Asuka
Within her crimson titan, the most qualified pilot writhed in pain. Her fingers twitched numbly at the controls, barely moving them. The usually intense eyes stared vacantly upwards. Flecks of spittle mixed into the LCL.
Meanwhile, Asuka sat alone in her own mind, surrounded by images of herself. The scene had evolved. Rather than being stuck on a train, with the awful parodies of herself playing through each window, she sat alone on an empty black floor. The bizarre flashbacks had grown, distorting their shapes and pushing against the boundaries of each other. Soon, a mosaic of memories surrounded her, with each memory playing out on random shapes and sizes.
She huddled alone, face between her knees and hands on her ears, though she could not keep out the echoes of her own voice.
"I hate you," she said. "I hate you. I don't want to die. I hate you."
Rei
The room felt quiet. The only sound was the flow of LCL waves. This quiet felt out of place, considering what had happened. The burst of adrenaline, which had carried her and Tanjiro all the way from the surface, had faded.
More than this, the girl needed to realign herself. The connection had been severed with Tanjiro. Her thoughts were now exclusively her own, but they worked on a new level. Rei Ayanami had taken over Lilith. Reality itself could change on her whim. The world seemed so different. Casually, she understood the existential capacities of her power, as if she'd deciphered a difficult math problem.
She'd just reduced an Angel to nothing. By her will, the "soul" of the Angel had entered some altered state, the first member of a collective unconscious. She could reach out and mold the world in her image. That had been her function. A crazed, lonely madman created her within a lab for this purpose.
Rei could see that world. In her mind, she caught a glimpse of a desolated earth, with land bleached white, seas turned red, and the skies darkened. Evangelion-sized behemoths dotted the ocean, crucified as monuments to the sins of Nerv and SEELE.
That world seemed like such a lonely place, yet the people who wanted it thought they'd end human suffering. Gendo viewed the pain of misunderstandings and intimacy as complications in his design. Bring everyone together, he thought, by force. How could anyone misunderstand, then? Moreover, he'd never lose anyone.
There were too many flaws in the thinking for her to consider. As her new body grew, filling the cavern with her presence, Gendo seemed smaller and smaller. For the first time, she saw him as he truly was: a lonely, destructive man who would rather force his vision on the world than learn how to live in it. Gendo stared up, so far below, smiling, confident that his goal had been achieved. She hadn't seen so full and energetic a smile from him since the day of her failed Eva test, when he pried open the door of her entry plug.
Now, that smile gave her no comfort. Instead, she felt pity.
Sadly, she lacked the time to consider these things. With her free hand, she stretched her arm to the space in front of her. Some strange energy latched onto the Lance of Longinus, which lay at the bottom of the orange sea. She raised her hand. The Lance shot up from the waves, then burrowed through the ceiling. From this angle, it should arrive quickly at the field where the Evas fought the Angel.
With that finished, she looked to the warrior who lay unmoving, unbreathing, in her palm. From him, she felt nothing. Where could she even take him, now that the hospital had been destroyed? Surely, she hoped, some person remained who could help. So, she continued to grow. She rose toward the shaft which led to the Eva launch bay.
At the same time, a part of her split away. With the size and shape of her original body, she stood before Gendo.
Perhaps instinct told her how to do it. Maybe 'coding' was the better word. After all, Gendo had designed her to do something like this. Whatever the case, she grasped her bizarre abilities. So, while she rushed to bring Tanjiro to someone who might help, she stood before Gendo.
"Did you plan all of this?" she asked.
"Rei, you've done so well. Bring me to my Yu—"
"Tell me."
The Commander hesitated. She had never interrupted him. Few had. He quickly adjusted to it, though. "Only my goal was clear. Nearly every step toward it has been improvised."
Rei, or at least the part of her that stood before Gendo, felt nothing at this news. It lacked enough substance to spark a reaction. "Explain."
Gendo spoke, "It is useless to draw plans when Evangelion and Angels are involved. My only course of action has been to prepare tools and resources to handle all eventualities."
She said nothing.
He continued, "From the beginning, much has been gambled. Shinji was not guaranteed to pilot, nor has it been guaranteed he would survive any battle. The types, locations, and abilities of each Angel have been unpredictable. From the start, things have been out of my hands."
"You bet that all of this would occur?" Rei accused.
"I have worked to ensure the best chance of success. SEELE, the Evangelion, and everything else has been a resource for improving our chance of success."
'Our', he said. It seemed strange to think he cared for anyone other than himself.
The answer didn't satisfy. Rei asked, "Why did you poison me?"
Something changed in the man's eyes. His expression, long hardened in his work, barely accompanied the change. "A chance existed that the blood transfusions would prevent you from being able to follow the Script. Any chance you could not merge with Lilith was too great a risk. Perhaps I handled it improperly, but… I… it…"
The Commander of Nerv looked to his feet. She had never seen him struggle for words. He seemed annoyed that they would not come. His brow tightened and wrinkled. "I care about you, Rei. I've always needed you. It felt wrong to have you decommissioned. I wanted to give you a personal farewell."
"So, you murdered me?"
The man winced. "Bring me my Yui."
"Not until you give me answers. What was Nephilim?"
"They were an anomaly. Your DNA and that of the blond Slayer mixed into something different. Somehow, they achieved a sort of link with the other Rei models. They claimed that they would help bring about Instrumentality, since that was why you had existed. They saw you as a mother. When we became aware of an Angel trying to spread through Nerv, Nephilim agreed to make contact with it. Instantly, they absorbed it. Somehow, the Slayer DNA allowed them to contain the Angel, while gaining certain characteristics, such as an AT Field."
"Where is Nephilim now?"
"Likely in Zenitsu's world." He explained his theory about AT Fields and Slayer abilities. He seemed to regret that he had only sent away one Slayer.
"Zenitsu is in his home world, then?"
"Yes, to my understanding. It is unfortunate that we could not maintain a reliable gate."
A cold hatred rose in Rei. She felt some relief that Zenitsu had returned to his home, but Nephilim had been used. Everyone had been a tool. "So, you used an Angel for your goal."
Gendo's face hardened. His tone became as flat as usual. "There is nothing I wouldn't use to achieve Instrumentality."
It still didn't make sense. She started to think it never would. "Ikari," she muttered, "how did you place my consciousness in Tanjiro? Why did the Eva attack us? I don't understand."
Gendo remained stoic. "I have no idea what you mean about entering Tanjiro. My orders were given in advance to send Unit-00 for the Lance in the case that the pilots were unable to do so. Your conflict with the Evangelion was nothing more than unfortunate timing. Now, let me see—"
Unfortunate timing.
Was that it? No, she had one more question. "Why did you come here? Why are you standing here? The Commander should be with his people at this moment."
To her shock, Gendo smiled. "Whatever might have unfolded," he said, "I knew that this day would see my plans brought to fruition. Instrumentality must begin here. I wished to witness it firsthand."
He wished… he guessed…
A widower had worked to rig the situation as best he could, praying that things would unfold in some way, even he couldn't predict, toward his goal.
There had never been a plan. The Script, the battle of Evangelion and Angels, had never been intended as something logical. There wasn't a good reason. Most of the things which they'd overcome weren't guaranteed. Gendo had simply hoped things would work out, using his resources only let him keep the odds above zero percent.
His plan had relied upon the Slayers. The key part of this was the defeat of the Angels. If Shinji, Tanjiro, Inosuke, Zenitsu, Asuka, herself, and every member of Nerv hadn't given everything to fight, it could never have been achieved.
A confused mix of emotions filled Rei's chest. She wanted to cry. She hated Gendo, but she pitied him too much to loathe him. This man had betrayed, dehumanized, and disappointed her. She could not tell which bothered her more.
Whatever the case, she had gotten her answers. As unsatisfying as they were, she'd gotten them. More important, Rei Ayanami could control how things ended. The girl raised a hand toward Gendo. The man smiled.
Within her, she saw Tanjiro's kind smile. Without doubt, she knew that the Slayer would have found it within himself to spare this man's life. He would never have killed Gendo. Rei was not Tanjiro. Gendo would get his goal, but not as he'd intended.
Still smiling, the Commander burst into LCL fluid. His soul joined with that of the only other 'person' who had achieved Instrumentality. Now, Gendo's awareness lay interspliced with Unit-00. Let him see those thoughts. Gendo would experience the confusion, hatred, and terror of his own prototype.
"I'm sorry, Tanjiro," she muttered to herself. Her regret came only from disappointing a friend who would never know of the action. She felt nothing toward Gendo.
Misato
Suddenly, Shinji's data changed. The many graphs and numbers of his information disappeared from the screen. Only the information specific to Unit-01 remained.
"What just happened?" Misato demanded.
"Unit-01," a Nerv member reported with impressive diplomacy, "is no longer Berserk."
"What happened to the pilot?" Misato yelled into the room.
As if in response, she saw Unit-01 move. It blinked, then looked around as if it had awoken from a nap. The Eva looked at its hands, then to Inosuke, and it pointed at Unit-02.
"What is this?" Fuyutsuki asked from his perch.
"The AT Field output frequency matches Shinji's average harmonics score. The synchronization rate is one hundred percent."
The video explained better than the report. As the impossible truth of the situation dawned on her, Misato gaped in a mix of awe and horror. The purple giant, with an Angel's blood hardening on its chin, now moved in experimental, timid gestures. She recognized the mannerisms.
"It's Shinji."
As if in reply, the room quaked. A member yelled: "Sudden energy spike approaching Unit-01 from below."
"Below?" Misato yelled back, trying to keep her footing.
On the largest screen, the dual-pointed Lance burst through the earth near Unit-01. The mighty Evangelion jolted back in surprise.
Confusion gave way to desperate hope. They needed the Lance. It might be the only way to defeat the Angel. Not only had the weapon arrived, but Unit-01 had just regained some kind of awareness. They might be able to defeat it.
Misato looked to Asuka's numbers. Steadily, they depleted. She may already have experienced irreversible damage. They needed to end the Angel's attack immediately.
"Come on, Shinji," she said to herself. "Do we have any communication with Unit-01?" she asked the room.
"All communications are cut. We have no way of contacting the pilot."
"Please, Shinji."
Her prayer was answered. She and the others watched as Unit-01 rushed toward the Lance. The shimmering gold light reflected off the metal as Unit-01 tore the weapon from the earth. The giant quickly fell into position. They watched, hoping for yet another miracle. Shinji ran forward a few steps, stretched his arm back, and threw.
The Lance shot out through the crater from the previous Angel. New feeds appeared on the screen to follow the weapon's instant journey to the Angel. Finally, a satellite feed showed the Lance leave the atmosphere. It struck the Angel's AT Field. The Lance pushed, but the Field didn't break. The Lance changed. A vent opened in a spiraling pattern down the length of the weapon. Red heat shone from the vents. In a final push, the Lance broke the AT Field and pierced through the Angel.
Another screen came back to the focus. The gold light ceased. The attack had ended.
"Pattern destroyed!" A member yelled. "The Angel is defeated!"
"Yes!" Misato raised her fists to the air, as did many others. The tension broke. Cheers, sighs, and sobs spread through the room. It'd been too much. Stress had likely reduced a lifetime's worth of years from the people of this room. It seemed as if they'd been in a single, unending battle for weeks.
"Show me Asuka's vital signs!" Misato ordered.
"Roger! She's still in critical condition, but her signs are no longer dropping."
"Can we establish a comms link with either of them?"
"Negative," two exhausted voices replied.
"Dammit!"
The mission had been accomplished, she reminded herself. The mission had been to defeat the Angel. They'd been victorious. Establishing communication was another mission. They could accomplish it. Already, Inosuke could be seen standing on Unit-02, prying at the metal to get to the Entry Plug. They'd save Asuka.
They had a minute. They could breathe.
She regretted the thought as soon as it appeared. Immediately, a soft beep sounded from one of the monitors.
All eyes in the room slowly turned toward the sound. No one spoke. Every expression showed dread and fatigue. The member at the computer swallowed. She tried to speak, but just smacked her table. "Confirmed: the pattern's blue."
Another Angel…
"I don't want to see anyone looking hopeless!" Misato yelled. "We've got a handful of teenagers doing all the legwork. We're on support, alright? They're out there doing the fighting. Nobody start complaining before we've actually had to fight ourselves!"
She forced the words out. They flowed desperately and without thought. She needed to maintain morale, however threadbare.
They were so close to the end. She knew it. They only needed to hold on until then.
Meanwhile, another screen showed a giant Rei Ayanami enter the Eva Launch bay.
Asuka
She'd had enough. Asuka couldn't close her eyes to block out the images. Nothing could block the distorted memories and voices which drilled into her mind. She just wanted it to end.
"Please stop," she whispered.
A different voice replied. "What do you want?"
She looked up. The memories played out in their awful mosaic, but the voices had ceased. A beautiful silence took over as she looked at a stranger. A boy, about her age, with a pressed white shirt, black slacks, and grey-ish hair stood a few feet from her. He smiled playfully.
"Who are you?"
"The final Angel," he said offering a childish grin after the statement. "It seems there's no place for me to enter the proper world. I thought I might be Shinji's friend. It seems, though, that you're much more in need of—"
"Shut up! I don't want to know what you think I need!"
She pounced up. Her vision had blurred from tears. Sneering and snivelling, she charged toward the stranger in her mind. She charged, but her steps never brought her closer. She didn't advance, no matter how hard she tried.
The stranger's smile softened. "Please, don't exhaust yourself. You keep doing this. You put your all into projecting an image of yourself onto others, rather than being a person."
"Shut up! What do you know, Angel? You don't know anything. Nobody knows anything about me!"
"How can they? The Asuka you present is arrogant and self-obsessed. Who has the opportunity to see the broken child who needs companionship?"
"Get out! Get out of my head! I don't want you here."
Nobody knew her. She didn't want anyone to know her. Whenever she'd asked for help or for love, she'd been denied. She'd been used and ignored. Even Mr. Kaji, the man whose affection and approval for which she had strived, ignored her. No, the best she could get was attention. Hey, look at me! You'll never care about me. You'll never want me. But dammit, take a good look and tell me how much better I am than you. If nobody would ever want her, she thought, the best she could do was try to be above them. If a distance existed between her and all others, she'd be distant because of how superior she was.
Nobody would help her. She had to go it alone.
The stranger sighed. "What do you want, Asuka?"
"I just want to be a pilot. I kill Angels."
"And if you slay all Angels? What then?"
"Then everyone will remember me for being the greatest pilot."
That's how it should have been. She'd save the world. She'd be the woman who saved the world. People would line up across the globe to give her the attention and care she deserved. She'd get by. That was how it should have been. But the Slayers ruined it. Nerv ruined it. None of them appreciated her. Yeah, Nerv was the worst of all of them. Why had they bothered to bring her in if they were just gonna rely on those overloud punks? She hated it.
She screamed. Asuka beat her fists on the floor, punching an image of herself greeting a Japanese classroom with a smile. "You don't know me."
"Asuka," the stranger said. "There's no weakness in accepting help. People reach out to you every day. They need your help as much as you need theirs."
"Go away. I don't want to hear anything from an Angel."
The stranger's smile had disappeared. It surprised her. She hadn't noticed the moment his expression had become cold. "Asuka, I pity you."
"What?" She snarled like an animal. Again, she tired to charge at the stranger.
Suddenly, the images vanished. She sat alone in the entry plug. The movement and colours became the dull grey of the plug's interior. Vertigo struck. The change happened so violently. She covered her eyes, finally turning the world into darkness. She wailed. Pain, confusion, and sickness ripped through her. Her stomach churned. She felt as if she were spinning. The sudden stasis of her environment felt too jarring.
Bile rose. She tried to contain it. She didn't want to vomit in the entry plug. It'd be embarrassing. Imagine the people of Nerv seeing that: her climbing from the plug with vomit on her plug suit. The smell would be awful. They'd sneer at her. Already, they were probably sneering. They hated her.
Even Miss Misato probably despised her. Asuka imagined that all of them were thinking how much of a mistake it had been to bring her to Japan. Nobody in Nerv thought Asuka could do anything. Nobody thought she was good enough. Some of them wished she had died instead of Miss Perfect.
Rei… what had that blue-haired buzzkill ever done? What made her so special? The great and amazing Rei, behold, everyone!
Her mind went blank as her throat constricted. Bile pressed its way up her throat as her stomach seemed to twist into knots. She fell from her seat, tumbling to the side of the entry plug. Hands over her mouth, the girl held herself in a ball, trying to pretend she was alright.
Shinji
When the golden light ceased, Shinji, through the Eva, slumped his shoulders. Finally, they'd won the battle. Even in the colossal body of the Evangelion, he felt tired from his near-constant battles.
He turned to Asuka. Inosuke had just leaped onto Unit-02. He'd begun slashing at the metal, trying to get through to the entry plug.
As Shinji took a step toward them, he felt a new presence. Something looked at him. He could feel the gaze as clearly as if an insect had landed on him. The strange feeling came exactly as Inosuke described. More than the eyes, Shinji recognized the presence of an AT Field.
He turned his eyes to the hole above, which led to the main portion of Tokyo-3. A turning, glowing ring floated down through the opening. The bizarre halo slowed and stopped in the air. It hung still. Shinji felt as if he were looking at a carnivorous beast, one that might pounce at any moment.
Slowly, he reached up a hand. The sheath for the Prog Knife rose, offering the hilt to his expectant palm. Focus, he told himself. He needed to do this. There was no question of fleeing or failing.
Everyone else was doing their best. Shinji would do everything he could, too. Even Unit-01 had helped him. The people who surrounded him were amazing, he thought. The Slayers, Rei, Asuka. No matter what they felt, or what problems they went through, they did their job. Shinji would do the same. He'd help his team.
The only question was Asuka. Unit-02 lay nearby. Had Inosuke helped her yet?
Shinji glanced to her. Instantly, the circle of the Angel snapped open. It became a flying white serpent. The Angel struck at Shinji.
His metal hand clamped onto the serpent a moment before it struck him. The knife drove deep, slashing a great, bloody scar through the Angel. But, from around his hand, shapes grew. The other end of the Angel swung down and wrapped around the Eva's ankles. The giant fell to the ground.
Shinji struck and slashed, but nothing stopped the attack.
Around his hand, white bits of the Angel's flesh bubbled up and grew defined. Soon, he saw the lumps of strange flesh form his own face. Dozens of small imitations of Shinji popped up and grew toward him in a strange tower. They smiled with awkward, ugly expressions. Their heads tilted in sudden, violent juts.
They grew out toward him.
From his hand and his ankles, the pain spread. It felt like his veins were trying to break out of his skin. It hurt. It hurt so much. He wanted to scream and beg for it to stop.
He slashed. Nothing. He'd done nothing. Unit-01 had done all the work. In the end, Shinji was useless after all. He couldn't do anything. He wouldn't even be able to save Asuka and Inosuke.
Dammit! No!
He forced the thoughts from his mind. They pursued him. The awful gnawing void ate at him even as the Angel corroded him. But he couldn't succumb. Even if the Angel defeated him, he would not give in to that voice inside which told him to run away. No more.
Shinji screamed. Unit-01's jaws opened. He brought the Angel toward his metal jaws. He didn't care what it might do to him. His only thought was to save those near him.
Suddenly, the Angel snapped away from his grip. Shinji lay blinking on the ground as an impossible event played out before him. Ayanami Rei, glowing, naked, and several hundred metres tall, pulled the Angel back with one hand while the other raised skyward. The colossal Rei slammed the writhing Angel onto the earth. As it squirmed and attempted to wrap around her throat, a red blur shot down from the sky. The Lance of Longinus impaled the Angel. Rei grasped the weapon and pulled it across the length of the serpent, carving a huge gash through almost the entirety of its body.
Soon, the Angel was reduced to a bloody corpse.
Shinji could only stare. Unit-01 got to its feet, but this Rei still dwarfed the purple giant.
The Third Child could only gape in confused wonder. Rei, who somehow didn't have a speck of blood on her unnaturally pale skin, smiled down at him. A normal sized vision of Rei appeared in the space in front of him. "I'll give the short version."
Asuka
The girl clawed her way back to the pilot's seat, heaving as she went. The LCL somehow seemed stale as she breathed it. Eventually, she managed to find her usual place.
She pawed at the controls, tugging and pushing in the hope something would happen.
Nothing did.
"Nothing."
Asuka gripped the controls, but gradually, she ceased moving. "Why am I even trying?"
There'd been no point. They were right. She wasn't enough. She'd never been enough. Maybe she should have been the one to die instead of Rei. Maybe she should have been put on life support instead of Tanjiro. Nerv wouldn't have kept her long. She was a dead weight. Nobody trusted her, cared about her, knew her, loved her, wanted her.
She was alone, as always.
It'd never change. She slumped back. The world never seemed so cold and cruel as it did in that moment. She felt alone, and she believed that this would never change.
Eventually, she noticed a light near her. A strange, white glow filled the entry plug, diffusing bizarrely in the LCL. She turned to the source of it.
"No way," Asuka muttered.
Rei floated I front of her. She shone like an Angel, her red eyes beaming a gorgeous crimson.
This was the final insult, Asuka thought. The Angel had killed her. Now, she had a special hell awaiting her. Miss Perfect would haunt her, a reminder of everything she wasn't, of all she'd failed to achieve.
"We've killed the final Angels," Rei said. "It's over."
"What?" Asuka said. Reality fell on her in a landslide. She hadn't died. They'd been in an Angel attack.
"Shinji and I defeated the final Angels," Rei explained. "Gendo's… taken care of. The only thing left is to ensure SEELE doesn't do something drastic. I have a plan to take care of that. We couldn't have done this without you, Asuka. Thank you for—"
As Rei reached out to touch Asuka, the pilot recoiled. "Don't touch me! Don't say anything like that! I don't want to hear that from you. Just… You're just here to mock me, aren't you?"
Tears fell.
The light vanished.
Asuka, once again, sat alone in the Eva. "Move, damn you…"
She gripped the controls and heaved. Shinji and Rei and all of them had shown her up. It was too much. The pilot had no plan, only rage, confusion, and scars. "Move, damn you!"