Author's note: Guest, thank you so much for the review! Rambo is a pussy.

Other Guest, regarding r*** - uh, no. Absolutely not. I may as well address this now: I guarantee that you will never find any such thing in this or any of my other work. I'm not saying r*** doesn't have its place in fiction; it does, and I am absolutely not a censor. I just don't feel the need to include such things in mine. And you can bet if a story of mine ever does feature a character who has been guilty of such an act, things likely won't end well for them. Again, not a morality call, just how I do things.

I've left your review up for the time being because I didn't want you to think I was dismissing you. I'll be deleting it a couple of days after this chapter goes live and politely request that in future if you, or anybody else feels the need to address such issues or use words like "r***" that you take it to my forums and keep language like that out of the review section. And if you feel you absolutely, positively MUST use such words there, I politely request that you censor yourself as I have done. My forum url is in my bio. Thank you.

zlatanbaranovic, werewolf1423, fko124,bittersweet-stories, Sagara Black, Prototype-27-F, EggMcLegg, Dreka, DarthMarr99, Darkside69, thank you for the follows.

zlatanbaranovic, werewolf1423, gimelaprinsecita88, fko124, conlhy, bittersweet-stories, Sagara Black, Prototype-27-F, Darkside69, thank you for the favorites.

You know I almost made Misato and Ritsuko the beta couple in this story? But I figured my boy Hyuga could use the win.

Even If it's the Last Thing I Do

by Jungian Excuse

- Chapter Three -

- Messengers -

The evacuated city was the eeriest thing Shinji had ever seen. As he wandered the empty streets in search of a payphone, he was reminded of a film his guardian had once taken him to see at a small local cinema. He'd been too young to understand much of what was going on, and the subtitles went by too fast for him to read. Mainly, he remembered hiding behind his hands every time one of the terrifying monsters appeared on screen and that they'd given him nightmares for years. But he also remembered the hero, an American man, wandering deserted cityscapes, how lonely he seemed to be, and how desolate and abandoned he must have felt. Now Shinji was doing it for real, although he at least had the occasional droning of the public address system for company, warning him that he should be absolutely anywhere but where he was right now.

"This is stupid," he said to the air around him as he dropped the payphone's receiver back into its cradle after yet another warning message, this time telling him there were no phone lines available. "I shouldn't have come here." He picked up his bag, straightened up, and looked around him. There was no sign of the pretty lady with big boobs who was supposed to meet him. He looked down at the photograph she had sent him of herself hanging half out of a yellow singlet and wondered if she understood how old he was. "I guess I won't be meeting you today."

It was too much, Shinji supposed, to expect that his father come fetch him. Especially after he'd abandoned Shinji, barely out of diapers, at a train station without so much as a goodbye. And 15 years later, Shinji had dropped everything and come running like an obedient puppy the moment he was called for. It was pretty pathetic.

He checked his watch and said to himself, "I guess it's the shelter, then," when something caught his eye and made him look up. He blinked. He couldn't possibly be seeing what he was seeing - a girl with blue hair wearing what looked like a school uniform, standing in the middle of the street. The sudden panicked departure of a flock of birds from a nearby power line pulled his focus away for a brief moment, and when he looked back, she was gone.

It was by far the strangest experience Shinji had ever had. What was almost as strange was how entirely unfazed he was. But before he could dwell on it too much, his whole world quite literally blew up.

Evacuation training? What are you, stupid? That's not for us pilots!

Shinji staggered from the kitchen into the dark living room with a bottle in hand and dropped heavily onto the couch. It had been almost two months since the German navy had knocked on his front door and told him that his entire reason for living had been snatched from him a second time.

Now we're even, Shinji.

One of the neighboring farms had a side business making and selling soju. The traditional Korean drink was brewed very strong, about twice the proof of the average product. Shinji sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve as he broached his third bottle of the night. It was usually around now that grief would break through the pleasant alcoholic haze and overwhelm him, and he'd take the bottle up to bed to drink and cry himself to sleep. But lately he was all cried out, it seemed, and so he just drank.

Wait, that's why you're a pilot? You really are an idiot!

In 20 years of living, Shinji had never touched so much as a drop of alcohol, not even sneaking the occasional sip of one of Misato's beers as Asuka had done when they were under her guardianship. Now he was wiping himself out two or three nights a week, sometimes more. There didn't seem to be much point in fighting it. At least it drowned out the call of the cliff outside.

You and me are the most dangerous people on the planet.

The navy had returned Asuka's personal effects, and they sat unopened on the living room coffee table in a box sealed with literal red tape. On top of the box were two letters. One of them was his last correspondence from Asuka; the other was a letter from Misato on official NERV stationery, telling her how sorry she was and that he could call her personal number if he ever needed anything, anything at all. The one from Asuka was crumpled, and the ink was fading from being read and re-read again and again. He made to reach for it, but at the last moment, he picked up Misato's letter instead.

I've got this Angel; back me up, Shinji! Ladies first!

The fact that NERV existed once more with Misato at the helm might once have shocked Shinji to his core, but he was well beyond being shocked by anything now. Misato had called a couple times as well, when she first heard the news and again after she'd sent the letter. With tears in her voice, she offered further condolences, told him that she loved him, and repeated her exhortation to call her on that number any time, day or night. Shinji eyed his phone on the sideboard.

Don't you want to become one with me?

The letter from Misato was better preserved, apart from the crease lines it bore from being folded up and stored in Shinji's wallet. He fingered the marks unconsciously and contemplated the phone number written near the bottom as it blurred in and out of focus. Reaching a sudden decision, he hefted the phone in his other hand, and, swaying slightly, he started to dial.

The shriek of her phone going off by her head jarred Misato out of a particularly deep and restful sleep. The warm body under her arm, also disturbed by the sound, stirred, mumbled, and rolled away from it and from her, taking the covers with it. The sudden cold helped to wake her, and by the fifth ring, she was sitting up and reaching for the offending device. She rubbed her eyes and looked at the glowing red digital readout of her alarm clock, but they were still too blurred with sleep to make out the numbers.

"Hello? Katsuragi here." She mumbled blearily.

"Hi Misato."

"Shinji!" The sound of his voice pulled Misato fully awake. She said, "Hold on," and swung her feet onto the floor. She got out of bed as gently as possible so as not to disturb her bedmate any more than she had already, and padded softly into the bathroom. She turned on the light and quietly slid the door shut. "Still there?"

"Mmm, yeah," he replied, with the unmistakable cadence of someone who was very drunk and trying not to slur their words. He'd been drunk the last time she'd called about Asuka too, and he'd confessed to her then that he found himself in that condition several times a week, and it was getting worse. Misato knew she had no room to lecture when it came to self-medicating with alcohol, but it sounded like Shinji was taking it to a dangerous place – a place that often isn't easy to return from.

"Is everything OK?" She flinched, but the words were already out of her mouth before she realized what a dumb question that was. "I mean, you're not hurt, or sick, or anything?"

"No. Just calling to see... you're the boss at NERV and everything... maybe you heard... Something. I dunno. About her."

Misato didn't mention that it wasn't the ideal time or place for a debriefing. She had, after all, insisted that he call her 'day or night.' "We're keeping our ears to the ground, Shinji, always. But information like that can be hard to come by and usually takes a long time to filter down. Sometimes it gets lost entirely." Misato wasn't sure how to begin explaining to him that rival intelligence agencies aren't big on sharing.

Shinji sniffed loudly and cleared his throat. "I'm drunk," he informed her.

Misato laughed gently at the boy – man, now she had to remind herself – that she'd come to think of as her own. She suddenly longed to hold him, and her eyes became moist. "I know, sweetheart. You should lay off that stuff," she chided him gently.

There was a long pause on his end. Misato could hear him breathing, so she just waited. "OK" was all he said.

She could hear Hyuga stirring in their bedroom and knew he'd soon want to use the toilet she was perched on. "Shinji, I'm sorry, but I have to go. Take better care of yourself, please. For me?"

"I will, Misato," he promised. One thing was for certain: the long, hard years hadn't made him a better liar.

Misato chose her next words carefully. "Shinji, I know this might be hard to hear... but maybe think about what Asuka would say if she saw you right now. Would she want this for you?"

Shinji got up off the couch, clutching his bottle. He had stood up too quickly and staggered, but he managed to stay upright.

"You know, Misato, that's the great thing about this stuff. It means you don't have to think. I understand now why you liked it so much."

The phone went dead in her ear. She quickly dialed back, but all she got was the 'no service' signal. He must have turned his phone off.

There was a gentle tapping at the bathroom door. She slid it open to reveal Makoto. He yawned and rubbed his eyes, grimacing at the sudden light, looking very much as she must have done a few minutes earlier. "Hey, babe. Who was that?" he asked tiredly, suppressing a yawn.

Misato laid her phone down on the edge of the sink beside her. "Shinji."

"Oh," was all he said. The heavy portent attached to that name was something he just wasn't equipped to handle in his current half-awake condition, and there was a short, awkward silence that he felt compelled to break. "Toilet free?" he asked lamely.

Misato stepped forward, slipped her arms around his waist, and buried her head in his shoulder. He knew what she wanted. Make me feel safe, she was saying. Makoto brought his arms up and around her, pulled her into him, and held her tight.

Shinji dropped his now-dark phone onto the couch, took a long pull from his bottle, grimacing at the taste, and held it up to the light coming from upstairs. Still half left. He clasped the bottle to his chest and trudged up the stairs. By the time he reached his bed and sat down, it had been reduced to a few mouthfuls. He threw his head back, drained it, and let the empty bottle drop to the carpet. He'd been getting into that habit lately. Empty bottles dotted various surfaces in the areas of the house Shinji frequented most and rolled around forgotten under furniture. Shinji flopped onto his front and buried his face in a pillow, the alcohol sloshing in his empty stomach. The sudden movement made his head spin, and the bed seemed to move in a faint rocking motion that wasn't entirely unpleasant, and he began to drift off.

The roaring of the ocean sounded loud through the open window. Loud enough to stop Shinji from falling asleep. He sat up and glared at it in irritation. When had he gotten up and opened it? He didn't think he'd drunk nearly enough to black out yet. Maybe he really should cut down like Misato had suggested. He stood and slammed it down angrily, then stopped. He looked down in confusion at the window sill, then at the bed behind him. It was too close. Wasn't the window on the opposite wall from the bed?

He turned back to the window and gasped. Instead of the cliff and the ocean with the night sky above, he was looking at a fierce orange sunset. It bathed the sparse and barren plain in orange fire as the scenery whipped by. With a cry of surprise, Shinji stumbled backwards and sat down heavily on the seat. Seat? He looked down. Where his bed had been moments ago was a long, hard-cushioned bench that ran the length of the wall in either direction. He leapt to his feet again and saw another window glowing orange behind him, a whole row of them following the bench.

Suddenly, it dawned on Shinji where he was. He knew this place. The brass fittings, the wooden floors and panels, swaying and rattling. All bathed in hellish orange.

"You're pathetic!"

He yelped and spun about, and his heart leapt as he found himself looking at a face he had seen in his dreams, waking and sleeping since the day they'd met on the deck of the Over the Rainbow. But unlike his dreams and memories, she was tangible, as though he could put his hand out and touch her. She glared at him, her arms folded in front of her.

"Asuka?" he whispered joyfully, reaching for her. "Asuka!"

"Don't you fucking touch me!" she snarled.

Jerking his hand back as though he'd been bitten, Shinji stared at her in shock. Even at her angriest and most spiteful, she had never spoken to him that way. Not with such venom, such naked hatred.

"Asuka, I don't understand," he whimpered, his eyes brimming with tears. "I love you. Why are you doing this to me?"

"Love?" She laughed mockingly." Is that meant to be a joke? That will be the day, Third Child."

She stepped forward and shoved her face into his, stamping her foot into the carriage floor.

"You let them kill me."

"What? No! But they said that you're alive!" he protested.

"You let them take me."

"But, how could I... There was no way..." Tears ran down his face.

"You couldn't save me."

"Asuka, I will save you!" He cried desperately. "Just tell me how, please! Please," he sobbed.

"Crying? God, you are pathetic." Asuka's lips curled up, and she glared at him down her nose as though she were going to spit on him. "Don't bother yourself, little boy," she sneered. Arms still folded, she turned from him and walked off down the length of the carriage. "I'll find a man to save me," she called out over her shoulder.

"Asuka, wait!" Shinji stumbled after her. He reached out for her arm, but before his fingers could close around it, she suddenly rocketed away from him. He gasped as the carriage became impossibly long, stretching out to infinity in both directions. Shinji started to run, then sprint, but the faster he ran, the faster she pulled away, until her hair was an orange speck in the distance.

His lungs burning, Shinji jerked to a halt. The moment his legs stopped pumping, she was suddenly there in front of him.

His cry of alarm was cut off as momentum carried him forward, and he slammed into her back. He ricocheted off her and careened away, fighting to keep his balance. When he recovered, she still hadn't moved.

"Asuka..." Panting with shock and effort, he reached out tentatively, but she stayed put this time, silent, facing away from him. When he'd bounced off her, she'd been oddly yielding, as though she were a scarecrow or a dummy filled with straw. Now, when his hand gripped her shoulder, it rolled and moved unpleasantly under her clothes. He tugged gently, pulling her around to face him.

"Aus..." Shinji's voice died in his throat.

Instead of flashing blue eyes, he was staring deep into the barren sockets of an empty skull, framed with a mane of brilliant orange hair. Scraps of rotten flesh clung to bleached bone. The air around the face was thick with flies, and the cranial cavity crawled with maggots that dribbled from the eye sockets, the nasal cavity, and the hollow mandible.

"Hey Shinji, you wanna kiss me?" Asuka's mocking voice, slurred and guttural, issued from the leering, empty jaw.

Small, involuntary choking sounds came from his throat as he backed away from the ghastly apparition. A growling, wheezing laugh issued from rotting lungs as it reached for him with withered arms, black and dripping with putrefaction.

Shinji felt as though he were moving at the bottom of an Eva cage filled with Bakelite. He wanted to scream and scream and scream. He wanted to turn tail and run for his life. But his body would allow him to do no more than the slow, backward march that kept him just out of reach of those putrid fingers. Disembodied voices swirled around them as they moved, mocking him.

"How could you have failed to save her, son? Your mother would be disgusted with you." His father's sneering contempt.

"You let her down! You were supposed to have each other's backs, Shinji!" Misato's angry disappointment.

"Pilot Ikari, you left a colleague to die in the field. You have been a great disappointment. You are no longer a part of this organization." Ritsuko's dispassionate and clinical condemnation.

Shinji's eyes squeezed shut. "Go away," he whimpered, "just go away and leave me alone."

Suddenly, he couldn't move. He cried out in panic and looked down with horror at the orange tendril that had snaked around his ankle. With a triumphant howl, Asuka was upon him, and Shinji felt himself falling, falling, until he crashed onto his back on the rough wooden floor of the train, with the rotting, redheaded golem on top of him.

Her dead weight crushed all the breath from his lungs. Lustrous orange hair fell all around his face, cutting off the world outside. It cascaded and flowed around them, and filled the entire carriage. The skull leered at him, inches from his nose. He choked and gagged as maggots dropped onto his face and into his mouth.

"How pathetic!" the skull slurred at him. "He couldn't even protect his own wife!" It shrieked and laughed in his face as the maggots filled his mouth and flies crawled into his nose until he could no longer breathe. The skulls' mocking laughter was the last thing he heard as the now-infinitely dense volume of orange hair crushed the life from his body.

Shinji's eyes snapped open, not seeing his bedroom bathed in soft moonlight but still the leering skull, and the train carriage, and the crushing orange mass. Carriage and skull disappeared at last as the vivid dream faded, and Shinji slowly came to understand that he'd been having a nightmare.

But the crushing weight on his chest remained, and Shinji suddenly realized that he couldn't move. Having never experienced sleep paralysis or even heard of it, Shinji had no idea what was happening to him. All he knew was that he couldn't move, and it was getting more and more difficult to breathe. For the first time since his wedding day, he prayed; prayed to whoever might be listening as he fought a losing battle against rising panic.

At last, the paralysis weakened, and he could move again. Still on the edge of panic, Shinji leapt to his feet. The room felt too small. He raced to the window and flung it open. He gripped the sill tightly and rested his head on the deliciously cool metal of the window frame, grounding himself as he forced his body to take slow, controlled breaths of the sweet-smelling night air.

At last, calm as he could be after a nightmare like that, Shinji shut the window. He was wondering if he'd be able to get to sleep again, or if he even wanted to try, when he froze. He gripped the window sill and stared. Was there somebody out there? Far away, almost at the edge of the cliff above the sea, bathed in moonlight. It was the outline of a person; he was sure of it, with pale skin and dark hair. His skin crawled, and the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end. Were they... looking at him? Shinji's eyes blurred and swam as they strained against the dark. He squeezed them tightly shut and rubbed them with his hands, hoping to clear them and get a better look.

When he opened them, he was staring directly into a pair of glowing red eyes on the other side of the window.

Shinji screamed and hurled himself backward. He stumbled and crashed to the floor against his bed, the wood base cracking painfully across his back.

The apparition outside his window glowed a brilliant white that illuminated the room. Two flashing red orbs followed him as he stuffed his knuckles in his mouth to stop himself from screaming.

Then it moved.

It floated sedately forward, passing through the window and wall as though they were an illusion. When it contacted the floor, it started to walk at the same slow yet inexorable pace towards him. The light of its face was tinted with an azure halo, framing those hellish eyes and brilliant white teeth that grinned at him in a leering rictus, like the rotting skull from his nightmare.

Blinding, paralyzing terror bubbled up like a substance inside him. His racing pulse thundered in his head as his adrenaline spiked, threatening to stop his heart. With a terrified whimper, he scrambled up onto the bed as the ghoul stretched out a deathly white hand, bony talons extended, reaching for his face.

Somewhere inside him, a tiny voice was screaming at Shinji to run. But there was no escape now; the ghostly hand was almost touching him. He closed his eyes and waited for the end. But instead of icy claws, a warm human hand caressed his cheek.

His eyes flew open involuntarily with the shock of it. And rather than a final jolt of terror that stopped his heart for good, all his fear and panic dropped away as though with the flip of a switch, and his entire being was flooded instead with a calm and peace as he had never known and that didn't seem possible on Earth. Except when...

The entry plug. Mother.

Shinji could only stare in amazement as beautiful, unearthly music filled his mind and his heart. It sang to him of hope, and joy, and peace, and, above all, of love. It made his heart ache and soar at the same time. Something was glittering at the edge of his vision, and his eyes dropped to the hand that touched his face. It was shrouded in a rainbow haze that shimmered and sparkled with a light of its own. Even the recognition of an A.T. Field did nothing to disturb his exquisite calm, and he looked on in wonder as it traveled slowly up the ghostly white arm, sweeping away the ethereal glow and revealing soft, white human skin as it went, until it enveloped the entirety of the apparition in front of him, shimmered brightly once more, and abruptly faded away.

The ghostly haze disappeared with it, and the figure in front of him resolved itself into a human girl with pure white skin, naked except for a white bandage that bound her chest. The red eyes no longer glowed but sparkled with warmth and love. The macabre sneer became a welcoming smile, and the azure halo revealed itself to be the hair that framed her delicate face.

Blue hair.

"Ayanami." The name came to Shinji's lips unbidden, in a breathless whisper.

He reached out tentatively, and his fingers closed around the delicate wrist of the hand that touched his face. It was warm, soft, and yielding. "Rei, is it really you?" he whispered as tears ran down his face. Whether they were of joy or sadness, he didn't know, and it didn't seem to matter.

"Shinji," came the soft, lilting reply. A voice he hadn't heard in a lifetime, except in forgotten dreams, and had never hoped to hear again.

"I'm here, Rei."

"Shinji, they are hurting her."

Shinji blinked at her in confusion. "What?"

Rei's smile faded, and her expression became one of sadness. "Shinji, you must help her."

"Help her... help who?"

"She is alive."

"Who is?"

"Asuka."

The name was like an electric shock delivered directly to his spine. The hand fell away from his face as he leapt to his feet and grabbed Rei by the shoulders. "WHAT?"

"Shinji, you must find her."

"Where? Where can I find her? How can I help her? Rei!"

She looked confused now and gave him a worried look. "Shinji, they are hurting her. She is alive. Find her. Help her." The worry was becoming panic and her eyes flicked desperately around the room. She shrank from his grasp and backed away, her hands held out in front of her, warning him off.

"Rei, help me! I don't understand any of this. Tell me how to find Asuka! Tell me how to help her! PLEASE!" Shinji almost screamed in frustration.

Rei's eyes became more and more wild; her head darted to and fro, and her breath came faster and faster. "They are hurting her. Shinji..!" Suddenly, she stopped dead and fixed him with a look of abject horror. She clamped her hands to her head.

Rei's eyes squeezed shut, and her mouth opened. The air in the room went dead.

Rei screamed.

The air around them rippled and distorted. Shinji closed his eyes and slammed his hands over his ears as the piercing, deafening, unearthly shriek ripped through his head, his house, and reality itself. It went on and on, unceasing and unchanging. Shinji heard the window behind her crack, and he could feel himself starting to black out.

Then, abruptly, without so much as an echo to prove it had ever happened, the scream stopped. Shinji tentatively opened one eye. Rei was gone.

With his ears still ringing and his head pounding, Shinji tore through the house from top to bottom, checking every room. He raced out the front door into Asuka's flower garden, circled the house twice, then up through the back garden, and finally up the hill to the cliff above the sea, checking every place a person might hide along the way. There was no sign of Rei. Almost winded, he stood on the clifftop with his hands on his knees, coughing and gasping for air.

Back at the house, Shinji dragged himself up the stairs, utterly exhausted by adrenaline, exercise, alcohol, and the bizarre otherworldly events of the evening. He dropped heavily onto the bed and fell almost instantly into a deep, dreamless sleep that lasted until morning.

Author's note: Kinda got all creepypasta at the end there, didn't it? Bet you didn't see that coming.

Starting this week I'm going to try to keep to a schedule, uploading twice a week. Emphasis on "try."