Tokyo-3, late 2015...
The nightmare was over, at long last. And whatever greater nightmare, whether envisioned by the men of the SEELE council, or Gendo Ikari, would never come to pass. NERV had won their deadliest fight, not against an Angel, but a human enemy. But the victory was not without cost. A number of civilian casualties had to be accounted for, but thankfully there were a good number of survivors. More than that, something would be done about the psychological toll it'd taken on everyone involved, especially the teenage pilots of the Evangelions.
One of them, at the moment, was helping with clearing the wreckage of the Geofront. Shinji had used the massive hands of Unit-01 to save a spot of greenery that had somehow remained unscathed: Kaji's watermelon patch. With a thought, the giant moved the patch to a truck bed that was nearby. Maybe then they could properly move it to a better place.
And give him something to come back to aside from Misato, he thought to himself. Shinji was experiencing a number of feelings at the moment, mostly relief, but for now, he was just tired. Tired of the fighting, the pain, the horrors. He could rest easy now, since it was finally finished. Maybe then he could start to actually live his life. Among his top three of things he'd immediately do, was to apologize and make amends with Asuka, and then Rei. After that, talk with Misato, to try and move past the moment before she shoved him into the EVA cage. Speaking of, Misato's voice crackled to life on the entry plug's comms.
"Shinji? Got a minute?" she asked.
Shinji smiled. He'd been worried, considering the last time he saw her, she'd been protecting him from a bloodthirsty JSSDF squad. He was afraid she didn't make it.
"What's up, Misato?" he responded.
"We need you back here and out of Unit-One. Ritsuko...found something. Something that you need to see," she said.
"...Yes, Misato. Right away," he replied as he started moving in the direction of the partially-ruined edifice of NERV HQ.
It was quite a turn of events, really; the one thing in his scenario that his father hadn't counted on was Rei developing a conscience, one that spurred her to react quickly and shove Ritsuko out of the way of Gendo's shot, the moment he tried to execute her. In turn, it allowed Ritsuko to fire off her own shot, which got him in the leg; she fired off an additional one that rendered his arm useless. Taking Rei and fleeing from Terminal Dogma, she'd then activated the reprogrammed explosives to go off only in the Chamber of Gauf. Some time after the battle above had finished, a recovery team had found Gendo under all the rubble, somehow still clinging to life. While apprehended, Ritsuko personally removed the embryonic form of Adam from his palm and, with a shard recovered from one of the lances used by the EVA series, killed it with one stroke.
Shinji eventually found a good place to 'park' Unit-01, and lowered it so he had an angle to climb out. Once done, he walked over to the front entrance to the main building of HQ. Misato, patched up thanks to the medical team only a few hours before, was waiting for him, as was Asuka, looking hauntingly exhausted. No wonder, considering the ordeal she'd gone through, culminating in a very brutal battle with the EVA series. A tense air was present between them; they'd already indicated that when they had a moment's peace, they were going to have a long, long talk. The three then proceeded on their way to Terminal Dogma, past the weary-looking Makoto and Shigeru, who were tending to the shell-shocked Maya. Soon they were in the elevator heading downward, until they reached their destination. Once the doors opened, they continued on till they reached the room Ritsuko had directed them to, where she and Rei were waiting for them.
Surprisingly, it was Asuka who said the first thing out of all of them.
"...You okay, Wondergirl?" she asked.
Rei, for once, showed a bit of mild surprise at Asuka, considering the last time they'd spoken to one another. "I...I am unharmed. Are you all right?"
What Asuka answered with took everyone else further aback. "...Not really. But I'll manage for now."
Ritsuko chose that moment to clear her throat, getting the attention of all three pilots.
"Before I show you this, I want to...On behalf of all of us, I really want to apologize," she said. "For everything we put you through." She looked at Rei specifically. "For how we've treated you all this time. Nothing can truly make up for what we deprived you of when we essentially drafted you to fight our battles. But I truly hope that we can help you regain some sense of a normal life." She then knelt down in front of Rei. "Or in your case, actually give you a normal life. Rei, I...I'm so, so sorry for how I treated you in particular. I wouldn't hold it against you if you couldn't forgive me."
Further adding to the day's minor surprises, Rei put her hand on Ritsuko's shoulder. "It is not your fault," she said. "I remember...something your mother said. There is some truth to it-to the Commander, we were both tools. But now, we no longer need to feel as such." Uncharacteristically of her, Rei then hugged an astonished Ritsuko; after a brief moment of hesitation, Ritsuko returned the hug.
"What was it you wanted us to see, doctor?" Shinji asked.
Ritsuko stood back up before responding. "It has to do with...what I showed you and Misato, after the Sixteenth Angel was defeated."
"What're you talking about?" Asuka asked, confused. Ritsuko motioned them to follow her further into the room as she, Shinji and Misato explained to Asuka Rei's origins, and how Ritsuko, in the midst of a breakdown in front of the two, destroyed the tank full of Rei clones. Asuka was speechless upon hearing this, and at the same time, felt great pity and remorse over how she herself treated Rei. Soon they reached the object of their curiosity, which took all but Ritsuko by surprise.
In front of them were three pods, filled with LCL. Within them were three Rei clones.
"But how?" Shinji wondered. "Misato and I-we saw you-"
"I thought the same thing," Ritsuko said. "But then I found this room while Rei and I fled from the epicenter of the collapse in the Chamber of Gauf. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the Commander was paranoid enough to think I'd pull something like dissolving the clones. He must have secreted these three away, just in case."
The four took another look at the trio of clones. They noticed some slight differences between them compared to Rei herself. The middle clone, labeled 'Rei-Quatre', was the one who definitely looked the most similar to Rei, save for her silvery hair color. The one on the left, labeled 'Rei-Cinq', was a bit taller, looking as if she'd be at least a couple of years older than Shinji and Rei. The one on the right, 'Rei-Six', was the youngest, looking like an elementary school kid. To Rei, it looked like the very first incarnation of herself, at the same age when she met her untimely demise at Naoko Akagi's hands.
"...What're you planning to do with them?" Misato asked.
Ritsuko looked at her friend solemnly as she answered. "At the moment, I don't know. Like I said before, they're just empty vessels. They couldn't survive out in the world the way they are."
A look of realization then emerged on Rei's face. "I...might have an idea," she said.
"You do?" Shinji asked.
"Yes," she replied. "I will need to see Lilith."
END Part 1.
**Author's Note(s)**
I got my idea for this after reading the English translation of the first volume of -ANIMA- this month, and given what happens to the cast in that story, I started thinking of a more...brighter outcome for them, which I'll elaborate more on in the two chapters that follow.