Disclaimer: No ownership over any concepts or plots expressed in this work of fiction is stated or implied. The author intends no financial gain from the distribution of this material and makes no claim of copyright or trademark.
S
Misato had never felt so small, so weak, so insignificant, as when Unit Two passed over her head. The Eva rose up from the earth, hunched, lurking, arms hanging at its sides, its right hand a burned, scorched stump. It paid her and the others no mind as it passed the ruins of the pyramid, stepped over them, and charged Unit One. What happened, happened so fast she could barely make sense of it. The two Evas grappled. Unit One moved with speed and purpose, an intelligence that belied its bestial aspect moments before, turning and twisting the crimson Eva. She used her claws to slash away Unit Two's umbilical, and deftly struck at it, seeking not to maim, it seemed, but to dissuade, to disable its opponent.
She felt the air change, and smelled the wet cement stink of ozone as their AT-Field's met, pooling against each other, two translucent panes of light sliding on each other like oil pouring over the surface of water. Unit Two was overmatched. Whatever Asuka, or whatever other intelligence might be controlling Unit One, had done, it had stolen something from the angel and made itself greater. Unit Two bowled backwards onto its back, wriggling like a bug out of Unit One's grasp. A pressure waved washed over her, blowing tufts of charred grass around her feet.
"I don't have any data from Unit Two!" Maya shouted, "I'm totally cut off!"
Misato nodded, absently. It didn't seem important. Unit Two stood, pushed against the AT-Field, and did something, she couldn't say what. The whole form was glowing, wreathed in crimson light, leaking through the shoulder pylons as they creaked and groaned, shifting as something pressed them upwards from the Eva's shoulders. She remembered the day the Eva went berserk and shuddered- it had tried to cast off the pylons before. The AT-Field that Unit Two manifested changed, warped, and there was a sound in the air, a sub-audible thrum like the low strings of a bass orchestra all being struck at once. The fields folded in on each other, wrapped around the Evas, and Misato heard a very human scream. Unit Two hugged Unit One, drew it close to its own chest, and there was a flash of light.
Misato stumbled. Air began to rush around the Geofront in a great whirlwind, and tiny dust devils swirled around her feet. She could see dust flowing across the pavement, sliding towards the two Evas. A mass of black, swirling not like fog or like mist but like some inversion of light, opened from between the two Evas, whirled, and swallowed them in a pitch-black sphere, like dull obsidian, but lacking solidity.
"Maya," said Misato, "Can you tell me just what the hell that's supposed to be?"
May had nothing for her but dull shock. The winds began to die down, and Misato heard an engine. An APC rumbled over the dead grass and came to rest with a forward bounce and a grinding of gears. The rear end unfolded and Kaji came running out, Ritsuko stumbling behind him. They both stopped and stared, standing beside Misato and the stunned bridge crew at the rise of a black sun. The shape stopped expanding and simply sat there, seeming to spin slightly even though it had no real form, being a void in space.
"What the hell happened?" Kaji shouted over the wind.
"I don't know," said Misato. "The angel was tearing headquarters apart and Asuka attacked it, and, and- I think it might have killed Shinji. Unit One went insane and it… it ate the angel!"
"Look!" said Ritsuko, pointing.
She saw him- he flew, seeming to stumble in the air, twisting and turning as though something were tugging at him. Shinji lifted up from the ground, hovered in the air for a moment, and without a second more of hesitation, plunged into the black sphere. Misato screamed and bolted forward, stopped only as Kaji took her by the arms and pulled her back.
"What is that thing?" Misato shouted, struggling against him.
"You said it ate the angel," said Ritsuko, oddly calm. "Did it eat the core?"
"What?" said Misato, "Yes, it ate the core. What does that have to do with anything?"
"Impossible," said Ritsuko. "It's stable."
"What?" Misato demanded, shaking her by the shoulders.
Ritsuko stared at her dumbly. "Unit One must have absorbed the angel's super-solenoid organ. That would explain this."
"How?"
She stared at the black sphere. "An inverted AT-Field could create a singularity."
"A black hole?" said Kaji. "That doesn't make any sense, a black whole would-"
"No," said Ritsuko, "It's not a black hole, it's a wormhole. A gateway into another universe. The inverted AT-Field must have created a theoretical space, a shadow dimension that swallows anything that falls into it."
"Unit Two is in there, too," said Misato. "It attacked Unit One, and did something with the AT-Field."
Ritsuko rushed to Maya. "Do you have any data?"
"No," Maya whimpered. "Unit One went crazy and there's nothing but gibberish, and Unit Two never gave me any readings at all."
"Is there a chance he can pull them out?" said Kaji.
Ritsuko shrugged. "I don't know. The equations all predicted the effect would be unstable, that the wormhole would collapse immediately and destroy everything pulled into it. I have no idea what I'm dealing with here."
"Is it safe to move around the Geofront?" said Misato. "Rei is still out there somewhere, we need to recover her. She must be hurt, her Eva was demolished."
"I don't know," said Ritsuko. "I have no idea what we're dealing with here. If it isn't safe, it won't be safe anywhere."
"Alright," Misato turned to Hyuga. "Get a recovery crew out to the Unit Zero wreckage, I want her found and I want her in the infirmary if she's still alive. No one is to go near that thing, under any circumstances."
"We can set up a temporary command center in my lab," said Ritsuko. "Are the MAGI intact?"
"I don't know. We took a hell of a pounding."
Ritsuko looked grim. Misato shared the sentiment.
Asuka was in a terrible place.
She stumbled forward, wondering how she'd gotten here. There was something wrong. She was short. She felt tiny, crushed under the weight of the walls around her, distant and somehow close, looming over her as if they meant to fall on her. She recognized the smells, the stinging antiseptic smell of soap that every hospital tried to hide. Her polished leather shoes clicked on the tile floor as she walked. She passed a hospital stretcher. Her head barely reached the bottom of the mattress. When she touched her scalp, there were ribbons there, holding it back, and she was dressed in a frilly green dress.
"Hello?" she called, but there was no answer.
She kept walking. The hallway never seemed to end. No matter how far she went, the end of the hall, a distant convergence of the walls and the buzzing fluorescent lights over her head, never seemed to get any closer, and there were no doors, only the same empty bed, over and over again. Panic gripped her like a vice, and she started running towards the doors, hoping there would be some escape on the other side.
She stumbled, and forced herself to keep running. The floor was moving, sliding under her feet, inexorably carrying her backwards, further and further from the doors. They grew distant, for hard as she might run, the floor carried her back, ceaselessly. She tripped and she fell, sliding across the floor, and rolled over onto her back as the floor rocketed away from the doors. The walls flew by in a blur, the same bed passing by over and over again, until abruptly stopped with a clanking, grinding sound like the seizing of gears, and the momentum rolled over and over into the wall. She sat up and shook her head, trying to chase the dizziness from it, and only made it worse.
"There's a door," she said, to no one at all.
She stood up, leaning on the wall, and walked towards the end of the hallway, now in sight. This was a different door, a wide single door that hung ajar, a pale light within. Asuka stood near it, listening at the crack, and she shivered when she heard a harsh, croaking voice, a mad voice, a dry voice. She pushed on the door, and froze. The thing on the bed, a lurking mass of brittle straw hair, clutched something small in clawed fingers.
"Oh," it rasped, "It's just that girl. Don't worry, Asuka, she won't hurt you."
The thing clutched the form to its chest, and Asuka saw what it was. A doll. The doll looked at her with sightless blue button eyes under a mop of red yarn, faded to the color of carrots. The woman lurking under the brittle hair did not look at her, but stroked the doll, running long, cracked fingernails through the strands of yarn.
"Shhh," she whispered, "That girl won't hurt you."
Asuka walked through the small, cold room, and stood at the edge of the bed, staring up at the bloodshot blue eyes, hidden behind frizzed strands of strawberry blonde hair. Those eyes flicked to her, filled with loathing and contempt. Asuka touched the woman's sleeve.
"But Mama," said Asuka, "That's a doll. I'm Asuka."
"Liar!" she screamed, slapping Asuka away.
Broken fingernails scrabbled over her face, scratching her skin. Hot tears stung her eyes, and her lip quivered. She sobbed and fell to her knees, rubbing fiercely at her eyes. The woman on the bed turned away from her and cooed softly to the doll, rocking it in her arms. The sight of it made Asuka's chest hurt, a deep, pulling pain, as though someone had tied a string about her heart and was set on tearing it out. A small hand touched her shoulder.
There was a boy. He was her age, and skinny, and he wore a white shirt and black shorts and little sandals. His hair was frizzy, in a great ball around his head, and silver. Asuka laughed through her tears, he looked like a dandelion. His eyes were red, not from tears but because they just were. He tapped her shoulder again.
"Hello."
"Hello," Asuka sniffed.
She glanced at her mother. She ignored them.
"I'm Kaworu."
"I'm Asuka."
"I can make it better," said Kaworu, holding out his hand.
"Asuka! Don't!"
A woman walked in the room. Asuak thought she knew her. She was dressed as a nurse in a white smock and a bonnet with a red cross. She had chestnut hair and green eyes, and a warm smile that made Asuka feel safe. She knelt down beside Asuka and held out her hand to her.
"Don't listen to him," she whispered softly, ruffling Asuka's hair. "I can take you away from the bad place. Would you like that?"
Asuka nodded, snuffling. She brushed at her nose with the back of her sleeve.
"I have a son. You know him, his name is Shinji. Do you remember Shinji?"
Asuka blinked. She knew that name. He was important, somehow.
There was a window over her mother's bed. The sun was shining through it. Was that there before?
The nurse stood up, offering her hand. "Come on, we'll go home, and you'll never come to the bad place again."
Kaworu frowned, and cocked his head to the side. "Nice try."
Asuka looked at him, when he looked back, the woman with the kind green eyes was gone, and in her place was another woman, a shorter woman, heavy of chest with dark hair that ran down over her nurses's scrubs in shining waves, and she looked down at Asuka with a mix of contempt and distaste. Her hips swayed as she walked to the door, and a tall man with dark red hair moved to greet her. She rose up onto her tip-toes to kiss him, and he pushed her inside, shoving the door back behind him, ignoring Asuka and her mother. Kaworu stood behind her.
"They don't need you," he whispered. "I'll make it go away."
Asuka shied away from him and whimpered, but no one in the room noticed her. Her father pushed the nurse back against the wall, sliding his hand between her flesh and the elastic waistband of her pants, and snapped it. She squealed with joy, and she turned around, planting her feet apart, looking over her shoulder with a predatory grin.
Asuka screamed and ran for the door, yanking on it, not looking. It popped free and she ran into the hallway, as fast as her little legs would carry her. Something whipped behind her, whirling in the air. A length of orange extension cord wrapped around and around her leg, and yanked her legs out from under her. She came down hard on the tiles, and the jarring impact made her bit her tongue. She screamed as the cord dragged her backwards with a squeak as she slid over the cold tires. It dragged her back through the door, and more cords ensnared her arms and legs, turning her over.
The thing on the bed had lifted up into the air, like a spider, on a web of extension cords. The doll lay on the floor, the head torn free, bleeding white stuffing yellowed from age and dirt. The woman's throat was bound with layers and layers of cord, squeezing her neck down until her face was purple and her eyes bulged, the lids unable to close over them. She smiled, and when she smiled, her face split, widening into a mad grin. Cords wrapped themselves around Asuka's throat and crushed her airway.
"Quick!" Kaworu said, appearing at her side, "Take my hand!"
Asuka tried to cry out, but no sound escaped her lips. Blood dribbled down her chin, and the wires were crushing her, digging into her skin, trapping her lungs until they burned and her eyes watered, blurring the world. She gurgled and struggled but it was too strong, the wires were too tight, and she couldn't move.
"I can get you out," Kaworu pleaded, "It's me, or this, forever."
She was about to take his hand with her free arm when the world warped. The walls and the floor rolled, the way a rubber sheet does when a heavy weight is dropped on it, something undulating underneath them. The plaster of the walls cracked and tiles flew up, and Kaworu stumbled, falling onto the floor. He looked around in a panic as the thing on the bed slumped and Asuka was free, gasping wildly for air.
"What?" Kaworu snarled. "No, he can't be here! This is my place, he can't be here!"
Asuka turned around, frantic. "You're not my Mama!" she screamed at the hunched thing on the bed. "My Mama died, she's gone!"
A tiny voice whispered to her. I'm here, Asuka. Help me.
She turned, whirled in every direction, looking for the source of the voice. There was a closet door she didn't remember seeing before. She ran for it.
Kaworu grabbed her hair and yanked her back from it, tearing a scream from her throat.
"That hurt!" she shrieked, pounding him with her fists. "Leave me alone!"
"He won't find you," Kaworu growled, looming over her, huge and dark and red of eye. "If it takes a thousand years you'll come to me willingly."
He shoved her, and she fell down, on pavement. She looked around. It looked familiar, this was part of the route she took to school with Shinji, but it was dark outside. She had no idea what she'd be doing out so late. She had a strange feeling as she stood up, as though she'd just woken from a dream, but she couldn't have, she wasn't asleep. She thought she'd dreamed of a hospital.
Shinji spun around. He didn't remember landing, only flying into the black void, and the sudden, all-consuming cold as it washed over his skin. Somehow, he ended up standing in the Geofront, but it was completely empty. Above him, the glittering array of mirrors was intact. There were no Evas, the headquarters stood tall, gleaming, undamaged, and the trees and the grass and the lake were all pristine, too perfect even, like a painting.
He started to walk. The impulse set on him, and without really thinking about it, he started walking. He was moving towards the lake. He could smell it, the deep musk of the waters, and he heard the slapping of the fish they stocked it with, sliding and sluicing through the waters. The lake didn't have much of a beach- most of it was just mud, but there was a thin section where it had been sanded, that very much resembled one. He saw someone, and some strange conviction settled on him that this was the only person in the world.
She was sitting on a large rock, skimming stones over the water. He walked up behind her, feeling ashamed that he'd disturbed her. She was dressed for summer, in an air sleeveless sun dress and a straw hat tied with a long blue ribbon. Her arms showed too much skin, and she would peel later. She skipped another stone and motioned for him to sit beside her.
He moved to her side and sat down. She turned and smiled warmly, and he thought he might fall into those warm green eyes. When the recognition hit him, he leaped into her, bowling over off the rock, crushing her to his chest. Tears stung his eyes as he pressed his face into her hair, drinking in her scent. Joy, pure like a glittering beam of sunshine, flowed through him.
"Mother," he said, "Mother, it's me."
"Oh, Shinji," she said, hugging him back, fiercely. "It's so good to see you. Careful, you'll crush me!"
She laughed and kissed his forehead. "You're so big and so strong! You have to tell me everything."
"Oh," he said, sitting on the sand beside her. "I missed you so much. Where did you go?"
"Away for a time," she said warmly, touching his cheek, "But I'm back now, and you'll never be alone again."
"Shinji," another voice said.
He snapped around, infuriated at the intrusion, and was on his feet. His mother tugged at his cape. "Wait," she said, "It doesn't matter. Stay with me. I love you, Shinji."
"Shinji," the other said, "It's not real. It's a trap. Remember why you came here."
Shinji stared at her. "Why are you wearing that?"
His mother was as the day she died, or rather the day she left. Her hair was slicked back to her head to accommodate the helmet she would put on, and she had on the suit- a thick, heavy diving suit, compared to the thin wetsuits that the modern plugsuits were. It was bulky and heavy with large panels over her chest and back and it looked uncomfortable to wear, almost like a space suit. She held out a gloved hand to Shinji.
The other one tugged at him. "Please, don't leave me again, Shinji. I love you."
Shinji swept his arm across his cape, yanking out of her hands. He moved to the other, standing on the beach.
"Are you real?" he said.
"What do you think?"
He touched her, cupping her head in his hands. He felt her warmth, the soft feeling of her hair on his fingers. He leaned into her and hugged her, crushing the bulk of her suit to his chest, and she made a small grunting sound from the air being forced out of her lungs.
"Careful, you really are strong."
"Get away from my son!" the thing in the dress screamed, scrabbling over his shoulders.
She clawed at Shinji with long, sharp fingernails. Mother pulled her arm back and punched the thing in the dress in the face, toppling it backwards. It hit the sand and shattered like glass, spreading across the beach. Two shards, held her eyes, as though reflected in a shattered mirror, blinking.
"Mother," said Shinji, "What's happening?"
"I tried to keep her away from him, but that thing stole her from me," said Yui, stroking Shinji's hair. "He has her now, and he's trying to break her. We have to get her out."
"Get her out?" he said. "Can I bring you back? Are you back now?"
Her lip trembled. She closed her eyes. "No, Shinji, but we can still save her. You can take her home."
He bit down hard on a sob, and hugged her again. "I love you."
"I know," she said, "Come on. It's this way."
She took his hand and pulled him along. There was a path from a beach, a path he didn't remember. It led between two trees, and as they stepped into it, they were in a forest. When he looked up he saw only sky. The Geofront was gone. He stopped in his tracks.
"How did we get on the surface?"
"None of this is real," said Yui. "Don't let go of my hand, he might take you again."
"Who?"
"Keel's monster. Kaworu. He stole Unit Two and used it against me after I took the super solenoid within myself. He mingled out AT-Fields and created a theoretical universe. He wants Asuka, Shinji. He wants her to be the vessel of Instrumentality."
"What is that?"
Yui sighed. "An ancient dream." She tugged him on, and started to walk. "After we learned of the angels, we thought it might be possible to end humanity's isolation from one another, to combine the AT-Fields of all humanity into a single being. No one would ever be lonely. There would be no death, no disease, no suffering. You would be born into a paradise. That's what we believed."
"What happened?"
"We tried to steal fire from heaven and we were burned. These things are beyond us, Shinji. I had no choice. I allowed the Eva to take me, hoping I would give you a chance to stop it. I thought if I could control Instrumentality, I could prevent the rest of humanity from being taken and end the threat of the angels."
Shinji nodded. "What happens if this Instrumentality thing starts?"
"Everyone will die," said Yui. "Every living thing on Earth will lose its form and revert to LCL, the primal stuff of life. Their souls will all be joined in a single vessel, the great goddess Lilith. We will lose all that we are. There will be no suffering because there will be no one to suffer. There will be only a single mind, a single being, perfect and invincible, contemplating itself in an empty world forever."
"Whose mind?"
"Lorenz Keel, the head of Seele, believed it he mingled his flesh with the flesh of Adam, the father of the angels, that it would be his mind, but he's wrong. He'll die, just like the rest of us."
Shinji stopped. They were truly isolated, now. The path seemed to have no beginning or end, only winding through the forest, and if he looked either way he saw only mist that glowed like polished silver in the high sun. The air was dry, though, and warm, not at all uncomfortable.
"This has to be stopped," said Shinji, "at any cost."
"No," said Yui, "not at any cost. I believed, Shinji. Even after Second Impact, I believed. I thought there was nothing left for us but to all die. My only dream was to escape and live in the void forever as a grave marker for humanity, so that someone would know we were here."
"You sound like him," said Shinji. "Like…"
"Kal-El," said Yui. "Yes, I saw him too, when I reopened the rocket. That's how your father learned of it. He passed it on to Seele."
"You saw him?"
"I did," she whispered, touching his cheek. "I knew then that I had to carry out the plan. Nothing could change. No one knew that you'd been created, that the Kryptonian machine had delivered its payload. I heard his message and when I went into the Eva, I wasn't afraid. I knew you would be able to stop this."
"Mother," he said as he walked beside her again, "There's so much I have to tell you, I-"
"It's alright," she said, softly, "What Asuka knows, I know also."
"Uh," said Shinji. "You mean everything she knows?"
Yui smiled at him. Shinji turned as red as a beet, heat prickling on his cheeks.
In the distance, there was a scream. Shinji turned to it, and tugged her forward on the path.
"Wait," she said, "this is taking too long. I have to get you there faster. I might be able to reach her. Close your eyes."
He did as he was bid, and she stepped closer to him. He choked up when he realized, as she held him, that he was a head taller than she was. He put his arms around her neck and something happened. The air went cold, and when he opened his eyes, they were somewhere else, standing on a road in the middle of vast open fields that stretched out to infinity on low, undulating hills. As he turned around he saw a castle.
"What is that?" said Shinji.
"It's not real," said Yui. "It's a construct."
The structure was enormous, and nonsensical. It hurt his eyes to look at it. The gates were crooked, their shape so skewed it seemed impossible for them to stand barred and closed, yet they were. The tower on one side of the gate was tall and square while the other was low and round, and yet to see them at once, they appeared the same size. Beyond it, walls moved and intersected with each other, forming strange angles that didn't match up with one another. Towers jutted up like bad teeth, spread out from each other at strange angles like the arms of cacti, and there were doors that stood above windows, somehow. The stone of the castle was as black as pitch and somehow streaked with darker soot. It rose up overhead like a mountain, and when his gaze reached its summit, he saw something chained.
Bound at the top of the castle was a giantess, an immense figure railing and struggling at two towers from which chains strained and pulled, clamped around her wrists and ankles. Her face could have been beautiful but was a mask of fury. She yanked and struggled and flailed, and she cried Asuka's name. Shinji gasped when she was wearing a suit, like Yui's, but red. Of course, it would be red.
"That's Kyoko, isn't it?" said Shinji.
"Yes," said Yui. "he has made her a prison for her daughter."
Shinj clenched his fists, took a step, and lifted off. He then immediately hit the ground again.
"What?"
"The rules are different here," said Yui. "We are nearing the intersection of the AT-Fields. I have no power beyond those gates, he's already pushed me back. You have to go, Shinji. You have to find her. Remember your love and it will be beacon for her. Go."
Shinji ran, charged up to the gates, and with all his might, turned and put his fist into the wood. The whole structure shuddered, groaned, and he saw cracks spreading through the walls. He hit it again, and it undulated, changing. The gates shifted, creaking, the shape of the portal that they closed over changing before they could keep up, and he wedged his fingers into the gap and spread it, grunting with effort. The wood splintered and yawned open, creaking and squealing, and the opening was big enough for him to crawl inside. He took a last look back at his mother.
He saw a beautiful woman on a summer day, waving to her son.
Behind her were three shapes, watching him.
"Oh," said Misato, "Oh God."
Rei was a ruin. They'd bandaged her as best she could, but she was going to die, it was plain to see. Her left arm was withered down to nothing, wrapped in bandages mostly to prevent infection. It would be gone, if she lived. Half of her head was covered in a dense bandage, and her eye was swollen shut. Misato, arguably, had better things to do. Commander Ikari would have let them wheel her off into the infirmary and gone back to whatever it was needed doing. Misato was not Commander Ikari.
Ritsuko walked into the room. She looked down in Rei with a blank expression, although the edges of her lips trembled.
"She's going to die," said Ritsuko.
Misato turned to her in shock, but said nothing. She was right, after all. Looking down on her, it was a miracle she was alive at all. The beeping machines were around her, measuring everything about her, quantifying her. Misato shivered. The girl had spent enough time wrapped up in machines. She stepped out into the hallway, and Ritsuko followed her.
"Do you think I should give the order?" said Misato.
"What order?"
"To… you know."
Ritsuko paled. "Come with me."
Misato followed her. She slowed as she passed Hikari's room, also in the intensive care ward. Her family and the Suzahara boy were crowded inside. The boy was asleep, head resting on Kodama's shoulder, while Hikari's little sister slept in her lap. Only the father was awake, staring into space, expressionless. Misato wanted to say something, but when she tried, there were no words finding their way past their lips.
Ritsuko stopped and looked in, biting her lip, and then hurried away, turned to the floor. Misato hurried after her until they made it to the elevator, took it up to the upper level, and headed down the access tunnel towards the main base. Thankfully, like most of the structures in the Geofront, the hospital was partly subterranean, and had taken only superficial damage in the pounding the city had received.
"They took her arm," Ritsuko said to the air, "and her eye."
"You can't blame yourself for that."
She had no reply. When they reached the main base, Misato jumped at the sound of something immense creaking, and cursed herself. She pressed on, following Ritsuko, who moved mechanically, ignoring the sounds of hasty repairs and creaking metal and masonry that were slowly, inexorably falling apart.
"Where are we going?"
Ritsuko ignored her, waiting for the elevator. When it opened, she stepped inside, fishing in her pocket for a key. When Misato was inside, she pushed the close-door button, turned the key, and locked out the control panel. A small section at the very bottom flipped down, and she pushed the single button that waited there. The elevator began to sink.
"I'm going to show you why pulling the plug on her is pointless."
The ride was silent, and it seemed to go on forever. When the doors finally opened, a rush of cold air greeted her. The hallways outside the elevator were unfinished, even compared to the Spartan levels above, all bare concrete, in some places still showing marks in paint and chalk from the construction crews. The halls were set at right angles, too, rather than the confusing maze of the base proper. It looked like an old, dilapidated school, rather than a high tech facility with an operating budget that rivaled nations.
Ritsuko came to a rather bland looking door, typed a code into the keypad next to it, and pulled it open, holding it for Misato. She stepped into the darkness beyond and waited for the door to hiss closed on a gas piston before she flicked on the light. The lights came up with a heavy, whining thump, slowly building from a gloom to a powerful illumination from sodium lights, bathing the concrete room in yellow. There were inscriptions on the walls-something about flavor and charm. The middle of the room was dominated by scuff marks and old grime, ghosts left behind when machinery was removed from the room.
"What is this place?" said Misato, her words echoing from the walls.
"This is where Rei was made," said Ritsuko, "Before I began working here. I was in grad school, you were in Berlin with Kaji."
"What do you mean, made?"
"She was manufactured," said Ritsuko. "Rei is a clone, a combination of genetic material from the Evangelions, Yui Ikari, and another source. When I first saw it, all I knew was that it was synthetic nervous tissue, part of some sort of computer system."
"You mean," said Misato, "Like the MAGI."
"Precisely. The same type of tissue, in fact. At first, I simply assumed that it was the result of the same process used to create the tissue in the MAGI system. When I learned about that binder in Gendo's office, it all clicked."
"What clicked?"
"Rei combines elements of Kryptonian technology with the human form. She is, in effect, a living computer, and like any computer, we can make backups."
"Backups?" said Misato.
"Let's go," said Ritsuko. "It's through here."
There was another door, a series of them, in fact. Finally, they reached the only part of this area of the complex that seemed to see any use. Like the rest of the place, it was dark, lit only by a massive tank of bubbling water at the rear of the room, filled with floating shapes. A cold ball formed in Misato's stomach as she walked inside. The room was dominated by a large tube, and she could see some kind of apparatus overhead, connecting it to the tank.
Ritsuko turned the lights on, and Misato saw.
There were a dozen Reis floating in the tank, moving around slowly on the current, bathed in red from the strange color of the LCL. They stared into space with fixed expressions of mindless joy, drifting into one another or the wall of the tank and bouncing apart. Misato started to shake, until she clenched her fists.
"What is this?"
"The tube is for making the backups," said Ritsuko. "Once a week, she'd come down here, and we'd make a backup of her brain patterns. In the event of her death, a new clone would be uploaded with that data and become the new Rei."
"So if she dies, she just wakes up down here."
"No," said Ritsuko. "She just dies. It doesn't work that way. The clone wakes up with her memories, but it's not her. I wanted to believe it would be, but it wasn't."
Misato looked at her, staring into the tank, and she felt the heat rising in her throat. "You… you've done this, haven't you?"
"He made me," Ritsuko said softly.
"What?"
"After the first attack, the second Rei was too badly injured. It was a mercy, she would have been paralyzed and lived for a few weeks in agony."
Misato folded her arms across her chest. "I bet that makes it easy for you to sleep at night."
"No," she said thickly, "It doesn't. When I first started, I hated her."
"Why? She's a little girl, he-"
"Because he loved her, and not me. Because he used me but he never smiled for me. I was glad to pull the plug on her when he gave the order. I thought she deserved it."
"What happened?"
"He didn't love her, he never loved anyone."
Ritsuko touched the glass. "I murdered her because I was jealous of her, and it took her death for me to see the truth. It was a way to manipulate her, just like he manipulated me. That man is a monster, and he makes everyone else monsters."
Ritsuko pulled a gun out of her pocket. Misato froze.
"Rits," she said, gently. "What are you doing?"
"I don't deserve to live," she said, flatly. The gun was still pointed earthwards.
"I thought I could make up for it," she said to the tank. "Her medications limited her, constrained her abilities. I walked them back, decreasing the doses, and she got smarter, more like her true self. She's a computer, so I programmed her. I used the excuse of the targeting program for the palette rifle to upload code into her brain. I connected her to the MAGI system."
"You were just trying to help her," said Misato, gently. "Come on, let me have that gun."
"It didn't matter," Ritsuko sobbed. "She's a pile of meat up there and she's going to die, and the next one will go through the same thing, and the one after that, and the one after that. Hikari is going to die. Asuka and Shinji are dead. I'm like a wicked witch in a story. I eat children."
Misato swallowed. "Rits, that isn't true. Hikari is alive, you can find some way to help her. The others are alive, too."
"You're just telling yourself that," said Ritsuko. "You just don't want to see it. These things killed the mothers and now they're killing the children. We're all going to die for what we've done. Nothing can stop this."
"Rits," Misato said, "Come on, don't do this. We can figure something out."
"It's too late for me," said Ritsuko, and she started to raise the muzzle of the gun.
Something whipped out of the darkness and slapped Ritsuko's hand. Misato saw a flash of metal there and a spurt of blood, and the gun clattered to the floor. Ritsuko made an agonized sound, half laugh and half sob, and dove for it. Kaji appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and threw his arm around her waist, dragging her back.
"Damn it," he shouted, "What are you doing?"
"I'm not going to wait for it," Ritsuko shouted, "I'm just going to get it over with."
He pushed her against the glass. "The hell you are."
"They're all dead," Ritsuko wailed, "I just let it happen."
Kaji grabbed her hand, pulled the spike of metal free, and tossed it to the floor. He must have thrown it.
"We need to get this bandaged," he said.
"Just let me bleed," Ritsuko whimpered.
"Katsuragi," said Kaji. "You have the authority to confine her to the infirmary. We can't leave her alone."
Misato nodded. "Come on, let's get her upstairs."
Asuka walked alone in a strange place. It felt normal, it felt real, like home, but it couldn't be her home. There were too many people, and they were all happy, smiling and laughing in the sunlight so bright, it hurt her eyes. She wandered in a daze, and no matter where she went, no one would look at her. She felt like a ghost, a phantom, something that didn't belong.
She turned a street without remembering how she arrived there. When she turned her back, the place she left was gone, and she was alone on an empty street. The apartment build hunched at the far end, the lot empty safe for, curious, Misato's old blue Renault, the one that got messed up in the explosion before Asuka came to Tokyo-3. She tried to remember her arrival, but it was blank, a void in her mind that pained her, like an infected lump under her skin. There was something missing, something scoured out.
She walked up to the door, and entered the code. The box just beeped and returned a red light, rejecting her. She tried again, and found the same result. Each time she tried the code, it ignored her, beeping in annoyance. She grit her teeth and pounded on the door with her first, and then gasped, her rage vanishing in an instant, when she felt a cold rush on her skin and her hand passed through the door. Something curled in the back of her mind, a prickling suspicion. She put her hands on the glass and pressed, and pushed through it with ease. She found herself on the other side.
"Am I a ghost?
No one answered her.
The elevator button didn't work, so she headed up the stairs. When she pushed on the door at the top of the stairwell, the latch refused to move, but her hands passed through it. She stepped through, closing her eyes as her head touched the door, and walked into the hall. It was cold and quiet as a grave, and very dark. She walked along the hall until she reached the apartment, and stood in front of the door. She tried to knock, but her hands simply passed through it.
"What is this?" she whispered.
She heard voices. There was a light on the kitchen. In a daze, she wandered past the couch, tracing her fingers over it. They sank into the fabric. She passed into the kitchen, and Misato and Shinji were there. There were dirty plates on the table, and the room smelled off food. Asuka breathed it in.
"Hey," she said, "I'm here, I-"
"You know," said Misato, "I'm glad she's dead. She was a nuisance."
"I know," said Shinji, turning to her. "Always so demanding, always complaining, and always ranting at the drop of a hat. She was such a bitch."
Asuka gasped. Misato moved to Shinji seductively, swinging her hips, sliding against him. He wrapped his arm around her back and pulled her close, running his hand up her jacket. His fingers pinched the zipper of her skirt and started to move down, slowly, as he leaned in to kiss her. Asuka made a strangled sound and backed out of the kitchen as he turned, lifted her up onto the counter, and started pulling at the top of her dress. She heard fabric tearing as she ran out of the apartment, sobbing. It was so cold, now.
She ran and ran, without knowing where. She was outside, and she didn't remember going down the stairs. There was a blue newspaper box sitting on the street corner, and the headline showed Misato embracing Superman, locked in a deep kiss with him. Asuka gurgled a strangled cry and stepped back, until she saw something. A tiny scrap of blue cloth stuck out of the side of the box. She moved forward, grabbed the lid, and tugged. It came loose and fell down, and the paper flopped out, spraying into the wind like so many leaves, rustling. Stuffed in the box was a rumpled piece of blue cloth. She pulled it out and it unfurled in her hands, flapping in the winds.
The next paper in the box had the word "LIES" written on it.
She held up the cloth. It was some kind of a shirt. Someone gave it to her, she knew. It was blue, and on the front was a funny symbol- red and yellow interlocked, like an English "S".
"I remember this," she said.
"You look a little lost."
She turned around. There was a boy. He was pretty. That was the word that came to her, pretty. He was like someone out of a story. His skin was pale, like shaved ice, and his hair was silver, smoothed against his head. He was dressed to the nines in a three piece suit and a tie, all black. He reached for her with a white-gloved hand.
"I can help you find your way."
Asuka stepped back from him, pressing the shirt to her chest.
"Oh come now, a woman shouldn't be out on these streets at night. It's dangerous."
Asuka looked up. The sky was a blanket of stars, and all around her was darkness. She could see the outline of the street and buildings, but it was so dark she may as well have been blind. All she could see was the boy. He had a glow about him, an ethereal light.
It wasn't dark before.
"Just come with me, and it will be alright."
"Go away," she said, backing further down the sidewalk. She bumped into something, and tripped, almost falling.
The boy grabbed at the shirt. "You don't need that. Come with me."
She snatched it away. "It's mine, they gave it to me."
"Who?"
"I don't remember."
"See? You're confused. Come with me, and I'll take care of you. I'll take good care of you, I promise."
Asuka turned and she ran, staring at the ground in fear that she would trip. The sidewalk felt like it would go on forever, without end. She couldn't seven see the street, or the buildings anymore, only squares of cement sliding under her feet as she pumped her legs. Every time she turned, he was right behind her, keeping perfect pace without effort, holding out his hand.
"I can see this isn't working," he said.
She screamed as he yanked her back by the hair, dragging her away. She was in a hospital and the sidewalk and the street and the darkness were gone. He spun he around and yanked at the shirt, but she held it fast, so hard her fingers hurt.
"Leave me alone!"
He pushed her back, and she tripped over something. She fell back onto a table, cold and metal, under a bank of harsh lights. She put her hand up to shield her eyes and he was there, shoving her down by the shoulders. He was dressed in surgical scrubs and a leather apron, and there was a surgical mask covering his mouth and a bonnet over his hair, so that only his chalk white nose and his red eyes were visible. She was in an operating room, she realized now, surrounded by nurses, and they had no faces. They were smooth, like mannequins. Like dolls.
She started screaming.
"Hush, now, it'll be over soon," he said as they strapped her legs down, and then her arms. He pulled at the shirt but she wouldn't let go, it was important. She needed it.
He wheeled a cart over to the table. Lying on it was a long needle, and a spool of thread, and two large, blue buttons.
"Don't worry," he whispered sweetly, "You won't need eyes to see."
He froze.
She heard a familiar voice. She thought he heard it, too.
Shinji heard screaming and he ran, his boot slapping on the hard stone of the castle hall. The world was bathed in darkness. No matter how hard he tried, he could see only a few feet ahead. He stopped running when he heard the quivering scream again, drew his breath. He had to remember, it wasn't real. He could run all day, and he wouldn't get anywhere. He tried to listen for the screams, but they came from everywhere at once, echoing from the very stone.
So he turned, and he bashed the wall down with his bare hands. He crashed through it a shower of broken stone and powdered mortar and dust, coughing as he waved it away from his face, and he broke into another hall. This hall, though, was familiar. It was a hospital. The hole in the wall behind him was still stone, but he'd broken through drywall into a hospital hallway, next to a gurney. He closed his eyes and listened. She was close now, he could feel it. He looked up and down the hall. At one end was a wide pair of double doors, through which sunlight streamed. At the far end was a smaller, older looking door. He heard creaking and groaning doors within it. He turned towards the doors with the sunlight streaming through, and stopped.
It was still a trick. Nothing made any sense here.
"Kaworu!" he shouted, "I know you can hear me!"
This way
He heard the voice, he was sure of it. He didn't know if it was another trick.
I'm up here
He looked up, but there was only ceiling, tiles and long rectangles that glowed with double banks of fluorescent lights. He tried to fly again only to slap back to the ground, so he climbed up on the gurney, put his fists through the tiles, and pulled them down. When he pulled himself up through the hole, he was on another level of the hospital, or so he thought. There was only one way to go, this time. One end was a dead end, just flat wall, while the other was a heavy, locked door, behind a set of bars.
Shinji walked up to the bars and tested them with his hands, giving them a sharp pull. He thought about going through the wall, but he had no idea where he might come out if he did that. He wrapped his fingers around the bars again and yanked them, but they refused to budge. Despairing, he slumped against them.
He stood up, looked at the bars, and focused. He put his hands around the center most pair, moved up to them, and strained his back, grunting, and then grunt became a shout. The bars quivered, and torqued in their settings, and slowly, inexorably, they bent. He wedged himself between them and pushed, pressed them apart until he could wriggle through.
The door was worse. It was made of a thick layer of solid steel, and looked like a bank vault. He pushed against it and it failed to budge, and when he pulled at the large, unmoving handle, it snapped off in his grasp. He pounded on the door in frustration, and still it did not move. Panting, he stood there, his anger growing with every passing second. He pulled back and threw one great punch, put all his might behind it, and when he hit the steel his fist sank into it to the elbow. It dented in around the blow, the metal groaning as it bent. When he pulled back, it started to unfold immediately, forcing itself back into shape. He hit it again and again until he could get his hands around the outer edge. He didn't even try bending it. He peeled the entire thing loose in one great motion and let it crash through the side wall.
Inside was some kind of hospital room. The walls were padded, and stretched up into infinity. He couldn't see a ceiling. On a raise platform in the center was a wide four poster bed, chained down with heavy links. He walked up to it, and shuddered. On the bed was a woman. It had to be Asuka's mother. She moaned and twisted against her bonds, curling her wrists against the heavy manacles that bound them. The chains criss-crossed her body, creaking and clanking as she tried to force her way up. She was blindfolded and gagged, sweating profusely, her face an unhealthy yellow pallor. Though the gag he could hear her moaning and forming the strangled roots of screams that died away as she thrashed at her bonds.
"Kyoko!"
She froze, her head turning towards him.
"I'll get you out, don't move."
He pulled at the chains, but they tightened around her, and she moaned in pain. He ran down the length of the chain, feeling to where it was moored in the floor, bound to a heavy iron ring bolted to a concrete mooring. He yanked on the chain, and Kyoko made a strangled cry of torment. He looped his fingers through one of the rings and pulled, hoping to break it, but there was nothing he could do, it simply wouldn't budge.
"What are you doing here?"
He whirled. Kaworu stood in the room, by the bed, his hand resting on Kyoko's forehead.
"I'll kill you!" Shinji shouted, but when he put his hands around Kaworu's throat, they touched nothing but air. He was already behind Shinji.
"You made a mistake, coming here. There's nothing you can do but die."
Shinji touched his face. A metal plate was clamped down over his mouth. As he moved, manacles clapped around his wrists and his arms and legs, drawing him down as yet more chains clanked around him, wrapping about his body like pythons, crushing the breath out of him.
He heard Asuka scream again.
"Oh, don't worry," said Kaworu. "I can be in two places at once. See, I can do something you can't do."
Shinji stared at him. Yui's words rang in his mind. It wasn't real, it was just a construct. If it wasn't real, then he was playing by Kaworu's rules. Yet, if they were Kaworu's rules, why didn't he just kill him and get it over with?
Shinji closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he was standing behind Kaworu. The other Shinji looked at him and he nearly lost it, almost forgot what he was doing. Splitting his concentration was hard, but he willed his other self to grab Kaworu by the shoulder, and drag him back. Kaworu blinked in surpise and another Kaworu stepped out of the air. Together, they pulled the second Shinji back, and punched him in the stomach. Shinji doubled over in pain, both of him, but he forced himself to focus.
Then, there were four Shinjis. The Kaworus looked at him, and said, in unison, "Any number you can think of, I can double." And then there were eight.
Shinji closed his eyes. He couldn't remember where he really was in the room anymore, seeing himself from sixteen different directions. Kaworu clenched his fists in fury, and doubled himself again. The room was a sea of Kaworus, all identical, all staring him down, pulling at him. He shrugged them off, and doubled himself again, grappling with them.
He focused on the chains. He pulled at them, and they came free, shattering like glass, like the false Yui on the beach did. He hurried, just in time for all the Kaworus to scream at once, raising their voices in a shrill scream of agony as he jumped onto the bed, grabbed Kyoko's chains, and with all his might, parted them.
"Maybe," said Shinji, "but I bet you can't split your attention in all those directions and hold her back, too."
Kaworu charged him, and he was one Shinji again. The army of Kaworus pushed him to the floor, scratching at his throat, clawing at his eyes, snarling like animals. They dragged him away from the bed, until Kyoko stood up. She gleamed like a golden goddess in white robes that flapped in an invisible wind, her long locks of strawberry curls trailing out behind her. She stepped down the dais from the bed, grabbed the nearest Kaworu, and with one hand, neatly twisted his neck around one hundred and eighty degrees.
Misato looked down at Ritsuko and sighed to herself, touching her friend's shoulder. They'd bandaged her hand, and changed her into a gown. She was asleep, sedated. Misato took her sheet and dabbed the tears away from the corners of her eyes. Her cheeks were still red and raw, but she was breathing easily. She looked almost peaceful. Kaji tugged at her arm.
"We need to go."
"What were you even doing down there?" she said, rounding on him as they walked out of the room.
"I followed you. I had my suspicions. She was acting off ever since Matsushiro. I was afraid she might hurt herself, so I kept track of her."
Misato nodded. "You know how to get back down there? I have a feeling there's some stuff we haven't seen yet."
Kaji nodded, then looked over her shoulder. "It'll have to wait."
"Captain Katsuragi."
Nakashima, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, walked up to her. The woman looked tired. Kaji stiffened.
"What are you planning to do about that… thing outside?"
Misato swallowed. "We're working on a solution."
"That simply isn't good enough, Captain. I need to know if that gate or whatever it may be is going to expand. There are worried people who think that Third Impact is imminent."
Misato shivered at the words. "As I said, we're working on a solution, and I-"
"As I said, that isn't good enough. I want answers, and I want them now. You may be nominally in charge here, but as of now, you report directly to me. You have about twelve hours to come up with an answer, or I'm going to employ the one give me by my advisors."
"Which is?"
"Dump the entire Japanese stockpile of non-nuclear mines into the gate and hope the explosion closes it."
"You can't do that!" Misato shouted, grabbing her by the collar. "My pilots are in there! Superman is in there!"
"You're not giving me any other options," said Nakashima. "I've cleared it already. The operation will commence in twelve hours. I'd suggest you evacuate your people."
"I'm begging you," said Misato. "The head of the Evangelion project told me the gateway is stable, it's not going to-"
"You mean the one you have sedated, on suicide watch? I've made up my mind. I'm sorry, but I have to take the safety of the world into account."
With that, she turned, and stalked away, brushing past a nurse carrying a tray of medicines. Misato clamped her hands over her face and growled into her palms. Kaji put his arm around her and squeezed her.
"He can do this," said Kaji, "He'll bring her out, I know he will."
Another nurse ran up to them. "Captain Katsuragi?"
"Yes?"
"Rei Ayanami is demanding to see you."
Kaworu poised over her with the needle. He froze, his face going blank beneath his surgeon's mask. The needle sparkled in the harsh lights of the operating theater. He turned his head away, distracted by something. The bond around her left wrist slipped, as though someone holding it let go, and her arm was free. She grabbed something off the tray, a kidney-shaped dish, and brought it up into his face. He snorted in angry and jumped back, clutching at his chin. His surgeon's mask was stained red.
"Damn you," he snorted, his voice thick from a broken nose.
Asuka flailed against the bonds. Images, memories flooded into her head. As she remembered, she grew stronger, and she pulled her other hand free. When Kaworu came at her, she caught his wrists, spread his arms, and head butted him. He fell backwards, away from the table, and it gave her time to pull up the straps around her legs. She slid onto the floor, cold beneath her bare feet.
"Okay, asshole," she snapped, "Playtime's over."
She looked at the shirt dangling from her hand. She spread it, she lifted it, and she pulled it down over her head. She brushed her hair free, and when she opened her eyes, the red S was stretched over her chest. A red skirt hung down to her knees and she wore red boots, and a red cape trailed behind her. Kaworu yanked off his mask and stumbled backwards, wide-eyed. Her arm shot out, and she grabbed him by the throat, picked him up, and punched him as hard as she could, right in his stupid pale doll's face.
The whole world thrummed with the impact. The walls bent out, and then back in again, and Kaworu sailed through the air, tumbling head over heels into the far wall. He crashed through it, rolling in a pile of stones and wires and drywall and mortar, and moaned as he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, shaking his head.
Asuka ran up to him and kicked him in his side, punted him like a football. He flew up, cratered the ceiling, and slammed back down, clutching his side as he rolled over. He stood up, slowly, panting.
"I wanted this to be easy on you," he said, his words doubling on themselves, distorted, like an animal growl. "I wanted you to embrace me willingly, to take me into yourself, but it's too late now. Your life is pointless. Your suffering is meaningless. You are nothing, a cosmic mistake."
"Bullshit!" Asuka screamed, lacing her fingers around his throat.
"Here," he croaked, "Let me show you."
Before she could stop him, he slapped his fingers to her head, and she felt them sink into her skull. Everything hit her at once, and her entire body jerked, as from an electric shock. She released him and her arms flew to her sides. Everything. The stink of the hospital, the smell of death that hovered around her mother as she dangled from the ceiling fan, an extension cord looped around her throat, the broken shape of Hikari lying on the gurney as they wheeled her into surgery, pale and pitiful and dying, Shinji lying broken and bruised on the living room floor, Kaji pushing her back from the door of his berth in her stupid dress and stolen perfume, and above all her mother screaming, ranting into the doll that she had to die, she had to die with her, tearing its head loose.
She would have killed you.
"No," Asuka croaked. "Stop it."
It will end when you submit.
"Never."
Then it will never end. This will be your life, for eternity. All of your pain. All of it, in every moment, forever.
She ground her teeth, even though she couldn't feel them anymore, and pressed her eyes closed, but he was in her head, twisting all of her memories against her.
You're alone. No one wants you. No one needs you. You're just a part of a broken machine.
"No," she croaked.
She closed her eyes and she focused her mind. Hikari was hurt, but that wasn't all there was. Asuka saw in her mind's eye their chatting and their shopping and the way Hikari was so demure, so innocent, always so happy for other people, always willing to give. Her laughter rang in Asuka's mind. Yes, Kaji pushed her out the door, but it was for her own good, not to hurt her, and it was Shinji who found her and carried her back to her bed and could have used her but didn't, and when Shinji was hurt he woke up the next day and they whispered secrets to each other in the morning sunlight.
Give in.
"No!" Asuka shouted, batting at him. "Never! Never! Never!"
Kaworu's face twisted into a mask of hate. His eyes turned from red to bright green, and his teeth filed themselves to sharp fangs. He pressed her to the wall and sank his fingers into her skull to the knuckles, and the intensity inceased.
"I don't care anymore," he snarled, "I don't care if your brains are jelly."
There was a light, a golden light.
"Mama," she whispered.
Kaworu turned, horrified, as a golden queen, standing tall over him, grabbed him by throat with fingers of alabaster and dragged him away. Asuka pitched forward as the torrent of memories faded, and she fell into strong, warm, familiar arms. She breathed in his smell, pressed her face into his neck and kissed him, warm and safe and needed.
"Is it really you?"
"It's me," said Shinji.
Mama held Kaworu up like a bug.
She pushed him into the air, and he simply vanished, fell through a crack in the air. Everything shifted and changed, the floor undulating under her feet. She pushed into Shinji, afraid it was all another trick a way to break her down, until she realized where she was. They were in a summer field, beneath a tree. The air smelled of flowers and grass and all things that were new, and there was so much sunlight it hurt her eyes.
Mama gently peeled her away from Shinji and pulled her into her arms, pressing Asuka's head into her shoulder, twining her fingers through her hair.
"You're so big," she murmured. "I missed you so much. I could always see you but never touch you."
"Mama," was all Asuka could say.
"I love you," she said, over and over. "I love you, my darling, my precious girl. I'm so sorry."
"Kyoko."
Asuka turned. Yui stood under the tree, her hand on Shinji's shoulder.
"What?"
"We have to let them go. The theoretical space is becoming unstable."
"But…" said Kyoko.
"No!" Asuka shouted.
Kyoko closed her eyes. "She's right. I can't keep you."
She cupped Asuka's face in her elegant fingers, and smiled. "You have to go now, darling child. Be happy."
"But-"
She was falling through the air. Shinji caught her, pulled her to himself, and twisted his body underneath hers. The impact rattled her teeth as he slammed into the earth of the Geofront and skimmed over it, coming to a gradual stop, breathing hard. His costume was a mess, and he had a black eye. Asuka sat up and looked over her shoulder. The Eva slumped against each other, sinking to their knees. Unit Two's back armor had unfolded, and there was no plug in place. Asuka's stomach clenched. Then, she saw him.
Shinji saw too, and lifted her up as he rose to his feet, pulling her behind him. Kaworu stalked across the charred earth in his plugsuit. Blood dribbled from one corner of his mouth, and one of his eyes was bloody. His fists clenched and unclenched.
"I," said Kaworu, "am going to do more than kill you. I am going to end you. I will break every bone in your body and leave you in the sun so I can do it again the next day. I will murder every one of these mewling lilim," he glared at Asuka, "starting with her. Every one of them will die. Your beloved insects will die screaming, and when you and I are the last living things on this worthless mud ball, I will listen to you beg me for death until it pleases me to end your life."
Shinji stepped forward. "Let's go."
You have been reading
Last Child of Krypton: Redux
Chapter Sixteen: The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun