After a breakfast of stale cellophane wrapped sweets and bottled water, Shinji climbed into the entry plug from his makeshift room which was nestled in the crevice of the nape of Unit01's neck.
"Fuck! I miss the good old days when I didn't have to do all this shit myself," he griped as he sealed the tube. "It's a damn good thing the whole fucking ocean is full of LCL, or piloting this heap of shit would be impossible". Shinji swam to his seat and started the manual startup. As he gripped the handles of the behemoth he was reminded of the first time he had ever been inside this enclosure. The feelings of fear and excitement were still there, despite the fact that it had been more than a dozen years since his last encounter with an Angel. With flashes of color and images, the screens came to life and Shinji was greeted by a featureless landscape. As he looked off into the distance, he thought he could see specks of green in the distance, but chalked it up to his imagination.
"Although," he reasoned. "I think Germany is that direction. That's where…" Images of Asuka Langley Soryu's rotting corpse flashed through his tortured mind. Shinji screamed and slapped himself to regain composure. With deep breaths he reflected on what he had managed to put together from old memories of NERV and from the psychology textbooks he had managed to acquire in his travels. Apparently he had a moderate case of delusional schizophrenia. Knowing he was insane however, was not aiding in it treatment. He had further learned that even under optimal conditions (i.e. before the Second Impact) treatment for his disease would have been difficult, and there was never truly a cure for the psychosis.
'But if the Angels had never attacked, I probably wouldn't be fucked up in the first place'. But even as he thought this, Shinji was aware that it was a falsehood. True, his mother might still be alive, but his father would still have been the same cold, unfeeling bastard. Gendo Ikari: the source of all of Shinji's troubles. From the childhood abandonment, to the Evangelion units which amplified his psychological instabilities, to the failed Human Instrumentality project, Shinji could never forgive his father, even a decade after the man's death. With a weary sigh, Shinji engaged Unit01, walking it slowly as to avoid damaging surviving life, although he knew it was a fantasy.
The day passed on without as much as a bug fart. Rei had left the earth with devoid of all life; no longer would the cicadas call out in recognition of the endless summer.
Every day Shinji tried to make a stop when the heat and light of the sun were at their fullest, which was hard to determine exactly, because of the endless twilight that had been cast upon the earth. Nevertheless, today was no different as Shinji drew his Evangelion to a halt, having the massive humanoid crouch in an almost fetal position to ease his impending descent. He had stopped in what appeared to be the ruins of a small town and after consulting with his map and compass, he approximated his location to be somewhere in western Russia. All about him lay blood stained rubble, a sight to which he had become all too familiar. He ejected the entry plug and grabbed his brown leather jacket and canvas satchel from their resting place on the floor of his makeshift bedroom and wrapped a red scarf around his face and neck to prevent the inhalation of the inordinate amount of dust that pervaded across the barren landscape.
Climbing down from Unit01 always frightened Shinji; both the height and relative smoothness of the monstrosity made for a perilous journey. Luckily, there were enough unrepaired nicks and dings that made getting to ground level possible, if not easy.
A quick scan of the surrounding landscape proved Shinji's suspicions: this town, named Vnukovo if a twisted sign on the ground was to be believed, was as barren as a postmenopausal woman. Had it not been for the occasional mangled skeletal remains of a child or small animal, there would have been no sign that life had ever existed here. Shinji shuffled through the debris with a sense of disappointment. He had traveled for the better part of thirteen years searching for someone, anyone, and yet again his hopes were dashed by reality. Shinji was becoming frantic, already a deranged individual, he desperately needed human warmth. Barring that however, he needed a smoke, a drink, anything to get his mind off his troubles, but his pockets were, as he feared, empty. To make matters worse, the wind was starting to pick up, forcing handfuls of copper tasting dirt into the nooks and crannies of his clothing. With a sigh, Shinji made his way back to the Evangelion, picking up a few scattered canned goods that he was able to find under the rubble. While his search for smokes was unsuccessful, he was however able to find some bottled water, which, all things considered, was even more valuable.
After climbing back up to the shoulders of Unit01, Shinji allowed himself only a short breather before re-entering the plug. The inside smelled very much like the ruins that surrounded him. With a terrifying roar, the purple monster tore through the land, raising a dust storm in its wake that would have made records. Had anyone seen this sight, they might have thought that this was a devil, or more appropriately, some angel of death, come to finish them. However there was no one.
"I am alone…." muttered Shinji. "Completely and utterly alone…"
"You're never alone when you have me" a calm male voice in his head replied.
"K-k-kaworu? Is that you? I hear your voice…but I can't see you…"
With a flash of light, Shinji was able to see him in the cockpit just like the last time Kaworu had appeared. His soft, pale skin, those deep red eyes, that flowing gray hair, it was almost as if he had never…but he HAD died. Shinji crushed him to death with the help of the Eva.
"Is this some kind of dirty fucking angel trick? Why the hell are you here? Why do you keep fucking with me like this?"
"It's because you killed me Shinji…and after all we had been through. We had even…"
"Don't you say it! Don't you FUCKING SAY IT!" Shinji screamed with a roar of bubbles.
"And why not?" said Kaworu with a smirk. "You enjoyed it didn't you? Or was it not what you expected? Was it not like HER touch?"
"You don't know anything! JUST GO AWAY!"
"Haha…I'll be back Lilin" said Kaworu and vanished.
"W-what?" whispered Shinji. "What do you mean? You can't come back! Kaworu? Answer me!" But when he finally desired Kaworu's presence, he was nowhere to be seen.
A scarlet sun was dipping down the scarred land, and after his mental episode, Shinji decided that he had had his fill of piloting for the day. He ejected the entry plug and climbed down into his hovel of a room. There he nestled himself into the mass of cloth that amounted to a bed a tried to sleep. Unfortunately, when he closed his eyes all he could see was Kaworu's sneering face. The face that he had tried so hard to forget, the face that made him feel small and vulnerable, almost like a small child. But most frightening of all was what the face was mouthing: "I'll be back Lilin".