Apotheosis Echo: Re(verb - it)erations

by StriderInCosmos

The end has passed, and a storm looms over a broken world. At its edge, a Captain who cannot fully chart her course plunges in regardless. Within the lightning, a Priest sees his gods, and hopes to draw them to the dying Earth he wishes to gift to them. Against the rain, a Soldier and his family seek to dispel the tempest. The storm looms, and the End is nigh. But what End?

21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21: And the Rock Cried Out…

An end is coming. Whether it is the end of this world or the end of a chapter within it, what comes next marks a great change. One more to add to this world's already surprising amount.

But that does nothing for the oath that I have made to Shinji. And if needs be, I will fulfill it to him a thousand times over. The pain of death is a familiar thing to me, now. And so it will remain until Shinji Ikari is happy forever.

- From the personal musings of Commander Kaworu Nagisa

Terminal Dogma

The corpse of Lilith, now ballooned to an almost cartoonish size, exploded in a tide of LCL, the torrent that emerged crashing down on those unfortunate to not put up their AT Fields in time and drenching them with the stuff.

For Daniel, the tide simply parted around him, his focus on Unit-13 as it hung in the air, seemingly untouched from the remains of Lilith and Spears out to its sides as if on display. Below him, a terribly familiar form lay hovering over the lake of LCL that was slowly draining from the island of skulls that it had covered, slowly twisting in place.

"Wait a minute…" Asuka Shikinami's gaze darted between Mark.06 and Unit=06, standing close by. "How are you…"

As her eyes went wide, finally taking in the Evangelions that surrounded her properly, the Mark.09 made its move, dashing towards the twisting, tumbling Mark that began to emit an unearthly howl.

Shikinami began to dash forward as well, her twinblade coming up to a throwing position. "We only trapped the 12th Angel, it looks like! We need to kill it!"

"No!" Daniel shouted as he sent Nynrya forward, her twin blades slamming into the haft of the Mark.09's scythe causing the almost familiar Eva to pause just long enough for Shikinami to catch up and engage her. "If all the Angels die, then Instrumentality is all but assured! We…"

He scoffed and shook his head as he saw the 12th Angel, Ptahiel if he remembered his Kaworu's visions correctly, begin to put itself upright in the air, a dim halo pulsing above its head, its howl intensifying as it stretched out its arms toward the congregation of Evangelions below it. "We need to contain this thing again. Make sure that there's one last line in case we can't get Shinji down."

As he said this, he glanced at the comm screen that linked up to Shinji in Unit-13, the boy simply leaning back silently in his chair, his eyes closed as tears streamed down his face. The sight provided a marked contrast to the Mark.06, whose arms now shuddered for a moment before its hands launched forward, carried at the ends of shifting, twisting pillars that glowed an angry crimson at the tips of its smaller parts, lashing out towards Unit=01 and Unit=05. The pair dashed to the sides as the arms slammed into the ground, sending up plumes of vaporized bone dust that the arms emerged from as they swept out, slamming into AT Fields as spectral arms and hands began to claw out at them, several Expressions failing at once releasing those MP lookalikes that were still whole into the fight again.

Daniel reached out to the arms that began to slide back, manacles of crystal and starlight flashing into existence on its wrists and jerking the arms to a stop as he pulled as best he could. The 12th Angel howled as it tugged back at its restraints for a moment, then suddenly leaned into them, its arms becoming wild ribbons that began to encircle him, hanging in the air impossibly for a moment as the arms that branched out from its stone-like body reaching for him as the snare closed around the Evangelion.

Daniel's eyes went wide, and he reached out towards one of the unlucky MP-Evas that had broken free, or Herald Units as they seemed to be called as he connected with the Spirit within the thing, and tore at the spaces that they occupied, switching their places as he patched it back together again, all in the blink of an eye.

He released a breath he didn't realize he was holding as he watched the trap squeeze shut, leaving the Eva inside surely crushed. But, as the arms retracted, Daniel saw a fading wisp of…

'Mist?' Daniel whipped back around, seeing the Herald Unit that Tavis piloted battling with Unit=01 and Unit=02, keeping them pinned down with bindings of mist as he danced around their reprisals. 'What's your game, Tavis?'

"He seeks soldiers to fit his surroundings, as any good general does."

The voice, thrumming with power, almost made him pause as he began to go towards another Herald Unit, as Daniel's eyes went wide in horror. "Get out of my head," he growled to Hamar'ramah as he intercepted another Herald Unit and began to clash with it, swordspear to massive claws, one of many who seemed to be converging on the Mark.06.

Five of them had taken to the air, trying to fly over them and reach the 12th Angel without engaging those below them. The first two that drew close found themselves shot out of the sky from above, Unit-08's fire pinpoint accurate even as the others began to scatter. Unit=05 took advantage of the chaos, sheets of thin, exceptionally clear glass springing to life in front of those still in the air, three dramatic crashes sending the Heralds plummeting to the ground in distinctly ungraceful fashion.

"Ha! Take that, dummkopf pigeons!" Asuka Ikari-Soryu shouted as she extracted herself from the mist again, Unit=02 taking the form of a massive, writhing bolt of crimson lighting that darted towards Tavis. Clearly taken aback by the considerably strange nature of Asuka's attack, Tavis soon found himself wrapped up in the electric current, arms pinned in place as Unit=02's upper torso emerged above the Herald Unit's head like a brilliant naga.

As its body gained shape and definition, a thin, stabbing blade of dark metal appeared in Unit=02's hands, and it turned the blade to stab down at her foe in a way that would spear through the Entry Plug and whatever core might be underneath it.

As the blade came down, however, the Herald Unit became mist, passing through the coils of lightning and heading towards another Herald Unit, who dashed toward the mist and found itself enveloped, disappearing as Tavis' Unit reformed, burn scars that spiraled down its form beginning to heal as it began again its mad dash towards the scuffle between the Mark.09 and Unit-02, those Herald Units that had tried an aerial approach beginning to stand again and converge on the duel.

Daniel saw the press going towards the two Evas, and threw the Herald Unit that he dueled with away from him into the waiting arms of Unit=05 and Unit=06 as he turned and ran towards Shikinami and the Ayanami unit. "Nagisas, keep that thing busy and keep the 12th Angel off us. Ikari-Soryus, go try and get Unit-13 down from there. If we can get the Spears out of his hands, we can end this!"

The calls of assent went unheeded as he leaped into the air, calling Nynrya back to him as the two dueling Evas turned and noticed the situation, landing beside them as he turned and began to make wide sweeps against those that pressed on their left flank, the two Herald Units stepping back before trying to engage him.

He glanced over at Unit-13 as he fought, and saw the AT Field that had flashed into existence against Unit=01 and Unit=02. Then it was back to blocking the two Heralds that had arrayed themselves against him, AT Field jaws snapping wildly on his blade and locking it in place as he bashed the one beside it with the haft of his swordspear.

All else seemed to slip away for the moment, a delicate balance of defending Shikinami and the Ayanami unit behind him while also keeping the latter, along with Tavis, from making any progress toward the 12th Angel now the sum of Daniel's focus. Then, Daniel put up his guard as the Herald Units in front of him became enveloped in a cascading curtain of mist.

His focus turned to Tavis, stepping back and seeming to prepare to make a leap over their heads to take advantage of the momentary distraction. As Unit=00 turned to engage him, Tavis' Herald Unit flicked its hand towards him, Daniel's eyes going wide as a dense, glowing fog blocked all sight and stuck to his Eva's face despite his best efforts to clear it away, the backup sensors similarly useless as mist covered them quickly.

He made sure not to swing to his left, trying to fend off whatever attacks the other Herald Units might make in his state of confusion. Finally, he weaved an Expression together, a star flaring into existence meters away from Unit=00's body beginning to burn away the mist.

As it cleared from his eyes and he regained sight, he dodged out of the way as Unit=01 and Unit=02 came flying towards him, the AT Field from Unit-13 fading away as they crashed into the now ankle-deep LCL that began to cover the island again.

And, as time seemed to slow, he saw Tavis' Herald Unit, alone in the air, his blade slicing through the neck of the Mark.06.

As the Mark.06 began to fall out of the air, in place of blood, the body of the Angel itself shot out of both the head and body of the Mark.06 like demented party streamers, swirling through the air around each other before joining into one flow that swirled toward Unit-013 and enveloped it in a rapidly growing sphere of its body.

"It's over here, heretic," Tavis said over his loudspeaker as he landed in front of the sphere, now so massive as to nearly touch the surface of the LCL and colored a deep crimson. "But you and I both know that this battle isn't the one that matters. You'll see to that if nothing else."

"No, Tavis," Daniel replied, his voice like cold steel. "If I have my way, this ends here."

. . .

Ayanami looked up at the swirling form of the Angel as it began to create… features. An eye, a nose, a mouth, all moving around on or under the surface of the sphere until they made a face. Her face. Or was it her face?

'What am I?'

A question she had never thought to ask before, and yet, confronted with something that seemed to so easily take her own form, it seemed… pressing.

As red sigils of SEELE began to cover her Plug's screens, she found herself trying to look into the mass that was quickly taking shape into… something, trying to find Unit-13. Find Shinji. Why?

She found that she… cared. She cared for him. Seeing him like this, even as the comm screens cut out and she found that she had lost control of her Eva, felt… wrong, somehow. Where it had come from, she only had a vague idea of. But it felt like the origin, or perhaps the revealer, of such emotions was flying far above them.

'But what can I do now?'

. . .

Daniel looked up at the 12th Angel, beginning to resemble a demented embryo, as it continued to expand for a moment, then shrunk with an odd, hollow hiss almost out of sight. "No, Tavis," Daniel said again, his blood beginning to boil as he took in the still rough, stone-like shoulder pylons and bulging red eyes of Unit-13. "I'm not going to simply take this lying down. I've got power that I never wanted again. Never! And if I've got it, then damn it all, I might as well use it to finally do something decent!"

As he spoke, Unit=00 began to float into the air, its arms spreading wide as trails of light grew out from the plates of armor on the sides of its chest. "Because I am my own man here! I hold the fate of worlds in my hands! Godhood has been granted to the unworthy, now and once again! AND I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!"

As he finished, a great tearing sound erupted from above the head of Unit=00, the air collapsing into a hole of deepest black, the edges of the sight warping, then glowing the air heated up around what was a rapidly expanding black hole, the trails of light bent up and eaten by the unceasing maw.

And as the black hole continued to persist, the core of the 12th Angel, along with the Spears of Longinus that Unit-13 held, began to shudder, the core slowly beginning to move away from the wide, waiting jaws of Unit-13.

Daniel watched young Shinji's eyes snap open, then go wide as he leaned forward in his seat. "Daniel?" he almost shouted, the first word he'd spoken in long minutes. "What are you doing?"

"Destroying the 12th Angel and the Spears!" Daniel replied. "We're not fixing the world this way. Not the way your father thinks of it! We fix the world, we do it my way! Not your father's or WILLE's or Tavis', mine! You want a happy world? Then you're going to see it happen!"

"Daniel!" young Shinji shouted, Unit-13's grip on the Spears tightening as it tried to pull back, whatever AT Fields he interposed drawn towards the black hole as well. "Please! Stop!"

"Let this go, Shinji!" Daniel said. "Then we can set this aside and make a better world together! Maybe even make your plan work!"

"I don't think I can stop this!"

The pull and push continued, and Daniel could see the fear in Shinji's eyes even as Unit-13 leaned forward and tried to snap at the core of the 12th Angel. He hated it. He hated how those eyes would join the others after this, and that he might well still see the person those eyes belonged to afterward. But he was done risking things for the sake of secrets or friendship. Bridges could be rebuilt easily enough. The world was another matter entirely.

Then, from the bottom of his sight, he saw a wisp of glowing mist beginning to crawl up. Glancing away as briefly as he could, he found Unit-02 and Unit=05 struggling to keep the Mark.09 from going up and intercepting him, the other three engaging the lone Herald Unit left in Terminal Dogma, who dodged and weaved around them seemingly effortlessly while the tendril continued to snake upward, past him and Unit=00, too far for Unit-13… but in just the right place to intercept the slowly shifting core of the 12th Angel.

'Damn him, he's going for it!' Daniel strained all the harder, trying to draw the grasping tendril in as well. But while it began to fuzz, pieces of it flowing into the black hole like string, it continued its albeit slowed reaching towards the core.

But however much effort he put into it, his Vent Frames beginning to manifest on his head, the tendril of mist touched the core, almost tenderly enveloping it before its light, like a brilliant star amidst the golden glow, flashed down the length of the tendril.

The black hole Expression faltered, flickering out of existence as he looked down fully at the Herald Unit that opened its mouth wide and swallowed the mist that contained the soul of the 12th Angel, the Ikari-Soryus and Kaworu stepping back as it paused, then began to twitch.

Before anyone could react, Daniel's eyes went wide as he saw… gray, nearly black lines, bulging like blood vessels underneath the skin of the Herald Unit, hearing Tavis grunt in pain, then shout as a series of cracks began and built in intensity.

The Herald Unit shuddered, clutching its head as more and more of the black tendrils reached into it, beginning to shape the head from the worm-like shape that it took into something more… human, those places where the tendrils broke the skin of the Eva weeping blood from the tearing as Tavis began to fully scream, the blood-chilling sound echoing throughout Terminal Dogma.

As Daniel's Sight flickered on, he saw the soul of Tavis, just above what must have been a powerful Spirit, and the soul of Ptahiel roiling inside the core of the Herald Unit, Ptahiel desperately trying to escape its new prison even as it shaped the body to better suit it. Pain, fear, confusion, and a determination from Tavis to try and control the Angel's seemingly untamable spirit all pulsed like waves of sound from their Frames.

Finally, however, after what was likely an extremely painful process of reshaping the Herald Unit's body, the soul of Ptahiel broke free, zipping past Daniel's attempt to catch it and sinking into the body of Unit-13. Into the Vessel of Adam.

Unit-13 howled again as it began to glow, going from purple, green, and orange to a nearly blinding incandescent white, the Spears now all the more stark in its hands as its pylons finished growing out from crag-like stumps into sweeping, wing-like things.

"Alright, then." Daniel managed to catch Tavis saying, the man gasping for breath as he felt him beginning to disappear. "Guides damn me for saying it… but you'd better stop this."

With that, Tavis was gone, and Unit-13, now with two halos arcing up from its back, one smaller and nested within the other, began with a flash of light to rise rapidly into the air from whence it came, the Mark.09 following along with its own halo as they picked up speed, disappearing in an instant.

Daniel began to fly after them, the sight of Terminal Dogma falling away from him in seconds as he felt the press of g-forces through his sympathetic connection to Unit=00. "Get to the surface, kids! I'm the only one who can help him stop this now!"

The words that they said to reply seemed to rumble in the back of his mind as he broke into the open air, the blue sky disappearing under the rippling crimson waves of the opening Doors of Guf emanating from prismatic bands that surrounded a dark, howling hole in the sky, bodies of the Failures of Infinity thrown free from Unit-13's ascent tumbling through the air in stark defiance of such seeming trifles as gravity forcing Daniel to weave through them as he went higher.

"I gave you this power for a purpose, Daniel Theisman."

Daniel said nothing to Hamar'ramah, the being's words distinctly… exasperated as he continued on regardless, catching the Wunder spiraling upward in his peripheral vision.

"I gave you this power to perhaps prove that you can overcome your reticence, and return to the work of Unity that you so imperfectly, and selfishly, try to replicate."

"Then I don't want it."

Daniel finally replied, a bitter venom in his words as he cleared a path through the clustering Failures with a wave of pure space. "I'm using this to save the world you're trying to enslave. I will never be your weapon again."

It was silent save for the sounds of the potential apocalypse that surrounded Unit=00 for long seconds as the ritual grounds grew closer and closer. He was almost to Shinji…

"So be it. My champion has been decided, then. I will go to prepare my Vessel, and leave you to the fate you so choose."

Like that, the power was gone, and Hamar'ramah fell silent at last. It took Daniel more than a few moments to realize what, exactly, had happened, but as he did, fear, like a ball of ice, coalesced in his gut. If he didn't have that power…

'Then I make do with what I have.' he resolved, his jaw clenching even as he took a deep breath. "Nynrya, to me! I'll need your help."

As the words finished forming in his mind, a series of thundering cracks echoed out from below him, seeming to cease the howling above as the Geofront and Tokyo-3 vanished completely, the Black Moon rising from beneath the earth as it seemed to drag itself up towards the commencing ceremony.

Daniel looked down at the sight for a moment or two, taking in the sheer size as the moon-like surface gave way to thick, rippling panels that swirled down into the earth, throwing out hundreds, thousands of Failures of Infinity into the air from several smooth craters in that portion of the ship that flowed from the seemingly natural into the shaped. A few moments was all he could spare the nigh-biblical sight before he refocused. He was close now…

. . .

Vice-Captain Ritsuko Akagi found herself in one of the few places that she'd dearly hoped she'd never have to be: in command of the Wunder, with Misato all but unresponsive, all while trying to prevent a new Impact from wiping out the rest of life.

"We're 2 minutes away from our location mark!" Helmsman Nagara said, looking back at the bridge. "Ma'am, we'll end up right on top of the anomalous Eva!"

"That's the point, Ms. Nagara," Ritsuko replied. "And we won't be on top of it. We'll be ramming it as we encircle it with our AT Field."

More than a few shocked gasps went up and two or three heads whipped towards her away from their consoles. "What's that going to even do, ma'am?" Kitakami asked incredulously.

"It's going to create what essentially comes down to a confined pocket of reality surrounding the Evangelion that we can open to fire into," Ritsuko replied. "Get ready!"

Nagara turned back to her console. "Collision in 1 minute!"

"When we connect, use our ricochet ammunition to start damaging the Evangelion itself," Ritsuko said, her gaze on the rapidly approaching target, a white spot that couldn't be missed except if they tried.

Ritsuko looked back at Ryoji (Ryoji, of all people…) and Misato, sitting on the deck, one in front of the other. Ryoji had his hands on Misato's shoulders, and she'd tuned out Ryoji's attempts to try and get some answers from the unresponsive Misato long before this point.

Now, however, Ryoji looked at her, and Ritsuko found herself… unsettled at the look that he had on his face. She was so used to him being placid, somewhat bemused, that the focus and determination in his gaze left her confused, then somewhat afraid of where he'd gotten it.

The look only lasted for a moment, his gaze slipping past her and going from determination to shock as she followed it to see… it must have been Mr. Theisman.

An Eva of what could only be called the night sky hung interposed between them and the Eva that Shinji piloted, its hand stretched out as if to somehow stop them in their tracks. They were on it in seconds, with time to barely process the near insanity of the sight.

"We're about to…" Nagara shouted, then stuttered as she trailed off, watching the camera feed do something… weird. The edges of the image seemed to blur and warp, and they all watched as they, somehow, passed over the Evas without so much as scratching them, the journey taken in an awed silence within the Hirnstamm Module.

As they soared out past their target, Ritsuko looked up at the comm screen that contained Daniel Theisman, a part of her mind distantly noting that the symbol on his head, which had been glowing a deep golden color, had turned into a pale luminous blue. "Mr. Theisman? If that was you stopping us, why?"

"I'm going to take care of this." Mr. Theisman said, his voice now calm again, an almost hollow tone to it. "Shinji's about to do something I've done far too many times before. The thunder of the guns can't stop this now. Only he can."

"Besides," Mr. Theisman continued as they began their turn to face the triad of Evangelions above the inverted pyramid of the ritual grounds, "you'll have a different problem to face now that the Mark.09 is in front of the ship it's meant to be the Master of."

True to Daniel's word, the Mark.09 began to drift toward them, its halo framing a monoeye that swiveled toward them, flashing with a chillingly familiar buzz.

The ship's AT Field flashed to life, holding back the explosion that followed and rocking the ship slightly as Ritsuko looked back up at Mr. Theisman as they continued their approach. "And why should we put the world in your hands? Why should we trust you?"

"Because I've done it before, Vice-Captain. And I'll do it again."

Mr. Theisman paused as he looked past Ritsuko. "I leave this in your capable hands, Ryoji. I trust you'll be able to take command of the ship, and the situation… Commander Kaji."

With that, the comm screens for Mr. Theisman and Shinji Ikari vanished, and all eyes turned for a moment to Ryoji Kaji, who stood from Misato's side and walked toward the edge of the bridge before looking at Ritsuko.

That determination had returned. "We're going to let Daniel do his thing."

Ritsuko gaped at him in open amazement as another hit from the Mark.09 shook them, the ship beginning to return fire at the Eva and forcing it to dodge. "You can't be serious after all this time just… gone. The world is at stake here!"

"And we've risked, and taken, enough lives trying to stop what's happening," Ryoji replied with a voice of steel. "We get the pilots, we keep this thing off of Daniel as he tries whatever he's going to do, and then we get out of here."

"Ryoji-"

"Am I clear?"

The bridge went silent again, and from the edge of Ritsuko's vision, she saw Misato, in a moment of lucidity, look up at Ryoji in shock, an expression she shared. Ryoji either didn't notice or didn't care at the moment as he looked over the rest of the bridge, some of them still looking while others directed the ship to more fully engage the Mark.09. "Am I clear?" he repeated, louder for the rest of the bridge crew.

"Yes, sir." was the chorus of answers before a shot breached their AT Field at last, shaking the bridge like a rattle and sending Ryoji and Ritsuko reaching for the rails to steady themselves, Misato simply falling over to the side as alarms began to blare.

"Damage report!" Ritsuko shouted.

"We've been hit on the starboard front engine cluster!" Takao replied. "Minor damage to gun turret 4 is being reported as well. Sending damage control teams now!"

"Turn about fully and get us under it, 85 meters below target," Ritsuko said, a tinge of resignation in her voice as her orders were carried out. "When we reach that point, have all functioning guns target and fire our ricochet rounds in as random a pattern as we can get and still hit the Mark. Before that point, aim for accuracy and try to lead this thing with Anti-AT Field Rounds."

Another thundering blast, just barely contained by the ship's AT Field, joined the answer of the bridge crew as they fully turned about, the guns firing in pairs or as individuals as they tried to pin in the dodging and weaving Mark, their target soon well above them as they dove gracefully.

After seemingly long moments punctuated by the Mark's shots hammering against the ship's AT Field, Kitakami looked back over at Ritsuko and Ryoji. "Fire pattern calculations complete, ma'am!"

"Fire!"

The guns tracked up, and for the most daring of moments, the Wunder's AT Field no longer served as a shield, instead making a fractal, seemingly shattered pattern that hung over the Mark that the guns fired at, red contrails flashing into existence as the specially made rounds hit the barriers and bounced off, coming at the Mark.09 from several angles.

An explosion, 4 made nearly simultaneous, bloomed around the Mark, not stopping before several more rounds slammed into it in a barrage that swiveled as the ship continued to circle around the Mark, the crew desperately fighting to grind the Mark down and out of existence as they poured shells onto their target.

As the ship made another loop though, a flash gleamed through the smoke and fire, a sphere of glowing red darting towards the Wunder and striking true between two of the guns and mangling them beyond use.

Two more shots followed after, raking the ship and shearing off a radar dish as it began to dip toward the ground. On the bridge, alarms wailed as warnings flashed across several screens, Ritsuko and Ryoji recovering from the shaking the blows had given the ship.

"Straighten us out!" Ritsuko called out. "Get our functioning guns aimed at the target and layer our AT Fields defensively. We can't take any more hits like that!"

As the crew struggled to get the ship to cut across the circle that they had made, Ritsuko looked up at the billow of clearing smoke, and her eyes went wide at the sight that greeted her.

From the smoke emerged a form almost as black, accents of red outlining the transformed Evangelion and framing a head that was far removed from the form of Unit-00, a horn jutting out above a sleek black mask that was almost bat-like, its face covered in deep red eyes.

The sight of the head reminded her of… the outside view of the command gondola that they were in. Almost to a T.

'This ship really was built for it, wasn't it?' she pondered as the Mark.09, a Vessel of Adam, drew closer to the ship it was meant to master.

. . .

As this all began, Daniel calmly closed the comm screens to all but Shinji, working with Kensuke silently to close them on young Shinji's end as well. Soon, it was just them, silent for a moment as the world started to end around them.

"What are you doing, Daniel?" Shinji asked, slumped back in his seat and sounding utterly spent.

"Like I said, I'm trying to keep you from making a mistake that I've made far too many times in far too many places."

"How? How could you end the world anywhere but here?"

Daniel sighed quietly. "It has to do with that godhood that I got. Like I said, godhood was given to the unworthy. Myself included."

Shinji's head leaned forward. "You?" he said somewhat incredulously.

Daniel nodded. "Yes. Me. And… I'm sorry. I let that power that I got get to my head. I almost lost myself again. It almost cost me…"

Daniel trailed off before shaking his head. "What it almost cost me doesn't matter at the moment. What matters is that I know what you're about to do, and I want to help you. Because you're the only one who can stop this now."

Shinji's brow furled slightly. "Daniel, I'm not a child anymore, even if I look like one. Don't patronize me. What can you really know about-"

Daniel cut him off by connecting to his soul and showing him. Showing Shinji every moment where his power got to his head, every mistake that he'd made with such power save for one, and the price he'd paid in blood and bodies and burned relationships. Nearly every world that now sat silent, all because of him.

Daniel was silent as he watched a tear slide down Shinji's face. "I know," he said quietly, damning himself for being able to say those words so truthfully.

"But I also know that I have the power to help you end this. But I shouldn't force this on you. I can't do that and face you or myself. So this needs to be your choice."

Daniel paused. "So… choose. Whatever choice you make… I think he'll be proud of you."

Daniel waited with bated breath as Shinji decided, the boy's eyes closing and another tear sliding down his face before he took a deep breath.

And Daniel saw the Spear in Unit-13's right hands begin to shudder slightly.

Shinji's brow creased ever deeper as he focused, the Spear shaking more and more. "I… I can't do this," he said quietly after long moments more of struggling, a sob escaping with the last word.

"Then lean on me for a little while, Shinji. I'm here to stand beside you until you can stand on your own. I promise."

Daniel felt Shinji's soul reach out to his own. And as he lent the boy his power, the Spear of Longinus began to wind its tines up again, the arms slowly moving to place the end of the Spear over Unit-13's chest.

. . .

Asuka Shikinami-Langley peeked the head of Unit-02 over the edge of the cliff that she'd scaled to observe the downright lunar landscape she found herself in, Unit-08 to her left and the 4 Evangelions of Unit=01, Unit=02, Unit=05 and Unit=06 to her right and Mari's left.

"Well, well," Mari said as she took in the sights that surrounded them, "looks like we get to deal with quite the mess, don't we?"

Asuka nodded as she looked up at the Wunder, smoking as a dot that must have been the Mark.09 landed on it, a flash of light following after. "I'll get that Mark.09 off of the ship. Specs, go help Daniel if he needs it. I'm sure he'll appreciate the backup."

"Can do and all that, Princess," Mari replied, Unit-08 giving her a thumbs up, "But are you really going to fly into all that? You haven't done it as much as I have."

"Which is all of once," Shikinami interjected.

"And with that thing probably on the lookout, who knows how it might try and get you on approach?" Mari finished.

"Well," Shikinami said with a roll of her eyes, "you got any better ideas, then?"

"Well," Shinji Ikari-Soryu piped up, "we could just launch you, let your AT Field act as a sort of jetpack to get to the Mark without wasting much time."

Shikinami looked over at Unit=01, so achingly familiar, with a wide eye. "You've got to be kidding. Is that the sort of stunts you guys usually pull?"

"Trust me." Asuka Ikari-Soryu said, her voice filled with confidence. "If we're as similar as I think we are, then we both know we're smart enough to make the calculations we need. If you won't back down from this, of course."

Shikinami scoffed. "Please. As if I'd back down from stopping the end of the world."

"Alright," Ikari-Soryu replied. "We'll give you a nice big jump, then scramble off to try and secure the area." she paused for a moment. "Eleanor's up there already. So you'll have her. Ready?"

Shikinami nodded. "Ready. Go!"

With that, she hoisted herself over the edge, the others following her in short order as Mari broke off, going towards the edge near where Unit-13 and Unit=00 hung in the air. Where Mari went, however, passed out of sight in moments as she charged towards the ship that would be passing over them. "Tell me when!" she shouted to her counterpart.

It was silent for a few moments, then she felt an AT Field, several layered AT Fields, in fact, spring up underneath her. "Now!"

Shikinami paused, crouching as the AT Field 'pad' under her rocketed up, pressing her back in her seat with the g-forces. At what she felt would be the stopping point of the pad, she jumped, using her own AT Field to augment her leap as she crested over the height of the Wunder, catching full view of what was occurring below as she dove for the Mark, tendrils almost like tentacles of luminous blue goo cascading down its back and towards the engineering core of the ship.

The brilliant form of Unit=10 responded with tentacles of its own, massive arcing whips of deep water, almost black against the ruddy sky, lashed out towards the Mark.09, slamming into and starting to worm through thick, flickering AT Fields that the Mark threw in front of it as a disk of similarly dark water shielded Eleanor from a blast from the Eva she stood against.

Unit=02 landed on the deck beside Unit=10, leaning to the side as another blast flashed past them. "And here I thought you'd have this done already." Asuka snarked at Eleanor as a comm channel opened between them.

"Normally, I think I would." Eleanor's voice was level, almost but not quite hard, as she drew back the tentacles before whipping them past the Mark.09, trying to spear it from behind. All the same, three AT Fields stopped three tentacles mere inches from their mark. "But this thing isn't just using its own AT Field. It's drawing from the ship's as well. If you can crack both of them, I can do something about this."

Asuka studied their opponent for a moment, seemingly untouchable as it continued to worm its way into the ship. Its AT Fields flashed again and again, and Asuka could see an opening for her to slip into. But only for the briefest of moments before they seemed to come back even stronger, a blast arcing back towards them in reprisal.

Asuka pondered for a moment as she dodged another attack that exploded in the air behind her, then remembered something that Mari had told her about the battle with the 10th Angel. A bestial form that had taken over the Eva with little warning, one that she had somehow barely been able to control. 'That was you wasn't it, Bardiel?'

The mere mention of the name brought the darkness within her into anxious life, wordless whispers urging her to… connect.

Asuka blinked, then focused on her connection with Unit-02. There was… something there. Something that felt… familiar.

"Eleanor!" Asuka said as she reached out mentally to that shadow within her Eva's core. "Keep this thing busy. I'll…"

She felt a stabbing sensation, a few steps removed from pain, lance into her head and leave her breathless for a moment as the connection between the portions of darkness that were a part of her solidified, the transformation that she'd seen only from far off camera feeds beginning. "I'll take care of ripping it off the ship." she bit out.

She felt the stretching of bones and muscle and skin through the sympathetic connection to her Eva, the remaining shoulder pylon, and several pieces of armor snapping off in the process. But within her mind, she felt a presence in its totality that she'd wished to never experience again. Peals of malicious laughter seemed to echo through the Plug just like they had all those years ago.

"No, dammit!" she shouted into the void that once again encompassed her. "I'm the pilot here, this is my Eva, and you're going to listen to me!"

The darkness within her, Bardiel, seemed somewhat bemused even as it continued to leave her in relative silence. After a moment, Asuka shook her head, feeling her Eva get down on all fours. "You want something to break? There it is, right in front of us! So we're going to break it!"

With that, pilot and shade seemed to come to an agreement, and the wild, beastly form of Unit-02 leaped forward, Asuka only barely noting Eleanor using the tentacles of water she produced to tear the fields in front of the Mark.09 out of the way before Unit-02 landed on the front of its prey, the force of the impact sending the Eva stumbling back a few steps as the beast that had been unshackled bit and clawed as best it could, the mechanical arm resigned to being used to simply pummel at the Mark.

The Mark fired another blast, Unit-02 snaking out of the way onto its back as Unit=10 caught the mass of baleful energy in a lash of water, tossing it to the side as it exploded, casting the two entangled Evangelions in a harsh light as Unit-02 bit down into the Mark.09's neck and began to tear, the head of the Eva twisting in an almost impossible fashion.

Finally, the head tore free with a spray of LCL, dangling from the neck by a strip of flesh as Unit-02 raised its mechanical arm to plunge it in and crush the core within. As the arm began its descent, however, one last blast tore away from the eyes of the Mark, ripping through the mechanical arm and tearing it away and into the air, exploding dramatically.

Asuka clenched her jaw against the pain, running nearly on instinct as the darker side of herself whispered a solution. Before she could begin, however, she found her train of thought interrupted by a rather unlikely voice.

"Rei Ayanami, what would you do here?"

The words of the Ayanami unit piloting her foe surprised her for the briefest of moments before she growled in annoyance. "How the hell should we know? You're not her! Do what you want!" she replied almost without thinking.

The metal around Unit-02's shoulder was torn away by an AT Field flashing into existence, warping and folding in an instant into a glowing, shimmering arm that now mirrored its biological sister, poised once again to strike down into the neck.

Once again, though, the attack was interrupted by the flash and bang of the armor on the back of the neck blowing off, an escaping Entry Plug rocketing away from the Wunder and out of her sight in moments. The sight of an empty Entry Plug slot presented Unit-02 with a far more tantalizing target. 'Now the core's open!'

Finally, the prismatic arm plunged into the open slot, Asuka neither knowing nor caring whether she or her darker self sent a pulse of energy through it to crack the core, the Mark slumping over and going to its knees.

Before it could fall, however, Asuka's eye went wide as she saw the Mark glow an eerie red, its head seeming to slide back into place as it stood and reached back for Unit-02, a new mouth gaping wide with sharp teeth that reached over towards her, clamping onto the Eva's neck and causing Asuka to shout in pain.

As Unit-02 moved to extricate itself from the Mark.09's back, Asuka felt her heart sing in a fleeting fear as she felt the press of AT Fields binding her Eva to the Mark's back, pinning its arms and back to lock it in place. The restraints were thick, surely taken from the AT Field of the ship as well.

'I can't kill this thing, though!' she thought, her continued struggling growing quicker as the darker side of her began to panic as well. 'This whole damn thing's a core, too!'

She needed to escape, to kill this thing and stop it from taking over the ship. But there wasn't any way to do that all at once. Except…

"Eleanor!" she said into the comm link that she returned her focus to. "When I give the signal, put an AT Field up around this thing! Try not to damage too much of the ship, alright?"

Eleanor, seeming to already know what she planned to do, nodded. "Whenever you're ready."

Asuka took a deep breath, the darker part of her rebelling at such an idea as she steeled herself to act on her own will anyways. "Alright. Sorry, Unit-02!"

With that, she pulled the self-destruct switch, Unit-02's back armor panels blowing out as her Entry Plug launched into the sky, a few moments of backup power allowing her to see through the Plug's sole camera feed what came next.

As expected, the rapidly diminishing sight of the two Evas began to glow as her S2 Engine overloaded, a flash of prismatic light stifling the brilliant flash that came seconds after only by a little as both Evangelions lit up the dark and crowded sky for the briefest of moments.

With the last seconds of camera life, she looked over at Unit-13, hanging in the air, Daniel's Eva hanging with it, before the screen went black.

'You guys better get this right.' she asked rather… tiredly. When did she get this exhausted? Was it because of the connection being cut from both her and the darker part of herself?

She didn't have the time to think about the possibilities, or the full meaning behind her words, before she lost vision, then thought, slipping into unconsciousness.

. . .

Daniel clenched his jaw in sympathetic pain as he guided the Spear of Longinus into Unit-13's chest, hearing Shini shout out before he reached out for the other Spear, gripping it and gently, firmly, placing it into the space where a person's heart would be. Again, Shinji shouted, but the eyes of Unit-13, once bulging orbs, settled back into the twin, eye-like visors.

The pain again passed after a moment but no less quietly as Daniel, holding Unit-13 aloft for the moment, looked up past the flickering flashes of purple, nearly white light to take the Doors of Guf, framing the mysterious object above them, and draw them shut, the curtains of another world, or another layer of this one, shut.

But the Doors resisted closing, Daniel's brow furrowing in concentration as he drew upon his strength, then Shinji and Nynrya's as well. Even still, the Doors remained open, drawing the Black Moon ever closer. Then, as his vision finished tunneling, his eyes went wide as he felt his control over their levitation slip, the pair now falling, tumbling through the air, as he continued to try at closing the Doors to seemingly no avail.

'Wait!' Daniel realized, berating himself for a moment as he remembered what he should have well before this moment. 'Shinji's still in the Eva!'

Before he could begin to formulate a plan to try and pull Shinji out, they turned in the air to put Unit-13's back to the sky. And Daniel saw a pink and white form launch itself into the air, Unit-08 slamming into Unit-13's back as Daniel opened up a comm link to Mari.

"Get clear!" he said as Mari's face, a determined look in her eyes, appeared. "I'll take care of this so you can return to the Wunder."

"No!" Mari nearly shouted in reply. "I'm not leaving my friend's son in the lurch. You've probably got a lot to focus on, anyways."

She paused for a moment as Unit-08 shifted on Unit-13's back, the place where it held on to the Eva's skin beginning to burn a bright crimson as it seemed to crawl up its arm. "Put me through to him! When I get him out of here, you better keep him safe. Both him and the Princess. For Yui and me."

Daniel regarded Mari Makinami for a moment before nodding. "For the both of you," he said the moment before he opened a channel between Shinji and Mari.

"Shinji!" Mari said. "Looks like everything's about to wrap up! When you're free, snap out of this funk and save the Princess! Don't forget to save yourself while you're at it!"

Shinji barely nodded before slipping into unconsciousness, Daniel covering the boy from feeling when Unit-08 punched through its skin, pulling a hidden lever and sending Shinji's Entry Plug flying away.

Unit-13, now bereft of its last remaining pilot, finally shut down, its eyes going dark as it faded back to its original color. Daniel pulled again on the Doors of Guf, and they began to slip closed at the barest thought, Daniel releasing his grip as the Doors closed themselves.

"Well," Mari said as Daniel lifted away from Unit-13, going in the same direction that Shinji's plug had gone, "I hope I'll see you around. I'm headed back to the fleet."

"See you around, Mari," Daniel replied as he watched Unit-08 maneuver and kick off from Unit-13, sending it crashing into a floating piece of the city over the tilting Black Moon, or at least the vessel which bore the name, before crashing herself into a tilted high-rise, sending up plumes of dust.

The connection to Mari cut off as he looked up and watched the Doors of Guf close fully, the center of the Doors a swirling retraction of the colors that made up the inner circles disappearing before the crimson outer ring began to vanish as well, all things that were held in the air by its pull beginning to fall around Unit=00.

Daniel shifted anything falling toward him out of the way as he turned his focus to watch the Black Moon, now fully extracted from the Geofront and from beneath Tokyo-3, land behind one of the tall mountains that had been part of its natural defenses, the impact shaking thousands upon thousands of Failures of Infinity free as the sky finally became blue again.

Finally… it was over. He turned Unit-00 over to face the ground where Shinji would land, glancing over to see four other radar signatures, displayed on his viewscreen, heading towards the ground as well. 'I'm coming, Shinji. Just wait there for me.'

. . .

Within the depths of the Black Moon, Fuyutsuki looked down on a display that showed the extent of what had occurred. "I can't help but wonder if SEELE was able to account for all of this," he said with a weary sigh.

"Regardless," Ikari replied, sitting at a chair and desk that Fuyutsuki had his back turned to, "the Gates of Imagination are almost ready to be opened. The final seal bars the door only tenuously. We have progressed beyond the bounds of the Scenario laid out in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Now, we rely on the last vault of the creators and must craft our own Scenario, however hastily. And it must be completed."

Fuyutsuki said nothing. All he did in reply was grasp the crystal in his pocket, the information that was held within seemingly coming to his remembrance as if from a far-off memory. The person he wished to speak to seemed equally distant. 'Something will be completed, Ikari. Something.'

. . .

Ryoji examined the bridge proper as he looked at a tablet loaned from the kind, but rather uptight Ms. Tennison, looking at the view of the recovered Unit-02 and Unit-08 as they stood within a ship that was now, once again, fully under their control.

Recovered was almost too strong a word for the sorry state of Unit-02, a bestial head, chest, and spine all that seemed to remain. Unit-08 was at least in better shape, its arms only needing to be bound for the moment in specially prepared LCL-soaked bandages.

"I don't know how we're going to get Unit-02 back on its feet." he finally said after a moment. "Especially when it doesn't have any."

"There's a munitions depot in Paris," Ritsuko replied as Ryoji handed the tablet back to Tennison. "There, we can salvage NERV's work on an old Japanese answer to the Evangelion in order to make something of an exoskeleton. Jet Alone, I believe it was called."

"Even then, without Asuka, we have… what, one wrapped-up Evangelion to fend off whatever comes next?"

"Not exactly." Tennison piped up. "We've got Eleanor's Unit=10 onboard."

"Unit=10?" Ryoji asked.

Tennison nodded. "On the top hull, she helped Unit-02 dislodge the Mark.09 from the hull, clearing up the ship's systems."

"And this Ms. Eleanor is…"

"Daniel's wife, sir."

Ryoji found himself pleasantly surprised as he arched his brow. "Really? I'll have to meet her then if she's married to such an interesting guy."

He turned to look at Misato, but all he caught was a glimpse of her walking through the door off the bridge, seeming to shuffle as the door shut behind her.

He still didn't know what to say to her, Daniel's vote of confidence notwithstanding. She seemed… utterly lost right now. What was the right thing to say? What could he ask? Where was his son?

"I…" he heard Ritsuko trail off, clearing her throat as he looked back at her. "I don't think any of us were expecting you to still be alive. Sir."

Ryoji shook his head. "No, I was dead. You got that one right." he paused for a moment. "But Commander Nagisa brought me back. Swore me to secrecy so that his cover, and mine, wouldn't be blown to Commander Ikari."

Ryoji looked back at the door and sighed quietly. "I… I don't even know what happened to our son. If he's okay or not."

"He…"

Ryoji looked back at Ritsuko, who looked down and to the side. "He is, Ryoji. I promise," she said quietly.

Somehow, the words made him even more fearful.

. . .

Daniel set Unit=00 down beside the Entry Plug lodged into the earth, waiting patiently as the Synthetic LCL that the Frame Titan melted into began to make its way back into the reservoirs. A slow process, but he had arrived equally slowly, so as not to risk crushing Shinji's Plug in his search for the boy.

Now, he knew what he would find, approximately. The details didn't really matter to him as he felt his Frame Plug settle onto the ground. All that mattered was that Shinji would need someone there to help him.

He checked the atmosphere that surrounded him with a quick scan of the rudimentary onboard sensors. No dangerous Pneumaic interference, at least. It would be safe to walk around. Even still, there was enough residual interference from the ending of Fourth Impact still in the region to make any sort of transport or real-time tracking all but impossible.

Daniel lifted the console from himself with a sigh, making his way to the ladder out as he patted a hip where a pocket should be. A pocket that contained the soul of one Kaworu Nagisa. It had worked, as expected. What would come next… well, that would have to be managed when they got to it.

Daniel climbed out into the wider world, taking a moment to stand on his Plug and survey the vast, red desert that greeted him as he felt the last of his Vent Frames disappear, and the brand upon his head finally vanish. The Corite around here seemed to be almost powdered, sand-like, whether from recent events or the passage of time, he could not be fully sure.

It didn't really matter to him as he floated down from the Plug, the vehicle returning to the pocket dimension it was stored in. Those were quandaries that the Akagis would be more interested in puzzling out. For now, he simply made his way to the Plug, floating up onto the top where the main door was.

Crouching and looking down at the Plug, finding the emergency door ejector was a trivial task. He still leaned away as he felt the blast of the ejector charges send the sealed door flying into the air, wincing from the report of the explosion.

Looking down into the Plug itself, he found it empty of LCL, the piloting station resting on the floor of the Plug. And a few meters away from the seat, Daniel saw Shinji, curled up and seemingly uncaring of the clamor that had just happened.

Daniel stepped in, landing on the piloting station before pausing a meter or so away from Shinji. To speak at the moment felt… inadequate. Thus, he bypassed mere words, connecting to Shinji's soul.

There he found what would have been an overwhelming grief and sorrow for anyone who had not felt such emotions as Daniel had, proving more than enough to leave Shinji spiraling into a darkness made up of two simple words. 'I'm useless.'

Daniel found the sentiment familiar as he made his presence known, accepting the muted shock that Shinji felt as he walked over and sat next to Shinji, hugging him tightly as he felt the still somewhat stifled sobbing. 'It's going to be okay, Shinji. I promise.'

Even still, as much as he meant it, the sentiment felt hollow at the moment. So, on a whim, Daniel quietly began to hum, a tune with a name well suited to what had just transpired echoing slightly from the walls of the Plug. The tune calmed him. He was surprised at how much it seemed to calm Shinji as well.

He neither knew nor cared how long they sat there mourning, or how long ago the tune of Thanatos went silent, but they both heard someone clamber onto the Plug walking up to the edge and pausing. Daniel looked up and saw Asuka Shikinami standing there, hands on hips, looking down at them with a level expression.

"You know," she said after a moment's consideration, "it isn't usually the princess's job to come and rescue the prince. Especially when their mentor already seems to have gotten to it."

Daniel smiled slightly as he felt Shinji finally stir. "Well, I just figured I'd help, is all. After all, it's what I'm here to do."

Asuka sighed quietly as she hopped into the Plug as well. "At least you managed to stop Shinji."

"We stopped Fourth Impact together. It was never going to happen without Shinji choosing it."

Asuka looked at Shinji for a moment, and Daniel could almost see something flickering behind her eye. Whether it was positive or not, he didn't really care to fully find out at the moment. Finally, she nodded as she turned back and clambered up the console. "Get idiot Shinji out. I'll go find this thing's survival pack."

As Asuka exited the Plug, Daniel heard Shinji sigh quietly. "She's right," he whispered. "I'm an idiot."

"Even the wisest of us can be taken advantage of from time to time, Shinji," Daniel said quietly as he stood, gently taking Shinji's arm. "That doesn't make you an idiot. It makes you imperfect. Something all of us are."

It took a moment, but Shinji finally got to his feet, Daniel helping him up and out of the Plug and onto the ground as Asuka tossed a pack retrieved from an outside storage panel to him.

Shinji, somewhat surprisingly, managed to catch it, looking down at it and not noticing as Asuka approached. "Well," Asuka said as she came to a stop in front of him, "congratulations on not ending the world, I guess," she said, the words carrying with them a hint of sarcasm.

"No," Shinji said. "I… I killed him. When I let him take that Choker. I should be the one who's dead. Not him. Not Kaworu."

Daniel saw Asuka's eye widen out of the corner of his eye as he stepped between them, putting his hands on Shinji's shoulders. "Shinji, he made his choice. None of us can take that away from him. Now, we have to live with that choice."

Shinji nodded slightly as Daniel pondered for a moment, then reached towards his hip. His hand disappeared through the Plugsuit, digging through a pocket underneath before he extracted a familiar marble from his pocket, holding it up in his palm to show Shinji. "However, Shinji… he gets to understand what that means for you as well."

Shinji looked down at the deep crimson marble for a moment, his brow furrowing. "What do you mean?"

"His soul's in here, Shinji. I made sure to catch it in the moment after his death."

Shinji's eyes went wide as Daniel continued, chuckling slightly. "Because I knew he was going to do something this stupid."

Before he could continue, he noticed something on the edge of his vision and looked over to see the Ayanami unit, wearing her own survival pack, walking calmly towards them. In the distance behind her, cresting a hill, four more figures began to approach.

Daniel knew who they were, and reached out to connect to his four Children. "Stay back for a moment, guys. We'll be over there shortly."

The four figures paused at the top of the hill, and Daniel knew that they would be watching closely.

Ayanami stopped in front of them, and Asuka turned to regard her. "So, another one of the Ayanami batch. Are you like I remember Rei being?"

Ayanami remained silent, and Asuka shrugged after a moment, turning away. "It figures it had something to do with NERV…" she muttered as she unzipped the pack on Shinji's back, pulling out a strange digital scanner with a compass at its top.

Asuka studied the scanner intently as she walked around for a moment, then clambered back onto the Plug, standing at the highest point she could. "There's too much interference here for us to be found by the Wunder. We'll need to make our way over to some patch of Lilin civilization."

Asuka sighed as she made her way off the Plug. "That's… a ways away."

Daniel nodded. "Maybe so. But we've got a map and a way to human civilization. We'll make it, I'm sure."

He put the slightest stress on the word human, and Asuka's eye narrowed, then widened slightly. "Alright," she said as she walked past Daniel, grabbing Shinji's arm and pulling him forward. "Come on. Let's not waste any more time."

Daniel watched for a moment, then looked back at Ayanami. "We'll meet the other four at the top of the hill. Let's not fall behind."

Ayanami nodded, and the two of them caught up soon enough, beginning to walk up the hill where the four figures waited. "I have your book still, by the way," Daniel said as he looked back at Rei. "Perhaps we'll read it when we get to where we're going."

Asuka and Shinji looked back at Daniel and Ayanami. "Wait a minute," Asuka said. "You read?"

"Rei Ayanami appears to have read this particular book," Ayanami replied. "Shinji Ikari retrieved it for me."

Asuka looked over at Shinji, who glanced at her for a second before looking away. "Only you could think giving someone something like a book would help things."

Only Daniel caught the softening in Asuka's eye.

"Who's waiting for us?" Shinji said, pointing to the top of the hill.

"Some friends of mine," Daniel replied. "They decided to tag along, however much I might protest. Seeing them… well, it'll help me begin to explain some things. Like how I knew Kaworu would do something like that."

He felt Shinji's confusion dawn into wide-eyed shock as he stumbled to a stop in front of the four, his gaze sweeping over familiar faces before locking onto one that he'd never expected to see again, dressed like the other in a strange, armored Plugsuit that likely reflected the Evangelions that he piloted. "Kaworu… how…"

Kaworu Nagisa, the Sixth Child, sighed quietly. "I am not your world's Kaworu Nagisa. Just as these are not your world's Asuka, Rei, and… yourself."

The young Shinji began to tremble slightly as Kaworu continued. "We come from another world, one much like this once was, to save it from those that would threaten all worlds like ours. We have Daniel to thank for such a duty."

Shinji and Asuka Shikinami looked back at Daniel, who nodded wearily. "We have a lot of time to start explaining. It's a long trip to Village-3, after all."

"To begin with, though, Shinji… yes. Reality is a lot bigger than you may have first realized."

Daniel walked past everyone, pausing as he turned to face them. "Come on. We'll walk and talk."