Chapter 15:Arms of sorrow

Deeper I'm falling

Into the arms of sorrow

Blindly descending

Empty, that's the best way to describe these streets. It's been a few days since everyone was evacuated when Sahaquel appeared, most people still haven't come back. Nerv is trying to hide that fact to the rest of the world, in order to make themselves look good I guess.

It's kinda similar to how everyone is acting lately, on the surface everyone is fine but deep down things are just getting worse. Touji's sister was more badly injured than what was described in the show and is getting worse, Mari's recently gotten a higher synch rate than Asuka which knowing Asuka is probably driving her insane, Rei seems to be even more distant than in the show and only actually bonding with Pen Pen, the stress of dealing with this many kids on top of everything else that's been going on must be catching up with Misato because she seems to be spending an awful lot of time at Kaji's lately, and Shinji has just been a complete mystery ever since our conversation in the kitchen. The only marginally normal one around the house is Kensuke.

I take a look at my watch, the digital watch reads 8:30 PM. I sigh, I probably should hurry back to the house. Mari's probably worried, I am her main source of information pertaining to the end of the world after all. Depsite what I said about hurrying I had actually taken a rather slow pace, taking almost an hour to get back to the house. Why? Was I ashamed that I let things get this bad? I stop in front of the door.

After a few more minutes I finally open the door and enter the house. All the lights are out, everyone must be in bed already. I tiptoe and try not to make any loud noises, after a few minutes I finally make it to my room without waking anyone up. I walk into my room and lay on the bed, I pull the blanket up to my neck possibly as some childish way to hide myself from the guilt and shame I'm feeling right now. Shortly afterwards I hear my door open.

Already knowing who it is I say "Go away Mari, I can't plan right now.". "This is the third time this week you've been gone all day. You can't just keep ignoring your responsibilities like this." Mari says. "Look Mari, I just...need some time to clear my head." I say choosing my words carefully. I can tell Mari doesn't buy it but she leaves the room anyway.

I just try to get some sleep after that. "Are you even listening to me?!" A certain red haired german yelled at me. "Sorry but I didn't do the homework either." I reply while holding up an empty worksheet in front of her face. "Can't you do anything right?!" She once again yells. I just ignore her. After a bit of silence Asuka takes the hint and walks away from my desk. After that class starts and it's just a boring as always.

Suddenly an alarm goes off, "About time something exciting happened!" Mari yells before rushing out of the classroom. Everyone else follows suit, the regular students running towards the bunkers and the rest of us pilots going towards Nerv HQ. A new angel, I start running through the angels from the show in my head. Leliel must be next. The thought of facing off against that monster makes me sick to my stomach.

Eventually we reach Nerv HQ and are ushered into the changing rooms. "What do you think the next angels like?" Shinji asks me. His voice didn't seem as passive as usual. Almost like he's confident that he can win this fight. "I'm sure Misato will be able to tell you all about the angel." I say while walking out of the room. "Geez, what's his problem?" I hear Touji whisper to Shinji.

We walk in and find Asuka and Mari already in the room and waiting for us. "Honestly...all we know about this angel is that it's a sphere. So keep your distance." Misato says. "And once again Nerv uses their brilliant detective skills." I mutter under my breathe.

We pilots get into our Eva's and are once again launched to the surface. "Guys, let me handle this." I say over the intercom system. After that I start running towards the orb called Leliel. I shoot at it with the pistol the eva was equipped with and jump up onto a building. The orb disappears and some sort of black hole forms on the ground, luckily I was the only one within the black holes reach. The building I'm on begins to sink into the hole. "What's that idiot doing?!" I hear Ritsuko's voice. I begin unloading all of my bullets into the angel. "Come on, Come on." I mutter under my breathe.

Click, Click..."Damnit!" I yell. I was out of bullets and out of time. The building was almost completely absorbed by the angel, I try to jump to the next building but I slip. The next thing I knew I was swallowed up into darkness.

"Ugh where am I?" I ask to empty air while I look around. Suddenly it all comes back to me. "Well I fucked up royally." where the first words to come out of my mouth after assessing the situation. Suddenly I feel a pain in my head and when I open my eyes I find myself on a...train? "You really are a mess aren't you?" a childish voice said.

Suddenly a child appears in the seat in front of me. Wait a second is that a younger version of me?! I put my head in my hands and try to sort everything out. Alright the angel did this to Shinji in the original series so just don't fall prey to it's tricks and-"Do you really want to leave here?" the childish voice mocks. "What are you talking about, of course I do." I reply, taking the bait like the idiot I am. A condescending smirk appears on the childs face, MY face.

"You just want the glory, you don't actually care about them." the angel states all while keeping that smirk on it's face. My hands begin to ball up into fists. Was he right, did I just want to be some shining knight that shows up to save the day? "You've only been trying to help these people to boost your own ego. You could have just waited and relied on your partners to help you, but you just dove right in because you wanted all the glory." The voice accuses. "No, that's not true. I did it because I didn't want them to get hurt." I say but my words don't have much power or truth behind them.

When I think about it I was just trying to help them to boost my own ego and when things got tough I ran away from the problem...just like Shinji. "Oh god I'm pathetic." I mutter under my breath.

NERV HQ

"What was that idiot thinking, attacking an angel head on like that?!" Misato yells. "HA, serves him right." Asuka laughs. "Anyway, the angel seems to exist in 2 dimensions." Ritsuko begins to explain. "Remember that orb that we thought was the angel?" She asks the pilots. Everyone nods. "Turns out that was the angels shadow and the actual angel was the black void that swallowed up Brandyn." Ritsuko continues. "The angel seems to be able to absorb things into it's body so the only way I can think of to destroy it is to throw all the N2 bombs we have into it's body and hope for the best." She finishes.

"But wouldn't that kill Brandyn too?" Shinji asks. Ritsuko nods, "No way! I'm not going through with this!" Touji yells. "If you won't then we'll find another pilot who can." Ritsuko retorts. "It was his fault for rushing in there in the first place." she adds.

Back with Brandyn

I take a look at the built in timer on my wrist, I only have about 5 more hours until the life support runs out. That must mean I've been in here for about a week. Eventually Leliel had left me alone back in the entry plug, probably just to watch me rot. This had given me time to think, Leliel was right. The sleep deprivation incident, the running away, and the charging into battle just now. It was never for to help them, it was just some ploy for attention.

But it didn't work. I'm no hero, I'm just pathet-No. Feeling sorry for myself is what got me here in the first place, I just can't give up now. If I do then I'm no better than Shinji.

I grab the induction levers and begin to try to get unit 06 to move, "Come on, Come on! Move!" Suddenly the inside of the entry plug turns red, I grip the controls harder and can't help but grin. "Alright, here we go!" I announce.

At the operation

2 Eva's stand in the city, "Asuka and Rei, are you ready?" Ritsuko asks. "Affirmative." Rei says. "Let's just get this over with." Asuka says. Suddenly the ground begins to shake and that orb shadow up in the sky begins to bleed. "What the hell is that?" Asuka whispers.

I begin to tear apart the angel in a rage, the angel is ripped apart and the Eva falls out of it. The Eva gives an intimidating roar while the angel bleeds out. "Is that what I'm piloting?!" Asuka yells.

After the destruction of Leliel Unit 06 (with me still inside it)was brought back into Nerv HQ and was washed off of the blood. This gave me time to reflect, I stare at my hand. What was that burst of energy, this happened when I was fighting Sahaquel too. This wasn't an Eva going beserk like when I was piloting unit 01, no this was all me. What the hell is going on here?!

The entry plug is ejected and I'm greeted by two C-Sec angents. "Commander Ikari would like to see you." one of them states. With renewed determination I silently get out of the entry plug and begin to follow them. My hands ball up into fists as I follow them. Time for me to finally get some answers and save my fellow pilots-no friends, this time for the right reasons.

Lots of annoucements this time, first of all I've started a new self insert story this time based on the A certain Magical Index/Scientific Railgun world, it's titled "A certain otherworldly visitor" if you want to check it out. Besides the obviously different setting I did do one other thing differently just so these two stories didn't get too samey.

Speaking of stories I did get an interesting idea for an evangelion story but I don't want to put any other projects on my plate right now (plus I really don't think I'm a good enough writer at the moment to tackle this, though I might try it later) so I might as well tell you guys just so you can try it if you want. I was thinking a Noire type story of a detective (I was thinking OC but Kaji would work too) investigating Nerv and all the weird happenings around tokyo 3, so hey if it sounds interesting to you feel free to try your hand at it.

And last but not least the title and song quote this time around come from the song Arms of sorrow by Killswitch Engage.