Relapse:∣▍
Chapter 11: "…I'm breaking up inside…"
Standing in the locker-room and waiting to go into the testing chamber Shinji actually felt nervous.
And to think he used to love sync tests.
When this all began, he loved trouncing Asuka. Each and every time, he relished in knowing how to push his percentage just one point higher to urk her.
He only had to do that a few times before he realized just how much it hurt her. How counter intuitive it had been to helping her through her pain.
Right now, he had a different problem.
Thinking back on the fight with the Sixth Angel, when he had called upon his AT Field, he had known something was off. He didn't have time to think about it then, but now that he was about to get back into an entry plug his mind couldn't help but ponder it, especially with how different this life had become.
What if his EVA rejected him?
It was his mother, or at least should be his mother, so why was he worried?
Well… it definitely didn't help when this life was suddenly making a sharp turn left. It would just be the thing to top it all off really.
Placing the cross around his neck as Shinji shrunk the plug suit around him, he smiled as it fit perfectly underneath the bulky white piece on his chest.
It was time.
ʡʘʘʢ
Misato looked at the three plugs half-way submerged in the LCL and took another sip of her coffee.
Rits' coffee machine was still magic, especially when you had a hangover.
If she hadn't needed it today, she would have forgone it, but that dull throbbing in her skull demanded she sip the coffee even if it was the afternoon.
"You'd think we'd have decent air conditioning in here" she bemoaned as she wiped away another bead of wet as it rolled down her forehead.
Despite the heat, her longtime friend hadn't even removed her lab coat, and sat perfectly fine at a terminal finishing the final checks for the test.
She looked around, it seemed that none of the lab rats had even taken notice of the heat, too engrained in their work and the noise of their machines.
"It does, but a when we have a few million gallons of LCL and a good chunk of the total computing power on earth right next to us, there isn't a whole lot we can do." She quipped as her fingers danced along the keyboard.
The newly promoted Colonel wouldn't know anything about the worry in the blonde's mind, nor could she know that her friend had been very close to calling off this test.
"Alright, we're going to begin now," Ritsuko told the pilots with as steady a voice she could muster. On one of the screens their three faces came up for Misato to watch "Just relax and do your best to concentrate."
Rei had the same bland expression she always did, eyes closed doing her best to ready herself, or that was at least what Misato thought was happening. Sometimes she really didn't know what was going on inside that kid's head.
"Are you ready to get trounced Third Child?" Asuka asked Shinji over comms.
Minato looked to Shinji's window, the boy had already closed his eyes, but popped them open just for Asuka's barb.
"[Sync rates aren't everything, ] Roter Drache." He said with a touch of bravado.
Growling something in German, Asuka closed her eyes again, this time with a frown on her face.
Cutting her mic, Ritsuko looked back at Minato, eyebrows raised "I guess he does know German." She said incredibly.
Misato just gave her a look of 'I told you so' and proceeded to turn the mics back on "Alright you two enough of that, let's get started."
Commands fluttered throughout the room, numbers were rattled off in quick succession, scientific names and terms flew at her but Misato could care less.
She watched the faces of the children…
Her Children…
That was unprofessional, she knew that. She knew that she should be keeping them at arm's length if only for appearance's sake and three months ago she would have done just that.
But Shinji's…. incident had caused her to latch onto the child, more for herself than him she had to admit.
The woman had let down her barrier for him, whether it was because she wanted to, or it was out of a sense of guilt she really didn't know.
Asuka… well, she had looked after the girl in Germany for about a year. That had been a long time ago, when the fiery redhead had been around the age of 10.
Despite the time, she didn't feel as close to her as Shinji, perhaps it was because the girl had made sure to distance herself at the same time.
Three peas in a pod if she said so herself.
Shinji had at least seemed to accept Misato's affection, he had allowed her to grow closer without pulling back, even when the woman felt she might just be too overbearing. He had simply smiled at those times and at her apologies, he had let her squeeze him in her drunken embrace every now and again even if she just did it to make sure he was alive.
Taking another sip of her coffee, the Colonel had to keep the liquid from being ejected at a lethal velocity with her hands as alarms sounded and the control room flooded with panic.
ʡʘʘʢ
The Third Children held his eyes closed as he let his consciousness meld into the link.
Sync tests could be much more intimate connections with the Evangelions if you knew what you were doing and unfortunately, he had plenty of time to figure that out.
Barreling towards him was the other half of the link, the consciousness within the EVA which presumably was his mother washed over him, only for the expectation of said being to be crushed.
He didn't make any sudden 'movements' with the other entity, he just let them react, let them examine. If he didn't do this now, if he didn't let them realize that he was not the same Shinji Ikari as the one before, the problem would probably rear its ugly head at the most inopportune time.
That was just his luck.
So, there they were, watching him with a lazy curiosity, like he was some new item that they had never seen before. He certainly 'looked' the same on the outside, but…
It searched him, it reached inside, where it only found a barrier that they couldn't break, there was only one who could.
Now it was time to reach back out to it.
Mother…
Like the slightest brush of hands, they met, only for the instant contact was made, unfortunately for him, the presence recoiled.
Despair
Sadness
Hatred
Anger
Loathing
Rage
.
.
.
Pain
All those feelings he had forced down inside of him came roaring back to the surface. How had those things escaped? And why did it feel like there was more than just the two of them all of a sudden?
How could one little brush with his mother bring that gushing back up again, when he had done this so many times before?
"Shinji just what the hell is going on in there?" Misato called over the comms.
"Just give me a second." He growled, doing his best to coax whatever it was back to him.
"Neural feedback is going haywire, cut the connection!" Ritsuko yelled, he hated that blonde.
"No!" Shinji yelled through the comms, "I've got this."
He forced everything back down, like trying to stuff more clothes into a bag that was simply too small, all the while he reached back out to the retreating presence that had seemingly got a glimpse of him.
Too good a glimpse.
Yui, please…
It stopped, just like that at his call, and it hesitated. Was it scared of him? Slowly it came back to him, hesitation was the nicest word he had, it didn't bother to hide its desire not to sync with this alien person.
They connected again, this time he held back, making sure to only think about how he had connected with it during the Sixth Angel's attack.
The sudden realization was felt by both sides, with his EVA's consciousness rushing forwards, enveloping him as it realized this was the same person who had piloted it before.
He was still unsure what exactly to make of his 'partner' though.
"Barrier reached on all three." The words brought him back to him surroundings "Stable synchronization on all three pilots.'
He made sure his breath was steady now, he could bend, but he would not break.
This life was too good for him to do that.
He concentrated, working to keep his score steady.
There would be no massive scores for him today, he wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to do that with this Unit-01, and he was worried that he'd never find out why.
ʡʘʘʢ
For a moment she just breathed, and watched the numbers on the screen, what the hell was that?
Rei, stable as always hovered in the 40s, it was nothing new, despite her incident in Unit-00, she had stayed stable, it was good enough for her.
The thought of that incident made her head spin, it felt as if it was so long ago
She turned her head now to the self-proclaimed Ubermench of Germany.
58.7%.
It was lower than her score when she was in Germany, a whole five percent lower.
"What the!?"
Her attention snapped to Risuko, who was looking at her terminal with her mouth wide open.
No alarms sounded, no one shouted, even with everyone on high alert from the last bit of excitement no one knew what she was so exacerbated by.
"What's up Rits?" she asked casually walking over to her, doing the best to get rid of the adrenaline-fueled shakes she now had.
The blonde was pail, or at least more than usual, with wide eyes staring at her screen, Misato looked down at it, it was simply Shinji's sync rate, 53.2%.
"You alright?" Misato asked, the doctor was frozen, just looking at her screen.
"What, come on Rits what's up?"
"You didn't see it?" she asked, after a moment. Her voice was shaky, unnatural.
"What?" Misato asked, becoming more confused every second.
"Seriously? No one saw that?" Ritsuko just looked at her, Misato didn't think she'd ever seen her friend so… unnerved.
"Pull up the recordings!" The blonde barked at one of the techs, who silently obeyed, bringing up to the main screen a chart showing the recorded sync rate of one Shinji Ikari.
"Oh…"
She knew there was a delay before the recording or sync rates, just so the pilots could stabilize, but what she was seeing didn't make any sense.
"It was on my screen for longer than that." Ritsuko breathed out looking at the very beginning.
"We must have gotten just a snippet at the end."
There, a lone sliver of a pillar on the chart showed a reading of 122.3%.
That explains it.
"What does that even mean, could it be a faulty reading?" Misato asked eyeing the blonde who shook her head.
"With no alarms and the two other pilots not being affected, unlikely."
Misato's eyes turned back to the dark-haired child submerged in LCL. He had gone from a critically low to a high she knew hadn't been reached before.
What was that Shinji?
ʡʘʘʢ
The Third Children just sat in the locker room, soaking wet from his shower and completely uninterested in getting dressed to leave.
"Well, that went well." Soryu mused as she laid on top of the lockers, seemingly doing her best to entertain herself.
"Don't make it worse." He mumbled while running his thumb over his pendent.
"There's something different about her, it's like she's more… tangled with Unit-01."
"Pfft, maybe you're just losing your touch!" She jumped off the lockers and landed in front of him, hands on her hips, the girl just leaned down, peering at his with that one eye.
"Baka Shinji's finally cracking up, after all this time!"
He just glared at her and shook his head; he really shouldn't be talking with her. She wasn't even real.
"That's not true!"
ʡʘʘʢ
Hovering only a few hundred feet over the moon's surface would be considered a massive feat of technical engineering for the human race.
But watching the construction of the massive humanoid below seemed to put Kozo's current position into perspective.
"They're clearly using a new method of construction for the Mark 6," Gendo mused, while the older man just watched out the window in silence.
"for all we know there could be further undisclosed apocrypha, SEELE is intent to follow the scripture of the Dead Sea Scrolls."
The elderly professor turned to his younger college, eyeing his stoic face as he peered out the window at the lunar surface and craft that floated about over the Evangelions construction site.
"SEELE can't be oblivious to our plans and it's likely they know what happened to your son."
As a shadow passed over them due to other construction craft, Gendo said nothing.
"They most likely are aware, but that can't let that alter our plans… as for Shinji…"
He stopped; his attention drawn to the surface below them.
Even with his aging eyes Kozo could see it as well, that pale figure standing on the surface.
"A person, surely not."
In front of him, a row of what looked like coffins laid there, some open, some still closed, but the figure just had his arms crossed before looking up at them.
His eyesight was pinpoint, and the sub-commander had the feeling that whoever it was down there knew they were being watched.
On the surface, those red eyes just peered up at the drifting craft.
Letting the ends of his lips curl, Kaworu Nagisa kept himself from waving to the craft, it was a silly idea after all.
But that didn't stop him from talking in the vacuum of space either.
"Nice to meet you… Father."
Alright, who's ready for a fieldtrip?
Shoutouts!
UltraSpink of Da USA- Thank! And yes I'm not Anno after all of course we'll get there! *insert Mr. Incredible 'we get there when we get there' meme here*
Akomis- You're very welcome! I don't know if it's such a darker take as a more… realistic one? I see a lot of stories where Shinji goes back and he doesn't have near crippling levels of psychological issues, which they're great don't get me wrong, but I'm pretty sure no one got out of EOE without at least some trauma, least of all Shinji. Add in the fact that he's been essentially put into the 'cosmic equivalent of a washing machine spin cycle' tm for god only knows how long… well here we are, just like we saw in this chapter he hasn't exactly had a therapist to talk to about this stuff, it's just kinda been building up… waiting to break the camel's back I wonder? In a way I want him to be both the protagonist and the biggest hurdle in his way, because he's got the knowledge and skill, sure, but does he have the will to go through all this one more time?
A fun fact I learned in psychology is that when people are exposed to their fear they don't get less afraid, because the fear doesn't become less real to them, but they instead become braver. Like Asuka said back in Chapter 4, deep down Shinji is still that scared shitless kid he's always been, he's just been through hell… multiple times… alright, pretty much constantly. Did I really just write a 200-word response to that? (The two Asukas? Very interesting indeed.)
A Guy- Yeah, I've been having a blast with this one, here's to hopefully not getting writers block anytime soon. *nocks on wood*
Until Next Time.