Asuka & Shinji's Infinite Playlist

Chapter 22: To Find the Way Back Home

Shinji dug his heels in the sand, contently staring at the giant smile beyond the horizon. Taking advantage of his still-younger body, he wrapped his arms around his legs like he used to, wondering what he'll say when he sees Asuka again. Dozens of questions raced across his mind, mostly about what this novel stop was all about, including the confusing massive Asuka head in the distance. Nearly everything about this sequence of events was new to a usually routine action. At least except for his current location.

Despite being a relatively new feature on the Japanese coastline, this particular beach held significance to both he and Asuka: at least the one in reality did. Wherever he was now, some tortured landscape bearing his love's visage in place of a decaying god in the distance, Shinji refused to leave the recognizable location.

She'll find me here, he calmed himself. I know it.

Releasing his legs, Shinji leaned back and looked up at the now-empty sky. He was alone on the beach, every alternate version of Shinji having blinked out of existence with his, or rarely her, companion star. Only he remained: he and Asuka's smiling face. Despite the cosmic horror of seeing his soulmate's massive cleaved head floating somewhere in the Pacific, he could only imagine that this was it. Putting his absolute trust in Asuka, he was certain whatever she had done was worth it.

Arms extended behind him in support, Shinji's right fingers grazed a recently-forgotten texture. Surprised and relieved, he looked over and smiled.


Asuka sat upright slowly, bleary-eyed and sore. Rubbing away the haze, she took inventory of her body, looking over herself thoroughly. As she felt around her torso, a familiar numbness rippled through her right pinky: crushed by a tractor a year prior. Tears began to pour down her face as the young woman understood she was home again, now whole.

Gently standing upright, she looked around a foggy landscape, unsure of where she was. Her toes sank gently into a soft substrate while something slightly more fibrous and damp crushed beneath her feet. Asuka walked forward slowly, arms outstretched, feeling her way around in the confusion. It wasn't far before she stopped when her hands brushed a hard column, no wider than her forearm. She traced it to the ground, searching for a source: grass had grown through a sandy beach, desolation making way for life despite the odds. Following the pole back upwards, her fingers brushed across an odd protrusion and she outlined the shape.

After locating the object's top, she placed an index finger on each side, both trailing downwards for a half inch before flaring out in opposite directions, falling again before coming in, and then down again to close the shape.

"A cross?" she pondered aloud before inspiration hit her.

She was at Shinji's makeshift graveyard on the beach. The driftwood pylons, haphazardly assembled and driven into the ground by a broken and desperate young man terrified he'd ended the world, served as an oddly therapeutic site for the two survivors of Third Impact: a physical reminder of those that came before.

Happy tears again forming, Asuka turned and faced the beach across the sandbar. She knew Shinji would be waiting there for her, and so she ran. With her first joyous step, a beautiful song began...

Life blooms like a flower
Far away or by the road
Waiting for the one
To find the way back home

Light footsteps carved their way through the sand for the last time...

Rain falls a thousand times
No footprints of come-and-go
You who once went by
Where will you belong?

She was finally home...

I feel your sigh and breath
In the last blow of wind
Not yet for the story on the last page
It's not the end

Surprised to not find Shinji on the beach, Asuka turned slowly. Panic would've settled in had she not spotted a familiar form in the sand...

Life blooms like a flower
Far away or by the road
Waiting for the one
To find the way back home

Time flows across the world
There is always a longer way to go
'Til I reach your arms
A madder there for you

Kneeling on the once-cursed shoreline, Asuka reached down and picked up the half-buried SDAT player...

Up against the stream
Waterways will join as one
Tracing to the source
No more strayed or lost

You will see petals fly
When lament becomes carol
Could you please hear my voice
That hungers for a duo?

"Shinji..." she whispers, as she presses the earphone into place.

Life blooms like a flower
Far away or by the road
Waiting for the one
To find the way back home

Time flows across the world
There is always a longer way to go
'Til I reach your arms
A madder there for you

Asuka Langley Soryu takes a deep breath, whole again, no longer afraid. With her entire soul, she knows and understands what needs to be done. Words had escaped her for far too long, the deepest fear of giving oneself to another gripping her voice for what felt like forever. But Asuka was no longer afraid: not of life, not of love, not of hurt or pain. And, for the first time ever, not of Shinji Ikari.

Without hesitation, she finishes her whisper into the device: "I love you." and the world comes alive.

In an instant, the haze of the world washes away. Fog, sand, and life swirl in a vortex as the skies clear revealing her beloved. Shinji Ikari is sitting next to her on the beach, the other earphone in place...

Life blooms like a flower
Far away or by the road
Waiting for the one
To find the way back home

Time flows across the world
There is always a longer way to go
'Til I reach your arms
A madder there for you

Shinji turns towards his love and smiles, cobalt finding sapphire for their last ever separation.

"I love you, too."


Song: "Rubia" by HOYO-MiX and Zhou Shen, from Honkai Impact 3rd