The tiniest flicker of energy rippled across the dark surface of the river, providing a pale boy with the momentum needed to land safely on the other side. He grunted in pain, clutching a metal lighter with his hand and raising it to his chest, and his personal mantra kept flowing from his lips.
The agent's contacts had taken him as far as they'd be able to go, smuggling him through the Iraqi border and all the way to the Bay of Baghdad. Unsurprisingly, that had been the hardest part of the trip so far. His fragile Ego barrier threatened to give up on him more than once as he zigzagged through the overcrowded markets in search of provisions, reducing him to intermittent bouts of incoherent mumbling in his attempts to regain his center.
But the Zagros Mountains had its own sets of challenges. Having left the forest's protective canopy, he tugged on his blood-stained jacket as the cold wind bit into his face and neck. An abandoned mountain road lay uphill, a winding-yet-safer way to the highest mountaintop before his slow descent toward the capital of one of the western Iranian provinces. His angelic constitution was a boon against the constant blisters, cuts and scrapes of venturing through the wilderness. Each regenerating injury hurt all the same, and if he never had to endure a mauling from one of those big off-white cats that followed him from time to time, he'd be okay with that.
The same human vessel that allowed him to embody the individuality he'd grown to treasure was currently driving him insane with a redundant need for food and drink and rest. Whenever he planned the next step in his mission, his thoughts deviated from time to time to memories that were not his own, as well as to hypothetical scenarios that could not exist, where his point of view fluctuated from his own body, to one of those he imagined around him, an amalgam of them all, or no one whatsoever.
Thus, his prayer returned. As the stars pierced the darkening sky, the mountain wind carried the repeating words that served as the anchor keeping him from falling apart:
"I'm Kaworu Nagisa, a human being and a child of Adam."
The Magi terminal was hard at work in the cold laboratory. Ritsuko always found it amusing to guess whether a query would be instantly processed or require a progress bar and an estimated time to resolve. This latest one had turned out to be the latter.
She sipped on her cup, closing her eyes at the warmth that travelled to her stomach and then spread throughout her body. She kept it close to her face so that the rising steam warmed the tip of her nose.
The change in the room's lighting made her look back at the display: 'Pattern Blue'. Obvious, but necessary. The effects of short-term exposure of angel physiology to the glyphs were unknown, let alone long-term ones, so the Doctor had to start from scratch with this one after transportation. She placed the cup on the desk and reached for her mouse to navigate through the scan results breakdown. The first dozen slides showed a labeled false-color representation of a slice of Particle-Wave matter at different levels of magnification.
Congruent with samples taken from the first, second and fifth angel, the tessellated layout was uncannily similar to that of animal tissue at the celular level, but as one zoomed into its sub-structures, whatever expectations one had built up so far had to be tossed aside—no nucleons whatsoever, and the jury was still out on whether electrons could even be detected. The academic consensus within the NERV branches was that the alien life forms had evolved to intuitively adapt to whatever physical configuration their host planet required.
Being aware of the second angel's existence, Ritsuko had run the gamut of theories behind the similarities between the species. From the humanoid shape being some ultimate form of convergent evolution, to a grand design grafted onto terrestrial genes the moment the second angel bled on the soil of an unfathomably ancient Earth. But there were days, like today, when it just felt like outright mockery—a superficial imitation of the human form that would collapse under the tiniest amount of scrutiny. She glanced at the clock on the screen as she reached for her cup again; there was no need to think about the little freak, yet.
Except for the clacking of keys and the ticking roll of a mouse wheel, the next hour was spent in silence, even with someone else sitting right beside her. Maya and Ritsuko had independently reached the conclusion that they were more productive if they communicated only via instant messaging, so when Maya brought the topic up one day in the cafeteria, they'd immediately put that theory to the test to impressive results. Ever since that day, the bulk of chit-chat occurred when they needed Aoba, Hyuga, or the Eva mechanics to come down and move some or install some equipment, and she was thankful that her boys were dedicated like that. So they shared and analyzed files, finding possible correlations and querying the AI to synthesize new information.
After she collated the relevant hyperlinks into a single index, she was able to start building her proposal in earnest. Her typing speed increased and her breath quickened with the high of a eureka moment. She'd have to go back and redesign some of the hardware, but given the potential improvements to the Eva units, she supposed the Commander would let her get away with it.
Her wristwatch started beeping, drawing the technician's attention. Ritsuko quieted the device and gave the younger woman a small nod before standing up and leaving the room. She stepped in the single passenger lift at the end of the hallway and stood still as it took her down.
The floor indicators passed over her, interspersed with small squares of white light. She sighed at the tedium of the task at hand, a process that could've been automated long ago: schedule the session, let the Magi do the bulk of the work, drain the LCL and eject the specimen from the tank, then save the results on an encrypted file for later inspection. But she knew that wouldn't do, the slightest oversight could summon the ire of the one man whose opinion Ritsuko truly cared about. After a full minute of waiting, the lift reached its destination and stopped with an echo and the low buzzing of proximity lighting.
Her heels clicked across the reinforced steel floor until she arrived at the gray door frame. She presented her access card to the reader and walked in as the door opened with a beep and the hiss of pneumatics. It was her second least favorite place in NERV HQ, but at least it was warmer down here.
The sickly pale body floating in front of her was as passive as the day she'd first activated her.
"Rei, how are you feeling?" She asked in an even tone. It wasn't a matter of concern—this was an engineer running diagnostics. The clone opened her eyes and stared unblinkingly at her.
"I am well, Doctor."
She walked besides the printer and adjusted her glasses before navigating the single-sheet perforated printout. Her arms cycled as if she was slowly climbing down a ladder. After a small pile of folded paper had settled in front of the first one, she reached inside her breast pocket for her trusty lime-colored highlighter.
A few minutes passed, page 23 out of 96. This was gonna take a while, but that was fine; she needed to stretch her legs after spending most of the day in an office chair. Patting her side and failing to feel her sturdy lighter, she glanced up at the desk in case she'd left it near the glass ashtray, but her eyes kept going up to the floating body and to the thing that had instinctively caught her attention.
Below the floating girl's closed eyes, a placid smile was forming.
Ritsuko's breathing hitched, but she darted her eyes back to the paper, her mind racing for an explanation. She'd seen her smile like this only while talking to the Commander, but never before or after. What else could make the clone smile? No, 'be objective, Ritsuko,' she thought. 'What makes a fourteen-year-old girl smile?'
The obvious answer hit her. She immediately wanted to ask the girl about Ikari—the other one—to see the extent of the damage. But she had to restrain herself; If the girl's conditioning had been tampered with, the list of suspects would be extremely short, so she opted for a gentler hand. The sequence of events playing out in her mind could have disastrous consequences for the Dummy Plug System project, but a part of her grew morbidly curious as to what lengths the Commander would be willing to go to course-correct if things happened to go awry. It would prove to him what a mistake it was to put his faith in the little faker, all while taking her down a peg or two, maybe even give her an excuse to make more time for her Eva improvements.
"Doctor Akagi,"
"What is it?" Ritsuko replied, successfully hiding the excitement in her voice.
"When Lieutenant Ibuki placed her hand on yours... What does that convey?"
Ritsuko couldn't help but scoff. Her arms were lowered the moment her name left the freak's lips, but she had to be careful; this was exactly the type of involvement she needed to skirt around.
"I don't know, Rei. Socializing is not my strong suit, that's more of a Misato thing... Ah, but don't go bothering the Operations Director with unimportant things." She nonchalantly kept reading the tail end of the report and highlighting as needed.
The seed had been planted. If the girl was serious about exploring her feelings, she'd do as all teenagers do. Ritsuko just hoped that the girl was cautious enough to provide her with plausible deniability if she ever got caught.
Rei emerged from her sleep, keeping her eyes closed. Her buoyancy reminded her of where she was. She exhaled as the chime from the computer announced the end of the procedure. For some reason, beating the alarm clock by a few seconds gave her a strange sense of relief. She knew the Doctor would take her time to come down, so she let her mind wander after hours of focused emptiness for the Dummy Plug System brain scans.
Her AT-Field resonated at the edge of her senses. The shape of the construct was sculped by her upbringing, trained to always be kept facing outwards, always pushing away. It wasn't that the field protected her emotions, but rather, that their expression (or lack thereof) unwittingly shaped it and its feedback on others'. It was the light of the soul, a reflection of the innermost state of the individual.
Ever since her activation, it became self evident that pain was inseparable from human consciousness. Unlike any other emotion, pain was unmistakable, impossible to hide from, and would not abate on its own. It was a dull throb that remained even while submersed in the panacea that was LCL. Thus, her gifted purpose felt like the only path to true release, a few months of unbearable cognition repaid with eternal oblivion, all provided by her creator and commander, Gendo Ikari.
But the oppressive nature of this one emotion made the prospect of others feel dangerous, unmanageable, so she discarded them without hesitation the moment they were declared an obstacle for her mission. There was no need for her to feel most things, the people raising and training her never requested it of her. The Commander always described personal bonds as something that produced nothing but pain, and she'd settled for a bond with humanity as a whole in response. Recently, however, she'd been unable to keep the faceless masses a mere background noise, and the Commander had slowly gone from a category of his own to a short list of individuals that was slowly increasing in size.
It was all because of him. He'd talked to her about Captain Katsuragi and her antics as his guardian. He'd vented about his attempts at dealing with Pilot Soryu. He'd told her about Aida and Suzuhara and Horaki, giving their name and face in her mind a personality to go along, if only vicariously. How different could each individual be, how varied their expectations and their fears.
It was all because of him. The adults would disapprove of his anxieties and misgivings, and some classmates criticized him behind his back for his distaste for standing out, because they did not understand. To Rei, the younger Ikari was the only person in the entire world who acted in a way that made sense. He too knew about the pain of living, he embodied that pain through his actions. And yet, he kept trying, he'd always come back, even when being near others brought him suffering.
It was all because of him. He cared for her because of who she was, not because of her purpose or to control her. He'd rescued her from the sweltering entry plug, smiled at her, cried for her, held her hand, and embraced her. It was during those times, Rei discovered, that the pain of living was bearable.
Her ears perked minutely at the distant sounds of the lift reaching the floor she was in. The automatic door activated and Doctor Akagi walked in.
"Rei. How are you feeling?" Her voice filtered through the liquid. She thought for a moment before opening her eyes, feeling her head and each limb in turn.
"I am well, Doctor," she reported earnestly. Her eyes turned to the endless printout with curiosity, the droning of the printing machine had escaped her senses after the first ten minutes.
As the Doctor kept reading, Rei returned to her thoughts. Based on previous tests, It could take up to half an hour for the woman to go through the entire stack, and her presence made Rei remember something important: Most (though not all) of her memorable interactions with Ikari featured some form of physical contact. She knew of it from textbooks and what fleeting fragments she could recall from her pre-activation childhood, like those afternoons when the elder Akagi shooed her away from the Commander's office, but the unspoken rules and nuances of social ritual were still beyond her grasp. She'd chosen to imitate Lieutenant Ibuki's gesture from the other day mainly because of the response it elicited from the woman in front of her. But when she tried it herself with Ikari, they were interrupted before she was able to fully understand the nuance of his reaction.
And so, she felt bound to try again, perhaps to hug him the way he had done for her. It felt reciprocal, appropriate. She couldn't help but smile at the prospect. Her eyes snapped open as soon as she realized what she'd done, and her mouth returned to a flat line. A sudden expression like that could be problematic, questioned, misconstrued. It took great effort to mask the relief that washed over her as she saw Doctor Akagi completely immersed in the report she was reading.
She didn't know how much she wanted to explore this avenue until now. Her instincts warned her of her deviation from the preordained path, but before she even truly understood the implications, she was already rationalizing her position. The acquisition of knowledge would surely come handy in the pursuit of her terrible purpose.
"Doctor Akagi,"
"What is it?"
"When Lieutenant Ibuki placed her hand on yours... What does that convey?"
The Doctor made a sound that expressed confusion, or perhaps incredulity.
"I don't know, Rei. Socializing is not my strong suit, that's more of a Misato thing... Ah, but don't go bothering the Operations Director with unimportant things." She nonchalantly kept reading the tail end of the report and highlighting as needed.
Rei kept quiet. Condescending as the reply might have been, it didn't seem to trip any alarms in the Doctor's mind. But this was as far as she'd be willing to take the topic with her, at least for now. And she was right, someone as social as Captain Katsuragi could provide better answers, and given that Shinji seemed to trust her, she may even be able to, hypothetically, keep a secret.
"You ever think the Feng Shui in this place is a little off?" Kaji asked across the vast office with far too much confidence.
"We have a situation," Gendo started from behind his desk, ignoring his quip. "Our sources indicate that an angel will reveal itself in the coming weeks, far from any of NERV's branches."
"Straight to the point." He removed his hands from his pockets and crossed his arms. "How far away are we talking here?"
"Egypt."
"Any relation to our recent findings?"
"We don't know,"
"Okay. Why Egypt? There's no Adam or Lilith there."
"Your task is to find that out. We must also pressure the Japanese government for the requisition of their Starlight-class carrier."
Kaji raised his eyebrows and his arms slacked somewhat. "Wouldn't it be quicker to ask SEELE for that?"
The Commander let his silence speak for him. Kaji glanced at Fuyutsuki who stood tall and proud, nodding at him.
A nervous grin formed in Kaji's face. This was going to be it, the big reveal. Ikari could not be trusted, but if he defeated the old men, that'd be one less target on his back.
"Alright then, that's gonna take some time. and I'll really need to hide my tracks for this one. What's our time table?"
Fuyutsuki leaned forward and whispered something to Ikari's side.
"The ETA is our most precise yet, but there's a reason for that. There's a few contacts in the Air Force you can use. We will send you the details later today."
Kaji nodded. "When are we extracting the Fifth?"
"That will depend on SEELE's reaction. We cannot delay the retrieval of the Lance any longer, so Fuyutsuki and I will leave during the weekend. You will use the opportunity to feed all concerned parties the information they think they want. I trust Katsuragi will cooperate with us."
"I've told her about the meeting. She's quite eager to learn about the plan."
"All in due time."
"That's what I told her. But if more angels are coming soon, that ought to be a good distraction for her."
Gendo nodded once.
"Agent Kaji," Fuyutsuki said with a stern voice. "You're well aware of Captain Katsuragi's past. Have you prepared her for the truth?"
'...or will we have to dispose of her afterwards?', Kaji completed in his mind. He wanted to take the old man's concern in good faith, but based on the company he kept, well...
"She's stronger than you think," he said with a confident smile.
Rei rested her chin on her left palm as the clouds drifted across the windy morning sky. She'd arrived at school early as usual, and duly noted when a certain redhead left her backpack on her desk and incorporated into Horaki's circle of friends, immediately taking charge.
Minutes later, the voice of Suzuhara echoed through the corridor. She turned her head to listen, suspecting Ikari would be following closely. The three friends entered while engaged in conversation, and she got lost in his features as he joked, commented, and listened before a momentary goodbye. He sat at his desk behind Pilot Soryu's and hung his head, looking utterly defeated.
As soon as the Second and Third Child began to talk, Rei turned her head back to the safety of the clouds. It felt like merely being witness to the interaction would cause her discomfort, but she wouldn't be able to articulate how or why if asked. A muffled thud made her turn her face back, and true to her expectations, the Second had struck him in the shoulder so hard he was now rubbing it with his other hand. They kept talking in hushed tones, so Rei assumed it hadn't escalated into something serious.
Without precedent, Rei's index finger began softly tapping the desk in a constant rhythm. She wanted to talk to him, something even she was surprised by. As much as she enjoyed his presence, she was completely fine waiting until whenever he had the time to reach her, until now.
The first period started. She was able to drown out her mounting uneasiness by actually paying attention to class, a task made surprisingly easier by the simplicity of the material. Being used to engaging in the complexities of genetics and metaphysical biology, a simple reminder of the big picture of evolution and biodiversity gave her a curious sense of nostalgia reminiscent of her bond with all people.
Her anxiety ebbed and flowed until the bells signaling recess chimed in turn. Rei stood up and walked straight to Ikari's desk. He was stuffing his backpack with notebooks and other stationary before sitting up straight and talking in her direction.
"Just give me a minute, I wanna go check on... Ayanami." He looked up at her like a confused puppy.
"Ikari."
"Hey, how are you doing?" He glanced around in his usual shy manner.
How to continue? It felt like the best way to approach him was to be direct and supportive, though Rei had much experience in the former and none at all in the latter.
"I am well. Before you depart with Aida and Suzuhara, there's something I must give you," she said and walked to the door, expecting him to follow. Explaining her intent in detail might make him hesitant to accept her gesture. She walked to a secluded place, not only from their classmates, but from the security cameras she knew NERV had installed all over the school. Anything that Section 2 could report to the Commander could... complicate things. She didn't want to get Shinji in trouble.
As they turned the corner of the westmost corridor in the building, she turned to the boy behind her while a tinge of pink spread through her cheeks at what she was about to do. Trepidation was a new flavor to her senses. The fear of rejection, increasing. Unlike her, he was often curious about his environment, and his gentle eyes peered through the adjacent classroom windows. Before the trembling warmth currently spreading around her chest made her falter, she closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around him with all the grace of a tripping mannequin.
His warmth was soothing, but something was wrong, she could feel it. Attempting to compensate for her poor technique, she patted his back lightly without any sense of rhythm. 'Be direct,' she reminded herself.
"I was briefed about the latest sortie. I am... glad that you are unharmed. Is this appropriate?" She asked him, feeling his warm breath push some of the more unruly strands of her azure hair.
"It is, Ayanami. It's just..." he trailed off. He sounded unsure, cautious.
'More direct? Explain your reasoning,' her inner voice told her.
She let go and stepped back. "I'm aware that touching in public makes you uncomfortable, this is why I chose to do it in private."
"'Touching'?" He repeated with a nervous tone.
Was she doing something wrong? She didn't know how well she'd handle rejection, but she was sure this wasn't that—this was neither a positive nor a negative reaction on his part. Her eyes narrowed; she was either impatient, or he'd clammed up and was simply unwilling to react. Their time was running out.
She'd done the deed, and the psychological attrition of considering his and her every move and expression for the past couple of minutes was taxing enough that she decided to retreat for now.
"We should return. Otherwise, our classmates will notice our absence. I wish to save you the trouble," she explained and then walked past him. He made to follow her but she stopped, remembering Section 2 and Ikari's original plans for recess.
"Aida and Suzuhara went that way," she pointed to the opposite end of the first hallway they traversed. "I'll return to the classroom." She turned the corner and left.
She walked through the packed streets right after school, heading to the train platform. Her thoughts returned to his interactions with the Second Child. Was it bad if she was jealous of their living arrangement? Was it worse if she wasn't? His happiness made her happy in turn, so why was this cacophony of contradicting sensations forming in the pit of her stomach?
She arrived early at the train station, mulling over her feelings as the passengers from the arriving train disembarked. Once her fellow pilots joined her aboard, she remembered Captain Katsuragi's suggestion. She told Pilot Soryu about today's clouds, but she merely stared at her with incredulous eyes. Ikari looked apologetic on her behalf, as usual. Rei told her that she was... was glad the right term? It was too strong a word for what she was feeling, but failing to think of something more suitable, she told her she was glad that she was okay after what they went through in the volcano. But that only earned her some sort of grunt and a silent acceptance of her declaration. Better than getting yelled at, she supposed. To her relief, no further attempt at small talk followed.
Her mind was too tired to interact further, but the small exchange seemed to distract her from the new, strange thoughts she'd been having. When they disembarked, Pilot Soryu ran ahead and she followed at a distance. She wondered why Ikari wouldn't catch up to either of them, but she didn't want to push him.
After being dismissed from NERV HQ, she walked back to her apartment. This faint awareness that what she was doing was wrong required further analysis. It'd never occurred to her to disobey, even by omission, and she had recently lied not only to others, but also to herself. The price of not ignoring her emotions was making itself clear.
The stark bang of wood on stone returned Kaworu to consciousness. He rose with his elbows and felt the mattress below him; it lay directly on the floor, like a futon. As his eyes adjusted, the flapping noise that had started came from a curtain being buffeted by the howling wind entering through the window. He lifted a hand and gingerly pressed on the back of his neck expecting the pain of an open wound, but all he felt was the smooth, hairless skin he knew, and the layered baggy garments he didn't remember putting on.
He turned to the wooden doorway in front of him, and to the sound of steps that told him someone was coming. A woman in her late teens appeared with a plastic tray carrying a glass cup of black tea, a steaming bowl, and a few pieces of flatbread. She froze at the sight of him, letting the spoon that lay beside the cup roll off the edge and clatter against the ground. Kaworu stared with curiosity at her ornamented head scarf and her deep blue dress decorated with intricate yet thin floral motifs.
She exclaimed something he did not understand before walking toward him, placing the tray on the ground and pulling him by the shoulder so he would lean forward. She slid a hand under his clothes to touch his shoulder blade and her eyes widened and she talked some more, the final part rising like a question. Kaworu noticed her eyes were a cold shade of gray.
"I'm afraid I don't understand," he said, hoping his tone would convey his conundrum.
She exhaled, her frustrated expression creating dimples on her chin. She retrieved the tray and placed it closer to him, tearing a corner of a flatbread and eating it before pointing at the rest and then at him.
He hesitantly reached for the incomplete piece and bit on the corner. It was warm and soft and tasted decidedly more delicious now that he remembered he was starving. As he chewed, the woman stood up and talked some more, now tapping her own chest and then pointing outside. She picked up the spoon from the floor and left to another room for a few seconds before returning with a new one and a round wall clock under her arm. She presented it to him and made a point of moving the minute arm forward and backward by 15 minutes, and Kaworu tentatively nodded before taking another bite. She smiled, placed the clock and the spoon on the bed and left the room.
As soon as she left, Kaworu couldn't help but wolf down the entire meal in desperation, using the soup and tea more as a lubricant to wash it down than as something to slowly enjoy. He needed the heat and the sense of fullness in his stomach before his brain let him plan anything. He stood up and walked to the window to move the annoying curtain aside. His stolen jacket swayed outside, bloodless, alongside the rest of his previous outfit on a clothesline that reached up to the thick branches of a lonely tree.
He walked outside and was surprised by the surrounding village that spread on the face of a ragged green hill. The architecture was relatively similar to the one back in the bay, but this was less wood and colorful aluminum sheet and more mudbrick and drab stone. He retrieved his belongings from the clothesline and returned to the house to search for his backpack, which he found in what appeared to be the living room. Once back in the bedroom, he emptied its contents on the bed and took stock of his belongings: A flare, hiking gloves, crumpled food wrappers, a pair of sunglasses, a green trucker cap, some coins, a pistol, and a dozen or so bullets.
The agent had called it a P8A1, but Kaworu didn't pay much attention to its specifications. It was a tool to get out of a dangerous situation without having to resort to his special abilities, but it might as easily land him in trouble for even carrying it—yet another reason to avoid civilization for now. He put the pistol and bullets at the bottom of the backpack and covered it with the food wrappers before putting the rest of his belongings back in. A voice in his mind told him he was stalling, and it was hard to leave such comfort after days and days of walking and trudging and climbing. But he'd be a fool if he hid in a place like this for long. He owed it to the ponytailed man to finish his mission. The sound of conversation made him walk to the entrance, where the woman had returned with a tall man with a full beard and a cellphone in hand.
Kaworu stepped back once, twice. He was beginning to regret not having escaped through the window. The woman eyed the man, who in turn typed on the phone's keys with his thumbs. A sound file played: "English. Hindi. Español. Français, Russkiy, Deutsch..."
The boy pointed and repeated the correct language name in German. The adults had a brief exchange and the man typed for quite some time. He removed his backpack and placed it on the floor beside him. He observed the man, who wore an outfit similar to the one Kaworu was now wearing, but his shoes were black and polished, and he had a black sash with a silver zigzag pattern around his waist.
The phone spoke: "Hello. I saw you on the road a few kilometers from here. You had injury."
The man navigated the menu with the nub on the center of the device and then handed it to Kaworu, the header read 'Deutsch ⇄ Kurdî' in bold, black letters. He had some trouble understanding the mechanics of the numpad, pressing the same key several times cycled through characters printed on the key itself, but there was no dedicated button to delete his mistakes, and where was the space bar? Much of the lilin technology he'd seen he'd never operated before.
After much laboring, he was almost done typing something close to coherent when he mistakenly pressed on the key with the red symbol and the display changed back to some wallpaper image.
The man murmured something that Kaworu was sure was a swear word. Getting impatient himself, he presented the phone with one hand, but as soon as the man reached for it, Kaworu clasped the man's forearm with both hands.
'Fear not. I–'
The man shouted something and recoiled as he heard and understood the voice worming its way inside his mind. The woman gasped and questioned him before he motioned at her to wait. The man's lips trembled, his eyes full of wonder. He slowly put a hand on Kaworu's shoulder and swallowed.
'Can you hear me? Understand me?' The man's voice echoed in Kaworu's mind, and he nodded in response.
'My God, who are you?'
'Thank you for the food. I must leave.'
'You cannot.'
Kaworu tensed but didn't move. He eyed the backpack to his right.
'Wait, it's not a threat. It's just... She says you were injured, badly. But before she could tend to your wounds, they had healed on their own. At first I didn't believe her, thought she was exaggerating. But now, the way you look, the things you can do... Are you a prophet of some kind?'
'My journey is long, please let me go.' Kaworu grabbed the backpack by the handle at the top and stepped forward, but the man blocked him, squeezing his shoulder.
'Please, we need your help. I can drive you far away after this, no questions asked. No one will know you were here.'
Kaworu closed his eyes, his AT-Field was still in a delicate state, but there was few people around him, so he could manage. 'May I speak to her?' he thought toward the man.
He talked to the woman, and she made a face. Kaworu lifted one hand from the man's and offered it to her. She took it.
'Hello.'
Her jaw dropped. 'What?' She thought in confusion.
'Please be calm. I assume he's explained the situation to you.'
'Somewhat. So you really can do magic.'
''Darya, be respectful,' he said inside her mind, startling her. As long as they both touched him, it was a three-way exchange.
'He's just a kid,' she protested.
'He's so much more.' He turned to Kaworu. 'My name is Rebin, she's my cousin Darya. Please follow us.' He turned to leave, but hesitated for a moment, before adding: 'It would be troublesome if they see you doing that in public.' Rebin took his hand and removed it from Darya's. 'Please communicate through me.'
Kaworu was confused but the woman did not protest, so he followed silently. After getting in the van, he pulled the pair of sunglasses and green cap out of his bag and put them on to conceal his more striking features. They felt out of place when he considered the rest of his outfit.
Their trip was bumpy but short. Rebin drove an old but well-maintained van that he explained was used for the village's school trips, and once he finished his task, they could load some extra gas and maybe get him up to Tehran, depending on the weather. Darya rummaged through a bag in the back and produced the metal lighter, returning it to Kaworu with a soft smile. Rebin looked at him with mock suspicion before laughing heartily and patting him on the back.
The man parked in front of a row of buildings by a dusty, wide stone road. He got out of the van and slid the side door open, stepping back to let Darya down with Kaworu following behind. They walked to the entrance of a three-story orange building with a great cross bolted to the top of the second floor. The echo of the big doors, the elevated stage, the canopy of the skylight-filled domed ceiling, the ominous anthropocentric imagery; it all strangely reminded him of the Evangelion workshops in Berlin.
Rebin cleared his throat, drawing his attention. He walked to a blue side door and Kaworu followed. As the latter walked through the threshold, he turned back to look for Darya, and she was kneeling in front of one of the many wide benches with her head lowered and her hands clasped together.
The pair arrived at a small, white room with a single window. It was sparsely decorated with a curtain and several rugs and pillows, and a small wooden cross hanging on the far side wall. In the corner, a small, wrinkly woman lay wrapped in blankets. Her bed was not unlike the one he'd woken up at. Kaworu felt a hand on his shoulder.
'Kidney failure, I think. The Doctor says there's nothing more we can do. Can you help her?'
Kaworu turned to face the man. His expression reminded him of agent Kaji when they found their deceased UN companion, but this one was deeper, filled with despair. He made no reply but slowly walked towards the elderly woman, lifting his hand and turning his head to Reban as if asking for permission. He nodded.
He rested a palm on her forehead. He'd never tried this before, but his extensive knowledge of core synchronization gave him an idea. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly, searching for a presence inside.
In his mind's eye, the lilin in front of him glowed softly like an golden ember at the end of its wick. As he'd expected, reaching forward stirred the flame, but his energy did not feed it. Instead, it risked fizzling it out. She was moved by an entirely different animating spirit. Beyond the fading flame, Kaworu noticed the brief glimmer of a golden thread that receded into the horizon. It was a connection he'd only vaguely sensed when he was close to other people. It could've been the room, or this particular lilin's state of mind, but unlike in other occasions, the thread did not disappear as he followed it.
Farther and farther, through mountains and rivers and valleys and oceans, the thread joined a myriad more as they fell into a golden spiderweb deposited deep within the bowels of the earth. Every single thread of life coalesced into a glimmering crown atop a towering white being. It was a godlike creature of unbridled majesty that bled the very essence of life from its loins. On its face, a mask decorated with seven eyes shone, terrible and glorious, piercing straight into his soul, nothing less than a tidal wave of power that risked to snuff him and his entire world out of existence.
The deep ringing of a bell echoed through the room, startling him back into reality. His legs were very tired, how much time had passed? He looked around, Reban and Darya were stunned, staring at him. He saw the long shadows behind them shrink and fade out, and he wondered if a lightbulb had just gone out.
He turned behind him again like a dog following his tail, scared of the darkening corners of the room. His vision doubled and he wanted to leave, needed to. He tried to speak but no words would come out. No matter, they wouldn't understand. They reached to touch him and he recoiled in pure dread. Swatting a hand away, he ran through the rooms and hallways looking for an exit. A sliver of hope reached his heart as he saw the blue side door to the main chamber, trying to ignore the ominous droning voice he was not lucid enough to identify.
He pushed the door open and discovered with horror that the main room was filled to the brim with people of all ages. An old man in a white cassock stood in front of them, leading the strange ritual with a recitation Kaworu could not comprehend, but the whole congregation replied with a word he recognized immediately:
"Amîn." The voices of hundreds of people sang in unison.
The sound echoed in his mind, tightening his chest. The man continued to the next verse, and they replied even more fervently:
"Amîn."
No matter the language, he knew the word by heart. It was alluded to in countless history books, it was repeated with complete devotion by SEELE at the end of each meeting and promulgation. It could drive the lilin to love and communion and conquest and bloodshed.
"Amîn."
He started hyperventilating. He tore off his cap and sunglasses, gasping for a breath of air that would not come. He stumbled and knocked down a brass candelabra, and its long candles rolled away and fizzled out, causing people in the front rows to turn to him and gasp and murmur at his appearance and behavior. The man in the cassock shouted something while pointing at him.
Darya ran to his side and yelled at the congregation. She grabbed his hand and thought frenetically: 'You must leave! Leave now, they won't understand.' Her voice echoed and fermented in his brain.
He turned to her and stuttered something unintelligible. His left cheek and his right shoulder and his left knee were pulled in all directions by an invisible force. His sense of self frayed at the edges and began withering. He blinked violently as his vision shifted between his own, to Daryas perspective, to the cassocked man's, to a vague feeling that enveloped the whole congregation.
"I'm Kaworu Nagisa," he said in a low, grave voice. "A human being and a child of Adam.'
'What?' he felt Darya ask.
His feet slowly left the floor, and an invisible pulse snuffed out every candle and shattered every window and skylight around him. Darya grabbed on to him, pulling, begging him to stop. He knew because he shared her thoughts, it was her voice saying those things, or was it his? He felt the warm tears rolling down her cheeks.
Another pulse. The building shook and small debris rained from the ceiling, and his chest was on fire. Like a star coming to life his entire body shook as it floated. The glory of his transformation irradiated and blinded the people near him. The throng drowned in screams and panic, trampling each other in an attempt to leave the building. A few of them fell on their knees and declared their devotion.
"I am Kaworu. I am Kaworu. I am Kaworu," he murmured incessantly, trying to regain control.
The screams in his ears morphed into crumbling stone and splintering wood and the thundering of hollow metal crashing against the stage.
He was back on the floor, back to being one. His vision was partially blocked by pillars of smoke and dust. A soft sob decayed to silence in the distance. The thrill of far away birds and the howling wind propagated, uninterrupted, across the roofless ruins.
He had to get up. He'd done it. He used his light. They would find him: the Committee, the scientists, the soldiers, the giant with the seven piercing eyes. He would touch her, and everyone would die. Everyone could die. Everyone should die.
His own tears fell and splashed minutely on the dusty floor. He pulled the lighter out of his pocket and felt the smooth sides and then the ridges on the spark wheel as he slowly lit it. The tiny flame danced in front of him, guiding him, coloring his eyes a soft orange.
"I am Kaworu... Nagisa."
He moved one foot forward, then the other. He exhaled. He had to leave. The mission. The mission. Keep walking. He had to leave. Ignore the bodies. Keep walking.
"I'm so sorry."