The new movie is out in Japan. Where are my oodles of romantic anime/Rebuild version Kaworu fics? Especially since a voice actor said, in promo material, that Rebuild Kaworu has been through this several times, basically confirming Rebuild as a sequel to the anime where Kaworu's the only one who remembers.
Instead, I write fucked-up godlings fucking up in a fucked-up world. Although Rebuild-verse still has two of the three. Tsk tsk, what is wrong with me?
"What are you doing?"
Misato froze, half-turning but keeping her body between the Fifth Child (the angel) and the laptop she'd been using to try to hack into SEELE. "What are you doing here?" she asked him, going on the offensive. This place was full of cables, part of the Magi system: was he going to attack the Magi like that other angel?
Was he finally making his move?
He frowned, lips pressed together, then decided, "I don't really care what you were doing. I'll find out anyway." He shifted his weight, and Misato put a hand on her sidearm, recognizing a ready position. "Of the people he's let into his heart, you're the only one Shinji has left. The First Child isn't the one Shinji knew, the Second Child is broken, the Fourth is dead and the others at his school have left him behind. The Third Child refuses to care about me, and I don't have any more time to try to convince him to change his mind." Kaworu seemed to be talking to himself more than to her, or was it that she was only an audience to him. Red eyes assessed her, but not just as someone he clearly intended to take down. That thoughtful frown: if this was a human, Misato would have read it as the frown of someone who knew that what they wanted to do was wrong, but they were only a hair's breadth away from doing it anyway.
They weren't monitored here: that was half of why Misato had come here to do her hacking. No witnesses.
No fool, Misato started to draw her gun.
Kaworu was fast. Drop to kick her legs out from under her, then tackle her down and wrench the gun out of her hand, damn near breaking her wrist: none of those moves were physically impossible. Not like the way he'd piloted Asuka's Eva despite it not being reset for him, then done a goddamn backflip off an angel. Another angel.
He hadn't taken that battle seriously, but the look in those wild red eyes as Misato looked down the barrel of her own gun? Deadly serious. "Are you an agent of the old men as well as Shinji's father? Did they already give the order to kill me? No," he said, forcibly calming himself, taking slower breaths. "I'll know soon enough. If you are an agent of the old men, if you were planning to hurt Shinji the way all the rest of you have?" He smiled. "Then you'd deserve this."
"Do it, you damn angel," she said, trying to bluff. "I'm not supposed to be here either, and if I'm not back where I'm supposed to be in four minutes?"
"But you will be," he told her, and was that a bare hint of regret under the wild desperation? "Today is the day I die, and the old men will make sure of that. No, today is the day Kaworu Nagisa dies." His other hand reached for her neck.
Gun or no gun, Misato still tried to roll over, grab him, something to get him off when she felt something crawl under her skin. Just like the last angel did to those Evas. What was he going to do to her?!
Her arms and legs froze, then fell limply to the cable-strewn floor.
Kaworu smiled, satisfied, and looked down into her eyes. "Kaworu Nagisa was born only to die, to be a sacrifice for those old men and their delusions of godhood. Misato Katsuragi can live and be with Shinji."
A minute he stayed there, with his hand on her neck, tendrils hooked into her brain. A minute more, and he put her gun back in her holster.
Then he slumped forward, red eyes still open. No one was looking out of them.
Misato pushed him off her disdainfully, then put a hand on her laptop. "Ah, that's what she-I was doing." Closing it, she packed it away in its case, then picked up the case and the body.
Throwing it off one of the conveyor belts, watching it fall down into the darkness: let the old men try to find it. Let them waste their efforts trying to hunt down a child that was already dead.
Misato Katsuragi went on her way.
Inside, she was screaming every curse she'd learned over her years as a soldier.
Looking into his new face in the mirror, Kaworu tapped his lips thoughtfully. This phenomenon: Misato's brain threw up the term 'chapped.' A Lilim weakness: he could heal it easily, but Misato Katsuragi wouldn't be able to. Misato Katsuragi would reach into her purse and apply chapstick, so he did, letting the body do as it had many times before. So much of what he needed was ingrained in this body's hindbrain: how she walked, how she laughed… He could also tap her memories, but until he learned more about how to act like this Lilim, better to let the body do what came naturally, move in habitual patterns.
He'd worried that he might not respond to the name Misato, but the body already knew to pick that word out of the air, would awaken when called out to. It made him wonder what habits his old body had, and it was a good thing he'd left them behind, or else they might have given him away.
A pity he may have lost most of his physical combat skill: Misato was trained, but she hadn't been drilled as relentlessly. No one had worked on a style for her that would take advantage of his angelic speed, durability and energy without being openly unnatural. He remembered all of it, but there was a difference between knowing a move and having it ingrained, the way Misato's hands automatically put the cap back on and stowed the lip balm away in her purse.
He would have smiled, but Misato's body was blotting her lips.
Inwardly, he laughed, because so far this was going so well. It was easy to exchange pleasantries, the Lilim's thoughtless responses almost automated. Driving home wasn't any trouble either. Now he was back in Misato's apartment, where Shinji lived when he wasn't staying with Kaworu.
Shinji wasn't here yet, but even though Kaworu wanted to see him, that was all to the good, wasn't it? More time to learn how to, yes, it was very like piloting an Eva.
If Shinji cared for Misato Katsuragi, then Kaworu would be Misato Katsuragi for him. Obviously Misato didn't love him, not the way Rei had and Kaworu did, otherwise Shinji wouldn't have wanted to avoid her so much that he went to stay with someone he hated, but that was alright. Kaworu knew that Shinji had found him weird and started to hate him because he didn't act like a Lilim. Well, he would study this Lilim until he knew how to act like her, and then he could start to make improvements. He would be so much better than the Lilim Misato Katsuragi, and "Shinji will love me."
"What are you planning to do to Shinji, you bastard?!" the Lilim demanded. As her body left the bathroom, obeying the addiction-spawned impulse to get another beer, Kaworu faced her on the mental plane formed by this connection.
"You'll find out soon enough. Without Dr. Akagi, the Magi are vulnerable: that was how you could hack them." She knew that, and since he could see all her memories, he now knew it too. "Once I manage to sabotage the equipment you use to detect the light of the soul, I'll break through the barrier of what you call an AT field. Isn't that what you Lilim all want, to become one with someone else? You will become a part of me, and I will truly be Misato Katsuragi. The one and only," he added, the phrase rising up out of the memories he'd copied from her. "I already have your body, access to all of your memories and everything you know: now all I need is your soul fragment, Lilim. Not that I'll give up the power I possess as a White Seed: eventually, my power and the information you have will bring down the old men, and then? There won't be any reason for Shinji to reject me, even if I reveal my power. I'll be Misato Katsuragi, after all, and he will love us."
Ripples on the illusionary LCL beneath them, ripples washing around Misato's feet, and she could feel his manic glee. A cruel child's delight, a crush on Shinji that turned into an obsession.
"I'll give you my memories," he decided. "That will make you more like me, the way I was changed by Rei's love of Shinji, so I won't be distorted too much by the merge. Once you love him like I do, you'll want him to be happy. Of course you want my power: Lilim are all selfish, power-hungry bastards." A swirl of bitterness now. "You could have had Shinji in your bed, all this time, willing to be touched and kissed by you, and you didn't, when I… He refused to love me, when I love him and…" No, no, he refused to be sad, kneeling there with his arms wrapped himself like a child trying to hold back tears. "I will live and have Shinji's love, and damn the old men, damn all of you Lilim! If Kaworu Nagisa is cursed, if I can't live and be happy, then I'll find freedom in the death of the role you planned for me! I'll be someone else who can be happy!"
In here, his chest heaved. Out there, her body drank another beer, none of the angel's distress showing on the surface. No sign that anything was wrong. "Armisael thought that merging would end the pain of loneliness. I refuse to give the old men the Third Impact they want, and merging with you means I won't be myself anymore. Kaworu will die, to be replaced by Kaworu-and-Misato, but if that's the only way for any of me to live and be with Shinji, then I won't hesitate!"
"Who are you trying to convince?" Misato wondered.
She didn't receive an answer. Not exactly.
Instead he frowned, and pushed something at her. Memories. Someone else's memories, someone else's feelings in her mind the way the angel was in her body. He'd said that he would do this to change her, make her more like him before he absorbed her soul and merged with her (the way the old men wanted all Lilim to merge), and… Wait.
Misato's eyes narrowed. Danger, deadly danger to herself and Shinji. And opportunity.
How much did he know? About the old men who had to be SEELE, about the true nature of the angels, about all the mysteries Kaji had tried to uncover and now Misato was seeking in his place?
They'd trained him to use his powers, even if they'd either never anticipated that this was possible or let him know it was possible, Misato saw. Kaworu had learned this from the angel that Rei died to kill (Armisael), but maybe there was something in here that would let her fight him?
"Not with me watching you and your thoughts, Lilim," he warned her. "But planning to destroy the old men will be useful to us." Once they were one. "They wanted me to observe Shinji, so they must have plans for him. I won't let them hurt him, and that will be harder when we're pretending to be a Lilim." Meaning no AT field to block bullets, for example. "You planned how to destroy those other angels, so maybe you can figure out how to stop those other Lilim." Was it hope she sensed from him now? "At least I won't be dying to merge with someone who will drag me down that much. You know so much about how Lilim act, what Shinji will consider weird…" And now they were back to Shinji.
She could remember it now, Kaworu feeling Rei's love for Shinji. How it hadn't really sunk in until later, when Shinji chose to come back to Kaworu's room with the angel. Someone choosing to be in his company?
And then kissing Shinji, feeling another human's warmth, feeling concern for that human and realizing that love meant someone wouldn't want him to die. Someone would want him to stay, someone would want to touch, kiss and hold him.
The discovery that love was an end to loneliness, not in oblivion but in togetherness, and Kaworu wanted to live. Wanted the lonely ache inside, an angel among humans who would never get close to him, even if out of reverence instead of fear, to stop hurting.
Kaworu's love wasn't a copy of Rei's love. He'd fallen in love with Shinji on his own, in love with the hope of being loved in return. In love with that dream.
A lonely child kept in tubes except when he was taken out for training of one sort or another, the way Misato had been a lonely child locked up alone in the dark for all those years.
She hated him, he was an angel (No, he was the white giant reborn) and he'd taken over her body and intended to overwrite her soul (overwrite both their souls, when it was the only way he could think of to live and stop hurting).
Misato had hoped against hope that the white-haired boy's memories would reveal some weakness to her, something that she could use to throw him out of her body before he destroyed her and hurt Shinji, but this? He was made up of weaknesses, a broken child and this was his last hope. He knew that what he was doing to her was wrong: she honestly hadn't expected that. Not of an angel, not of someone raised by SEELE, but he knew how much he would hate this if, when it was done to him. This was far too like what they'd wanted to use him for.
He just… he needed to hide, he wanted the pain to stop, and Misato remembered all those years of wanting someone, anyone to come, to listen to her, to relieve her loneliness and set her free.
It was the same people that locked both of them away, wasn't it? Her to keep her from spreading the true story of Second Impact, and him, what? To keep him from learning about humans? About the things they did to relieve the pain of loneliness?
About compassion? About sympathy?
Because that was what she felt for him now. She couldn't help it. As broken a boy as Shinji, but while she had no idea what to do to help Shinji, she could see exactly what he needed. She knew what she could do to help him. Or to break him down further.
Those red eyes were staring at her now, and she knew what he'd felt when he'd killed that kitten. Knew it better than he himself did, because she knew what those emotions were. Not like someone who had to figure out that the feeling in their chest was love.
Sympathy. He was capable of it. That poor cat, that would die painfully and alone: he could end that pain. Make sure that it wouldn't die alone. All the while not knowing that he could sympathize with the cat because he himself felt those things. That he wanted someone to care, wanted to not be alone, so much that death seemed like a small thing compared to that. Seemed a small price to pay, for someone to care enough to want to end his pain.
He could see what she was thinking, but it wasn't hard for her to tell what he was thinking. Not when he was crying now, in this place.
Not when her body was crying right now, head held in her hands, and if anyone was watching, they'd think she was mourning Kaji again, crying for him, and she wanted revenge on his killers. This angel, this boy could get that for her, just like Shinji had granted her vengeance upon the angels. But it wasn't the angels who were responsible for Second Impact, was it? It wasn't the angels that had killed her father and left her to rot in a dark room for years on end, was it?
It was the old men who had raped this boy's father, kept him locked up, kept him from ever having a friend before Shinji, if Shinji even counted. She thought he did, because Shinji didn't let just anyone as close as he already let this boy.
And that thought was what undid Kaworu. That Shinji had been lying when he rejected Kaworu, that Shinji was lying to himself and hadn't meant to hurt Kaworu enough to make the angel want to die. Made him drop to the floor of this place and curl up as she stood over him, relief/joy/love and so much old pain, sadness and loneliness.
"Why, why did you have to… I can't kill you now, and I need to kill you in order for our souls to be one, in order for me to be the person Shinji loves, but you think he cares for me, and…"
Finally she could move, if only in this place. Was his control weakening? Could she break free and regain control over her body? When she thought that and nothing happened, when Kaworu didn't act to regain control because he couldn't, that was when she knew she'd won.
It was also when winning ceased to be a matter of life and death, at least for her or the world.
She went over to him, crossed the short distance between them on this mental plane, and knelt down beside him to pry apart the ball he'd curled into, just a little, enough that red eyes could look up at her, helpless and wanting. She could hurt him now: it was one thing for him to do this to her when she was one more person that hurt Shinji, but now?
A chick that fell out of its nest, a small bird with clipped wings, handled by humans enough its mother would never accept it back: that was Kaworu's certainty. Not unless they merged, and that would kill him, just as it would kill all of humanity. He looked so young right now, younger than Shinji even though he was a handful of months older. Those eyes begged her for, for something, and all it took was gathering him to her chest, some innate knowledge making her rock him a little, and make soothing sounds.
As he clung to her. Gave himself up to her, and cried.
It brought her own memories back to her: how much she had wanted someone to do this. How much she needed it, until she'd tried to forget that desire so it didn't drive her mad. Wasn't it driving everyone mad? The need to be close to other people, only to be wounded by them, sometimes because they just didn't know what to do either. Misato wasn't even honest with herself about her own desires, so how was Kaji supposed to know?
They were the same in this, she and Kaworu, so surely Shinji was the same? If even an angel was, Shinji had to be. She'd wanted to hold him, but he'd pulled away from her. Afraid of being undone the way Kaworu was right now? Afraid of being made vulnerable, because if she was his source of something he needed so much, then when she abandoned him the way his father and mother had? It would hurt, and Shinji was so fragile.
Get past someone's armor, the barrier that protected them from others (the AT field?), and they were all equally fragile, weren't they? Even angels.
"You're not getting your body back," he told her sometime later. "Not now, not when there's Shinji, and the old men will be looking for me."
"I expected that." Even if Misato was sure most of the reason was that he was afraid that once she could speak to other Lilim again, she'd forget about him except as a useful tool. Right now, he had her all to himself, and she could see the fear in his eyes that she'd betray him to the old men, get them killed, die and leave him once she could tell other Lilim where he was. Hadn't Shinji left him as soon as Rei was back, even if it wasn't Shinji's Rei?
She wanted to scream at him to let her go, the old panic from being tied to that chair in that dark room trying to resurface, but she was not alone and even if she couldn't see the fear in his eyes when he clung to her like this, she knew him. He was so afraid, and he wasn't going to stop possessing her now, not when all the reasons he'd originally done it were still valid and it had also given him this.
Misato understood why he was doing this: after all, she'd seen his memories and knew exactly why he was doing this. She felt sorry for him, too. That didn't make it okay. That didn't mean she'd forgiven him for taking her own damn body away from her. She couldn't hate him for it, not anymore, but that didn't mean the idea of being possessed by anyone didn't make her skin crawl. At least he'd given up on the idea of tampering with her mind anymore, but that he'd even considered it?
Touching the thought of white hair, running her fingers through it because she needed to move and it was in lieu of grabbing that neck and trying to kill him again and that would hurt him so much but absolutely fail to kill him, she was fairly certain that she would get control of her body back fairly soon, as soon as the hunt died down, things were resolved and he did start trusting her not to forget about him when he needed this so much. Once he had other friends his own age. "At least let me move around in here and watch everything, okay? That way, I can tell you if you're about to do something stupid. It will be just like supervising the Eva pilots." Hadn't she been watching over Rei all this time, when Rei was another angel?
At least he had the decency to duck his head and feel guilty, since he also had her memories now, and knew what it had done to her, under the bravado, to be unable to move. Just like being tied to that chair. "You like this, don't you?" he asked, kissing her. "It's part of love, something that makes Lilim feel less lonely," and although Misato was happy in theory that he was trying to make it up to her, he was mentally practically a child and now he could see everything she'd done with Kaji?
Which made her think of another part of her routine involving her vibrator and where was she even going to start explaining this to him, after he'd been raised to have absolutely no respect at all for what people did to show others that they were loved, or love in general, and forget personal boundaries! Wait, that was it, "If you come on too strong to Shinji, he'll think that I'm being weird."
Wait, Misato realized. Was she offering seduction tips to an angel?
"You'll be thinking about what I'm doing as I do it, and I can hear your thoughts." And know if she was trying to lie with them, if that was even possible. Kaworu look smug now, like a cat who hadn't gotten into the cream yet, but was very much looking forward to it.
What made Kaworu delighted and her feel that she really had failed as the closest thing to a caring adult in Shinji's life was how easy it was. After Kaworu vanished, presumably at the hands of the Twelfth Angel, it was easy to tell Shinji that he wasn't allowed to wander off anymore, that he needed to stay with her so she could try to protect him.
Including sleeping in her bed at night.
Kaworu remembered how Shinji had fled to the strange pilot's rooms rather than deal with Misato trying to comfort him after Rei's death: it was something he needed so much it scared him. Talking about it was one thing, but when she asked Shinji to let her hold him, for her sake as well as his, because she hated to see him hurting and closing himself away like this?
That skittish look in his eyes: so like Kaworu, even though he hid it under deadness. Even though he had learned to flee what Kaworu still openly longed for.
So easy to get him to sit on her lap as they looked at the information Kaji dug up: Shinji knowing the truth might help him be safer. He'd blush but he'd do it, and like it. Just like a protective kiss on the forehead, and he started gravitating towards her, closing the gap of his own volition in the perhaps-subconscious hope that she'd tug him towards her, catch him and eliminate that gap again.
The search for Kaworu as well as the Twelfth Angel continued, and when Shinji confessed, lying awake one night, that he missed Kaworu? That he was worried that Kaworu might have done something permanent after Shinji rejected him? That he regretted it?
Kaworu was almost too overcome to grasp the opportunity to draw Shinji to his stolen chest, to stroke Misato's hands down Shinji's back and say soothing things, to kiss him on the forehead, on the cheek, on the lips.
And after that? How happy he was? How happy Shinji was? All the other times that followed?
She should be angrier than she was, she knew. At least she was absolutely certain that Kaworu's feelings were genuine? That he wasn't taking advantage of Shinji the way Misato would have been, if she was the one to do this with a boy in her care?
Maybe she was as okay with it as she was because it was one huge Fuck You to Gendo Ikari and SEELE. To all the bastards responsible for Second Impact and trying to bring about the Third. A human, the boy they tried to destroy, finding happiness in this life along with the angel they groomed to wish for death.
Not as big a fuck you as using Kaworu's ability to control networks to hijack not just the airwaves but the internet and broadcast the truth behind Second Impact, of course.
Misato was even happier about that one, and getting to lie there in the back of Kaworu's mind and watch him watch the world's reaction was so good she even turned down his offer to let her have control of her body back long enough to get herself a beer. Nah, not when she could watch the Security Council panic over what was going to happen to them now that the world knew they'd covered this up. And Kaworu would fetch her beer anyway.
"You realize I own you now, don't you?" she told him, grinning. "If I tell Shinji that I wanted to hide you, in return for helping me with this, and that I'm the one who set you two up," that was one thing, "but…" It was her that Shinji thought he loved, so if he found out that Kaworu had possessed her, or hurt her in any way?
She saw the flash of old anger in those eyes –being owned was a loaded concept for him, especially by Lilim. That was most of why she'd used that word, because making him admit that it was true?
Seeing hurt win out over anger, because he'd let her close, because he loved her now. It wasn't that she'd let him stay here per se, but she'd talked to him, and kept him company, and held him, and been a saint under the circumstances. He hated the old men, had plenty of reason to hate the faceless mass known as Lilim – SEELE had made damn sure of it – but he'd let her close, and that meant she could hurt him despite his AT field, didn't it? The hedgehog had spines, and she could pierce him to the bone.
Making the angel, the immortal, know fear. Know that she had the power now. Making the boy with the power that had blown up half the planet once, and could do it again, desperate to placate her.
Making him finally relax a little, because it was okay. He wasn't going to fight, going to struggle, if it was her. Feel him relax a little in her arms, leaning against her chest. She could put two fingers on his neck, on either side of his pulse and tell him, "When you're out, I'm going to make you wear a collar." Not all the time, of course, but certainly at least just once, with a leash. Tie him up somewhere, just because she could. Because it was fair, wasn't it, after he'd bound her? She knew he would let her do it, be caught on the edge between fear and trust not because he was a goddamn angel and there wasn't much silk rope could do to hold him, but because it was her, and he didn't want to displease her.
Tie him to a chair, just as she had been tied, just as he had been caged in that tube, and not leave him alone to cry in the dark.
Because she was better than those damn bastards, and he knew it.
That would prove it.
And that was why he couldn't, wouldn't kill her. That was why and how she was going to own him, going to have the power here, even though he was the one with the power to alter her memories and emotions, possess her and fuck with her head. He knew that if he changed her then she wouldn't be the one he loved anymore, just like merging with Lilith would be the end of Kaworu.
"I owe you everything," he told her, and she knew he knew that yes, this meant she owned him. With all his power, all he could say was, "Please." Please be kind.
Five minutes later Hyuga called to tell her to turn on her TV, and she and Shinji were racing from their quarters to the Eva cages and the bridge. "Now you're giving me control," she told Kaworu. "I'm the one who knows how to kill angels." This was her damn job, and SEELE wasn't going to go down without trying to bring about Third Impact.
It was almost a surprise how little of a relief it was to be back in control, to breathe in real air, but then she'd guessed that Kaworu was trying to make that little mental plane of his more realistic, for her sake. So she didn't feel caged. Not when he knew how that felt, knew it intimately from both their memories. She'd been worried that she'd be overcome with emotion, she way she was when she finally realized that she was out of that room and they weren't going to send her back. Shaking, crying, kissing the ground: there were cameras here, so she couldn't afford that.
Maybe it was a sign that she did trust Kaworu, too, that she really could believe that this was really happening. That she was free, well, relatively free. He could still retake control, but he wouldn't, not unless she did something stupid like try to shoot herself in order to kill the angel.
She wasn't going to do that, not when they had so many Evas incoming and they might need the angel. No, they would need the angel. One Eva against a horde of them, all of them with S2 engines? Shinji was going to need Kaworu's help, so she needed to figure out how she was going to manage to explain that.
When she reached the bridge, she found that with Gendo and Fuyutsuki gone, she was the one in command. Hyuga informed her that they were about to be swarmed by the JSDF since so far Section 2 had been unable to find and capture Gendo Ikari, that was something else to worry about. At least she had a good working relationship with them, so hopefully their search wouldn't get in the way of her doing NERV's damn job.
When she finally turned off the video conference with the leader of the JSDF forces, after patching him through to Ritsuko so they could coordinate their search of NERV's labyrinth? That was when it hit her.
Kaworu'd talked about how she would have his power, but that was the combined version. Now, though? If he was hiding in her, that meant she had access to an S2 engine, right? And an AT field, his.
She could fight. Instead of sending children to fight for her, risking their lives to get her vengeance, she could go out there and help Shinji. Could shatter the dreams of those old bastards who killed her father.
Wait, she told herself. Would that even work? She might have access to an angel's power, but she wasn't a giant robot. Hadn't SEELE run simulations pitting Kaworu against multiple Evas? She should have access to those memories, and…
And it would work. The power of this AT field, the strongest on the planet: she could fly out there and punch their fucking lizard faces in. "I could kiss you," she thought at Kaworu, aware that she was grinning stupidly and not giving a damn. "This would work, right? You could use my body's memories of how to move, so I could use your knowledge of how to fight like an angel?"
"I think so?" Unless her Lilim nature somehow screwed it up. "I was able to use Armisael's and Iruel's abilities without any trouble." To infiltrate Misato's body and the world's computer systems.
"If I can't for some reason, then you take over," she told him. "But I want to do this." The excitement in her chest, all that buried hatred and anger coming to the surface and burning clean, because she could finally do something? "If this works," Misato said, grinning like a maniac as she did what borrowed memory said would flare her soul, but not enough to set off the detectors, and felt something happen, "then I will forgive you for possessing me. Absolutely." She was already pretty close, after telling Maya to put the screens on news coverage of the investigations and hunt for SEELE while they waited for SEELE's Evas to arrive, under fire from jets and surface-to-air missiles all the way. This, this was trumph, watching all their lies exposed, all their plans fall to ruin. All but this last one and if she could smash it, smash their last hopes with her bare hands?
"Give me this," she told him. "Give me this. Let me get out there and fight beside him, instead of having to sit back here while he fights my battle and nearly gets himself killed, and I will love you forever."
Focus the light like this, and "I can fly?!" Misato was so delighted she almost lost her focus and fell to the bottom of the Eva cage. "Right, I knew you could do that," from those simulations, but, "I can fly?"
"Yes." She felt Kaworu's smile even if she couldn't see it, since she was fully in her body instead of half on that mental plane. Yes; he liked flying too.
"Is this why we have dreams of flying? Because somewhere in our genes, it says that we can do this?" she wondered, thinking of Pen-Pen. "This is like the difference between thinking about moving my arm and actually moving my arm: It's like my body knows how to do this. This is my body, right? Not something I'm borrowing from you?"
It was a shrug she felt this time, and she saw an pale, see-through image of Kaworu appear in front of her, impatiently looking up at the shaft the Evas launched through. "How are you doing that? Will anyone else see you?"
"This is just a projection, but it's not just in your head." He wanted Shinji to see him. "Although I can pick things up like this." Using the barrier of the light of his soul to mimic solidity. "I couldn't practice before, not without setting off your detectors. I was going to let you use this form to talk to Shinji," he told her. "If something came up. I suppose I'll be using it for now." One limit on his AT field was his reaction speed: he couldn't do something unless it occurred to him to do it. With both himself and Misato using his field, both of them would be able to think up and apply strategies.
"What's the range on that?" she wondered.
"This isn't like being in two bodies: only Leliel did anything like this, and it would take too much of my focus to make this anything like Leliel's shadow," he told her. As he turned to face her, she saw that even his red eyes were grey in that form: there wasn't any color to it besides the natural color of his AT field, while Leliel's shadow had two colors and had actually looked solid enough to fool them all instead of like a ghost. "So I don't know. I won't risk going that far, and I can't see with these eyes since they're just illusions. I only have your body's senses and my angelic ones."
Realistically, that limited him to staying in front of her. Otherwise he'd be operating blind. "So you can't see if the path to the surface is clear?"
"No." He glanced down at the disk of light beneath her feet impatiently. Would she get over here and let him see if he needed to fight with the Magi in order to open their route? Better yet, would she get out there and help Shinji?
If he weren't see-through, it would have been impossible to see any difference between him and any other impatient teenager. "I'm coming, I'm coming," she told him. "Wouldn't miss this for the world."
Blue sky a ways above them: so Ritsuko hadn't shut the bulkheads when Kaworu appeared. Good. "So, I can push myself up," she said to Kaworu, who was hovering several meters above her, but really to herself, "Or…"
Kaworu's image blinked out of existence when she fell past it, mentally pushing at the walls of the launch tunnel just slightly in order to keep herself in the middle. "Whoo!" she yelled, or was it laughed? This kind of power: this was so much better than being an Eva pilot!
"What are you doing?" Kaworu asked her, blinking into sight in front of her only to have to adjust his position again and again. "You're getting faster!"
"Accelerating!" Misato screamed, wondering how fast she was going. "I'm falling up!" So this wasn't something Kaworu knew about? From how confused Kaworu looked, she didn't need to search his memories to find that they'd taught him music (what angel couldn't sing God's praises?) and combat, but he'd never heard '9.8 meters per second per second' in his life.
What he could figure out was that, "You won't be holding still up there either, so this won't work." His form disappeared for the last time, but she still felt him looking over her shoulder. She could tell he was pouting: he'd wanted to appear to help (preferably save) Shinji and have Shinji know it, but if it wouldn't work, it wouldn't work. At least he could still use his power.
Misato only turned on her communicator when she was out of NERV and halfway to the battlefield, because better to ask forgiveness than permission, and, she thought as her eyes widened, even better to ask, "What the hell are those?!"
Kaworu didn't need to ask what exactly she was referring to: she was sensing them through him, after all. "They feel like the Lance: warn Shinji that the Eva's power won't block them!"
"Shinji!"
"Misato, what…" She could hear his voice: it looked like someone had already told him that they were detecting the Twelfth Angel's AT field from her.
"Kaworu's helping me. But be careful! The weapons they're holding: they're something like the lance Rei used to kill that angel! Kaworu thinks your AT field shouldn't protect you from them, so I don't know why it's worked so far… Ritsuko," Misato said as five of the white Evas simulataneously did something to the weapons they were using that made them look much more like proper lances. "I thought you said you were sure the Magi and our communications were secure?"
"That was until you started broadcasting in the clear: those things are internal communicators for a reason, Misato." NERV had signal dampeners and the protection of its bulk: Naoko Akagi had designed their internal repeaters to keep angels from listening in, but Misato wasn't inside their protection anymore, now was she.
"Well, at least they don't have the advantage of surprise anymore." At least Misato now knew not to say aloud that according to Kaworu, the four Evas Shinji had already taken down were not out. With any luck, she could destroy them before they started moving again: they were sitting ducks while they were playing possum, but they'd stop playing possum as soon as they knew it wasn't moving…
And it looked like there was someone smart in control of those things, because they'd just started moving. "Try to get the lances away from them!" Misato said, for both Shinji and Kaworu's benefit. She was smaller, so it would be easier for her to avoid getting hit with those things, and if she could make herself enough of a problem that they'd focus on her instead of the easier target…
Well, she thought, as two of them actually threw their lances at her, that was easy. "Why are they aiming for me instead of Shinji?" when he was the bigger target.
"You said I was helping you! The old men were trying to kill me once they realized I wasn't obeying their commands, remember?" The prongs of the lances weren't affected by his AT field, but Kaworu could hit the shafts, making them miss and then pressing against them so that he was holding them. Even as he answered her, he was throwing one of the lances back at the Eva that had thrown it.
Since the Eva was still struggling, trying to pull the lance out of its stomach Kaworu hadn't scored a direct hit, not when destroying the core destroyed the angel, but Kaworu's field was still stronger than the Eva, strong enough to use the lance to pull it up into midair and stab it repeatedly with the other lance. "That's where it is."
"Shinji, treat them like angels and aim for the cores!" Misato ordered him. "Kaworu, give him one of those lances." They were that much better than the prog knife or even the chainsaw, and no one had given this technology to NERV? Of course not, not when they were planning to overrun NERV themselves. "If you're going to give him both," she said when both of them dropped themselves into Shinji's hands, "then get me one!"
Her forgiveness was entirely contingent on her getting to destroy at least one of these damn Evas! Preferably the last.
"Hold still," Kaworu asked her, going so far as to take control of her eyes from her for a couple seconds, long enough to find a likely lance and send his light pulsing out to slam the Eva carrying it into a building a few times until the lance slipped from its fingers. "I could grab those two so easily since they weren't holding them: since their AT fields are on the surface of their bodies now, they're holding the lances with them as well as with their hands. I have to do all of this relative to where my core is hidden inside you, so it's harder if you keep moving around when I'm not in control." Grabbing and aiming both required precision, as opposed to hitting Evas with massive walls of hard light. "Can you hold this?" he asked her, lifting it up in front of her and then dropping it.
It felt like reaching out with her hands, just that natural. She knew that wasn't how the Evas felt to the pilots, but knowing the true nature of the Evas, was it really all that strange that they felt warped? "So, don't let any of them grab my lance, or I'll have to let you get it back for me. Got it." Pressing against something on multiple sides was how you held something with opposable thumbs: that was intuitive enough, but a wrestling match with another AT field?
The lance wasn't a gun, but using a weapon, now: even if it wasn't one she could hold in her own hands, that brought a smile to her lips. This was her lance now, and that made it much better than just using someone else's soul. "So, who do I stab first?" she wondered as Shinji charged towards the Eva nearest him, using one of the lances to pin the Eva down and then spearing it with the other one. "Oh? Where do you think you're doing?" Kaworu had taken her lance from the Eva nearest Shinji for obvious reasons: that was the one that had just exploded into red mist under Shinji's Eva, but the other two without weapons were crouching down.
The wings sprouting from their backs answered her question. Trying to retreat, or just intending to pounce on Shinji and weigh him down so their still-armed brethren could stab him?
Not on her watch. Not when crouching down in order to take off made them easy targets. She got a clean hit on one, but the second pulled in its wings again and rolled to the side while she was pulling back the lance and reorienting it for a second strike. She knew that Evas were more agile than any robot should be, than anything that massive should be, but that still made her frown. It wasn't as obviously unnatural as that goddamn backflip off of one of Armisael's tentacles Kaworu did while he was fucking around and not really bothering to pretend to give a damn about fighting the other angel. If he'd fought seriously, she was sure that Rei wouldn't have died, and as for the one that got Asuka, when Kaworu could fly?
Still, if these Evas could move that fast, then what other improbable things could they be capable of? Maybe hitting a very small (relatively) flying target with a lance?
"Better watch my back." She realized after she said it that she could ask Kaworu to watch for her, but this? This was her fight. And Shinji's, but she wasn't just sending him out there and telling him what to do anymore.
So far, each of them had killed one: six to go.
Since they were still using the same brain, she felt a shot of adrenaline that had to be Kaworu's shock when she reduced her altitude by just letting herself fall straight down, using her AT field to decelerate by pushing against the ground before she hit it.
She knew that humans had trouble looking up: she'd taken advantage of it herself, back in the day when she was fighting. As long as she kept any of them from getting airborne, that was to her advantage.
Without really realizing it, she'd moved to cover Shinji. Finding herself hovering over her Eva's head made her laugh, although she still kept turning, lance at the ready.
"Misato?" Shinji asked.
"It's nothing, Shinji. I'm just happy that I can protect you now." She could just picture his blush when he said that. "That one!" The Eva she pointed to was a little closer than the others, and better to go on the offensive than give whoever was controlling these Evas time to come up with a plan.
As she'd expected, when Shinji committed to an attack was when two more of the things that had been circling him went for his back. Their lances might penetrate the wall of force she threw up to protect Shinji, but their bodies went crashing back into the ground quite nicely. One of them managed to hold on to his lance, but that left her two to work with and only five more in enemy hands. Shinji managed to finish off his target, but he could only carry so many lances and Misato didn't think she could juggle more than two herself. Shinji was standing over the fallen lance, but if he went on the offensive and moved to attack another Eva, there was a risk one of the two Evas without lances would recover it…
"Misato! They've found Gendo Ikari, he's using an AT field to defend himself!" Ritsuko said angrily.
"Did he absorb Rei?" Misato asked her. "I'm borrowing Kaworu's power, and she should be the only other angel left."
"One of the JSDF squads survived long enough to confirm that Gendo has Adam's flesh: if he had Rei, we'd be dead already. I found Rei in that room and put her into Asuka's entry plug with her before he got there."
"So they're both at the bottom of the lake," where they'd put Unit 02 to keep it out of the way. If the Evas were necessary to Third Impact, then Misato liked the idea of having tons of something between them and the rest of the world. There was Terminal Dogma, but Lilith was already down there. They needed Shinji's Eva to fight, but right now, according to Kaworu, they were safer with Asuka inside Unit 02. He wouldn't have been able to pilot it if the soul in there was awake, but with Asuka in there, they at least had a chance that her mother would wake up in order to protect her, and that would make it harder for Gendo or anyone else to merge with Unit 02 and use it to set off Second Impact.
Of course, when Gendo already had Adam's flesh, then he wouldn't have any reason to go looking for Unit 02. Not unless he found out Rei was there, anyway.
"Be careful," Misato told Ritsuko, keeping an eye on one of the Evas that was circling a little closely for her taste. "These powers are pretty intuitive. I've come up with a few things I could do with them that surprised Kaworu, and Commander Ikari knows a lot more about angels and what they're really capable of than I do, I'm sure." Her lips pressed together, her condemnation of him strong enough that she wouldn't let herself say anything else, because then she'd start cursing his name. "Let me know if he heads for… his target, and see what you can do to hide her location. I know SEELE are trying to hack the Magi, but they might not be the only ones."
"…That would explain why I can't throw this hack out of Caspar," Ritsuko said, and Misato winced. She could hear how this burned her old friend.
"You should try to lure him out of the Geofront," Misato told her. "If he stays in a confined space, it would be hard for the Eva to get to him," if only his father was a man Shinji could hesitate to attack, "and I'm using Kaworu's soul. They need either his soul or Rei's to set off Third Impact." Adam's or Lilith's.
She hated the idea of ordering Shinji to kill his own father, but they both hated that man. Even if he had Adam's flesh, his soul should still be weak, right? So Shinji in Unit 01 should be able to beat him without her backup.
Looking around her, she told Shinji, "Let's take care of the rest of them, Shinji!" Even though the lances were still dangerous, she didn't sense any fighting spirit at all from these Evas. They'd intended to fight nine on one: finding out that the last angel was still alive and losing some of their number must have taken them aback. Was the scenario already altered enough that they couldn't have their version of Third Impact? She wasn't going to count on it, but that would explain why they weren't desperately attacking, trying to preserve their last hope.
"Right, Misato!" he said, and she could hear that he'd never been happier to obey her orders. To have the person he loved fighting beside him? Even if Kaworu had withdrawn for now, Shinji couldn't have realized the truth yet.
Seeing Shinji's happiness: she couldn't ruin it for him.
If she said, "I'm going to leave you two alone," then even if she made it clear that Kaworu was the one who loved Shinji, that he'd been with all that time, then wouldn't Shinji still feel that she was abandoning him? After all, she'd be saying that it was Kaworu that loved Shinji, not her. Saying that she didn't love Shinji.
She'd promised herself that she wasn't going to be a cougar when she took Shinji into her apartment, but between Shinji and Kaworu, who was still fragile himself and really did need to be supervised for the good of the world… She might just be stuck with them.
Misato knew that she should feel bad about this, but no, really, she was looking forward to actually getting to participate.
Yes, I know you'd like Shinji coming to accept Kaworu and hot threesomes with bondage and such. Maybe I'll write it eventually, but I want to get this done so I can try to finish the Ar Tonelico fic for NaNO.
Re-read several manga volumes, still have the nagging feelings I'm doing Misato's entire approach to this situation wrong. As in making her too rational about it.
Eva characters being rational? Exactly.
Eventually decided to handwave it with additional memories providing enough information to override prejudice (lit. prior judgment) and the fact they're kind of sharing neurochemicals. Doing a brain scan on Misato during all this would probably have shown some very weird brainwave activity, but unlike the pilots they probably aren't checking her out regularly.
Humans can catch a ball, which requires some very advanced multivariable calculus and physics, even if our conscious minds have no idea how to do any of that. Actually, our brains might not be able to do calculus, since finding the limit is the hallmark of calculus. This means that the calculations they're doing would actually be more complex and cumbersome than multivariable calculus, which exists as a set of calculation tools to make things simpler.
Since Kaworu not knowing things that other people consider basic, like the bathroom signs, will never cease to be funny, I figured having what he pulled out of his hat (he originally was working on it for Misato's sake, though) in order to have a chance to have Shinji see him be badass in a helpful way ruined by not understanding how spatial mechanics would complicate it by a few orders of magnitude was par for the course.
He actually sat out that battle not because he was sulking… Well, alright, he was kind of sulking, but the main thing was that since Shinji would attribute anything Kaworu did to Misato being badass, he might as well let Misato have all the fun since he wouldn't get any credit anyway and this way Misato would be happier with him, and he needed her to put in a good word with Shinji.
It's fun to tinker with Kaworu's knowledge base in each of these iterations, since if you're talking a being that is canonically pretty godlike, a lot of the limits are what they do and do not know about what they can do. Since I made a lot of his abilities intuitive here for Misato's sake, I decided that he was running mostly on intuition when it came to them, and thus having a lot less knowledge about the world than Misato would hinder his ability to come up with ways to make physics work for him. Although Misato wasn't really 'reversing gravity,' she was just causing herself to accelerate as if she was falling upwards since that was the concept she had.