, with my stepmother on his arm," Asuka said finishing her tale, hints of anger working its way into her voice.

She felt her hands curl into fists, but the strength was just gone.

"… He cried for her. For your mom?" Shinji asked after a moment of silence.

Asuka nodded with hard cold eyes.

"Then he was hurting too, Asuka. I didn't know your parents, but they're still human. Everyone is. Everyone makes mistakes or does things that they never meant to. Maybe he isn't perfect, or maybe he just needed someone and your stepmom was there for him. I don't know," Shinji said slowly.

That's right. You don't, Asuka thought with a flash of bitterness.

"But I do know that he misses you. Back at Misato's he kept asking about what your life was like here. He's a good man… and maybe you're being too hard on him," Shinji finished.

Asuka mulled that over, rocking on her swing back and forth.

"Maybe," she whispered reluctantly.

Shinji nodded.

"I know you're tired of hearing this, but are you okay?" the boy asked.

"You're right. I am tired of hearing it," she responded.

"Heh. I had to try. I'm sorry," the boy said awkwardly. He ran a hand through his hair uncomfortably.

Asuka shook her head.

"It doesn't matter anyway. It's over. They're gonna kick me out of the Eva program sooner or later," she said in a distant bitter voice.

"… you don't know that."

Asuka scoffed harshly.

"Yeah, I do. I can't pilot anymore. It's over..." she said blankly. She got the words out, finally admitting them.

Shinji mulled that over.

"Even if it is… it's not the end of the world. You're alive, that has to count for something… right?" the boy asked doing his best to offer her a smile.

Asuka grunted a low hiss that escaped her lips. She wobbled in her swing, rocking forward and backward.

"It's not just piloting… it's me. I'm not… not 100% anymore. Whatever happened… it ruined me," She whispered bitterly.

"That's not true," the boy began.

"It is!" she snapped.

She glared at him, and he froze with his mouth open, whatever reassuring words he'd had died before they left his lips.

"I'm broken. I can't do anything right anymore. Everything I used to be good at… it's gone. I get worse every time I try. And I hate it… I used to be strong. I was a child prodigy… I was almost an adult," Asuka whimpered.

Her face fell and she kept her gaze glued to the floor.

I liked it… I liked being in the Eva. Being powerful, fighting the Angels. I thought it made me better, more mature. But I was still just a stupid kid in the end. A spoiled little brat.

Tears made their way down her face again and with them the familiar weight of her insecurities and failures.

She wiped them away, cursing under her breath.

I promised myself I wouldn't cry anymore. That I would be an adult from then on. Strong, never weak. Never that little girl crying for her mother again, she thought.

But she'd failed. Shinji had saved her from having a breakdown and she had sobbed and sobbed into his arms.

"… thanks. For helping me earlier," Asuka whispered, drying her eyes. She'd been crying too much lately.

"Don't worry about it. We were partners and I had to help," the boy said with a shrug.

Asuka looked up at him with gaunt sleep-deprived eyes.

"How did you do that? How did you know how to help me?" she asked actually curious. No one else had been able to help, only him.

Shinji raised a finger and tapped his forehead.

"I know what it's like to have trouble… up here," he said.

Hmm. The former mental patient… Asuka thought wincing as she realized that of course he, of all people, would know what to do.

"Does that still bother you? That I spent five years in the ward?" Shinji said suddenly.

She flinched as if struck. He had noticed her reaction.

"… I don't know… maybe… it's not you… it's complicated," Asuka mumbled.

"It did. Is that why you were so mean to me in the beginning?" Shinji said offering a small smile.

"I wasn't mean…" Asuka mumbled feeling tired.

"You were a little mean."

"Fine… I was a little mean. Happy?"

"Not particularly."

Asuka rolled her sleep-deprived eyes.

"Come on, so much has happened now that we're not even the same people anymore. Why did you hate me?" the boy asked.

"I didn't hate you," Asuka whined. She breathed in harshly, she couldn't believe how long they had been talking. Since when had they been so close? Since when did they sit and talk for what seemed like hours?

"I thought you were a rival, okay. Mr. 91% sync and you didn't seem to like piloting at all. I thought it was unfair… that I had to work so hard for my progress, but you just pulled that shit out of your ass. I worked harder than you ever did, but there you were… always keeping pace," Asuka admitted glumly.

"After the hearing… when you saved my life in that volcano… I don't know. I was afraid, alright." She continued just wanting to get the words out already.

In a way, Shinji was right. They were different people now and things like that didn't seem to matter anymore. For all she knew, Nerv was already working on sending her back to Germany, so why not tell the stupid boy.

"You were afraid of me? You looked at me differently, for a long time after that," Shinji asked honestly curious.

"Yeah. Look… my mother… she wasn't just sick. She went insane. My mom just lost it one day. It had to do with her work in the Eva program, she went into a coma and when she woke up she was just gone. It was terrible. She wasn't even the same person anymore, she screamed and screamed. Pulling me by the arm… telling me that... that she…"

Asuka hiccupped, struggling to even breathe.

"My mother told me that she wanted to die. And that she wanted me to go with her. I got locked in a room with her when I was little… and it was awful. The Nightmare brought it all back, it broke me," she whimpered.

You and your past reminded me of that. The insanity that took my mom away from me… the insanity that I'm afraid might take me one day… she thought.

"I'm sorry," Shinji said bowing his head low. And Asuka could tell that he meant it, it wasn't as simple as pity from him. No, she thought that a part of him understood.

He's not even mad. He never held it against me… not really. I thought it was just him being weak in the beginning but no, she thought.

Asuka remembered the only time they had ever fought for real. It had been in Misato's kitchen after she learned about his history with mental illness and he had begged her to 'stop looking' at him like that. She had been stupid, calling him crazy and starting a fight.

But even that hadn't really lasted, the two were Eva partners and in the end, they'd been forced to depend on each other. To help and save each other's life.

"You're not mad at me?" she asked quietly, she spoke to the ground and Shinji let her have that. He spared her whatever supposed dignity that she clung to.

"No. I think I understand you better," the boy answered simply.

I can see why Mari liked him. Mari… god… and here I am wallowing in self-pity. She thought

"You've grown up a lot. Since we met, I mean," Asuka said drowsily. Her lack of sleep was catching up to her. And she had shared far more than she had ever meant to… and yet it didn't feel all that bad.

"I had to. We all have," Shinji said. The weight of those words surprised her.

Asuka looked up at him again and felt bad for never asking. She had been too trapped in her own world and anguish to see another's.

"How is she?" Asuka asked in a soft gentle voice. Not pushing, just the way Shinji had spoken to her.

Shinji slumped, and it was like the boy aged another twenty years. The weariness that bled into his eyes, visible even through his contact lenses.

"Mari's okay, I think. She gets sad sometimes. I visit her every chance I get, but… I just wish there was more I could do," the boy… no, the young man answered softly. His voice calm yet solemn, a heavy leaf in the wind.

Asuka smiled weakly at him, the first smile she'd had since the crisis.

"I think your girlfriend will pull through. She has you, and she's always been a fighter."

Shinji smiled at that too. It was nice… just the two of them talking like this.

He got up from the swing and stretched out in the cold air.

"It's getting dark. I think it's time we went home," Shinji said looking up at the sky above.

Asuka looked up too, seeing the sky changing color. The midnight blue bleeding into the remnants of the daylight.

"Yeah. Time to go home," she said groggily with heavy laden eyes.

He offered her a hand, and she took it letting him help her out of the swing.

…

Misato was very nearly fuming when Shinji and Asuka stepped into the apartment.

"I found Asuka. She's okay," Shinji had said upon opening the front door.

"We had people out there looking for you. Listen, you can't just go running off like that. Asuka…" Misato stammered.

Peter looked her over, saw her and Shinji standing beside one another. And the man breathed easier.

"Sorry," Asuka said numbly. She kept her gaze at anywhere but her father's.

Misato looked like she wanted to say more, but Peter only shook his head. He rose from his seat at the breakfast table and strode to his daughter.

"I'm glad you're back," was all he said placing a hand on her shoulder.

Shinji and Misato stayed silent, they stood back at the sidelines, letting the father and daughter have their moment.

Asuka shifted uncomfortably and a thousand different words played in her mind, an apology for running off, a statement that she didn't hate him, that she was hurting and that she just wanted to be alone for a time. None of them made it to her lips.

Her father seemed to understand, he squeezed her shoulder and wheezed lightly. Happy to see her again, and he let her go.

That was it. No repercussion or anger, he was simply glad to know that she had made it 'home'.

Peter turned to Misato saying, "thank you for the hospitality. I'm afraid I have to head back to the hotel. I have to catch a flight tomorrow morning, and I'd like to get a good night's rest."

He turned to Shinji and bowed his head respectfully.

Asuka watched him go, never quite knowing what to say.

"Goodbye," she whispered after the door had closed.

---

Part 5: Family.

Morning After

Asuka woke to the sound of light knocking on her door.

She groaned in her bed. She had enough problems sleeping already, she didn't feel like getting up anymore. What was the point?

Zero percent sync.

Shinji had made her feel a little better, but she was still broken or at the very least breaking. Even the drugs the hospital had given her had done little to help her sleep properly.

The knocking continued on her door.

"I'm up!" Asuka called distantly.

She got up, gathered a fresh set of clothes, and set off to shower. She needed to, she'd been losing track of her hygiene and that was just wrong.

Asuka honestly didn't know how long Nerv would keep her here, but until she was officially removed from the program she decided to try and enjoy the little things.

"I should go see Hikari…" she murmured under her breath in the shower.

And Shinji… Mari… even Rei. I need to say goodbye, Asuka thought.

Freshly showered and clothed, she left the bathroom to find Shinji in the kitchen making breakfast.

She blinked in surprise.

"Hey," the boy said in greeting.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"Making breakfast. Big day ahead of us. We have a sync test," Shinji answered

Asuka's face fell in disbelief.

"We've been over this. I can't. Not anymore," she said plainly. She had moved past the rage and somberness of yesterday, skipped the bargaining phase, and had landed onto cold acceptance.

"Don't talk like that. It's not over," Shinji countered determinately.

"Shinji-"

"Asuka. We have a plan. And you won't be alone. So, come on. Have some breakfast," he said serving her a plate of scrambled eggs and rice.

She slowly took a seat at the breakfast table, staring at the food.

"I can't. The last time I tried I almost- I broke down. I can't go through that again," Asuka whispered. She shuddered at the thought of the testing plug incident.

"You won't. I promise. Don't give up, you're Asuka Langley Sohryu. You can do this," the boy said serving himself a plate too.

Asuka marveled at him. At how sure he sounded with a quiet confidence. She wished she shared that.

Hesitantly, she grabbed a fork and began to eat.

---

Nerv HQ

Asuka took a deep breath as they stepped into the hangar. The former members of Eva Team One, the Second and Third Child. Both adorn in their plugsuits.

The familiar lights and towering figure of Eva Unit 02, once a sight that invoked pleasure and excitement in her, now shook her to her core and left her intimidated.

"Alright. Take it slow Asuka. Don't rush anything. Shinji, you're the Universal Eva Pilot. If something goes wrong, you're gonna take control and keep the Eva in its launchpad," Ritsuko said into the comm calmly.

"Roger," Shinji answered.

…

Above in the command center, Ritsuko and her team observed the readings from Unit 02.

"Are you sure this is a good idea? Why not the test plug?" Aoba asked looking uncomfortable as he glanced at the red Eva from the safety of the glass.

The Evas had a history of going berserk when dealing with extreme incompatibility, and lately, the Second Child hadn't been doing so well.

"I'm sure. We're taking every safety precaution," Ritsuko answered.

It has to be the Eva itself. Unit 02. – that was what the Broken Man had told her.

…

Asuka squeezed her hand, curling and uncurling her fingers, as the entry plug to Unit 02 released and opened up for them.

How did Ritsuko come up with this? She thought looking over the Evangelion.

"What if the Nightmare comes again? What if… what if I… I don't want to do that again," Asuka said gritting her teeth. Her old self wouldn't have hesitated for a moment.

"Then you'll break out. You did before, and I'll be with you the whole time," Shinji said.

She was about to respond that she didn't share his confidence, that she wanted to stop, but he put a hand on her shoulder snapping her out of it.

"We stay together, right? We promised," he said.

"… we promised," she parroted nodding slowly.

Together, they entered the entry plug and Asuka took her seat in the cockpit. Shinji found a place to stand beside her, he was a passenger and a safety line for this piloting run. Before, she might have felt ashamed at having him there, but now she was thankful.

"Re-inserting the Entry Plug," Ritsuko called over the intercom.

The mechanism activated, and the Entry Plug was reinserted into Eva Unit 02 directly. LCL flooded the cockpit, and Asuka and Shinji breathed it in letting the fluid oxygenate their lungs.

Being back here felt strange, Asuka hadn't been back in Unit 02 since the recovery team had pulled her out after the battle in the city. She had many memories of being in here, the entry plug where she'd been strong, Asuka the Eva Pilot.

"0% sync," Asuka hissed as she glanced at the display.

She reached out with that 'phantom limb' feeling for the Eva. It reached out in turn like it always did, but where once it had slid into place as if it had always been a part of her, now it wobbled.

"Come on," she grunted feeling the connection weave up and down, not quite bonding the way it had done before.

"The Eva's not just a machine. It's not as simple as giving it orders. It's not a toy to be played with, it's… it's like it's almost alive. A partnership," Shinji said watching from the sidelines.

What? A partnership? How the heck does that even make sense? Asuka thought. Was that how the boy did so well at piloting? Was that his secret? She didn't get it.

She felt it stirring even as she sat without a solid connection. The weight in her chest, the chills running through her veins, the faintest hint of a voice calling off in the distance.

Asuka shuddered, shaking the feeling off, and tried again, working with that 'phantom limb' to match the Eva as it reached out in turn with her.

"Sync ratio: 5%" Ritsuko called on the comm.

Asuka bit her lip. 5%... that's a start. 5%. Keep going, she thought.

The world around her shifted and the scar in her psyche ached, like a wound bleeding the barest amount as it began to tear open anew.

She gasped as she felt the specter that haunted her returning, a revenant born of repressed memories brought to twisted form in the darkest recesses of her mind and soul.

The display flickered and her sync ratio dropped to 3%.

Asuka shut her eyes tight and curled her hands into fists. She slumped into her seat, head bowed low and feeling her chest tighten.

Someone took her hand in theirs, squeezing her fingers gently. Asuka was afraid to look, afraid that she'd see the corpse of her mother in the cockpit with her. The decrepit figure of one that she had once loved.

"Asuka… Asuka…" the terrible voice rasped.

"You know what's real and what isn't. Ground yourself," Shinji told her, and she felt his hand against hers.

Asuka heard him, she heard her friend and focused on him and the room around her. On what she knew was real. It was hard, something so simple and yet 'not' at the same time.

And the scar, the remnants of the Nightmare on her psyche, dimmed. Her mind was clearing, not cleansed but not broken down just yet.

She almost laughed. She had made it this far… she had recovered a sync ratio and held it. She gritted her teeth and kept going, weary of the scar deep within her mind.

…

The Shinji(s) watched over Asuka. The Younger there with her in the entry plug, doing his best to be there for her and let her take back her control.

It's time. Stay with her, boy. And let me do my part. The Broken Man said.

I understand. Good luck, Shinji thought back.

The boy placed his free hand on the side of the entry plug, running his fingers gently across the metal surface and letting the Broken Man reach out with his powers.

And from within the Other Place, the Broken Man stirred. And even further, outside Unit 02 and into the hangar at Nerv… Unit 01 stirred ever so slightly.

---

The Broken Man raised his hands as if in prayer, and the Other Place morphed around him. A window into another plane emerged from the place where souls had a physical form. This other reality not necessarily bound to the same space and time as the rest of the world.

Old Man Shinji stepped outward leaping from 'void' to 'void'. The part of him that was inside of his younger self laid the connection and made it work.

He landed in yet another place, a second void that he could enter thanks to the efforts of the Young Shinji and Asuka.

The Abomination had entered Eva Unit 02's Other Place. The realm that housed the soul inside the great amalgamation of machine and cloned Angel.

He wasn't alone. There was another form here. In this grey void, somehow different than the bridge between the Shinji(s), different than the inside of Eva Unit 01.

Unit 02's void was harsher, less defined, the reality here in this plane of existence was distorted, less 'complete'. Endless greys in place of the endless whites of his own Other Place.

A woman knelt there among this void.

She had not aged a day in all her time trapped here, she was pretty in a natural way, with darker hair than her daughter, tall, and with hazel colored eyes.

Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu sat hunched over muttering to herself in the void. The Soul that had been absorbed into Evangelion Unit 02 many years ago. The ghost trapped in the machine.

This figure was not the revenant that haunted Asuka, not the creature born from the twisted memories unearthed by the Nightmare. No… this was what remained of the woman herself. The real Kyoko Sohryu.

The Broken Man approached her, and she barely seemed to notice.

"Kyoko." He called to her.

The woman didn't respond. The soul lost and unfocused.

Kyoko muttered distorted whirls to herself, a withered husk of the woman she had been in life. She faltered on uneven footing and wobbled as she stuttered over herself.

"Half… only half…. ack… ugh… let it end. What am I?" Kyoko whimpered to herself.

The woman seemed almost lucid for the briefest of moments, then she lost herself again, the memories faded, and she was left in a daze.

The Broken Man watched her with hollow empty eyes. He stood over her hunched form and closed his eyes in grief for this poor soul.

"I'm sorry this happened to you," he said.

Kyoko ignored him. All that remained of the woman that had once been Asuka's mother.

The Broken Man knelt down to her level and only then did she acknowledge his presence. The soul tilted her head at him… and then forgot him the next moment.

Kyoko muttered to herself, whispering deranged incomplete words to herself.

He reached out, the dark shadows of Lilith's power dancing around him as he did so, and he laid his hand gently over her 'head'.

Kyoko flinched at his touch. She gasped, and her soul shook, she tried to pull away and run, but he grabbed a hold of her wrist and held her.

Lilith's shadows spread from his hand to envelop the woman, the dark cloud whirled and whirled around Kyoko's fragmented and damaged soul. The power of the Second Angel wove itself through the woman and flowed through her shattered mind… mending it.

"Wake from this madness," the Broken Man said solemnly.

Kyoko shrieked, and slowly, ever so slowly, her breathing calmed. Her eyes focused on him, like coming out of a dream, and she peered up at him.

The Broken Man weaved Lilith's power into the soul of Asuka's mother, he did what he could to help her. Kyoko's mind, once a distorted and torn husk, stitched itself back together.

He let her go and Kyoko fell back breathing hard.

"… what… What did you do?" Kyoko whimpered. The first complete sentence she had spoken in years.

The Broken Man stood.

"I put you back together, as much as I could."

He held out a hand and Kyoko took it hesitantly.

When he helped her to her feet, she whirled wildly as if taking in her surroundings for the first time. She looked down at herself, watching the whiffs of the dark cloud weaved around her soul.

"This... this is inside the Eva… isn't it? We're inside Eva Unit 02?!" Kyoko Sohryu stammered.

"Yes."

"But I- I don't remember anything! I was… I was running a test. An experiment… and now… we're here."

Kyoko stared at him with wide unblinking eyes.

"How long-"

"You've been here close to five years now."

Kyoko stumbled back as if struck. She wobbled on uncertain feet chewing over his words.

"Five years? Five years… no. That can't be right. I don't remember-" she stammered.

"You're not really 'you' anymore. You're a remnant. Half a soul. You were trapped here in the Contact Experiment. Unit 02 tried to absorb you and you aborted the process mid-way through."

The Broken Man said the words gently, his rough voice made it hard, but he tried to take things slow and let her process this at her own pace.

Kyoko looked at him in horror, opened mouthed and at a loss for words.

"Mrs. Sohryu, you're the reason Unit 02 is operational. The Evas are clones of the Angels. Of Adam and Lilith, but there's more to life than just the flesh. They needed a soul, a spark of consciousness. That's the dark secret of the Evangelions, for them to work means that someone must be sacrificed. Always." The Broken Man explained.

Kyoko took in his words with solemn grim resignation, the scientist in her running over what he had said and finding it to be true.

The woman looked down observing her own body, a ghostly specter amid the void with dark shadows holding her together. The physical form of her soul and she marveled at the realization of what she was. Once, a lifetime ago, she would have been fascinated, now she was horrified.

Silent tears emerged on the woman's face and she slumped over seemingly having lost all the strength in her legs.

The Broken Man reached out to steady her, and she slumped into his chest weeping softly.

He stood wordlessly, expression downcast, as the woman cried into his shoulder and he let her. He didn't interrupt, he didn't speak, he let her grieve for what had happened to her.

Old Man Shinji wished he could have given her more. That he could have comforted her or else told her words to reassure her. But those would have been lies, and that was something that Gendo would have done, lied to get what he wanted, manipulate a broken person to serve his own ends, no… he was not his father.

Kyoko hiccupped quietly into his shoulder and breathed in harsh heavy breaths pulling herself back together to speak.

"I'm dead? Out there in the real world… aren't I?" She asked in-between hiccups, still sobbing into his shoulder.

"Yes," the Broken Man answered truthfully.

She wobbled again, and the Broken Man steadied her once more. She wheezed in his arms and he held her gently.

"You have questions. Ask them when you're ready," he told her softly.

Kyoko nodded and slipped from his grasp. Forcing herself to straighten out.

"My daughter… Asuka… where is she? What happened to her?" Kyoko rasped. The woman clung to the Broken Man with an urgency that only a mother can know.

"Asuka's alive. She's a child prodigy. Graduated college, she's smart. Capable." The Broken Man answered.

Kyoko seemed to come to life at those words. A smile worked its way onto her face and the light came back into her eyes at the news of her child.

"Oh, my little girl. I knew it. I always knew she was special," Kyoko wheezed. She laughed and wiped her tears away hiccupping. A brief moment of joy amid this existential horror.

The Broken Man watched her, watched the relief that came over Kyoko Sohryu's face at the news of Asuka. The love that this woman carried for her child. A mother that loved her daughter.

It was the way things should have been.

"My husband. Do you know-" she stammered.

"He remarried." The Broken Man answered.

Kyoko's face fell, but she nodded slowly through tear-laden eyes.

"And you? What are you?" Kyoko asked slowly. She had calmed down and looked him over in awe.

The scientist in her took over, and Kyoko stared at him in confusion. He knew she was running countless theories in her head, puzzling over this strange power he had used to talk to her.

"You're not human. Not anymore. You're… you're…." she stammered looking for the words.

"An Abomination?" the Broken Man said blankly.

Kyoko winced at the word as if she thought it would offend him. The thought would have been almost comical if under different circumstances.

He raised his hands, letting the powers of Adam and Lilith dance across his body for her to see. Pieces of the Original First and Second Angels.

Kyoko stared transfixed at what he had done. The boldness of it. Something that no one at Nerv had even thought possible.

"I'm a friend. That's all you need to know."

Kyoko gulped at the sight of him and watched mesmerized as he let the power inside of him die down.

"… why are you here? Mister… I'm sorry. I don't know your name?" Kyoko asked slowly.

He noticed that she took the information rather well, she processed it very quickly in spite of the revelations of her fate. Asuka's mother truly was a scientist to rival Ritsuko and even Yui.

"I came here because Asuka needs your help," the Broken Man said.

Kyoko whirled to look at him, seeming to come to life once more. She reached out to him again urgently saying, "what? You said Asuka was fine? I… what happened?"

"Your daughter is an Eva Pilot-"

"What?! NO! NO! Peter would never allow that!" Kyoko interrupted.

She clung to him fiercely, pulling on him as if she could make him fix everything.

"He did. It was what she wanted."

"No…. no…. it's too dangerous. They can't let her pilot… she's just a baby," Kyoko whimpered pleadingly.

The woman shook her head in denial, she let him go and ran her hands through her hair pacing back and forth.

"Asuka's strong. She chose that life. But you're right, she's still a child. One whose hurt and needs her mother," the Broken Man said.

He explained what had happened. Telling Kyoko of the events that followed the Contact Experiment. About her 'other half', the body that went insane in the real world before dying. He told her of her daughter's fate during the Five Angel Crisis, of how Asuka had been hit by the Nightmare. How Asuka had been torn apart from the inside of her mind. Of how she was haunted by the memories that she repressed.

"Then get her out. Let her leave the Eva program. If she has to forget me… then so be it. My other half… my body that lived out there was insane. But it's gone. She can live a normal life. Away from all this. Please… you have to help her," Kyoko said pleadingly.

"You don't understand. It's worse than that, she's damaged. Scarred by the Nightmare. The sync ratio is a symptom, not the cause. There's no running away. She has to work through it."

Kyoko let out a pained, anguish-filled, whimper. He could tell she wanted to scream, to rage against this void, to cry out, and above all else, to see her child. The woman paced back and forth again, a damaged husk of a person that had been stitched back together.

The Broken Man grunted softly, aged hard lines showing on his face even more.

"You. You can help me. Please, can you get me out of the Eva? Get me a body, a clone from my old DNA. Something. Anything. I need to get Asuka out of their hands. The Eva Program is too dangerous!" Kyoko whirled.

"I can't."

Kyoko glared at him. Seething at him in a way that reminded him of her daughter.

"Why not?!"

The Broken Man tilted his head in regret. He gestured to her 'soul' here in the void.

"You're a remnant. I'm holding you together so that we can talk. Your mind is solid only because of me. It's a constant process. If I stop, even for a second, you'll get lost again. Fade away into the insanity that is half an existence."

The Broken Man gestured to the world around them, this empty void from inside Eva Unit 02.

"This is cheating. Here… this place is a different reality than the real world. Out there, I can't use this power without consequence. It ripples. It hurts someone that I love very much. And again, the moment I leave you'll go back to what you were." He explained gently.

They were running out of time, he wished that she could have more. More time to process things, to understand, but life seldom seemed to care about what he wanted.

Kyoko faltered at his words, nearly falling over herself.

"You mean, this is temporary? I'll go back to that madness from before…" she trembled.

The Broken Man nodded grimly.

Kyoko wheezed holding herself close, wrapping her arms around her tight and shuddering as she fell to her knees.

"It's not fair. It's not. I… I had a life. I had a life. And Asuka… oh Asuka," Kyoko wept, a low mumble that slipped its way past her lips.

The Broken Man watched, hovering over her, as she wept over her and her daughter's fate. This was so much to throw at someone, to bring them back only for them to find themselves in a living nightmare. To push her through revelation after revelation, anguish after anguish.

SEELE and my parents, it always comes back to them. To what they did to us, all of us. He thought.

"I know. We were all pawns in a much larger game. Sacrificed for a life that others imagined. I would have liked to have saved you. But I can't, and I am so sorry for that. This is what we have to work with, Asuka needs you." The Broken Man said, his voice a low rumble.

Once again, he felt like he was a hundred years old.

"This is the only time you get."

His words carried across the void and Kyoko paused mid-sob.

She looked up at him again with wide uncertain dejected eyes.

"Fine… How do I help my little girl? Tell me, what do I do?" Kyoko said, her voice shaking as she hiccupped. Long repressed emotions working their way into her tone.

The woman got to her feet without his help, pulling herself out of her despair for the sake of her daughter.

He stepped closer and grasped her by the shoulders gently.

"Your daughter is out in the real world, right now. She's inside the Entry Plug, reach out to her. Help her heal. Be there for her and remind her of the woman that her mother was, and not what she became in the end."

Don't let your daughter break, he thought.

Kyoko stared at him unblinkingly. She came to terms with reality and nodded.

"I'll show you what to do," he said.

She followed his lead in this strange place, she was Eva Unit 02 now. It responded to her call, its will had become her will, and she reached out with strange unfamiliar senses.

---

The real world
Entry plug of Unit 02

Asuka wheezed, fighting to hold herself together. She had kept her demons at the edges of her mind, the specter never quite emerged, but she felt it there. Her own twisted memories that haunted her, her insecurities and failures that piled around her.

She couldn't do it. She had tried so hard, even with Shinji's help… but here she was stuck in the Eva barely able to hold a sync. And it wasn't just the Nightmare, it was her. Something in her was just wrong.

The revenant's words came to her again.

"Die with me, Asuka. Asuka! Let me die… help me… die with me." The corpse of her mother whispered into her ear.

Asuka flinched, fidgeting on the edge of her sanity.

"I don't want to die. I don't want to die," Asuka whispered to herself, a mantra that she repeated again and again. Her vigil against the world closing in around her.

Then suddenly, another voice entered her head. Not the specter made of her own worst fears, not the shrieking corpse, but something warm. Kind and filled with compassion.

"You have to live on. Don't die sweetheart. You have to live. I will protect you, always. I love you."

Asuka opened her eyes and gazed ahead in awe, going into a kind of hyper-focus barely believing what she had heard.

And she knew. It was her mother… her real mother. The woman who had been her best friend, who had tucked her in at night, and had read stories to her alongside her father. Not the madwoman who had screamed and screamed, but the woman that had been everything to her.

To lose your mother… it is like losing the sun above. Its light never to come again. Yet here it was, the barest spark of that warmth rekindled.

"Mama…" she whispered breathlessly.

The specter that had haunted her vanished, overwhelmed by the light of that special warmth. And more, the memories she had repressed… her mother's insanity and her screams… they didn't disappear but something else came into focus.

The good memories, the woman that her mother had been in life. The good washed away the bad. Love was stronger than fear.

She was a little girl again, and that was okay. And it was like her real mother was there in the Entry Plug with her, a presence from beyond the confines of space and time. Beyond death itself.

"You've been so brave, sweetheart."

Asuka reached out grasping for a hand that she knew couldn't be there, and yet she felt something grip back interlinking their fingers.

"I love you."

Three simple words that carried the weight of the world with them. The scar in her psyche, the wound that had been reopened and bled out, closed. A mark that would never truly be gone, but one that was already fading. Healing.

Wounds deeper than anything an Angel had done to her, mended. Memories of her parents, both of them, flooded her and filled her with a joy that was beyond words. A reminder that she wasn't alone.

Asuka's world came back into focus, the Nightmare and its fragments gone. Her sync ratio was steady and constant at 44%.

…

The Broken Man stood beside Kyoko's soul.

Kyoko felt the connection ending. She knew it was over, the sync test was being stopped.

She turned to this strange man. This friend who had found her after all this time trapped in the machine.

"Will she be okay?" Kyoko breathed.

Old Man Shinji nodded.

"You're a parent… aren't you? I can tell," Kyoko said smiling up at him. The remnants of one of the fiercest mothers Old Shinji had ever known.

The Broken Man met her gaze head-on, his hollow empty eyes appearing to shine solemnly at her.

"I was," he croaked.

Kyoko's smile vanished and she watched him as silent as the grave. The woman reached a hand to where her heart would be and squeezed.

I'm sorry, the words were at the tip of her tongue. He saw the heavy heart she wore at his words, the weariness behind what remained of her eyes. But the Broken Man spoke first.

"I am sorry that I could not save you." He said.

She reached out a hand to him and planted it softly against his chest. A bond between them, parent to parent.

"Because of you, I got to see my daughter again. I was able to help her. That's enough," Kyoko said earnestly.

The Broken Man found it hard to face her. He turned to go.

Her hand tugged gently at his tattered worn clothes, and he paused.

"Wait… please. Promise me that you'll look after my daughter, please… you've done so much but you're the only one I can ask. Promise me," Kyoko pleaded. The woman clung to the last moments of her sanity and focus.

One last request.

The Broken Man breathed easier, almost a smile but never quite there. In truth, he hadn't smiled in over a decade. Even now, such things were past him.

"One day, I will return for you. I will end your suffering. Parent to parent, I promise I will protect your daughter. She is… I will watch over her where and when I can." He said gently.

"Thank you," Kyoko breathed, grateful beyond words.

You were so lucky, Asuka… to have had parents like these, he thought.

The Broken Man disappeared without a sound, his figure vanishing from the confines of Eva Unit 02 and its void.

…

Kyoko watched him go, her last thoughts of her child. With the Broken Man gone, the power of Lilith faded, the shadows that held her mind and soul together withered and evaporated.

The prisoner inside the machine stood in the grey void… and she sank to her knees in this strange place. Her eyes lost focus, and her words slurred. Once again, half a soul and half a person.

---

The real world

The entry plug opened with a hiss of compressed air, and the metal tube was ejected safety from Unit 02.

Asuka and Shinji stood in the hangar, the German girl breathing slowly and calmly.

"44%... 44%. It's operational… I'm back but I'm behind," Asuka breathed.

"You'll get it all back. Don't worry, I know you and you work hard." Shinji reassured her.

Yes… I can get it all back. To what I once was. No, better. I can do better. I am 'better' now. She thought.

Ritsuko and the others were saying something on the comms. Congratulating her and reporting in, but so much was happening that she barely heard them.

"… we did it. We… we did it," Asuka panted, accepting Shinji's hand as he helped her out of the entry plug.

"You did it. That was you," Shinji said beaming.

"No. I had help… you… you helped me," Asuka stammered, still processing everything that had happened.

She rubbed her fingers together, staring at her gloved palm and remembering the feeling from before. The sense that her mother, her real mother, had been there in the Eva with her.

"There's nothing wrong with needing help every now and then," Shinji said bringing Asuka out of her thoughts.

Asuka looked up at him, and it was like she was seeing him in an all new light.

Her Eva partner, the one who had held her and gotten her back. The boy who had taught her how to survive and eventually to recover. The person she had shared the most with and had spent what seemed like hours talking to at her lowest point. A relationship that she had struggled to define for a long time now, her partner, the one she had thought of as a nuisance, then a rival, to something else.

A friend? More? She wrestled with these conflicting thoughts, a harrowing end to a journey that was months in the making.

Shinji saw her and her confusion, he must have sensed it too. He almost blushed, recent events aside the boy was still only 14-years-old.

He brought their relationship to a definition, clearly and concisely.

"I knew you could do it, little sister." The boy said.

Asuka blinked at him, baffled.

"Little sister?" she stammered.

"Yup," the boy said.

Asuka scoffed, not sure if she should be offended or laughing.

Shinji gestured to the clock hanging far above in the hangar saying, "I have to go. Gonna visit Mari. I'll see you around, okay?"

Asuka shook her head in disbelief at what he had just called her. The boy took her silence for confirmation and headed off for the changing rooms.

"Little sister?! Little… sister?!" She bellowed incredulously.

Shinji only laughed on his way out.

Asuka shook her head smirking in-spite of herself.

…

Later that night

Asuka sat in the living room of Misato's apartment, watching tv and finishing the last of the takeout that Misato had gotten them.

Shinji was still visiting his girlfriend and Misato had called to 'remind' him that he still needed to come home.

Asuka had spent the evening eating dinner there with Misato, and even the older woman had seen that she was in a better mood. News had started spreading about her recovering an operational sync with Unit 02.

Thankfully, Misato had let her eat in peace only giving her an approving smile. Asuka's status was one of the only pieces of good news in the last few days.

She pulled her phone out as she entered her room, and tentatively dialed the number. Asuka sat on her bed half hoping he didn't pick up, but no… she pushed those thoughts away. Her experiences today had reminded her of something that she needed to tell him.

The phone rang, and her father answered.

"Asuka? Hey, is everything okay?" Peter answered sounding tired and jetlagged.

She realized that he must have just recently gotten off an 11-hour flight back to Germany, but he had answered her call anyway.

"Everything's fine. I just… I wanted to talk before I went to bed. If that's alright if you're not busy I mean?" Asuka said slowly.

"No, no, you're fine. I can talk," Peter said seeming to wake up at her words.

Asuka smiled softly at the thought of him rubbing his eyes at some airport and looking around for a cup of German coffee.

"I just wanted to say that I shouldn't have run off on you like that. It was dumb, I was in a bad place and you tried to help. I'm sorry, dad," Asuka said, breathing in deep to say the words.

"… You needed space. I should have seen that," Peter began.

"No. Don't let me off the hook, I shouldn't have left you like that. It was wrong," Asuka said shaking her head.

She heard her father chuckle lightly over the phone.

"You sound better. I'm so relieved," Peter said.

"Listen. Would it be alright if I called you more? When you're not busy. Just to, just to talk?" Asuka said curling her hand and remembering the feeling she'd felt inside Eva Unit 02.

"I'd like that," Peter answered.

There was a sound of cars honking, and Asuka guessed that a driver had arrived to pick her father up from the airport. She heard him telling someone on his end to wait.

"I don't say this enough. I love you, papa," she whispered.

"I love you too, sweetheart," her father said.

Cars honked over the phone from Peter's end, and she nodded even though he couldn't see her.

"Goodnight," she said letting her father go.

"Goodnight," Peter called.

---

Part 6: Envoy.

Elsewhere
At a bar in the city.

Kaji sat sipping casually from his beer, Ritsuko sat beside him doing much the same with a lit cigarette in her hand.

The music was loud, but not so much that they couldn't hear each other. Unfortunately, it made any recordings he'd have wanted to take complicated. He didn't know if he was being paranoid or not.

"When you said you wanted a drink, I assumed you meant the three of us. Misato too busy?" Kaji asked absentmindedly.

He played things cool, he had agreed to get a drink with her after work and was initially surprised by the offer. He'd been extra careful around his old friend as of late, he'd kept a mental note of what she'd said on the phone call she'd made to Gendo's personal number.

Ritsuko had placed a phone call to Gendo's personal phone on the same night that Rei had ended up hospitalized after suffering a seizure. The Japanese Ministry of the Interior had kept a record of it on his orders, and now he was wondering if it really was a slip up on the enemy's part at all.

Did Ritsuko want me to hear her call Gendo that night? To record that phone call? Is that why she didn't use an encrypted line? The spy thought.

"Misato's fine. I just felt like getting a drink and her schedule didn't line up with mine," Ritsuko said with a shrug.

Kaji watched as she signaled the bartender for the bill.

The entire hour or so they'd spent here had been rather unproductive, and it made Kaji wonder if he really was being paranoid or not. No matter how far deep Ritsuko was in with Gendo and SEELE, and he still didn't have full proof of that, perhaps she really just wanted a night out with her friend.

"I hear Asuka's doing better. That she can pilot again," Kaji said making conversation.

"She has a operational sync again. Shinji really helped her out," Ritsuko said taking one last sip of her beer.

"… Shinji, huh?" Kaji commented just a little too slowly.

"Um-hm. He's a good kid," she told him offhandedly.

Kaji stayed silent at that.

Ritsuko sighed and turned to him, putting out her cigarette and leaving what remained in the ashtray.

"Just a heads up. That envoy that the United Nations is sending to inspect Nerv, they're coming pretty soon. Might want to clean your area. Don't want them writing us off in their report." The doctor said eerily calm.

Kaji stared at her blankly.

Is she… why is she telling me this? The spy thought.

"His name is Keel Lorenz. Him and Gendo go way back. I heard he's got friends in high places, government officials and a few generals. They're all golf buddies or whatever it is that rich people do for fun," Ritsuko said acting a little tipsy.

And the woman was acting, Kaji studied her enough to know that.

He froze, eying her very closely and fought the urge to reach for the gun that he usually kept at his side. This, whatever this was it made him nervous.

"… Keel Lorenz?" Kaji said slowly. All traces of his public persona were gone, no charm or easy-going ladies' man.

"It's funny. All of this business with the Evas, it ties back to all of us really. The investors, Misato and her dad, my mom and me, Asuka and her mother, and the Ikari family. It really is a small world when you think about it," Ritsuko said yawning.

She rose from her seat and grabbed her coat.

The spy chose to be as direct as possible as discretely as he could be.

"Ritsuko… what are you trying to tell me?" Kaji said leaning in and speaking in a low voice. He took one last sip of his beer, not entirely sure what was going on.

"Hmm. Forgive me, I ramble when I'm drunk. I think it's time I head home. Don't wait up," Ritsuko said yawning as if she was tired.

Kaji knew she wasn't. He watched her go, watched as she left the bar and headed out the front door. He stayed behind and finished his drink, thinking about what he had just been told.

---

Long chapter, I know. I changed some minor lore about Asuka's family.

How did you like the mostly Asuka POV? She's the character I struggle the most with when writing. It's a different pace, and I hope the change in tone wasn't too abrupt.

What did you think of Asuka and Young Shinji's talk in the park? Kyoko Sohryu and The Broken Man? At how 'lucky' Asuka is? I really had fun writing the relationship between Asuka and Shinji, about how far they've both come with each other.

Thanks for Reading and please Review!