Disclaimer: I don't own Evangelion (yet) or Thrice Upon a Time novel.
"All systems ready. Preparing to fill the plug with LCL. Are you ready?"
"Yea, ma'am." he said, giving her a smile through the hatch of this improvised entry plug.
Even after all those years the sensation of having his lungs filled with LCL was still familiar. A feeling that brought back memories of another life that caused him so much suffering, but also allowed him to learn to find his happiness.
And, most importantly, a life that gave him the chance to get to meet her.
As the entry plug was being filled with the orange and viscous liquid, he started to remind everything that happened to him since he met her on the "Over the Rainbow".
After all this time, he still doesn't know if it was the sun or the combination of her red hair and yellow sundress that was so bright that obfuscated him. Her confident pose, standing at the deck of the ship was interrupted by the gust of the wind, leading to a slap on his face and realization that this girl was trouble.
Naturally, he developed mixed and confused feelings of love and hate toward the girl.
His confusion only grew stronger after they started to live together. He learned to admire her strong will and confidence. Her fire and drive to work hard to achieve things and be the best. She was basically the opposite of him. That's why he loved her. And also, the reason why he was afraid of her.
However, even if the literal end of the world was needed for him to understand her better, he could see now, clearly as clean water, that underneath the façade of a strong-willed and arrogant attitude always was a girl that was afraid of showing her true feelings and don't know how to relate to other people.
She was the same as him. That's why he loves her. And also, the reason why he is afraid of her.
But everything changed.
And, especially, on that day.
"Asuka. Dinner is ready."
"What? Oh… ok. Go ahead. I will eat it later." – she said without turning her head, staring the computer screen.
This scene had been repeated almost every day for several years. Asuka spent almost all of her time working and studying on this project in this reconstructed laboratory that they had grown accustomed to calling home.
As much as Asuka hardly gave him any technical information, he knew what she was researching.
An answer.
From the truth about Second Impact to the Human Instrumentality project, Asuka was studying everything she could about the theories developed by various scientists. From the pioneering studies conducted by Subcommander Fuyutsuki to the works developed by Naoko Akagi and also... Yui Ikari and Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu.
Although he couldn't understand the implications of what she was discovering, Shinji continued to support her in the best way he could.
But anyone could notice his sadness and annoyance with the situation. Even after all that had happened, Evangelion was still a problem, a barrier between them.
Instead of trying to make the best of the second chance they had, Asuka was still obsessed with answers, basically spending all her time focused on her studies.
Especially after she came across the works of a researcher named Mari Makinami, that became the focus of her obsession. Some studies about time loops or something like that.
On the rare occasions when they could sit down to talk, all that she talked about was related to the works of Ms. Makinami, for whom Asuka had a kind of fascination and admiration that left Shinji with a feeling of sadness, even jealousy.
He looked again at Asuka, who continued to stare at the computer screen, ignoring his presence.
Normally, he would resign himself to the facts and go have dinner alone. But this time he decided to do it differently. He walked over to the dining table, picked up a bowl and filled it with the soup he had prepared, and returned to Asuka's side.
"Hey Asuka."
She just grunted, visibly annoyed with the interruption.
"Suppose that this Ms. Makinami is right. What happens to free will?"
That got her attention.
"Is this a legit question or are you just trying to bother me again like an annoying dog wanting my attention?"
"Well, I just thought that… if you can send information backward through time, you can tell me what I did even before I get around to doing it. So, suppose I choose not to?" - He looked defiantly across at Asuka. - "What's there to make me? So I don't, and no information ever gets sent back to say I did. But I've already received it." He shrugged. "The whole thing's crazy."
"It's not. Since there are serial universes, tied at each other because of the Second Impact, there is no paradox." Asuka said, dismissively, keeping her eyes on the screen.
"What?"
Asuka sighed as she half-turned in her seat and looked at him.
"Ok, I will try to make it simple. Suppose that all the pasts that have ever existed, and all the futures that will ever exist, are all just as real as what we are living right now. Can you imagine that?"
Shinji nodded as she continued.
"The present only gives the illusion of being more real because we happen to be perceiving it... in the same kind of way that the frame of a movie that happens to be on the screen right now appears real, but that doesn't make all the other frames in the reel less real. Now, imagine that, but with infinite universes and possibilities. Does that make sense?"
"I don't know" Shinji answered. "Are you saying that all those pasts and realities exists, but are like a movie to us since we aren't connected to it?"
"That's the whole point and the biggest question." – she said, while catching the bowl from Shinji's and starting eating its content – "They could be different. For instance, everything that occurred since the Second Impact until 'now', may have been different in some other universe. So, when that universe arrives at, say, the moment of the Third Impact, it may not have happened, and it will have evolved a history that doesn't read like ours at all. From there it will go on into its own future, fully consistent with its own past but different from ours." Asuka stated with an unusual excited voice, resuming to eat her food, slurping the soup in a way that would be really rude if social manners still mattered in this world, making Shinji smile softly for the first time in ages.
"Mmm..." Shinji thought about it for a short while. "I think I understand. But if it does work that way, then everything you're trying to do is pointless."
"Oh, really?"- Asuka said, annoyed, leaving the bowl on the side of the keyboard. - "So, enlighten me, 'all-mighty Shinji our lord and savior' that knows all the answers!"
Shinji waved his hands in front of him, defensively.
"Hey! I'm not trying to fight, ok? I just… well. Let me try to explain."
Asuka simply looked at him, waiting for him to talk. He took a deep breath and tried to elaborate a proper argument.
"How can I start? Well… you said that one could, in theory, send information back to the past, or at least to the past of some universe, but you could never be affected by anything that anybody in that universe did as a consequence, right?"
"Yes, you're right. In fact, I collected sufficient evidence to conclude that this is exactly what Mari Makinami did. She managed to send a message to another universe before she passed away."
"Ok… so that information might help the people of that other universe, but still… it can't help us. You could tell them to do something different from what you did, but that won't change anything in our situation. Why should you want to put all that effort into helping somebody else solve the problems? Even if they somehow manage to avoid Third Impact, it would just be a different ending for them, and not for us. So why should we bother?"
Asuka raised an eyebrow and, after a few moments, sighed.
"Well… what if we not send only information?"
"What do you mean?"
"Makinami's research predicted that, just like all the alternate universes are tied to the Second Impact, they are also tied to another event. Or, more accurately, to another person."
"So… you're saying that…"
"Yes. It always has been you. Heh… I was right from the start when I called you invincible Shinji Ikari. It's kind like you were chosen from the start to be the trigger to instrumentality. A constant in all timelines. It's like your soul is tied into this endless look, by some kind of a quantum enlacement done by a superior being or alien technology. Mari Makinami knew it. And I think your mother did too. That's why she did what she did. That's why she let me…" - she looked at her right arm, clenching her trembling hand.
"Asuka…" Shinji said, trying to put a hand on her shoulder, but she pushed his hand away.
"No! I'm… ok." – she said, while hugging herself, looking away from him.
"W-well… that still doesn't change anything, I guess."
"Are you stupid?" Asuka said, looking back at him.
"No! Look! It doesn't matter what we do. It's a one way trip. What goes there, be matter or information, won't be able to go back. So, why sending me there would make any difference?"
"But that's exactly the point!", Asuka shouted as she facepalmed.
Shinji took a deep breath. "I…. ok. I don't get it. So, please, Asuka. Explain it to me."
That seemed to calm down the woman as she adjusted herself in the chair.
"Look, it's simple. We can send information to other universes, without it altering our reality or the past. However, since our universe is already outside the loop as we survived the Third Impact, but your soul is still attached to instrumentality… that means you can be the key to be able to go to other universe and bring information back to us!"
"So... you're saying that the information of those infinite universes can be imprinted in my… soul?"
"Heh… you are not so dumb after all. That's what I'm talking about! If we can send you back to one of those universes, you can try to find Mari Makinami and work with her to find a solution for our universe. In theory, it all makes sense. If we can recreate the conditions needed to create a rift into a Dirac Sea. I just need to try to turn this idea into a viable concept for a creating prototype with the resources we will be able to get, so…"
"Wait, wait. You're saying that your plan is to send me to another universe and I will try to find a way to fix that universe and also help our own universe?"
"What? Yes, what part did you not understand?"
Shinji frowned and sighed.
"The part that I don't want to do that?"
Asuka got up from her chair and give him a mean and angry look.
"What? God damn it, idiot! Remember what you wished for? Don't you want to see everybody else again?"
Her words triggered him a hidden memory. After they finally managed to ensure they survival, they had some deep conversations, especially about the fact that even after a few years nobody else had returned.
Eventually, they talked about what made them decide to came back to this world. He said that what made him want to return was the desire of seeing everybody else again. Asuka left for a few days after that night. And, when she returned, things were never the same again.
"Don't you realize that this is the only chance that we would be able to make people return to this world? "Idiot! Don't you see that I've been working my ass out here every day to try to find an answer? All that effort doesn't mean anything to you?"
"Asuka. But… it's too risky. Why should we…"
She pulled him closer to her, by grabbing his shirt.
"Don't you trust me?"
"Of course I trust you Asuka! It's just…. I'm ok with what we have! If people don't want to accept it, it's their choice. I'm fine here. It's ok for me to be here. Just the two of us and those few that might decide to return someday. Anyplace can be heaven, and I'm glad for what we got." – he said with a tiny smile on his face.
Asuka looked at him with a cold glare.
"Liar."
"What?"
She grappled him even harder, looking straight in his eyes
"You're just afraid of meeting them again. Afraid of meeting your father again. Why? Afraid that you will realize that you are just like him?" – she said while releasing him, making him trip over the chair and fell down, dropping the bowl of soup on the floor.
She stared at him and whispered a single word, before went missing for several days: "Pathetic".
Shinji looked at the long, red hair falling over Asuka's shoulders as she leaned forward toward the console, at her slender arm stretching out over the touchboard to start the experiment.
She did it. Even with all the hardships, this woman had managed to understand the most complex theories about the nature of reality and arranged a way to build a prototype that could change the course of reality.
He should be worried to be used as a guinea pig in this crazy experiment. After all, if he died or failed, Asuka would be alone and that's what bothered him more than losing his life.
But looking at her confident face, he felt in peace. He had utmost trust in her skills. Also, he thought that she had never seemed more beautiful than at this moment.
He bit his lip silently and gripped as, suddenly, realization hit him. And then, panic.
She had missed a very important thing in her theory!
She was so focused on the task that she had worked for all those years that she had forgotten to consider what effects of rebuilding reality can bring to a whole timeline.
If everything in those universes is somehow connected with the outcome of the Second Impact, any slightly difference into the timeline would make events reshape themselves into completely new universes along the new out that would result.
But that was not even the bigger risk. Only his soul was attached to the events of instrumentality so… no matter the outcome of the experiment… even in a scenario where Third Impact is avoided and the loop is broken…their own timeline could be erased from the existence. Like a branch being cut out of a tree.
That means that it was very likely that,,,, she would be gone.
Lost. Forever.
That was what frightened him.
And even if her soul and essence can be somehow preserved and sent to that new timeline, everything that he and Asuka remembered doing together would be changed – for better or worse.
There was no way of telling.
There was no way of being sure even that they would meet each other again.
Or even know that this universe had ever been, or could have been.
"The linkages are complete," Asuka said quietly, turning her head to look up at him. "It's ready."
Something vast and hollow opened up somewhere in the pit of Shinji's' stomach. He felt his body shiver but was unable to control it. He had to stop it. If he didn't do it now, he'd never be able to do it.
He leaned forward and stretched out an arm for trying to manually open the plug, but he was pushed back into his seat by something like a strong gravitational force.
A black hole? A Dirac's sea was forming. The portal for the anti-universe was slowly swallowing the entry plug.
Somewhere back in space-time, binary digits were already materializing out of an intangible realm of existence and assembling themselves together before consolidating, and hurling themselves back yet further again a hundred times over.
At the end of the chain, causes had already come into being whose effects were rushing back down the timeline toward the present moment, demolishing the universes that lay in between and reforming new ones from the same elements like the patterns in a kaleidoscope.
He needed to tell her, now! But the plug was full of LCL and without the proper communication system, it was impossible for him to speak.
Asuka got up from the chair and went as near as she could to Shinji's entry plug, looking up into his face.
His mouth fell open as he saw that her eyes were brimming with tears that she had been holding back for a long time, and he read what was written in them even before she spoke.
"Idiot. I hadn't forgotten." - she said with a soft voice, as if she knew what he was thinking.
No. That's not right. That's not how it should be.
Despite their fair share of ups and downs, and even if people didn't understand the message and opted to live in a fake word, he really was in peace with their destiny. With what they have learned, what they have built, the hope that they carried.
However, because she knew that he wanted to see them again, Asuka decided to do all that. She was giving away their hard-earned peace because people couldn't accept the harsh reality of their world.
So, to make it easier for them to understand everything and give them a chance, she was risking everything. Even her own self. For people that hated and betrayed her. For people that are not worthy. Or maybe…
He shook his head in mute protest, as the entry plug was being sucked into the anti-universe as he saw Asuka's beautiful face, with moist eyes and a sad smile for the last time, as she whispered.
"Goodbye… stupid Shinji."
He sat on the beach, listening to the calm roar of the red sea waves resounding in his ears.
It was hard not to marvel at the fact that, in the anti-universe, the appearance of things easily suited people's subconscious.
And he, having again the control of instrumentality in his hands, could finally remember his past and understand the reality of things.
About Evangelion. About the people he wanted to meet again. About his father, and how they were so similar.
Just as Asuka had made a great sacrifice to allow him to fulfill his wish of finding all his friends again, he would also have to do his part. Even if he would be alone and suffer, he would do the right thing this time.
He would rewrite the fate of this world, so that everyone could find their own way. To be able to do what they couldn't do the other time. Because, as much as the decision to face reality is individual, sometimes people can't do it alone.
That's why he had to help his father. Just like his mother helped him and Asuka's mother helped her too.
He understood everything now. And, specially, about the beautiful woman who was lying beside him, sleeping for the first time in years.
When he first saw her, he was enchanted by the beauty and imposing presence of that redheaded girl in her red plugsuit after she had just destroyed an angel, alone, in an impressive quick battle. This thought soon gave way to confusion, doubt and even anger when the same girl, in one swift movement, knocked him to the ground, lecturing him for not being suited to be a pilot.
Naturally, he developed mixed and confused feelings of love and hate toward the girl.
But, at the end, she liked him. And he liked her too, even thought he was kinda ashamed of it. He felt like he was betraying his Asuka.
An Asuka that no longer existed in this reality. The woman who was sleeping peacefully, for the first time in years, was someone completely different. A clone, a tragic version of an Asuka who never fully existed as an individual, who didn't even know motherly love and lived a really rough life.
Yet, despite all the differences between what they experienced, their nature and their history, he knew that she was still Asuka. After all, in his brief existence in this universe, he fell in love with her.
So different and, at the same time, so much the same as what happened the other time. And that also happened infinite times, in different universes.
As well as other constant events that, no matter how much history was changed, ended up repeating itself, in an eternal loop.
But it all would end in this cycle. And after rebuilding this world, he would have to destroy the last anomaly present.
Himself.
His essence would then be trapped and dissolve along with the anti-universe, to ensure that the cycle is broken.
But as he looked at the face of the sleeping woman beside him, after fixing her curse and giving her what she needed, he couldn't help but think about the only one thing he was sure he wished, no matter what was going to happen.
He wanted to see her again.
No matter how.
No matter the universe.
Asuka is Asuka, and that's enough.
Naturally, they would find a way to be together.
"Stupid Shinji?" - the woman interrupted his thougts as she woke up.
It was time to say goodbye.
"It looks pretty crowded here," Shinji observed as he looked at the lines for the restaurants near the train station. "We're gonna have problems finding a table."
"It just needs patience," Mari said, "But, if you want to settle for just a coffee, we can do that. There's a place that I like just around the corner. I think it's about 60 years old. I hope it's not closed."
"Sounds fine."
Shinji turned quickly to go in the direction Mari had pointed and found himself facing a girl who was walking, distracted, looking at her cell phone screen.
He did his best to avoid the impact, but the two ended up colliding and falling to the ground.
"Oh, shit! Look at what you did, your dumbass!" a woman groaned as she realized that her cell phone had crashed on the ground.
Mari yelled something and started laughing. For a second Shinji stood staring helplessly.
And then he noticed for the first time how stunningly attractive the woman was, with long, red hair, and elegantly dressed in stylish and professional businesswoman suit. He could see himself falling for her, if only her attitude wasn't so brash and she wasn't very short tempered.
Naturally...
Author notes:
So, this story is based on James P. Hogan novel Thrice Upon a Time, as a part of #neverendofevangelion project.
Like most of my stories, there is a lot of meta interpretation and commentary here but, unlike the other stories, this one does not reflect my views on Evangelion and it's both a challenge and an experiment.
When the official title of the latest movie in the Rebuild of Evangelion series came out, many people went looking for Hogan's story to see if there was anything inspirational.
I decided to read the story out of curiosity. Although I don't believe there is an express correlation between Hogan's work and the movie, you can certainly see some similarities, especially the idea of time loops and rewriting the reality of the world for the greater good, even at the cost of great personal sacrifice.
And also, a very interesting detail: even if the timelines are rewritten, some stories end up repeating themselves, as is the case of the protagonist and his wife, who end up meeting again. Thrice Upon a Time is a story that repeats itself, just like Evangelion.
In this story, three scenes from the original work were adapted: Murdoch explaining time travels and time paradoxes; when Anne sends Murdoch to another timeline even though she knew that in doing so they would lose each other's memories; and the final scene in which Murdoch meets Anne again.
The adaptation was made, of course, to involve Shinji and Asuka. I know that the "sequel theory" has been disproved in official interviews and it has become increasingly clear that the endings of Evangelion, The End of Evangelion, and Rebuild of Evangelion are three alternate and independent versions of each other (Thrice Upon a Time), but in this case I chose to merge those universes by using the "Thrice Upon a Time" concept of Hogan's story by having Shinji and Asuka meet again "three times".
On a meta commentary level, I see Asuka and Shinji from the EoE universe in this story as representatives of the old fandom. Asuka "obsessed" with finding out "the truth about Evangelion" (maybe she was going to like internet forums) while Shinji was satisfied with the ending, even if a good portion of people couldn't make peace with it.
Asuka, in this story, decided to sacrifice herself to fulfill Shinji's (and some fans') wish to "see Evangelion and its characters again," underscoring some of Asushin's tragedy in that they can't be fully honest with each other and communicate fully, but are always willing to make sacrifices for each other.
For his part Shinji, in the RoE universe, understood this lesson and, like Murdoch in Hogan's novel, was at peace with his decision, knowing that, even if things change, history also repeats itself and he (and Evangelion fans) will be able to meet everyone again, in all universes and new stories.
The #neverendofevangelion project highlights this fact: even a year after the last RoE movie, the passion for the franchise continues and new materials - official and fan made - keep coming out.
Thank you for taking the time to read this story. Soon, new stories will come. Because Evangelion is a story that never ends.
