Asuka takes a deep breath with her eyes closed. The LCL heaves through her chest.
She feels heavy, laden with feelings. But she feels grounded.
She opens her eyes, laying her hands on the control reels.
Unit 02 stands in the middle of a massive plain outside Tokyo-3. Two hundred meters to her left stands an old farmhouse, untouched but long abandoned. Night has fallen. It is dark.
Asuka. The face appears in a feed.
Asuka dispenses with the greeting. "Are you going to be with me the whole time?"
If I can.
Asuka locks her head forward, setting her jaw. The only thing in front of her is low, rolling plains, a vague outline in the darkness. There's nothing to see.
But something is there. She can feel it.
"It would be a real shame for me to come this far only to die," she says, half-joking.
I will do everything in my power to prevent this result.
Asuka has come to take comfort in its presence.
But, more importantly, so will you.
Asuka's eyes narrow, her heart beating strong in her chest.
No matter what happens, Asuka, remember that you are not alone.
It is hard to accept, but it takes away some of the fear.
It is time to begin.
Unit 02 raises her right arm, opening her fingers. She closes them firmly, the spear finding its own way into her grip.
"Contact!" shouts someone in control.
"What…? Where did…?"
Asuka begins walking forward.
"Analysis, now!" shouts Misato.
"It's… an epistemic column!"
"You mean…?"
"It is a spear," says Gendoh, with infinite patience. "Clearly."
"How?! Which one?!"
"The appropriate one," says Gendoh, "which exists only for one purpose."
Unit 02's floodlights illuminate a hundred meters in front of her, but the night goes on forever. They are useless. She turns them off. The moon is coming out from behind dark clouds. It is full.
Ritsuko speaks urgently to Misato. "What else can it be? It has to be the key. She's going to be able to do it. To unseal the angel."
Misato turns in her feed. "Commander," she entreats.
Gendoh is silent.
"Commander, she isn't ready! This isn't what's supposed to happen! This is the worst, worst thing!"
"She is ready," Gendoh replies.
Asuka has arrived. The ground around her is dark, just grass and earth. But she can see. There is a pattern here. A seal. And something deep, deep underneath.
"Abort!" shouts Misato suddenly. "Eject her plug, shut it down!"
"It's pointless," says Gendoh, rising from his seat.
"The signal isn't being received, Lieutenant!"
"The eva is indifferent!"
"Of course," says Ritsuko.
"Gendoh," says Misato, trembling now. "Gendoh, this is the one thing, the only thing that can't happen. The unacceptable thing…"
Asuka can see him, in her mind's eye. He smiles down at Misato from high above control.
"Stop her, then."
Asuka crouches, leaping high into the air above the plain. She cocks her arm. Her muscles are taut, perfect. Her control is total. She will not be denied.
She hurls the spear into the heart of the seal.
Despite its tremendous momentum, it halts two meters above the earth. The seal, hundreds of meters in diameter, swirling runes of no human language, begins to glow all at once.
"The circles are active–all of them!"
"Circles one through seven are emanating. Pattern is reconfiguring."
"Tartarus! I have a signal from Tartarus. A pulse!"
The spear is disintegrating from the tip up, a billion little pieces, being drawn into their perfect places in the diagram, filling the gaps.
"The hadronic locks are aligning, dissolving–"
"I can do nothing to help you now," says Misato. Her hooded eyes, her fatalist tone. She stands apart from the rest of control. "Do you understand that, Asuka?"
Asuka lands on the far side of the seal with a deafening crash, upturning twenty ash trees into the soil.
"You have done the most forbidden thing. You–"
"Then be silent, and let me fight!" Asuka commands.
Misato is stunned.
"Circles seven through five are gone! The helical matrix is falling apart!"
The lines of light are disappearing from the outside in. Soon, it will reach the center.
"You mean let us fight, right Asuka?"
Asuka tenses. "Shinji?"
Unit 01 lands two hundred meters to her left.
"Shinji, what are you doing here?" Asuka questions.
Fourteen year old Shinji looks at her sideways through a feed. He adjusts his cuff. "Seriously?"
"We are reporting for duty," says Rei. Unit 00 lands to Asuka's right. "Where we are needed most."
"I would not miss this for anything, Princess," says Mari. Asuka pivots, and sees Unit 08 perched on a hilltop behind them, massive rifle in her arms.
"No," says Asuka, her mind racing, "no, I'm supposed to do this alone!"
And who said that?
The earth begins to rumble.
"Tartarus! It's rupturing!"
Your cherished ones, the ghosts in your heart, they will not stand idly by while you face this threat, Asuka.
"No…" says Asuka. It gives her more to be afraid of.
You can be brave for yourself. And you can be brave for them, as well.
The earth is disgorging itself before all of them.
"The final circle is gone! There's nothing holding it back!"
Feverish alarms run through control, lights flashing on Misato's terrified face.
"Tartarus is breached!"
The earth explodes.
Asuka launches off of the earth rising up against her feet, tumbling backward onto the plain and running even farther away. The sound is deafening. It's like a volcano is opening its mouth behind them.
Unit 01 nearly falls, then cartwheels back onto its feet. Shinji grunts in exertion, same as Rei. Even Mari had to fall back from her hill top, sliding down the long, grassy slope. Asuka braces, fists clenched, closest to the emergence.
A mountain is climbing up from the plain. But it's not solid. Tons of rocks and dirt heave off of it from all sides, pouring down, down to where the seal had been moments before. But it is not all earth… there is a shape underneath it, taking form.
Great, coiling tendrils begin to writhe through the waterfall of terrain, like a ball of snakes. A dark, chitinous plate emerges from under the falling rocks. A glint of something massive in the midst of it catches in the moonlight.
"It's… it's free."
The entity must two or three kilometers wide. Its body is a hard shell, sloped in low lines to its top and bottom, like a geometric crab's shell. Below it, a horde of city-crushing tentacles writhe through the air. Nothing suspends it, it floats high in the air, as if by will. In a large, central crevice in the heart of the thing, recessed into the shadows of it but illuminated by the moon, is a great, pupilless, purple eye.
The core, it must be.
"How the hell are we supposed to kill that!?" Shinji cries.
"With precision," Mari responds, unleashing an explosive blast from her heavy cannon.
The round traces all the way to the crevice in the heart of the beast, toward its eye. There is a bright flash, as it encounters the angel's AT field.
"Tss," says Asuka. They will need to find a way through. But first they need to reach the thing.
"We have to attack the core," says Asuka, "everything else is just in the way."
"Roger," says Rei.
"We can occupy it, Asuka," says Shinji
"Be careful, we don't know what it's capable of yet–"
A massive barrage of explosions encounters the angel's side, causing it to shift slightly in the air.
"Munitions have no effect so far."
"The angel is acquiring our defenses."
"It doesn't matter! Throw everything at it! Everything!"
Asuka, remain focused. Only you will be able to breach its defenses. Do not let it pin–
"Lieutenant! New entity detected!"
"What? Where!"
The glowing figure appears on a camera feed in her plug.
"Destroy it, immediately! Use the Galgar!"
"It's trained on the angel, we're already priming!"
"Change targets, now!"
"No!" Asuka shouts.
A beam of light begins to illuminate the night, cutting a swathe through the air. In the midst of it, floats Asuka's mysterious friend.
Do not fear for me, Asuka, she says, not even attempting to evade. I am eternal.
The Galgar beam roars over the plain, blinding them all.
The figure screams.
Asuka feels it. She feels her go away. Her heart falters.
"Asuka!" Shinji grabs her arm. "Asuka, you have to focus!"
She rips her arm away. "You don't have to tell me!"
"The angel is preparing its primary weapon!"
What? Asuka looks.
The angel is looking away from them now. Back toward Tokyo-3, kilometers away. Explosions continue to hit its limbs, its body. Some nearly reach the core, only to encounter its AT field. None have any effect. Its eye is focused on them, leaning forward. Its tendrils splay out in flattened, spiral patterns around it. It begins to glow a painful red.
"It's going to fire, we can't–"
For a second, the entire landscape is red, and a feeling of dread rolls through Asuka.
She hears a titanic explosion, the sound of the land being mutilated. She stumbles forward, nearly throwing up in the plug, she covers her mouth with her hand.
The red light is gone. She feels like she can breathe again.
Rei gasps.
"Oh my god…" says Shinji.
The mountains between them and Tokyo-3 have been torn open. Hateful red patches of light dot everything from the plain into the trench the angel's weapon dug into the hillside. Over the horizon, a red glow reaches up to the clouds from Tokyo-3.
This time, Asuka commands. "Report!"
"D-damage! Devastating! Half the nerve clusters of outer dogma have been stripped!"
"It cut through everything! Three battalions have been destroyed!"
"Sectors 7 through 12 have critical mechanical failure–we can't even get a proper assessment!"
"HQ is crippled!"
"She'll be brain dead if it does that again!"
"Asuka," says Misato. She's still alive, but her tone is black. "Asuka, you can't let that happen again."
She won't.
Asuka breaks into a dead sprint across the plain. She hears Shinji and Rei follow her. There is a rocky outcropping in the field, she leaps on top of it.
"I have to get close!" Asuka shouts back to them. "Help me!"
The angel begins to turn toward her, but it is ponderous, and slow.
"Go!" says Shinji. "We have you!"
Asuka leaps into the air.
Before she even gets close, the tentacles move to intercept her, but she was counting on that. She grabs the first one to reach her, and it is like catching a falling building. It nearly takes the wind out of her. She can't even reach her arms around a quarter of the thing, but she can hold on.
It carries her higher into the air, which she was counting on. She pulls herself back to her feet, then leaps higher. She rebounds off of another tendril, launching herself closer to its body.
The appendages move slowly but intelligently through the air, attempting to prevent her progress, but they are not fast, like the last angel, and she leaps from limb to limb.
"Gah!" Shinji shouts.
She turns long enough to see him launched back to the earth with enough force to dig a huge trench.
"Shinji!" she shouts.
"Don't stop!" he cries, digging himself back out of the hole. "We're counting on you!"
Asuka turns as the tip of one of the massive tentacles is about to spear into her. A point of light cracks through it like lightning. A symphonic groan echoes over the landscape as the finger recoils in pain.
"I've got you, Princess! Don't stop!"
Asuka leaps onward.
She is on a level with its body now, hundreds of meters above the ground. Seven more tentacles form a mesh to bar her way. But she sees her opening. She jumps upward, twists, planting her feet on the bottom of another limb, then pushes herself down again, right at its central opening.
It drifts away from her, but not fast enough, she is about to pass into the shadow of the opening. There is a great rasping sound as two additional plates emerge from the ridgeline of the shell and close together, closing the opening tight.
She lands with a crash onto the surface plate. "Damn it!" she cries.
She pounds the shell with her fist, but it is thick. She growls, and her glaive appears in her hand. With both hands, she stabs it with all her strength into the plating.
The tip bites into the armor, just barely. She rams it downward again, driving it deeper. The armor is hard, she's hardly getting anywhere.
With a wrathful cry, she drives it downward with all her might. This time, it lodges in the plating. Tiny cracks appear, but that's all.
This isn't working, this is going to take forever. She–
She hears a rumbling, and turns to see one of the tentacles dragging up the plate, about to crush her.
She jumps just in time to get slammed in the back. The unstoppable momentum of the limb meets the pinned glaive, snapping off the blade and sending the handle flying.
Asuka cries in rage, but the force of the tendril keeps her back pinned against it until she is hurled into the air, freefalling.
"I've got you, Asuka," Rei shouts.
Asuka hits her like a ton of bricks, the two of them tumbling end over end across the moonlit plain.
Asuka lies on her back for a moment, breathing hard.
Mari cries out.
Asuka looks in time to see a building-sized tentacle crush the hill where she had been perched with her rifle, destroying the gun in the process.
"Bastard!" Mari shouts.
"Damn it!" Shinji growls, attempting to block a tendril as it steamrolls the landscape, pushing Unit 01 along like a doll until it pulls him under, pressing him down into the dirt. Shinji sputters, climbing his way up again.
"It is very powerful," says Rei. "We can't beat it like this."
"I know!" says Asuka. "I need to–"
The fields change color from moonlight blue to an eerie red. The angel's eye is glowing again.
"It'll destroy us!" shouts Shinji.
Asuka's heart skips a beat. She knows what must happen.
She climbs up from the crushed field, and begins to run.
"Asuka, wait!"
Asuka's arms pump, her legs reaching maximum speed. The grass blurs beneath her.
"Asuka!"
"Stay back!" she commands. "I will handle it!"
"What?! You'll die!"
As she expected, the angel's eye follows her, its true target. She slides to a stop, far away from the others.
"I won't," Asuka promises. "Stay clear."
The eye saturates, a sphere of painful, bloody light. The heart-crushing feeling fills Asuka's chest again.
"You have to distract it. Do not hesitate. If I can get up there again, I can finish it."
"Asuka–" says Shinji.
"Okay," says Rei.
"Okay," says Mari.
The eye dilates, and everything becomes red.
She feels a pulse in her chest.
She must survive.
"Asuka!" Shinji screams.
The earth around her gives way as the angel's weapon decimates the land. Grass, trees, and hills give way before the torrent. But not Asuka.
After the roar, crashes still sound as masses of land crash back to the ground all around.
"Unit 02… it's still active?"
"She phased." It's Ritsuko's voice. "Asuka! You can do it! You are the only one who can get through. Don't stop now!"
A piece of the red glow touches her ankle. It's like touching hell. She quivers, but she is alive. One foot in front of the other, she begins to sprint again.
The angel beholds her, but its energy is spent. Is it surprised to see her standing?
It shifts as more weapon fire pierces the tips of its tendrils.
"Move, Shinji!" shouts Mari.
Rei leaps, slashing one of the appendages over her head with a short blade. The angel begins to tilt toward them, facing the threat. Opening the way for Asuka. She bounds into the air.
Rei lands from her strike, turning just in time to absorb the force of a tendril crashing into her, pushing her across the field.
Mari fires continuously from a rifle couched into her shoulder. A shadow passes between her and the moon, and she has to dive out of the way.
"What do I do?!" Shinji asks.
"Hurt it!" shouts Mari from her prone position. "Any way you can!"
Asuka leaps off the back of another tentacle, climbing higher.
With a battle cry, Shinji draws his progressive knife, jumping and grabbing a limb winding through the air in front of him.
Asuka lands on another appendage, then jumps upward just before it pinches itself, crushing the space where she had been standing.
Shinji plunges his knife into the thing's flesh, dragging it downward with his weight.
The angel's drone of pain rolls across the landscape.
Grabbing at the fleshy underside of a tentacle, Asuka swings forward. She's almost there.
Rei slashes at a tentacle coiling over the ground in front of her. She leaps backward, but another limb lands in a circle around her. She gasps, and it constricts onto her.
"It's got Rei!" Mari shouts.
Asuka rolls over the last tentacle in her way, pushing off of the back of it, launching herself at the eye. Her heart is pounding. The figure's words come back to her.
You can be brave for them, as well.
The only way is forward. The crevasse at the heart of the angel yawns before her. Again, chitinous plates slide forward, closing on each other and blocking her way. She lands on them with a crash.
Rei sputters in pain.
"It's crushing her!" Shinji shouts.
Asuka is on her hands and knees on the angel's armor. Eyes wild, Asuka can feel the burning inside her, the untouchable feeling. She lets it roll through her limbs and from her skin.
Unit 02 begins to seep deadly poison, excreting it from back, shoulders, legs, hands and feet. It pours onto the armored plating of the angel, reacting with a violent hiss.
Again, a massive tentacle hits the surface of the angel, dragging across it with a rumble that sends vibrations to Asuka's teeth. It passes over her, though, because she's already sinking beneath the surface, burning through.
Rei cries out again, choking.
Gunfire rages. "Do something, Shinji!" Mari shouts.
Flesh tears. "I'm trying!"
Acid memories push through Asuka's mind, but her purpose is singular. The orange poison pools under her in the hole she has made, but it does not burn her. Then, she bursts through.
She falls dozens of meters, landing in a bony alcove. She looks up.
Down an organic canyon, hundreds of meters away, the lidless eye stands before her like the vision of a god. Droplets of the poison sizzle into the bony matter beneath her feet. She rises, and begins to charge.
There is a horrific snapping sound, and Rei shrieks.
"No!" screams Shinji, "let her go!"
There is a muffled cry of pain, and the sound of earth being upheaved by a great force.
"Shinji!" Mari cries.
Asuka flies through the air. She's nearly at the eye. She plummets into the AT field.
"Oh, god," groans Mari. She grunts, trying to evade.
There is only one way through this. Asuka projects her AT field with all her strength.
The fields crackle and snap. Their strength is equal.
Tears pour down Asuka's cheeks. She exposes herself fully.
The AT fields merge, and suddenly they are both gone.
Cracks run through the crystalline eye. It explodes outward at her, revealing a black ruby core underneath. It pulses like a heart.
"Die!" Asuka shrieks, slamming into its surface.
It resists her. She pounds at it with her fist.
"Die! Die! Die!"
It does not relent. She rears back her right arm and strikes it with all her strength.
Her wrist shatters.
She snarls and gasps with the searing pain. She sucks in another vicious breath, and draws her progressive knife with her left hand. She drives it into the core's surface with everything she has.
It does not break the surface. Sparks fly from the tip of it as it grinds futilely at the ungiving substance.
The blade snaps, ricocheting down into the canyon behind her.
Asuka heaves, tears on her face, the sounds of her friends dying in her ears. Her left hand rests on the surface of the core. Her weapons will not penetrate it.
Then she knows what she has to do.
She reaches for the plug ejection plunger.
No one tries to stop her this time. The plug ejects into disembark. The hatch bursts open. Asuka jumps out, spewing LCL and spit. She jumps onto Unit 02's shoulder, then runs up her arm. The core is pulsing, bright, warm red flashes. She can feel it. Her temples and eyes throb. She reaches Unit 02's hand, its fingers splayed over the surface of the core. She crawls out onto her finger, peering into the ruby abyss below.
It's like looking at her own death. She feels close to it. Intimate. She knows it will not deny her.
Mari issues a prolonged cry of pain.
There is no turning back now.
Asuka stands, and with a feeling of abandon, she steps out over the core, falling forward.
It takes her right in.
"I love you, daddy," she says, her mitten surrounded by his warm hand.
He's in his business coat, he smiles down at her, but says nothing.
She frowns, wishing he would say it back. "Can we play blocks tonight?" she asks him.
"Sure, liebling."
.
She sits alone in the living room, surrounded by her blocks. She doesn't feel like playing. Outside the big window, the sun is going down. The light is going out of her, too.
.
"Well, you're a stupid bastard, you know that?"
Mommy is talking to daddy on the phone.
"What do I care? Do whatever you want!"
She slams the phone on the receiver, and Asuka flinches.
Her mom stomps into the living room. Her eyes are sad and crying, but she wears a big smile. She scoops Asuka up into her arms.
"It's a good thing you're so perfect, Asuka." She squeezes Asuka and it hurts, but Asuka hugs her back. "You're my little angel."
.
"I don't like it here," says Asuka.
It must be the wrong thing, because her dad actually crouches down next to her. "Well, you have to come here, okay? Mommy needs you Asuka. Especially at times like this."
The lifeless beeping of machines fills the hospital corridor. Through the crack in the door, Asuka can see mommy staring out the window, like she always is.
She seems to sense Asuka, turning toward her. Her smile isn't right. "Angel…"
.
"I want daddy!" Asuka wails, red in the face. "I want daddy!"
Mrs. Stedter is losing her patience. "I told you, Asuka, he's on very important trip. Eat your peas, come on, now."
She shoves the plate away from her, spilling her food. "I want daddy!"
"Don't be a bad girl, Asuka, crying won't change anything."
"No…" she moans. She curls up, tucking inside herself, so the mean lady won't hear. She hates crying. She hates Mrs. Stedter. And she hates everything else, too.
"Mommy…"
.
"Mommy might go away soon, Asuka." She's wearing a bad smile again.
Asuka looks up at her from her arms, in the hospital bed. She's scared.
"I don't want you to go away, mommy."
Mommy smiles. "You can come with me, you know."
For some reason, the way she says it is scary.
"We can always be together."
Asuka wants to say yes, but she's so scared.
.
Asuka pulls through the darkness. It's like swimming below the light line in a red ocean. The fluid is thick. It's painful. It's not like LCL, it's like swimming through ammonia. She wants to throw up. She feels like her skin is melting off. But she's almost there.
She can see her now.
The girl's form appears from the shadows. She can't be more than five. She's small. Vulnerable. Her back is to Asuka.
You really came all this way?
Asuka knows it's her voice. She has to reach her. It's the only thing that matters.
She reaches out her unbroken hand. She's so close.
The girl slowly turns with the movement of the fluid. Asuka can see her face now. Her expression is solemn. Hard. She looks older than her years.
She opens her eyes, and grabs Asuka's arm.
.
Asuka runs in the house. "Mommy!" She's clutching her picture. Ms. Harken put a star on it. It's her best one.
"Mommy look!"
It's hard to make mommy smile. But it could make her happy.
"Mommy look at my drawing!"
She can't find her. She runs down the hall, to the bedroom.
"I drew a picture of us!"
It's all three of them, together, like last Summer. She throws open the door.
"Mommy, I–"
Mommy is there, but it's all wrong. She's hanging from the ceiling. It smells horrible. She's all gray, and bloated. Her smile is the worst thing Asuka has ever seen.
There's a littler rope, hanging next to her.
Mommy's lips don't move, but her voice is right in her ear.
"We can always be together."
Asuka shoots up. Moonlight streams in through the window.
Kensuke moves on the mat next to her. "Asuka?" he says, sleepy.
Now she begins to scream.
"I don't know, Shinji, I've tried everything I could–"
Asuka hunches against the wall, hugging her knees, rocking back and forth.
"Is she talking?"
"Not at all!"
Suddenly Rei is there. She doesn't say anything. She's on her knees in front of Asuka. She just looks into her eyes. Asuka feels warmth, and realizes Rei is holding her hands. It feels good.
Asuka looks down at her spoon. She is eating soup. It's bright now. Maybe the afternoon.
"Asuka?" It's Kensuke.
That picture she drew. She still has it. It's in a storage box in the shed. She just remembered.
Her whole body shudders. Her face contorts, and she drools, moaning.
"God, Asuka!"
Kensuke's arms surround her. Shinji's face is painted with concern.
She wakes to Kensuke stroking her hair. It's night again. Over his shoulder, she sees Shinji and Mari's feet on mats in the hall, and Rei's head in the kitchen.
Kensuke's hand stops. "Asuka?" he whispers.
She doesn't look at him but she tucks her head into his shoulder. He holds her close.
Asuka opens her eyes. The sky is full of stars. She feels cool grass underneath her. She sits up.
The figure stands down the hill a short way from her. There's someone standing closer though.
Misato has her back to her. Her posture is stiff.
"Misato," says Asuka.
Misato turns around, tears in the corner of her eyes. She's angry.
Asuka lets her slap her.
"I can't believe you," Misato says. "I can't believe the risks you took."
"They were my risks to take."
Misato snarls. "Do you understand what we almost lost? What I almost lost?"
Asuka says nothing. Misato begins to shrink.
"I almost lost everything," Misato says, weeping. Her voice is getting higher.
Misato the little girl stares up at Asuka. "I almost lost you."
Asuka bends down and picks her up, holding her in her arms. "Be thankful you didn't," she chides her gently. Little Misato wraps her arms around her.
Asuka walks down the hill toward the figure. There's no distortion now. She can see her clearly.
She was never wearing a blue dress. It's her hair, long, thick and wild, streaming down over her shoulders and over her legs. She turns around.
Asuka, she says with infinite warmth. Her lips don't move.
"Rei?" Asuka is taken aback. "What are you doing here?"
It is Rei… kind of. It's her face, but her hair is a goddess mane and her skin glows.
Rei. Yes, you could say this. I would say I am Deeper Rei. I told you before, but you were not ready to understand.
The Rei you know is Conscious Rei, you could say. I am with her always, of course. Under the surface. It was her most fervent wish to live like a human. And so it is. It is for this reason that she is unaware of our congress here.
"How… why did you help me?"
Because I love you, of course.
Asuka frowns.
Do not rebuke yourself for accepting the help of one who loves you, Asuka.
"You shouldn't have had to…"
'Should' has no part in it.
Asuka blinks, trying to understand that.
What you have done is magnificent. Many go their whole lives without making such needful corrections to their configuration. Yet you have done this in only a few days' time. I merely encouraged you.
Asuka sees her on the battlefield, being engulfed by the light from NERV's weapon. The cry of pain.
"I thought you…"
As I said, I am eternal. Fear not for me.
Misato is silent, resting her head on Asuka's shoulder. Asuka shifts, tucking her close.
"Am I… not going to see you anymore?"
Rei smiles.
You will see me again. I only cannot say when.
A sense of longing pangs deep within Asuka. She doesn't want this to end.
Fear not, Asuka. All this and more awaits you, down the line. For now, you have a life to live. A free one. Your friends are waiting for you.
"But Rei won't…?"
Rei will recall nothing. In the meantime, I have one last thing for you. A gift.
Rei walks up the slope toward Asuka. Asuka is nervous, but this time she does not run.
Misato turns in Asuka's arms, to see. Asuka's chest is exposed.
Rei lifts her hand, glowing white as the sun, and lays it on Asuka's ribs.
For a moment, Asuka lacks nothing in the world.
This time, Asuka opens her eyes slowly. Her body is relaxed on the mat.
"I can't stand it. I can't leave her, not after everything. Not even for an hour." It's Kensuke's voice.
What are they talking about?
"I know how you feel," says Shinji, "but we're barely getting her to eat. She may need help, for her body at least."
Asuka sits up on the mat. Everyone goes quiet.
It's afternoon again. It's warm.
Her voice is like gravel. "Don't you know I can't stand people talking about me like I'm not there?"
Shinji starts to exclaim, but Mari grabs his arm. Rei walks over silently. She crouches next to Asuka, then hugs her from the side.
Kensuke is next, then Mari and Shinji. They all hold her, together.
She can't help it, she starts crying again.
She doesn't hate it as much this time, though.