Chapter 22: Paths Yet Untraveled

And… it was done. With all that sound and fury, with Shinji nearly ending things again, and… I almost expected it. The fact that we were all still alive and kicking afterward was almost more surprising.

I can't help but start wondering what life here is going to be like here again. I've had… well, expectations, daydreams really, but unsurprisingly I've had to throw them all away all the same.

Misato… I'm going to be there for Misato this time. I won't waste the second chance that Commander Nagisa gave me.

- From the personal journal of Commander Ryoji Kaji of WILLE

On The Road to Village-3, March 20th, 2028

Young Shinji Ikari couldn't help but look over at the man who looked so much like Kaworu Nagisa. Who was, by all accounts, Kaworu himself. Just… a universe removed, along with being a little taller, a little older, and more… defined than the thin, almost frail boy he'd begun to call a friend. At least, if Daniel, the other versions of them, and this Kaworu were to be believed.

"So…" young Shinji began, his heart still aching as Kaworu turned to look at him. "How long have you been here?"

"About 5 months." Kaworu, the older Kaworu, replied. "It's been… a period of adjustment. Our world, even as bad as it got at times, was not as… well, impacted by Second Impact as this one."

"Second Impact?" the number threw young Shinji for a loop for a moment. "You mean that the world didn't get hit hard by that?"

"Well, it's not as simple as that."

Young Shinji's focus shifted to the young man who slowed down to join his side, the man he'd known as Shawn Ishihara. Now, a full beard covering much of the lower half of his face and a height that had begun to inch out over Daniel's couldn't fully hide the fact that he was Shinji Ikari, a look into a future he couldn't imagine at this moment.

"We still had a pretty terrible Second Impact. It was almost always summer like it was here, it still took half of the planet's population. But… It didn't turn all of the seas red. We didn't need to filter LCL out of the seas in order to get fish to return to them. It was all still just… blue."

Young Shinji looked out past the group, over the dead crimson landscape which they crossed alone, out toward the sea which they were still fairly close to. To imagine it all being like that time in Borneo, no need for ACC Pillars in the distance to keep the LCL from leaking in, no leaking period, a vast expanse of deepest blue… it felt almost dream-like.

"I'm not sure I could imagine that much blue." he nearly whispered.

The older Shinji chuckled softly. "I wasn't sure I'd ever experience winter myself. Then, well, Daniel and the League came along and helped set the planet right."

Young Shinji's brow furrowed slightly. He'd heard of winter, what it was supposed to look and feel like. The description of it had stuck with him, in a place and world where it never seemed to become colder than maybe 15 degrees Celsius. "How did setting the planet right help this place have a winter?"

He looked up at the older Shinji, and saw a look into the middle distance, a gleam of… nostalgia in his eyes. "Do you remember the old sensei who wouldn't stop going on about the history of the world after Second Impact?"

Again, young Shinji searched his memory, trying to find a glimpse of what his older double was talking about. The world before all this, the school building that wasn't covered in vines and broken down, seemed also like a dream now, the images that went with those times hazy around the edges and incomplete, seemingly riddled with holes.

Finally, after what seemed like ages lost in thought, a classroom that was more than likely now gone came into focus, a man with a head of silver, almost white hair, and more wrinkles than any man should have seemed to be able to get. "I… think I remember, yes."

The older Shinji nodded. "One of the lessons he taught us, he took from the geology teacher. The axis of the Earth shifted with Second Impact. The world itself moved from the force of it. Shifting it back made it so that I experienced winter for the first time in my life."

The older Shinji looked back to his younger self. "When we're done… maybe you can also experience winter too. It's… magical."

Young Shinji nodded as he took stock for a moment of the company that he now kept. They had stretched out into a short column, walking in the middle of the red-dusted road with the mountains to their left, and the sea on the horizon to their right. Behind him, Daniel took up the rear, Ayanami and an older Rei, the wife of this Kaworu, ahead of the man.

Ahead of them, Asuka Shikinami and Asuka Ikari-Soryu (a concept he'd given up on trying to wrap his head around for the moment, alongside Daniel not being from the same world as these other versions of them) also walked side by side, Shikinami leading the way with her compass… thing. He wondered for a moment what they might be talking about.

. . .

Asuka Shikinami-Langley kept her focus squarely on the scanner and the road ahead of her trying not to look at the woman that was beside her. It was… difficult. A part of her chafed at the fact that an example of what she might look like if she hadn't been burdened with the Curse of the Eva was right there, within arm's reach, and more likely than not… she might never experience that sort of thing.

It was a small part of her now, one that she'd grown adept at tamping down even as she still wondered somewhat where it came from. She also, far more recently, held herself back from asking how, exactly, she knew the name Soryu well before this point.

Finally, she could restrain herself no longer, glancing up at Asuka Ikari-Soryu. The woman looked back at her, seeming as if she expected some sort of question.

There was at least one that she figured getting answered now would save her the trouble of agonizing over later. "So, Ikari-Soryu."

She put the slightest emphasis on Ikari. "You married the idiot. Why?"

Ikari-Soryu was silent for a moment. "First off, you're wrong." she began.

As Shikinami fully looked over, a confused gleam in her eye, Ikari-Soryu continued. "He's quiet, thoughtful, a bleeding heart to a fault sometimes, and at times far too meek and willing to let someone else take charge for his own good, especially in this line of work, but he's not often an idiot."

Shikinami considered the statement for a moment, looking back at Shinji, both of them, as they talked with the guy they called Kaworu. A part of her still shuddered at watching this world's version of Kaworu die in such spectacular fashion, the Choker around her neck seeming a little tighter after the fact.

Even still, their Shinji didn't seem like… any of those things right now. He was dejected. Defeated. His shoulders slumped and he dragged his feet, the other Shinji next to him almost too much of a contrast to him to even be the same person.

As she looked back at Ikari-Soryu, she caught Daniel from the corner of her eye… talking to his hand? Something for later, she decided as she focused on her double. "How, then? How did he get the guts to actually try… anything?"

"Well…" Ikari-Soryu chuckled. "He caught me at just the right time. Right when I wouldn't have kicked the shit out of him, and right after he'd gotten some encouragement from Daniel. That's how it began. Then we just… talked. That's how we realized how alike we really were. Lonely. Afraid, to some degree or another. Wanting to make the people we looked up to proud."

Shikinami shook her head as they began to approach a town, the place in ruins as they began to pass by one of the Failures of Infinity, on its back and having likely crushed several houses. "You two might be alike. But not idiot Shinji and I. There's too much difference. Just talking wouldn't go anywhere."

"I thought the same thing for a while before we started, too. But you'd be surprised." Ikari-Soryu paused before chuckling softly, almost ruefully. "Before now, I'd have said that the two of you were making decent progress, based on what little I saw in Borneo and Burbank. Then…" she sighed quietly. "Shinji's bleeding heart got the better of him, and he went to go and bravely save the world."

Shikinami scoffed. "Bravely. As if. He just wanted to be a martyr. That doesn't make him brave. It makes him stupid. What's the point of changing the world if you…"

Words she had said that felt like they'd been spoken ages ago seemed to float up out of the depths of her mind to needle at her. "I was planning on dying when we won anyway."

She didn't mean those words anymore. She wasn't fully sure if she'd meant them then, even. Why? What had changed? It wasn't her making a conscious effort to try, she was sure of that much.

She began to feel, more and more, that the answer to such questions wasn't within her. Rather, it was behind her. He was behind her.

"Asuka?" Ikari-Soryu asked, causing her to jump slightly. "What's up?"

"Nothing. I'm just…" Shikinami began, fighting the urge to look behind her again. "Reconsidering things."

This line of conversation was getting uncomfortable for her quite quickly. So, she decided to take a new direction. "So, you are an Ikari-Soryu. What were you before then?"

Ikari-Soryu sighed quietly. "Soryu-Langley, unsurprisingly."

Shikinami nodded, the last name stirring a brief memory from ages ago. "Got it. So your clone batch was Soryu instead of Shikinami."

Ikari-Soryu shook her head. "No. Soryu is part of my mother's last name."

The words took a few seconds to register for Shikinami, but as they did, her eye went wide for a moment. 'A mother…'

She was shocked into silence for a moment. Finally, she mustered up the courage to ask her question, the words quiet and, were it any other person, almost timid. "What's she like?"

"Well…" Ikari-Soryu was silent for a moment, and Shikinami wondered if the look she saw in her… well, what could reasonably be called her sister's eyes was what it looked like to love a mother. "She's smart. Sassy. Kind. A little sad about how things went down when I was a kid, and trying her best to make up for it. All that and… so much more."

"She…" Shikinami struggled to find the words. "She sounds like a nice person."

Ikari-Soryu, Asuka, looked over with a slight smile. "Maybe you'll get to meet her sometime once we've taken care of everything here. I think she'd like to meet you too."

Shikinami nodded, looking ahead and wondering for a moment whether the egg donor that made the basis of the Shikinami program would have ever felt the same.

"So wait," she said after a moment more of consideration, "if Soryu's part of your mom's name, where did Langley come from then?"

Ikari-Soryu sighed again, a far more weary thing. "That was dad's last name. For all the good having it did for me," she said the title of the man who'd made her with disgust that hadn't diminished with the years.

It caught Shikinami somewhat by surprise. "That bad, huh?"

"You don't even know the half of it. And it doesn't matter anyway. I barely think of him as a father anymore. The closest thing I got to a dad was Daniel when he came into my life at 12."

Shikinami quirked her brow. "He's been around for that long?"

Ikari-Soryu nodded as she glanced back at the man in question. "Yep. He's basically everyone's dad at this point. I think Rei basically adopted him and Eleanor, with how she still calls them father and mother."

Shikinami looked back at Rei, making sure to look past Shinji Ikari so as to not start that whole train of feelings at the moment.

Rei Nagisa, her pale blue hair down to her shoulders, seemed more alive to her than any version of Rei could be. Even the Rei Ayanami that she knew from here was less… alive, one could say, as Nagisa looked around, her smile far broader than even the widest one she'd seen on Rei. Was that what having parents did to someone?

"Must be nice," she said quietly.

. . .

Rei Nagisa walked alongside the Ayanami unit, both staring ahead at their companions as Daniel walked behind, speaking quietly with someone through the communicator built into his Plugsuit.

They took the journey in silence, and were, at least in one case, perfectly fine with continuing to do so. Both found the silence to be, as rare as it was for one, a rather calming experience, allowing them to focus on the sights that surrounded them, the elder Rei focussing for the moment on a collection of various cars and trucks that still floated in the air, even well after the termination of what was now the Fourth Impact to smite this world.

But for Rei Nagisa, a question, though not urgently in need of answering, tickled the back of her mind regardless. One that had to do with something that she'd caught Daniel saying to her somewhat shorter clone before they'd officially met to begin this excursion to what was most likely Village-3.

Finally, it seemed as though she could bear the silence between them being broken at least for a few moments as she looked over at the Ayanami unit. "Ayanami?"

Ayanami looked over at Rei, the girl's eyes taking a moment to fully focus on her. "You are… familiar."

The comment, while somewhat out of order for what she considered asking, was one that Rei was expecting. "That does not surprise me. We are of the Ayanami line, after all."

"I have not met you before. Yet you are… remembered. I am unsure how."

Rei looked away for a moment, cupping her chin in thought. "Perhaps… it is our connection through Lilith. Though with Lilith's death, such a connection would likely be tenuous at best."

"You seem acquainted with such a connection."

Rei nodded. "Indeed. It was how the second Rei Ayanami of this world ascertained the reality of my identity."

Ayanami nodded. "She exists as well." Rei found it a question wrapped in a statement.

"Yes. Far away aboard the ship we used to come here. I hope… I hope she is safe."

"What is hope?" Ayanami asked. "Shinji Ikari spoke of it in passing. I have yet to understand what it is."

Rei pondered the question for a moment, deep sorrow for the girl beside her, far more sheltered even than she was, beginning to well up within her. "Hope is… a belief in the future. That it may produce a desirable outcome given the proper preparation and actions."

Ayanami's brow furled ever so slightly. "Hope is… strange." Ayanami finally settled on.

Rei took a quiet breath. "I understand. It was once equally mysterious to myself as well. I hope that, with our intervention and your willingness to learn that it, along with much else in this life, could perhaps become more clear to you."

Rei smiled slightly. "One could interpret such a statement as an example of hope."

Ayanami slowly nodded. "I see," she said quietly.

It was silent again for the moment, Rei content to let her question wait a little while longer to allow Ayanami to digest what they had conversed about. The walk passed on as they went off the main roads again, the red water of the sea forcing them to turn towards the mountains as they began to trace the edge of the somewhat small bay that filled this part of Japan.

Rei had never walked this path before, familiar as she was sure the sight of it would be from above. She'd only ever flown over it toward other destinations such as Tokyo-2 or Matsushiro. Touring it, if what they were doing could be called that, even in this state, was… enlightening to her.

Enough time had passed, she felt after several more minutes of silence, until she could ask her intended question. "Daniel mentioned that you'd had a book that he retrieved. I did not know that Commander Ikari would allow such a thing."

"He was unaware of the book until Daniel Theisman's visit when he read from the first passages. As I told Daniel Theisman, Shinji retrieved it for me because it was a book Rei Ayanami would read."

"And what book is that?"

"Daniel Theisman called it The Iliad and the Odyssey."

Rei nodded slightly. It was a book that was familiar to her. She hadn't read it in quite some time, but the themes, the emotions of it, or at least the description of such emotions, had reached her even in the depth of her medicinal stupor.

"I see," she replied. "That is… not one of the reading materials that I expected young Shinji to remember. However, such a circumstance does not decrease the quality of the text."

There was a moment's pause. "Ayanami, would you be interested in having it read to you?"

The expression in Ayanami's eyes was blank. "What is 'interested'?"

Rei was silent for a moment. "It is being concerned for someone or something, in a way that persists beyond a passing thought."

"I see. Is it related to 'like'?"

Rei nodded. "It is in some respects."

Ayanami nodded slightly. "I see. Then I am interested."

Rei smiled slightly. "Good. We will begin reading when we reach an appropriate stopping point."

She glanced back at Daniel, who had concluded whatever conversation he was having. "When will we be stopping next?"

Daniel looked around, up at the sun that was beginning its slow arc toward the horizon. "Fairly soon, I think. We'll need a lunch break if we're going to keep up this pace through the mountains."

Rei nodded, taking note of the hunger that she felt, and found herself ready for a rest. "That is certainly not unwise, father. Should I tell the others?"

"Allow me." Daniel focused for a moment, and Rei looked back ahead to see the Ikari-Soryus, along with Kaworu, glance back at them.

"About time!" Asuka piped up, drawing the attention of the younger kids that walked with them. "We had a real light breakfast before stopping the end of the world."

"Well, kids," Daniel replied, "let's go find a place to shelter and have Shinji," he paused for a moment, sighing quietly, "Ikari-Soryu make a fire for us. It'll make cooking our survival rations a whole lot easier."

. . .

Onboard the Wunder

Commander Ryoji Kaji of Wille, a title and a mantle that he still felt uncomfortable bearing, looked out through the red-tinted window of the bridge, watching the sky become the only thing that he could see. Standing on the bridge still, getting the chain of command figured out had become a rather tiring process. One that left him on edge the longer he didn't see Misato involved in it.

He looked over at Ritsuko and caught her staring again as if to make sure that he didn't disappear from view. After a moment, she blinked, realizing he was looking at her and looked down at her tablet, the slight blush on her face one of embarrassment. "Ry… Commander," she began, "we'll be going suborbital now to get to Burbank and rejoin the fleet for repair and refit. We'll arrive in about 6 hours, after which we'll be in New Pacifica for the next several days. Thankfully, most of the damage can be repaired in flight by the crew."

Ryoji nodded as he looked around the ship, whistling softly. "Hell of a bird, to get to the edge of space like that so reliably."

"But you would know that, wouldn't you?" Ritsuko replied. "Seeing as you outfitted this ship with the Ark system in the first place."

"That thing?" Ryoji chuckled. "Well, it was my idea, certainly, but… I wasn't savvy enough to put it in myself. I simply took the idea to Commander Nagisa, and he said he'd take care of it."

It was as silent as it could be on the bridge at that moment, all remembering the sight of the boy who had been their commander. And watching his death by their captain's hand. "So it seems he did," Ritsuko said softly.

It was silent again between them for long moments as the blue of the sky faded away from the windows, darkening the hue of their glass. Then, the door onto the bridge opened up, and Ryoji looked down to see a woman walk in, strawberry-blonde hair done up in a braid that kept it off of her back, looking up at them with dark green eyes and a slight smile as she waved up to them, holding what looked like a pane of glowing glass in her hand. "Hello, Commander Kaji," she said as she waved once. "Mind if I join you for a moment?"

"Not at all," Ryoji replied with a smile that wasn't as easy as he thought it would be, his tone still somewhat guarded.

The woman, in stark defiance of expectation, began to float up to them, Ryoji's eyes going wide as he saw water, pure unlike any that he'd seen outside of the filtration plant that had been his cover for the Interior, flowing across her arms and chest, disappearing as she touched down on the command deck.

Ryoji shook his head as he regained his composure after a moment. "I'd assume that you're related to Daniel somehow, then?"

"This is Major Eleanor Theisman, my lovely wife."

Ryoji looked down at what was clearly a screen in Eleanor's hand as she turned it to face him, Daniel, still in his Plugsuit, looking back at him and Ritsuko with a smile.

"Good afternoon, Commander," Daniel said with a quick wave. "You had the good timing to have caught us sitting down for a quick lunch."

"Lucky us," Ryoji replied, taking in the stark crimson environment that surrounded Daniel's head and shoulders. "How are the kids?"

"Doing as well as they can under the circumstances." Daniel's face disappeared as he turned whatever device he was using to show his face towards a circle of people, all in Plugsuits, who looked back at the camera. "Say hi to Commander Kaji, kids."

The kids Daniel spoke to all responded in one way or another, the ones he clearly recognized as Shinji and Asuka looking at him with wide eyes. "Mr. Kaji?" Shinji said, utterly awestruck. "How… how are you alive?"

Ryoji opened his mouth to reply, then sighed at the words that he found himself ready to say. "I guess Commander Nagisa needed a right-hand man for running things around here, Shinji. It's good to see you."

The light went out of Shinji's eyes as he nodded, looking down. "It's… good to see you too," he said quietly.

"I've got to say," the woman who was sitting next to Asuka, wearing a bright red and white Plugsuit like Daniel's, began, a slight smile on her face, "you look pretty good for someone who's supposed to be dead. The beard actually works decently."

Ryoji chuckled as he scratched his beard. "I didn't exactly have access to a decent razor in the depths of the Geofront. We'll see if it sticks."

He studied the woman for a moment, what he'd been told by Daniel giving him something to work with in terms of finding out how this person could be so glib with him. "And who are you?" he asked, already feeling close to the answer.

"Asuka Ikari-Soryu," she replied, confirming his suspicions while still surprising him. "Back where I'm from, you were my guardian in Germany before we got sent to Tokyo-3. And… it's good to see you alive."

Ryoji nodded. "It's good to be alive," he said quietly, silently not fully agreeing.

He looked over at the man sitting next to who he assumed was the alternate Rei, and his brow rose. "And you'd be the other Kaworu Nagisa, then."

Kaworu nodded. "Indeed so. I'm sorry for your loss."

Ryoji chuckled, an almost sorrowful sound. "You know, those five words are more empathy than I think I ever heard Commander Nagisa express. You really must be from a different universe."

Kaworu nodded silently, and the screen rotated back to show Daniel's face. "We're on our way to Village-3, where we'll be staying for a while to see what we can do here in Japan. At some point, we'll link back up with you guys on the Wunder. Until then, Eleanor's going to act as your HERZ liaison. If you need anything from us, she'll be happy to help as best she can. We're only Outbound Operations, though, so do try not to ask for the universe on a platter."

Ryoji nodded as he snorted softly. "Just the universe, huh? Well, if that's all…"

Daniel nodded. "Alright. I'm sure you have things that you want to do, Commander. We'll get lunch done and be back on the road. Pilot Theisman over and out."

With that, the screen in Eleanor's hands went blank, and she pressed on the sides of what now looked like a pane of glass, compressing it down to the size of a phone and slipping it into her pocket.

"That's a neat trick," Ryoji said. "So, I have to ask, got any more Evas that we can call on? Ours aren't in exactly the best state."

Eleanor nodded. "As the Vice-Captain is aware, I have six other Evangelion that can be called upon at just about a moment's notice. We'll be able to cover you until you get Unit-02 and Unit-08 up and running again."

"Well, we've got that much going for us, at least." Ryoji nodded as he made his way toward the ladders that led to the floor of the bridge. "If I have any other questions, I'll make sure to ask."

"Where are you going?" Ritsuko asked.

"I'm going to go find my wife. I've left this for too long." Ryoji said as he got to the bottom, looking back up at Ritsuko. "Do you know where she might have gone?"

Ritsuko was silent for a moment. "She'd likely be in the captain's quarters. Down the hall, take the first right you see and the quarters will be the first door."

Ryoji nodded, walking out the door without another word. Even without the directions, he would have known where they were.

He really had left this too long. Seeing her so defeated, even more so than that day nearly 15 years ago now when Shinji had been carried away, tore at him as he thought of it. She'd felt regret then for possibly being part of the reason Shinji had done what he did. To have actually pulled the trigger, been the inciting element…

He stood before the door, still unsure of what to say. Unsure even of what he might find or what Misato might do should he even simply walk in.

He took a deep breath and pressed the button to open the door. It flashed a lock over the button as he pressed it. Looking more closely at the panel, he saw nothing in the way of a password input. There was, however, a doorbell.

He pressed it, then pressed it again after a moment. A third try several seconds later yielded nothing. Finally, he'd had enough of this panel. 'Hopefully, Misato'll forgive me for breaking the lock on her door to talk to her.' he thought as he popped the panel off, exposing the circuitry within.

Pulling a handy tool from his pocket and plugging it into the circuit board and his phone, he began the process of cracking what was, by now, rather familiar code. Familiarizing himself with it had been both a distraction from the tedium of the HQ and a just-in-case measure for if he had to break in — or out — of one of these vessels.

Finally, the door slid open, and Ryoji walked in, his eyes going wide in horror as the door shut behind him.

On the bed, an unexpected full-sized mattress, sat Misato, her back against the wall and her shoes, jacket, hat, and shades scattered across the room, her hair undone and a complete mess. On the nightstand sat three unlabeled bottles of what must have been whiskey, with how the smell of it nearly clogged Ryoji's nose, two completely empty and one on its side with only the barest dregs remaining. And he didn't know what scared him the most: The vacant look in Misato's eyes, or the pistol that she held limply in her hand.

"Misato…" he said, pausing as her head seemed to tilt over without her willing it to look over at him, her eyes utterly hollow. "Please let go of the gun."

"Y' sh'd be dead." she slurred quietly. "Y' sh'd be dead. I should be dead."

Misato's eyes began to water as her arm trembled, the gun seeming to pin her hand to the mattress. "But I can't… pull the trigger… again…"

Ryoji took a deep breath before walking over to Misato, gently taking the gun out of her hand, unloading the magazine, and emptying the chamber before setting it on the floor on the opposite side of the room. He stood and walked toward her again, his heart aching as she shied away. "Misato… it's me. I'm here, and… I want to help."

He kneeled in front of her, taking her hand and holding it. "I've wanted to do this so badly. I've been waiting for this moment since I was… well, reborn. I'm sorry I had to keep it a secret from you. I don't think either of us would have wanted Commander Ikari to kill me again."

Tears rolled down Misato's face as she looked down at him, then began shaking her head. "'M… a monster… jus' like my father…"

Ryoji shook his head. "Misato, you didn't mean this. It may have happened, but everyone worked to stop it."

"It's still an Impact. Another Impact that I was a part of. One that I caused by losing my temper." her voice faded in and out of clarity like the words were a weak signal intermittently reaching her voice.

She tried to pull her hand away. "Y' should leave. I don't deserve you anymore. I don't deserve little Ryoji anymore…"

Ryoji tightened his grip as he stood, pulling Misato into an embrace. "Maybe not. But you need someone. And I need you. I've needed you since the day I left to stop the Third Impact."

He felt Misato heave a sob, then simply stood patiently, consoling Misato as she broke down in his arms. "I'm here," he whispered. "And I'll stay. I promise."

Again and again, those words echoed, until finally he simply sat on the bed with her, continuing to hold her tight as her sobs grew quiet, then silent, then still. They sat there together for time uncounted, simply taking in each other's presence.

Ryoji glanced over at the nightstand. "So," he said quietly, "how long has it been since you drank like this? I don't think I've seen you this visibly drunk in ages."

"Barely touched the stuff after I got pregnant. Few times with Makoto." Misato mumbled.

Ryoji blinked, then nodded slightly as he smiled. "I wondered if you'd find someone after I died. I'm glad it was him." he paused for a moment. "He had a bit of a crush on you way back when."

Misato nodded silently, the action rubbing against Ryoji's chest. "M' sorry. I should have-"

"No, Misato. I… I died. And I had no idea that I was coming back. I'm glad you were able to find someone to keep on loving. That Ryoshi could call a dad with me gone."

It was silent again for a concerningly long time. "Little Ryoji is…" a pause as she seemed to try and find the word she wanted to use. "Safe. In Village-3. He doesn't need a monster for a mother."

Ryoji maneuvered Misato to look at him, his brow creased in concern. "Misato… did you abandon him?"

Misato looked away. "Every time I looked at him, I saw you. And I saw Shinji. And it didn't stop hurting no matter what I did. I knew I'd only hurt him. So… I left him with someone who'd actually care for him. Someone who wasn't a monster."

The part of it that Ryoji hated most was how much sense it made to him as he took a deep breath before shaking his head. "Misato, you made a mistake. You aren't a monster. You're human. It's just… not always easy to tell the difference sometimes. So we'll just do the best we can to patch things up and go from there."

Misato's eyes finally seemed to focus on him as she frowned slightly. "When did you get to be so wise?"

Ryoji chuckled softly as he looked down. "10 or so years hanging around Commander Nagisa does that to a man, it looks like. And…"

He paused and sighed quietly. "It's also been a lot of time to think. About myself. How I've failed in the past. How I could be better. For you, for little Ryoshi, for everyone. I know I didn't exactly discover Nirvana after dying and coming back… but I'd like to think I made myself a little bit better of a man."

He took Misato's shoulders again. "And, if I can help you, if you'll let me… we can do this together. Because… you've made a hell of a captain thus far. I can't wait to see how you could get better. As a captain, and as my wife."

Misato looked at him with wide eyes, then looked away. "I don't deserve you," she repeated. "You shouldn't worry about me anymore. Let me drag you down."

Ryoji cupped her cheek and gently guided her gaze back to him. "I don't care if you don't deserve me. I'm sticking by you anyway. Because I love you, Misato."

The shock in her eyes did not diminish as he touched his forehead to hers, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of whiskey on her breath, the aroma almost intoxicating in its own right. Her breath hitched, and he realized that he was holding his own in anticipation of whatever answer she'd give.

"Ryoji…" she whispered. "What do I do?"

"Stay with me for the moment, to start," he replied. "Then… we'll figure it out from there, day by day. Just like we did before."

He felt her nod, then he felt her lips against his, a gentle kiss that he returned without hesitation. And there, at least for now, they both wanted to stay.

. . .

Daniel sat with a somewhat weary sigh and a rumbling stomach on a chair that he'd pulled from a nearby house and cleared of core material as he watched Shinji Ikari-Soryu (this was where it always got complicated, wasn't it?) weave a small campfire-sized flame into existence, uncaring of the fact that they were in the shade of a bus stop as no smoke twisted up from the impossible fire, the Shinjis and Asukas sitting on the bench as Kaworu and the Reis sat on other chairs that they had taken from their surroundings.

As Shinji tethered the flame to the ground that it hovered a few inches above, sitting back with a quiet sigh, Daniel focused on his armor, the nanites flowing from beneath the Plugsuit to allow him access to his survival pack.

"You kids got your armor handy?" he asked his Children as he reached into the pocket dimension that housed what he needed, his hand disappearing into the floating hole in space. He smiled as they nodded, reaching for their own survival packs. "Good. We'll have plenty of water and food to go around then."

His hand emerged holding a mostly flat, rectangular bottle with a neck at one corner, and a nozzle with a somewhat thick collar capping it. He twisted the collar, the rippling pattern glowing bright blue as it clicked and hissed.

"These water bottles will draw in moisture from the atmosphere and filter it into drinkable water," he said as he set the first bottle against the leg of his chair as he pulled out another bottle and repeated the action. "With as close as we are to the sea and how humid everything is in general, we should have full bottles in seconds."

Daniel paused as he saw the kids all examining the bottles, looking intently at the glow. "Don't keep it close to your face for too long, or it'll…"

Kaworu, whose eyes were narrowed slightly at the slowly pulsing light, blinked as a line of blood began to roll down from his nose. "Oh dear," he muttered to himself as he put the bottle down, the others setting them aside quickly as Kaworu attended to his nosebleed.

Daniel couldn't help but chuckle. "Well, that happens. At least I tried to warn you. Eleanor and I didn't get that much when we did survival training, and I tried to be smart by drinking from the thing while it was on. That was before either of us was Interfaced, so I had to have my nose plugged for most of that training exercise."

Most of the kids laughed, even Shikinami chuckling at the image he'd described. Ayanami was silent, if seemingly somewhat puzzled, and young Shinji simply looked at the fire, knees to his chest.

The sight of it worried Daniel slightly as he pulled out the next part of the lunch, an off-white capsule that was about as wide and a little longer than his hand, a port on one end and a two-part lid whose seam went lengthwise along the 'top' of the capsule.

"And here we have our deluxe meal of the day: a fully loaded baked potato, made to order," Daniel said as one of the water bottles beside him gave a tone, the light on its collar blinking off as he picked it up and set it on his lap. "Type on the screen that pops up what you want, inject water into the capsule, give it a good shake, and set it by the fire to cook quickly. Simple as that."

He demonstrated the process as he spoke, setting his capsule in front of the fire just a few moments before the others did and pulling out another one, repeating the process.

As the others got lunch ready, the older Shinji offered his younger self capsule, the boy shaking his head slightly. "I'm not… really all that hungry," he said quietly.

Daniel nodded. "I understand. Combat and trauma do that to anyone who goes through it. No exceptions. But even if you don't feel hungry, your body still needs the fuel."

Young Shinji was silent. Kaworu sighed quietly. "Shinji, please. Daniel's right about this. Don't weaken yourself unnecessarily. We all want you to have all the strength to overcome your grief."

Young Shinji looked over at Kaworu, clearly considering the young man's words, then nodded slowly as he took the capsule and allowed the older Shinji to show him how it worked. Daniel didn't need to look at Kaworu's soul to see how much it pained him to leverage the poor boy's guilt.

After several moments, however, the capsules began to beep, and the group began to retrieve the surprisingly cool capsules and open them, revealing the promised potatoes along with some handy forks. They all began to eat, some more heartily than others, all silent as they had their first meal after the latest near-end of the world.

Soon enough, the capsules were emptied and set aside, Daniel assuring them that they would be self-cleaning. "Alright, now that we've gotten what we need in our systems…" Daniel said, smiling slightly as he reached back into the survival pack at his hip. "Let's have something a little more luxurious, how about?"

With that, he pulled out a cardboard bottle holder, four brown glass bottles with light orange labels held within, and set it down on the ground beside the water bottles.

"Bundaberg, dear bruder?" the older Asuka said, her brow arched as he pulled out another holder of the stuff and set it atop its companion. "That doesn't exactly strike me as 'survival kit essentials'."

"Maybe not," Daniel admitted as he took two out of the packaging, chilled to perfection, and offered one to her. "But you're still happy to see it, aren't you?"

The older Asuka scoffed as she took it, not bothering to hide her smile. "I never said I wasn't. Prost." she clinked the bottle to Daniel's.

Daniel passed a bottle out to everyone, Rei Nagisa making sure that Ayanami didn't accidentally drop the bottle as she flipped it over once. Then, the sound of bottle caps popping off their containers filled the air for the briefest of seconds, and the world around them was forgotten for a moment as memories new and old followed the taste of ginger beer.

As Daniel took another swig, sighing as he swallowed, he looked around and found his focus on Asuka Shikinami. As he flickered his Sight on he, at last, confirmed suspicions that he'd had ever since he'd stepped aboard the Wunder.

Bardiel, or at least a piece of him, was there of course, but far more pertinent to him was the core of Asuka Shikinami-Langley's soul. It was… fractured, the pieces floating seemingly mere inches apart from each other as it glowed far more brightly than any soul should.

"Now, while you younger kids are enjoying the drinks," Daniel began as he leaned forward, Shikinami and the young Shinji taking notice of Daniel's attention, "I'm going to do some helping out that's been a long time coming."

He reached his Frames out to Shikinami first as she tilted her head, several others following suit. "And what, exactly, do you mean by that?" she asked.

"If those of you who are so Interfaced could turn your Sight to young Shinji and Ms. Shikinami…" Daniel began as he wrapped Bardiel's soul in the Frames, watching Shikinami visibly flinch as he began to slowly, surely break the connection that bound it to her soul. "You'll see something that, while somewhat unusual, is not entirely rare in Reality."

"What's that?" the older Shinji asked. "Wait a minute. Their souls…"

Daniel nodded as he finished severing the link between Shikinami and Bardiel, bundling it up in its own little cage as he watched Shikinami visibly relax for the first time… possibly ever. "The lovely pair here are what are called Cracked. And it wouldn't surprise me if this world's Rei and Mari are the same."

"If you'll allow a guess…" Kaworu said as Daniel shifted his Frames to Shikinami's core, gently situating them over the pieces. "Something traumatic happens to a soul such as, say, piloting an Evangelion, that causes the soul core to connect to Pneumaiety, but does not complete the process of becoming Interfaced?"

"Got it just about in one, Kaworu," Daniel replied as he pressed the component pieces of Shikinami's soul back together, fusing them to become whole, or at least almost whole, once again. "It's not an extremely rare occurrence for something this traumatic that's linked to the soul to 'naturally' Interface someone. Sometimes, however, you get this sometimes, which leads to such power being somewhat… out of control, the connection to Pneumaiety acting on subconscious desire instead of purposeful effort. It doesn't have anything more than a physical effect most times, but even still…"

Daniel paused for a few moments as he did much the same to young Shinji's core before leaning back in his chair and blinking off his Sight, the sight of the young Children's wondering eyes giving him the briefest moment of satisfaction in this wilderness. "As much as I'm sure Bardiel wasn't helping in Shikinami's case, now you two can finally be… somewhat normal if you so wish. No more need to pull your punches. No more inability to fall asleep and rest. You're all… complete again, in the sense of the soul."

Shikinami and young Shinji both let out a quiet sigh of relief. "Wait a minute." young Shinji said, looking over at Shikinami finally, even if he couldn't fully look her in the eye. "What is Bardiel?"

There was a long pause as Shikinami seemed to try listening for… something. "The name of the 9th Angel." she finally said with a sigh.

Shinji's eyes went wide. "Wait… what?"

Shikinami nodded, looking back at the fire. "He's been in there since I got out of the remains of Unit-03. Right there so close to me that it was hard to tell where I ended and he began."

Daniel watched young Shinji shudder as Shikinami shook her head and scoffed. "Don't worry about trying to understand it. I doubt any of you would, spending every day wondering if your actions are your own or if it's just some cruel joke."

She looked around at the group as she spoke, her gaze landing on Daniel and spotting the weary look in his eyes. He sighed quietly as he let his brand appear above his brow. "I understand, Asuka," he said quietly.

"The Guide of War, right?" The older Shinji said quietly.

Daniel nodded. "Yes. His name is Hamar'ramah." The name sent chills down his spine as if speaking it might summon him again.

He looked around at the younger Children, noting Ayanami's somewhat distant expression, and the varying levels of somewhat hesitant curiosity from Shinji and Asuka. "Reality's a real big place, kids. And something created in a corner of it decided, after some rigorous testing, that I'd be the ideal candidate to become something called a Hollow Saint."

Daniel was silent for a long moment before he sighed. "This thing has a power that can obliterate any Angel you could think of and scatter the pieces of its soul across a universe with barely a thought, all in the service of blending every multiverse out there into a single Universe. And for a long time, enough that I'm not even sure anymore how long it was, I was the conduit for that power. I was the vessel of this soul-being."

"And like Ms. Shikinami said, as time went on, however much I struggled to retain my individuality, it got harder and harder to find where I ended and he began. By the end… I was nearly gone. It was a miracle that Eleanor managed to pull that thing off me."

"Did… did his power have anything to do with a golden light?" The older Asuka asked, and the focus on him seemed to intensify.

Daniel nodded. "Yes," he said, barely above a whisper. "Because he's here. And he's chosen a new Hollow Saint."

The older Children's eyes went wide. "When were you planning on informing us of this?" Rei Nagisa asked rather incredulously.

"When I was sure that he wasn't going to just be screwing around in my head as he'd been doing for the past 5 months," Daniel replied, the calming tone of his voice almost convincing to himself. "Unfortunately, I figured that out right when we were in the middle of stopping the end of the world."

Slow nods came from the Children, and Daniel sighed, looking at young Shinji. "Like I was saying in Terminal Dogma before I was rudely interrupted, Shinji Ikari, I'm here with my kids mostly on behalf of what's known as the Massive Threat Containment Organization HERZ. A little bit more of a mouthful than NERV's full spiel, but it's a successor organization to our world's NERV, so it's not fully surprising."

Shinji nodded slowly. "Kind of like WILLE."

"Kind of, yes. But where WILLE sees the Evangelion as a danger, something that should be disposed of at the soonest possible moment, HERZ sees the Evangelions, or what has come from them, as essential to the defense of the world."

"That bad, huh?" Shikinami said, her brow arched.

Daniel nodded. "Like I said, Reality's a big place, even disregarding SEELE and the ridiculous amount of copycat Angels we had to deal with before we got out here. Anything you can think of, and far more that you can't, can come strolling out into our backyard."

"Like Godzilla, whom you shook the claw of." Rei Nagisa interjected, the slightest smile on her lips.

The older Children all chuckled as young Shinji's eyes went wide. "What?" he managed to say numbly.

Daniel, who chuckled in turn, nodded even as his slight grin faded. "That's one of the happier examples. One that could have easily gone wrong."

"Wait a minute," Shikinami said. "Two questions. How did someone create Angels? And what kind of Evas are you even using anyway?"

"Well, for one, SEELE had a secret surprise Angel," Asuka Ikari-Soryu interjected, "that somehow had existed for however long it was before Lilith landed, died — again, somehow — and been found and revived."

She grinned. "And even with 6,500 Angels, they still couldn't beat all of us."

"Which leads us to the Evas we used," Daniel said, heading off the inevitable questions of how many Evas there actually were, and how there were so many Angels, at least for now. "What we use, technically, isn't an Evangelion. It's known as a Frame Titan, built on the structure of the Evangelion, but freed from almost all of its limitations and constraints."

"The battery limit? The risk of them going berserk on you?" Shikinami asked, her tone incredulous. "How did you manage that last one?"

"Well…" Daniel trailed off for a moment as he began to gather up his trash and survival kit, putting it back into the pocket space of his armor as the others began to do the same. "That comes with an explanation all its own. Because it's connected to the powers that we used in our Evas."

With that, he stood, the flame flickering out as the rest of the group stood in turn. "We'll keep going while I explain what, exactly, Interfacing is."

. . .

Aboard the Wunder

Captain Maya Ibuki was walking toward a mess hall, tucked away in the back and without any sort of monitoring, and pondered for a moment on the thoughts that she had which weighed on her mind, seeming to press the anxiety within her to the surface like a callous juicer.

The halls of the Wunder had become familiar to her, the gray lengths painted over with both necessary signage and expressions of creativity from the crew an almost comforting sight now. The crew had become acquaintances, friends even, as serious and demanding as she could be with the young men under her command. And yet…

Visions of the boy who was, quite shockingly, their commander, had circulated after the battle. She'd seen the sight of the boy's death once. It was one time more than she'd ever needed to see. The collar exploding replayed over and over again in her mind, seemingly against her will. Was that truly the fate of anyone who wore that collar and went afoul of its programming? Or even the trigger itself?

'What am I thinking? Of course, it is. It's… it's part of why I'm doing this.'

She finally came to the door of the mess hall, pausing for a moment as she gathered her resolve before opening it and stepping through. Waiting for her on the other side, the main shift bridge crew, Midori, Sumire, Hideki, and Koji, along with Shigeru and Makoto, sat with varying degrees of patience. Alongside them, Eleanor Theisman sat by Sumire and Midori, a calm, almost expectant look on her face. She knew what Maya had gathered them all here for.

"Maya?" Makoto said, clearly confused as the rest of the bridge crew was. "What's going on? Why go to all this trouble to meet here?"

Maya took another deep breath. "We all saw what happened today," she said as she took a seat in front of everyone. "What happened when we killed Commander Nagisa."

"Come on," Shigeru said incredulously. "How can we be sure that he wasn't trying to trick us? How can we be sure that the new 'Commander' is even really on our side?"

"Kaworu Nagisa is many things," Eleanor said, drawing the attention of all to her. "But he is not a man given to lying unnecessarily. And as secretive as Ryoji Kaji has been, I believe his time as Deputy-Commander has changed him substantially as well."

Her words had an almost warning edge to them, and Maya watched as Makoto and Shigeru's eyes narrowed. "As I was saying…" Maya said firmly, waiting for a moment as all eyes returned to her. "We all saw what happened. What a DSS Choker will do to anyone. It's… horrible."

"So has everything else been that's led to this point, Maya," Makoto said. "We've spent the last decade and a half watching the world suffer. Our Captain-"

"Is wrong."

The words themselves, let alone the surety and near force with which Maya said them, stunned the gathered group as Maya continued. "She was wrong when she put the Chokers on the kids, she was wrong when she alienated and isolated all of them, and she was wrong when she pulled the trigger, however accidental."

"Maya," Sumire said after a moment of silence, "she's… hurt. This didn't bring her any sort of pleasure."

"She may be hurt, certainly," Maya said quietly. "It's one of the few reasons I haven't done what I'm about to talk about sooner. She's still… human, in one sense or another. But she's gone down a dark path. A path that's led to her looking and acting far too much like Commander Ikari."

"Whoa, whoa," Shigeru said, both he and Makoto sitting up straighter. "She's done everything she can to try and save humanity. Ikari just wants to kill us all and end the world."

"And did you know that when we all saw what he made Unit-01 do to Unit-03? Asuka was in there, Shinji needed help, and all he did in offering a 'solution' was make him feel Unit-01 tearing apart his fellow pilot! There's a better-than-good chance he was synched up with that boy Commander Nagisa when he died too. When the Captain lost her head and pulled the trigger on the collar she put around his neck, knowing what it would do. How much different are either of those?"

Shigeru and Makoto went silent, looking at each other and back at her. Even she wasn't fully sure how much water such a comparison held. But the scene with the 9th Angel had been another memory replaying in her head since she'd seen the footage. In both of her former bridge mates, she saw a dawning realization, horror going along with it. She took a deep breath. "We've stayed silent thus far. Stayed silent for too long. And now… I'm not sure I can work with this anymore. They have to know that, and feel how that impacts them."

She looked around the room before her gaze landed on Eleanor. "You're the ones that were there. Who most immediately saw the consequences of going down the path we've set ourselves on. I want to ask you all to come with me when Eleanor makes a gate to Village-3."

A gasp went up around the room, Sumire, Makoto, and Shigeru actually getting to their feet as several voices tried to overpower each other for a few moments. "Captain Ibuki…" Midori said in a daze. "You'd really just… desert WILLE like that?"

"No," Maya replied. "This isn't desertion. This is a protest. This is telling our commanding officers exactly what we think: that this was wrong and that we want them to turn back and take a better path."

"What better path is there? What choice did we have? Leave it in one man's hands to try and stop the apocalypse?" Makoto argued.

"Yes! We were already leaving it in Misato's hands, and we saw what happened. At least with Mr. Theisman, we had the chance of everyone walking away."

"So, you're leaving because on the off chance of the DSS Choker not existing-" Shigeru began.

"Then we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place," Maya said. "Then someone we had no intention of killing wouldn't have died, and maybe Shinji wouldn't have run from us in the first place. Maybe the pilots would trust us more for trusting them."

It was silent again, a short, terse thing broken only by Maya's sigh of weariness. "I'm going anyway once I inform the Captain and Vice-Captain. I'm here to make sure you know, and to extend the invitation. We've seen too much death, too much destruction, to not make ourselves known. Please."

It was silent again, Maya scanning the faces of her crewmates clearly in conflict within themselves. Her heart sank as she saw Makoto, then Shigeru both shake their heads. "I'm sorry, Maya," Makoto said quietly. "We can't abandon the Captain now. Not when she's been dealt a blow like this."

Maya nodded slowly in understanding as she looked at the others. "And all of you?"

Koji sighed quietly, shaking his head. "She's gone. I stayed in the hope that whatever she'd become, I'd get to see her again. But this…"

He looked over at Maya. "I'll go. If it shakes her out of this before she kills herself somehow, then it's worth it."

Hideki nodded silently, and Sumire sighed quietly. "I'm just glad that we have another shift to take up the slack," she said ruefully. "I only hope they understand."

Midori gulped silently as she nodded. "Yeah. I want to follow my Captain. But… to lose my humanity, be complicit to whatever happens because of those that might have already lost it, even if it saves the world… it's too high a price to pay for me to live with it."

Maya nodded slowly as she looked over at Eleanor, silent throughout the proceedings, and gave her a smile that could have passed for a grimace. "Well, there you have it," she said quietly, not caring to look as Makoto and Shigeru made their way out the door.

Eleanor nodded in turn. "I'll make sure things are ready."