More warning for suicide and disturbing sexual stuff. Although a lot of what the anime implies is as bad or worse, I have been reminded that some people saw the anime while they were young enough a lot of that went right over their heads (lucky...). I did not rate this M for sappy fluffy yaoi lemons, kay?
The new pilot was saying something, and Shinji thought that it was about Rei, something about how she'd died, which meant that Shinji really should care. He'd liked Rei, or he'd thought he did, but for some reason it was almost impossible to focus on anything other than the fact that Kaworu was buckling his belt, which meant he was done putting on his clothes.
Shinji hadn't even started changing, because when he got to the locker room after escaping from Misato's attempt to offer condolences and sympathy Kaworu was in there with his plug suit already off, and was it because Rei just died? Shinji had noticed that deadly danger made him react afterwards, but being turned on because Rei died was just horrible, made Shinji ashamed enough already that the fact he was staring at a guy barely mattered by comparison.
Especially not when Kaworu's skin was so smooth, without a single scar, as milky-pale as Rei's.
Maybe that was it? The part of Shinji that registered what was normal and what other people thought flailed desperately. Kaworu had reminded him of Rei as soon as they met. So maybe it did have something to do with losing Rei, but not just in such an incredibly eww way as wanting to have sex because she was dead? Kaworu was enough like Rei that maybe seeing him felt like Rei was still here, sort of, not dead along with the angel?
While Shinji's superego worked on that flimsy justification, Shinji's id, quite firmly in control, was more worried about the fact that Kaworu had finished putting his clothes on. Forget concerns about other people or what society would think. Even though Shinji was aware that something was deeply wrong, this part of him wasn't confused by this at all. Clearly there was something wrong with the universe, and it was that there was no more naked.
Shinji's conscious mind was as startled as Kaworu to find that he'd grabbed Kaworu's shirt and jammed him roughly up against the lockers. Breathing hard, Shinji couldn't meet Kaworu's eyes, not because he was embarrassed but because he couldn't look away from Kaworu's chest, where a thin white shirt and a few buttons were all that separated him from that skin. All he had to do was tear it away (provided he was strong enough, Shinji's self-doubt chimed in), and then the belt, that red belt had to go, and then…
And then all that oxygen rushing to his head while his blood went somewhere else knocked Shinji out. Kaworu caught him, wondering what the hell. Being raised by the old men had taught him that Lilim were completely insane, and Shinji's random freaking out about different things like Kaworu running out of soap or saving that poor cat from starving to death was just more evidence that he was trapped on the planet of the crazy people.
Dammit, he thought, he'd have to take Shinji to the infirmary.
Carrying Shinji, Kaworu didn't meet anyone else as he traveled through NERV's echoing corridors and caverns, not until he reached the location marked on SEELE's map of NERV as the main medical area, as distinct from Ritsuko's labs. He had to knock by kicking the bottom of the door with his foot, since his arms were full of unconscious Lilim.
A nurse opened the door. Since Kaworu immediately jammed Shinji in her direction, so that the other Lilim would do something with this, he was the first thing she saw. Her eyes widened with worry: they'd just lost one pilot to an angel that infected the evas and pilots, and now another pilot the angel tried to infect was unconscious? Since the angel managed to take down the Fifth Child's Eva, Nagisa should have gotten more exposure to whatever this was than Ikari. If something had happened to Shinji, then unless Dr. Akagi managed to come up with something, their last pilot was sure to follo-
It was when her concerned eyes started to examine Kaworu, absently calling for an orderly to take the Third Child, that all those thoughts went away.
Ikari? Oh, right, that was the thing in between her and that delicious young man… the young man who was fifteen and probably not legal, even if this was Japan, and…
He might be in danger! He needed a physical exam!
Score!
Shinji groaned as he came to, wondering where he was. He'd been shoved into the corner of some hard tiled room: from the smell and the way opening his eyes a fraction revealed it was brightly, glaringly lit, probably NERV's infirmary. Had he fallen asleep while visiting Asuka, hiding in a corner so they didn't make him leave?
Blearily he stared at the center of the room, where a large mass of white revealed itself to be a cluster of doctors and nurses.
When he stood up and said, "Excuse me?" because he still couldn't remember what he was doing here and now he had a headache,
The doctors ignored him, but hands appeared, prying two of them apart so Kaworu could see Shinji. "Oh, he did wake up on his own."
One of the doctors coughed. "Yes, well, examining you is more important since you had more exposure."
Exposure? Shinji thought, outraged. Kaworu was naked!
And Shinji couldn't see anything but Kaworu's chest because there were more nurses in the way!
…why did he feel gypped?
"He probably just hyperventilated and fainted, like those two," another of the nurses said, running a hand up Kaworu's chest. Shinji followed the nod of her head to see two more passed-out people, another nurse and one of the male orderlies that had restrained Asuka.
Wait, the male orderly had blood all over his face and chest, and they were just ignoring him? Like they'd ignored Shinji?
Wait, was that a nosebleed? That actually happened?
"Shinji's recovered, so I'm leaving," Kaworu said.
"But we still haven't…" someone said, amidst the chorus of disappointed sounds as Kaworu waded out of the mass towards…
Kaworu frowned. "Where is my clothing?"
Silence.
Kaworu turned, Shinji losing the battle to remove his eyes from Kaworu's ass. "I want my belt. I liked my belt." It was red leather, a deep, rich color. And also shiny.
His belt, Shinji wondered. Shouldn't Kaworu be more concerned about making them return his pants?
"I'm not leaving without my belt," Kaworu said, and Shinji didn't need to look at the others to know saying that was a mistake: now Kaworu was never getting that belt back.
At least, that was what Shinji thought until he sensed the aura of menace in the air.
One minute later, Kaworu walked out of the infirmary happily wearing the orange undershirt he'd worn under the school uniform's generic white dress shirt, with the belt draped over his shoulder.
Shinji couldn't help noticing that the shirt brought out the orange undertone in his eyes, making them look a little more like Rei's, while the color of the belt was almost a match for them, but what really concerned him was that, "I really should tell him to put on some pants." The trouble was that every time Shinji opened his mouth to say it, he ended up with it just hanging open so he looked like a goldfish.
Like now, which was probably why Kaworu had turned around to look at him curiously.
"I really need to tell him to put on some pants," Shinji thought again, desperately, but even though he knew he should, some part of him thought that was just such a damn stupid thing to say that it was refusing to let those words come out of his mouth. Where was this part of him when he said stupid things to Asuka, Rei, Misato…
He must look like such an idiot to Kaworu, but then, didn't he look like an idiot to everyone?
What Kaworu was thinking was that Lilim were so strange. He wasn't sure why the Third Child was following him, but the Third Child was a different brand of strange from the old men, so at least it should be entertaining. Well, at least if he started to breathe fast and pass out again, according to the doctors mouth-to-mouth contact would fix it, along with most other things. Kaworu had let one of them insist on demonstrating proper technique, just in case it ever came in useful.
The Lilim even followed him into his assigned room, and sat down on the bed next to Kaworu.
Oh, damn, the Lilim was trembling. Kaworu sighed, pushing untamed white hair back from his eyes. He didn't want to drag Shinji to the infirmary again, that had been a huge waste of time. Getting examined by Lilim that just wanted to gawk at or be in the exalted presence of the angel was so distasteful. So much for going there on behalf of the Third Child: the Lilim had ignored the other of their own kind in favor of Kaworu. Although that was to be expected, they could at least have done their duty to a pilot… He shook his head, frowning. There he went again, expecting even halfway-decent behavior of Lilim. Right after Keel had referred to compassion and getting upset on behalf of others, the way Shinji had on behalf of that cat, as a bad thing, something they would be cured of by merging with him.
If anything, Kaworu would have liked to think that the Lilim would have ended up a little more like him, but one Kaworu versus billions of Lilim? There wouldn't be anything of him left in the personality developed by the mass. He'd just be a drowned out, ignored part of something dominated by Lilim like the old men, and that thought made him clench his fists, ruined the good mood he'd been put in by managing to recover his belt from the clutches of the Lilim.
And also getting to make use of some of the combat techniques he'd been drilled on since he was small. He'd only been able to avoid Armisael for so long before his Eva was encroached on: what a waste. Although getting to force annoying Lilim to stop interfering with him was much better than fighting someone who had never done anything to him. Even if she had made him cry, that was really Rei's fault: those were her feelings in the connection between the three of them.
So stupid.
He didn't think he'd get in trouble for this. If SEELE demanded to know why he had knocked out NERV's medical staff, he could just say that he'd done it to avoid examinations that might have revealed he was an angel. No problem there.
Kaworu smiled, and that was when the Third Child grabbed him, pushed him down on the bed, and started kissing him.
Ah, Shinji was breathing hard, the way he had been before he passed out the last time! He must be trying to fix this condition before falling unconscious (which made so much sense Kaworu should have realized right away that couldn't be the real reason Shinji was kissing him). He opened his mouth, since being slobbered on for a few seconds was better than having to drag the Third Child to the infirmary again.
When Shinji's hands left his head, Kaworu's eyes widened. This felt… different. It wasn't just that it was calling up the First Child's memories and desire to have physical contact with the Third Child, but this kiss felt genuinely good in and of itself.
Huh.
Kaworu was looking for ways to spend the time he had before the end, and since leaked memories and both sets of instincts wanted more physical contact with this particular Lilim, this seemed as good a way as any.
"Misato?"
The officer sighed, leaning over her desk at home. "…Why do I have the feeling you're not calling me to say hi, Ritsuko?"
"Because you're not as dumb as you look," Ritsuko said, smiling wryly as she shrugged on her lab coat. "You've got a discipline problem."
"Asuka's woken up?"
"No, I mean the new one." The one that was certainly an angel, which was why Ritsuko was passing the buck to Misato. "He took out every single one of my on-duty medical staff, including the orderlies."
"What?" She'd known he was dangerous, but this? "Why?"
"I don't know, not a single one of them is giving me a straight answer. From the way they're not answering me, though?" Ritsuko smiled, light glinting off her lipstick. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed how pretty the boy is." Not when Shinji was clearly turning Misato into a cougar.
"You mean one of them might have done something inappropriate?" Misato could picture it. Someone groped him, the combat-trained teenager reacted (Asuka would have done the same), someone called for help… And afterwards, when they figured out what was going on, they were all too embarrassed to admit they'd been tricked into jumping an underage boy for defending his virtue to confess, or they wanted to protect the person who did it.
And while a girl could scream to high heaven if someone touched her inappropriately, Misato'd been in the military. Especially if it was a woman, most people assumed there was something wrong with a man who didn't want sex, even if it was illegal. Misato's guess was that the boy was bi, too, and that just increased the odds of someone blaming the victim.
If that really was the case, then Misato could respect someone who settled things with their own fists instead of calling for help and just ending up more shamed, but she needed to go find Kaworu and get him to tell her about it, at least. She needed to establish that she was a trustworthy commanding officer.
Even if she didn't trust Kaworu and his too-perfect timing, his too-perfect skill with an Eva it should have been impossible for him to pilot. Especially because she didn't trust him.
At least she'd already gone over a speech like this in her head, although she was expecting to give it to Shinji. She shouldn't have needed Kaji's notes to point out to her that Shinji looked like a girl.
And not just any girl. Maybe it was Rei's unnatural skin, hair and eye color that had kept Misato from noticing the resemblance, but comparing black and white photos of the two? They could be twins.
Could have been twins.
"Rei… what were you?" Misato hated that she was thinking this now. Rei had just died to protect Shinji, to defeat an angel and save the world, and here Misato was starting to wonder if they were all much safer with her dead. "And what is he, when he's so much like you?"
Before confronting Kaworu, Misato took a detour into the tunnels of the Magi to get a look at the security cameras and find out exactly what happened in the infirmary.
Why had no one told her that Shinji fell unconscious? Why wasn't he being examined? Why was everyone crowding around Kaworu like he was the last beer on a midsummer day? What she saw filled Misato's mind with more and more questions, but at least she knew a few definite facts:
For all his slouching and unconcern while Asuka was getting her mind torn apart out there, Kaworu was good. And not just 'showy backflips off angels while piloting an Eva that didn't belong to him, what the hell' good.
"You use different moves when you're fighting half a dozen people than if you only have to beware one," Misato misquoted. This wasn't the product of training to face angels, not when they came one at a time and NERV was so completely unprepared for one that split into two.
He'd taken down all of them, including orderlies with knockout syringes, with only a mildly bored and annoyed look on his face. So blasé about fighting human beings, and not in the ring but for real? He hadn't broken out any lethal moves, but she could tell that was only because he hadn't considered it worth the bother, forget being pressed hard enough. It was harder to take down someone without killing them than to kill them, but Kaworu had seen this as… what? Not a game, games were fun.
Normal people were instinctively reluctant to harm other people. A hell of a lot of basic was about getting people past that, trying to enable them to actually pull that trigger, and trying to keep them from going insane afterwards when their mind processed what they'd just done. Normal people had to be hopped up on adrenaline to fight, like Asuka's focused wrath.
What kind of person could calmly take down an entire room and regard it as nothing but a pain in the ass?
And then taking the belt, and the shirt, and not bothering to interrogate others to force them to surrender the location of his pants, underwear, shoes and socks? Just… walking off barefoot like that, simply happy he'd gotten his favorite belt back, with Shinji following him looking like he was too shocked to look away from the train wreck?
People, people just didn't act like that.
People. Humans.
Misato went in there with her gun drawn intending to rescue Shinji from the angel's vile clutches, but when she saw them…
It was definitely the angel. Had to be the angel doing something to her. It wasn't that Shinji was turning her into a perverted old woman and oh god, he was fourteen.
She shouldn't be doing this, Misato's conscience thought. Really, really shouldn't be doing this. Leaning over them and licking her lips as she slowly undid her top with one hand: could she be any creepier?
The rest of her was thinking that she was going to show them how this was done, since they clearly had a lot to learn.
"I should at least… restrain the angel…" And oh hey, there was a leather belt right by the side of the bed.
"Well, he can't be normal," Hyuga thought, peering through the binoculars. He was keeping an eye on the Fifth Child because Misato asked him to help her find out the nak-the truth. That was it, he was just spying on the Fifth Child for Misato's sake. Because he was attracted to-admired Misato. And for the sake of humanity's survival. Really.
"Normal people don't get up at this hour to stand on decapitated angel statues in lakes of LCL muttering to themselves." Also, normal people wore pants. And no part of Hyuga was now thinking that really, pants and zippers and everything really just got in the way-ahem, were they really necessary in hot summer weather like that following Second Impact?
And even if he had been thinking that a pants-optional dress code would have some good points, he was definitely only thinking of Misa-he was definitely not thinking of Misato, because she was his commanding officer. And that was wrong, if not as wrong as oogling underage boys. Even though Japan's national absolute minimum age of consent was 13, local laws could push it as high as 18 and there was such a thing as good taste. Tokyo-3 was a special administrative zone, due to the presence of NERV. NERV was the executive branch of the Committee for Human Instrumentality. According to Kaji's information, the Committee was made up of old European members of some semi-Christian cult, which explained why the age of consent for heterosexual sex was eighteen and the age of consent for homosexual sex was 'don't let us catch you or you're out on your ass,' same as the Japanese military and very unlike the rest of the normally more liberal UN military.
Asuka had known what the rules were and how much trouble she could get Kaji in, she just hadn't thought the rules applied to her, according to Misato.
Now Asuka was… and Hyuga had no illusions. He was just as disposable, especially now that he was doing what got Kaji killed. Spying on SEELE's pilot like this: he didn't want to get hauled in as a pedophile. If only he could stop thinking these things!
It didn't help when Kaworu turned in his direction. Hyuga wasn't looking at Kaworu's face, so he didn't register that the angel saw him despite all the distance in between the two of them.
"You're late."
"Forgive me, I couldn't get away until now." Not without either using his abilities and showing up on NERV's detectors or breaking his favorite belt. He'd had to wait until Shinji was awake and Misato wasn't to convince him to undo the belt. Then all he had to do was wait for Shinji to tire himself out again, which was anything but a hardship.
"…Tabris, I thought you were told to wear either the school uniform or plugsuit while in Tokyo-3."
"Members of Dr. Akagi's team removed my pants and other articles of clothing. I was only able to reacquire these."
His belt and that dreadful orange shirt. The color created the illusion that his skin had something of a peach tone to it, made him look more like a mere mortal instead of a True Successor, a child of the White Seed, a pure being that they would use to obtain that purity and immortality.
Keel knew that he really should tell him to put on more clothing. True, Adam and Eve had been naked in their purity, so to put clothing on the angel was unnecessary and they had always kept him in his proper state of grace in their facilities, but the Lilim did not possess that purity. Had he walked to his present location from NERV? Allowing unworthy spawn of the Black Seed to behold his splendor? Especially now that the outskirts of Tokyo-3 were deserted, evacuated and abandoned to any looter brave enough to dare the risk of running into angels or roaming patrols, it was a miracle no one had lain a profane hand on him. The thought of some lustful sinner desecrating the pure child of Adam…
Should not have seemed…
Oh, damnation. That was the one good thing about being this old: he was mostly freed from the tyranny of the flesh, enough that he could recognize this impulse for what it was. "It appears that I misread the prophecies," Keel forced himself to confess. "I assumed that Tabris would be the next to be called to join with Lilith, but Tabris possesses the soul of Adam. Even though his flesh is partially that of the Lilim, his soul is that of the White Seed. Instrumentality is attained when an angel becomes one with a seed of either the White Tree or the Black."
"You mean that instead of Tabris being called to merge with Lilith, we Lilim are now… the ones being called?"
"To merge with the soul and flesh of a seed, but Tabris' flesh is not Adam's." Although it was born from Adam. So this was why the prophecies said that Tabris would be key to instrumentality, yet also contained instructions for a ritual so very different from the angel simply descending to purify the flesh of Lilith and the depravity of the Lilim with that radiant soul. "Prepare to return to Germany: I will have a jet scrambled to retrieve you." Before Gendo Ikari could make any moves. The man possessed the soul and flesh of Lilith: had he and that traitor Yui realized this all along? That humanity was the angel that would be called to act?
A simple adjustment to his dosage would destroy Tabris' current body, placing that soul in one of the forms that had kept away from the world of the Lilim and any possible impurity. If anything, the call to join with the seeds would be helpful, allowing them to be certain that soul was present within the dummy plug of one of the MP Evas. This was a deviation from the scenario, but no deviation at all from the prophecies… Provided Gendo Ikari was not able to acquire Tabris and keep him from them. He might be a fool and a traitor, but he knew his lore. He would not fail to realize what it meant, that those who beheld the angel were called to that radiant being, to worship and become one with it.
After Tabris nodded obediently, Keel cut the connection as soon as possible so that he could do what he could to ensure the angel's safety.
Kaworu walked along the shore, picking his way carefully across the rubble. It was too fresh, too raw, for the edges to be worn smooth: if he stepped on an edge it would be easy for the concrete to slice his foot.
Hmm, but no. Something that could seem accidental, undignified: no, he didn't want that. He wanted a death that was obviously his own choice, by his own will if not his own hand.
"Shit," he said, exactly because of how the old men would have reacted to hear such a disgusting word from his mouth. "A matter of hours…" He thought he'd had more time! He hadn't even started trying to think of something! He would buy more time by going into NERV, making it difficult for them to retrieve him, but then he'd be under NERV's observation, and they might interfere in his chosen death. Depending on what it was?
"How many methods of killing did they make me learn? There has to be something that's appropriate," he told himself. "I know some of the Lilim killed themselves when they found what they were really working on. 'Eating a gun' isn't dramatic enough." This was his death, he was talking about, the one thing he truly had a choice in, his path to freedom. He refused to let it be something pathetic or unmemorable. "It's what they do instead of getting captured or gunned down, yes, but only after they realize that they've failed, that there's nothing they can do to stop the old men." By, for example, killing their tame angel. Seeing a Lilim take that way out, fleeing to the sweet embrace of death rather than be captured, interrogated and finally executed? Kaworu had admired him. At least he'd tried, even if they should have known trying to shoot him wouldn't work.
But, the next day, it was as though nothing ever happened. The blood cleaned away, the man's name taboo. Powerless and forgotten. No, he would not die that way. "There's stabbing myself in the gut, seppuku, but I haven't dishonored myself or done anything wrong. Hmm, I could set myself on fire, but isn't that also for purification?"
Before, Kaworu was staring out over the lake, and it was impossible for Hyuga to read his lips even though the binoculars Misato gave him had built-in software to assist. He was still in no condition to look at Kaworu's face, but the software's best guess was displayed in text on the screen.
"Hanging sounds boring, and isn't it a method of execution as well? Normally there's a 'hangman,' yes? This is my death, I won't let them think some unknown killed me. They'd have to find me only after I was safely dead, otherwise they might cut me down, and… No, that's just a pathetic way to die. Too much at the mercy of others. I might as well let them hunt me down for disobedience, if I'm going to die like a dog anyway." Kaworu's frown deepened, even though it still resembled an annoyed pout. "There's poison, of course, like that philosopher. Music playing as I die would be nice, but where am I going to get that many rose petals? I don't have any friends, either, to come be with me as I die, so that's out." When his death scene would be so pathetically lacking by comparison. "Well, I guess… Now that I think about it, having Shinji there… yes. And I definitely want music." He nodded, feeling a little better about it. "So, now I need to pick a suicide method and a song, or songs if it's something that takes awhile. That might be nice, especially if I'll have company, but it can't take too long or else I'll have to worry about NERV or SEELE capturing me while I'm weak and doing whatever they want to me."
Those words made Hyuga swallow, distantly noticing the dryness of his throat, as Kaworu bent down to pick up what might be a fragment of broken glass.
"Especially if it really is true that the Lilim can merge with me like that, they might be able to do it in even if I don't want it." Yes: from the light glinting off it, that was almost certainly glass. "Think you can use me and my body for your Third Impact the way you used my father for your Second, you damn old men?" Kaworu held it up to the light. "That Lilim's watching me on behalf of NERV, but they still control the eyes in the sky: outdoors, yes, so they can watch powerlessly as their hopes of godhood and oneness die with me." He nodded, lowering his arm again, and started to run nimbly across the wreckage towards headquarters.
It was when Hyuga couldn't see him anymore that he finally managed to fish his cell phone out of his pocket. NERV had internal repeaters for cell phone signals, otherwise the entire area inside the geofront would have absolutely no signal.
"You're saying Kaworu's… an angel? But what about Rei?" Shinji demanded, startled fully awake by Misato's words after being shaken out of the sleep of the exhausted and sated by her frantic hands.
"I don't know," she said, checking her gun. "I want you to say his name when he comes in the door." Misato leaned in a corner of the room, closing her eyes. If she didn't see him, she should be able to shoot him before the desire to tie him down and do things to-to interrogate him about SEELE and Gendo's plans overrode the knowledge that he was a damn angel and they all had to die. Because they were too dangerous to live. This wasn't just revenge. It didn't matter what Hyuga had read for her out of the partial transcript, and the angel could have been lying.
She wished she could believe that he was, that humanity hadn't done this to itself.
"Kaworu!" Shinji said when the other boy flung the door open, sounding like he was trying to warn him instead of helping her, but Misato knew who it was already. That scent, like the sky after it rained, like the wind coming off the sea, laden with salt. It should have made her sick to her stomach, should have reminded her of when her father set her adrift in that capsule, but even though the smell of the sea still called up those memories this scent, this feeling, also called up something else, something primal, that said want.
Like lust, but not just lust. Misato was well familiar with lust, and she certainly liked sex, but it wasn't something she'd walk through fire for. She wasn't going to throw her life away for some man: her revenge and her career (the path to her revenge), they were what was important.
She somehow managed to squeeze the trigger, regretting it in that instant, but she didn't need the lack of blood in the air to tell her that she'd missed. There was no way she could have brought herself to do even that if it would have hit him, every fiber in her body except whatever part of her was her not crying out in rejection of the idea of harming the precious thing but so firmly opposed the weight had dragged down her arms.
It was a miracle she hadn't shot herself in the foot. Especially since she was already taking a step forward.
Was this, was this what drove the other angels to try to penetrate NERV? Like salmon returning to spawn, the urge to breed and die driving them on, the way she could feel it pushing at her? Even though she didn't want to? Had they truly wanted to?
For the next generation, for the children, for humanity's survival, individuals were expendable. She was a military commander who had sent children out to fight and perhaps even die for the sake of the rest of the world. People died, everyone did. It was all meaningless if there was no one left to go on. She hated that knowledge, she hated the drive to protect his genes that might be the only reason, the only reason at all, her father had saved her instead of himself that day.
Even as she hated her own weakness, her situational awareness tracked Shinji leaving the bed to join Kaworu, called to his side but too innocent still to fight it even to the pathetic extent she was. He was still a teenager, didn't know that being connected to other people would always end in tears. Didn't know that things that felt so good could be nothing but suicide, that even Misato's precious beer would kill her someday, if it had the chance.
"Good, she already knows," Kaworu said. "And you do too? That makes things easier."
"Kaworu, what are you…?"
"Hold me," the angel said. "Catch me, like I caught you when you fell. I want you to hold me until it's over. It's my last request. Don't worry, it won't take long."
"Ka-!" Misato didn't need Shinji's bitten-off cry of shock and alarm to tell her that Hyuga's theory was correct.
Not when she could smell the blood in the air.
She opened her eyes to see that Kaworu had shut Shinji up by kissing him, even as the blood spilled down the front of his shirt, even as that piece of glass remained lodged in his throat, opening up the cut further with every breath he took. It was already deep: this was no bit of inexperienced teenage drama, this was someone who knew exactly what it took to kill a man. Or an angel.
Blood could be replaced, but when Shinji grabbed Kaworu's arm, trying to pull it and the shard away from that throat, he only grabbed one arm.
Blood could be replaced, and Shinji would have given as much as it took, after losing too many people, but Misato saw Kaworu's other hand lift up, the movement shaky and full of exaggerated care, proving how far gone he already was, to have lost that grace of his.
Saw it reach the back of his neck, saw the light and smelled burnt hair and flesh before Kaworu finally slumped forward again, letting Shinji do whatever he wanted. Now that he'd made certain there was absolutely no chance.
Misato knew he was dead when the attraction switched off as fast as if someone had pulled the plug. Whatever was behind it couldn't be physical or even pheromones: those would have lingered. Brainwaves, like the one the angel that got Asuka broadcasted? His AT field?
"Kaworu! Kaworu!" Shinji looked at her angrily: why wasn't she doing something? Kaworu wasn't their enemy, they couldn't just let him do this!
And the thing was that if Misato could have saved him, if she could have done something to stop this, she would have. Not to save a boy willing to die to save the world, but because a part of her was furious now, wanted to kill him again for trying to escape her. Hated him now not because he was one of the things that killed her father, but because he'd taken what she wanted away from her. She would have forced him to stay alive, forced him to let her have him, even if it ended the world and killed everyone. Especially if it killed him.
She fell back against the wall for support, wondering why they were still alive, why Third Impact hadn't happened last night, because she knew now that part of her had certainly been trying. That desire to crawl inside of him, to make him unable to think of anything but her and Shinji, to break him open and make him scream?
It made her want to throw up, and Shinji, Shinji was young enough to mistake what drew him towards Kaworu for love. Young enough to look with such devastated brown eyes at red ones that were still open, still smiling, and maybe Kaworu had mistaken this for love, too. Or maybe it was just a normal teenage crush, that infatuation in those eyes.
"He died for you," that was all she could say to Shinji. "It was either him or all of us. He could have fought to survive: he didn't."
Shinji glared at her, and she knew that the only reason he wasn't punching her right now was that he would have had to let go of Kaworu.
"We're not safe yet. There's still what's down in Terminal Dogma." How were they doing to protect it from themselves? How was she going to keep the entire human race away from Adam when she already had to worry about SEELE's plans, and the Commander's? "Don't wait too long to report this." Some time with the body before it was dissected or burned was all she could give him. "I need to call Ritsuko."
Who wasn't picking up.
Who also hadn't locked the various security doors behind her when she went deeper into the off-limits areas of the medical wing.
Who may have shot Gendo Ikari, Misato found when she dragged the body she'd almost tripped over into a lit area.
Normally, Misato would have thought something along the lines of 'Go, Rits!' or that she deserved a medal for that, but there was something, like a sound on the edge of hearing that filled her with a sense of impending doom.
Exactly what kind of doom? Misato knew that for sure when she kept heading forward, even though she knew she should pull back, try to find heavy lead radiation shielding in case that helped, or bring up Shinji in his Eva.
No, the Eva's AT Field might not be any protection, not when the Evas were built as tools for Third Impact. Was that the missing piece? Was that the only reason they were still alive, that it took some time for humanity to be 'called' as the next in line after that angel died? What if the attraction had hit Shinji while he and Kaworu were still in their Evas? It would have been over then and there, she was sure of it.
Even though she couldn't stop walking forward, hoping that the need to find out what they were dealing with wasn't just an excuse, she still managed to open up her cell phone.
When she knew she was close she closed it again, because she heard sounds coming from behind that door and she couldn't do that to her friend.
Even if she couldn't bring herself to harm the thing that looked like Rei, what she could do was knock Ritsuko out. If they all survived this, the memory of what she'd been doing to Rei, in this room full of implements, would be bad enough without letting it go on any longer.
The thing that looked like Rei only stared at her, because both of them knew that this wasn't quite a rescue.
Even half an hour ago Misato would have let herself hate the girl, been as cruel to her as Ritsuko was, but now the other angel's death was etched in her mind, now she knew that they were victims too.
Not that being gentle made what she was doing, what she couldn't stop herself from doing, any better.
The white things that looked like Evas: Shinji couldn't even try to fight them, not when they felt like him.
When Kaworu (or something that looked like him?) appeared, all Shinji could do was smile, so grateful, and feel his heart and soul surge forward into that embrace.
The reunion didn't quite go like he thought. "How could you just do that?!"
Shinji bent over, clutching at his stomach. He didn't think they were in their real bodies in this freaky place, so how had Kaworu broken a rib?
Red eyes full of dangerous fury, the other boy followed that up with a punch to the jaw and a heel-strike that sent Shinji to the ground, where Kaworu could kick him so that he was lying on his back and slam his foot down again, right where he'd hit before.
Yeah, Shinji thought, veteran of several Eva battles. Definitely at least a cracked rib, and if Kaworu kept pounding on it like that, it would break before too much longer. Perforated internal organs thanks to bone shards were not fun.
"I killed myself, and then you just rolled over for something those damn old men made by imprisoning my soul, stealing my face! Didn't my death mean anything to you! Didn't I, me, mean anything to you?! You made my death mean nothing, you selfish bastard!"
Ow.
Fuck.
Ow.
"If it weren't for the fact that now that the old men are in here, I get to watch millions of you Lilim tearing them apart for what they did, I would never forgive you." Kaworu had already taken his turn: thanks to the AT field time was negotiable inside here. "You had better make it up to me, is that clear!"
Shinji just whimpered.
That seemed to satisfy Kaworu, who backed off. "He's all yours now."
Shinji's eyes widened when he saw a familiar face leaning over him looking mildly concerned. "Rei?"
This foot stomped on his balls.
"I also did not die so that you could throw away that sacrifice. You could at least have survived more than two days." That he hadn't was very hurtful. "Many Lilim are also rather upset with you for giving in first and beginning the chain reaction." She grabbed one of his arms: Kaworu took the other and they dragged him up. "We need to remove you from this place before their massed wills overcome our individual power."
Shinji didn't even have time to ask what that meant before he was suddenly submerged in LCL, those hands hauling him to the surface.
The injuries were gone, and that was kind of a relief, since he thought it meant they'd forgiven him. He didn't have much time to be relieved, though, because as they pulled him stumbling up the shore he saw Asuka up ahead.
Cracking her knuckles.
Some days it just didn't pay to come back to life, although even Shinji knew better than to say that in front of these three.