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Chapter 5


'Well, look how the mighty has fallen.'

Straining to turn his head from where he laid powerless on the cold ground of the Terminal Dogma, Ikari Gendo, currently missing his right arm, now saw, to his mild surprise, someone he thought he would never see again, not even in Instrumentality.

"Naoko."

'Not the one you're looking forward to seeing again at this time, I suppose?' Stepping up on high heels, the ghost of the woman who was his lover – whom he had used and then killed to further his own agenda – now regarded him with dark mirth in her eyes. 'You've certainly outdone yourself, Commander, ensnaring not just me, but also my daughter, all to further your mad scheme to sacrifice the world and get Yui-san back.'

"I see the anti-AT field Lilith has been releasing has already reached pre-impact levels for the dead to show up like this," murmured Gendo, noting the visual clarity of her form. "Then, have you come to me for revenge?"

'Revenge? You think too little about us Akagis, Commander.'

"Ritsuko," he acknowledge the presence of the Akagi daughter without turning towards her. "So, the two of you have managed to find and hold on to each other within the nothingness of the Collective Consciousness within Lilith's Seed Body. That's good." "Tell me, now that the battle's been won and lost, for what are we meeting at this twilight moment?"

Ritsuko's red lips curled in a smirk. 'We're here to make straight the way for the Final Messenger to make contact with mankind.'

"The final messenger? But didn't he-"

"Death and life carry equal meaning to one such as I."

Eyes widening behind his glasses, Gendo glanced up and at the pale, boyish figure now standing over him, with his shoe-clad feet to either sides of his head.

"You . . ."

"Greetings, Father-san." Tabris, looking as physical as he was in life, smiled thinly down upon him. "Thank you for keeping my embryo form awake with the nourishment of your own flesh and blood: I have learned much about the Lilin's plans for Instrumentality through you."

" . . . I see," murmured Gendo, putting the pieces together. "The embryo I've attached to myself for safekeeping had acted as a bugging device, allowing you to anticipate my every move since early on."

"Not just 'your' every move," clarified Tabris. "The awakened embryo had erected for me a field encompassing the entire planet, allowing my consciousness to reach all corners of Earth – including all locations of SEELE's respective hideouts. Nothing occurring under the Sun and the Moon can escape my consciousness: we came to gain awareness over the entirety of Lilin's machinations all thanks to you."

" 'We'?"

'Tabris, who bears Adam's essence, has harbored within himself the population of all human souls deceased since the Second Impact.' explained Naoko, who stood with the late Doctor Katsuragi and Kaji Ryoji flanking her on either sides. 'We've all done in our part in guiding the Seed with our counsel, thus ensuring that the Final Messenger will succeed in his goal to part take in Instrumentality when the time comes.'

"I see." Gendo cast his gaze on the girlish form now standing at his feet. "And you're fine with Tabris' will potentially overriding yours from within the Collective Consciousness, Rei?"

"However crafty my Brother, he loves Ikari-kun," replied Ayanami Rei I+II+III. "This makes him far worthier of my trust him than you, Commander."

"Thus how it all comes tumbling down." Gendo laughed then, a dark, hopeless sound. "The Seventeenth Angel is to be the one to rule over the Third Impact –- all with the support of Mankind's deceased members. What a fitting end for the corrupt Humanity."

Tabris's red eyes upon him were chiding but gentle. "I will not end the Lilin race. Rather, I intend to have it evolve beyond its current limiting state."

"Do what you want, to me or to the world; just get it over with," sighed the NERV Commander in weary resignation. "I've lost, I've lost everything that matters to me, and the guilt is all mine."

"I ask only that you watch this."

At Tabris's voice, an apparition of sorts appeared in front of his eyes, showing the man the image of someone he was ill-prepared to face at this very moment.

"Shinji . . ." Gendo's eyes widened at the sight of his son, currently engaged in some kind of confrontation against Pilot Soryu. "Is this . . ."

"The most important scene from amongst the vast multitudes occurring within the Collective Consciousness," said Tabris, his voice husky with reverence. "This here, is the scene where the Messiah and his Mate shall begin their tumultuous descend into the inmost cave."


"Nice . . . to you?"

They now were in a train car, its interior so heavily basked under the sunset, that the atmosphere looked almost ominously murky –- much like the interior of a stale EVA Plug at the end of its life-support mode.

Asuka chuckled then (a demented, witch-like sound to even her own ear), right in Shini's face, before pointing a finger directly at the one currently embracing him from behind.

"You mean . . . 'nice' to you, like that Angel who just blew you knowing I was watching?" she asked, watching Shinji's hopeful expression dim. Shameless, the Angel's eyes merely narrowed with dark mirth at her words.

"Or, maybe, like 'Mama' Misato, who fucked Kaji right in front you?"

The grown woman actually had the good grace to look embarrassed by the girl's words.

"Better yet, like Wonder Girl, who has gone from being your Father's doll to being yours?"

"I'm nobody's doll," stated Rei, displaying more of a cool, threatening vibe than Asuka had ever detected from her. Heady from anger, Asuka ignored it, instead focusing on Shinji alone.

"I, am the only one who'd even bother to tell you anything like it is," she growled at the traumatized-looking boy, uncaring of the tears now streaming down her own face. "I'm plenty nice to you, you sick freak!"

"We're nice to you," chorused the "harem" at that exact same moment.

"LIARS!" Shinji broke free from the girls –- plus the Angel - with an abrupt and explosive violence. "All of you - you're all just hiding behind a mask of a smile!" Asuka saw, to her surprise, how Shinji was largely directing his anger at the Angel, whose pale nose-tip he now was pointing at. "Even you – you're using your nicety and my needs to confuse me!" The Angel's red eyes widened at his accusation.

"Shinji-kun . . ."

"You're keeping things ambiguous just to keep me - the real me - at a distance!" cried Shinji, anger further highlighted by his red-stained features in this gloomy evening train as he now gestured at everyone –- including Asuka –- present. "All of you are doing the same thing to me!"

"Because the truth hurts us all," spoke Rei, actually sounding melancholic. "Because having to face the person behind the façade you know them by is too daunting for our imperfect hearts."

"Ambiguity only makes me insecure," whimpered Shinji, suddenly seeming fearful. "I never really knew what everyone really thinks of me, I never knew what to expect when I have to make contact with other people, and I . . . and I . . . "

"And so you run away," muttered Asuka, regarding him with some actual empathy at this point. "But that-"

"That's just an excuse," Rei cut in before she could have basically said the same thing, much to Asuka's annoyance.

"Everyone faces that same hurdle, Shinji-kun." Misato watched him with crossed arms. "You're not unique in facing this same dilemma."

"But it makes me so scared . . ." trembled Shinji, as though he was some cornered, agitated animal, "I'm so scared that the day will come when I won't be needed by the people around again. It makes me uneasy! It worries me! Hey!" He reached out towards the others. "Let me hear your voice! Interact with me! Care about me!"

By this point, Asuka found that she no longer knew how to deal with this "no-buffer" Shinji at all. The others likely shared the same sentiment, as they too watched him without moving. The boy appeared further distressed by lack of response.

"Someone . . . anyone . . .?"

"Even if they do what you ask, it cannot help the person you are right now."

All turned at the new voice to see a beautiful, shorthaired woman donning a lab coat over casual attire, currently stepping up along the train car and towards the gang. Asuka noted with great trepidation how she looked almost exactly like an older, non-albino Rei.

The woman stopped in front of Shinji, who gawked at her appearance.

"Ma . . . ma . . . ?" he asked, limp fingers loosening around the cross pendant he held.

That woman is Shinji's mother, Ikari Yui?! The woman for whom the Commander had dragged NERV and the whole world into the madness of Instrumentality? Asuka turned towards Misato –- her info source for all things to do with the Human Instrumentality Project –- with a questioning look. Misato nodded back in the affirmative.

"Shinji," Yui watched her son with saddened eyes, "the problem of your fearful uncertainty lies with you." Shinji appeared shocked by her statement.

"But, Mama-"

"Though we've been apart for so long, your battles in Unit 01 have given me full knowledge over you. Shinji, you are fundamentally afraid of others, and there lies the root of your problem. You fear the shapeless, invisible barriers that separate people. This fear makes you do hurtful things to others and to yourself . . . just like how it is with your father."

Shinji seemed outraged by his mother's last line "I'm NOTHING like that-"

"Shinji." Yui again cut her son off, more firmly this time. "It's only when you've learned to withstand the pain of interaction can you truly appreciate the warmth of others." Her voice then softened with gentleness. "Only then can you overcome the curse of Lilin existence: the curse of Hedgehog's Dilemma."

Shinji might have voiced out some excuse or another for his inability to withstand contact from others; Asuka could not be sure, so stunned was she by the appearance of another figure now coming up toward them.

"F-Father . . .?"

Langley, whom Asuka had always remembered to be an immaculately groomed - almost uppity - man in life, now could be seen crawling on all fours in disheveled sleep clothes. Upon meeting her gaze, he pounced her, much like how an enthusiastic dog would at its owner.

"I'm so sorry, so sorry, my little doll . . ." he babbled on, bug-wide eyes staring past his daughter's horrified face, unseeingly. "Mama was right: Papa was always too busy breeding the bitch to take care of his little doll . . ." His fingers dug painfully into her arms, his spittle spraying her on her face. "Papa is a horny dog who can't keep it in his pants . . . Papa don't deserve to be called a man . . . Papa don't deserve his little doll . . ."

Asuka had no idea when exactly had she started screaming, nor when did she eventually manage to stop. By the time she came back to her senses, she was back at Misato's apartment, slumped forward at the table, spent.

". . . no . . ." She murmured under her breath, repeated, as though she was reciting some unknown mantra. " . . . no . . ."

"I want to help you in some way . . . I want to be with you forever.

Shinji's hesitant voice, followed by his hesitant footsteps, had Asuka – already tittering on the edge – growing rigid.

"No," she rasped, voice still shot from her prior screaming. "Don't do anything. Don't you goddamn come near me anymore. All you ever do is hurt me."

Heedless of her clear warning, the boy leaned over towards her, shoving that gullible mug of his right beside her face.

"Asuka, help me!" begged the ever needy, ever self-centered boy, to whom everything was ultimately about him. "Mama . . . Mama said some really troubling things to me . . . something about Hedgehog's Dilemma, and how I'm a victim of it. But I-I think it can be fixed." His blue eyes on her were twinkling with desperate hope. "If I come to you, you can help me feel better. So help me . . . you're . . . you're the only one who can!"

That line - so obviously false - pushed Asuka right over the edge.

"You LIAR . . ." she glared sideways and at this stupid, selfish, deceitful boy who dared to seek solace from her in the guise of offering it. "To a desperate, loserly horned dog like you, literally ANYBODY will do!" Watching him cringe from fear, she got up from the table and started advancing upon this unwitting target of her frustration, forcing him backwards.

"You're afraid of Misato and the First... and of your mother and father, too!"

"Asuka-"

"You're only using me as an escape - because that's the easiest way not to get yourself hurt! And you really only want me for sex, don't you, you perv?"

"Please!" Shinji pleaded, desperate and unbecoming. "Please, help me!"

"You've never really liked anyone! You're all you have, but you've never even learned to like yourself, you self-centered piece of SHIT!" Asuka shoved him then, hard, watching with contempt as his scrawny frame crumpled to the floor, taking the coffee pot with him and getting splashed by its scalding, steaming contents.

"Pathetic . . ." she hissed, choosing the word she knew would hurt him most.

Jolting –- not unlike how a worm convulsed upon getting stepped on - Shinji started slowly pushing himself back up with much apparent pain.

"Help me. . . Somebody . . . Somebody help me . . ." Head hung low, his voice nonetheless came to rise in volume . . . and sharpness. "Help me... Help me... Me... Help ME!"

Eyes hidden behind thick bangs, Shinji suddenly grabbed onto the table, and flung it aside with a bestial violence that would have daunted Asuka, had she been any less angry herself.

"Don't leave me alone! Don't abandon me! Don't KILL ME!" he screeched flinging a chair directly at Asuka's feet, missing her toes by mere centimeters .

Asuka did not dodge.

Instead, she merely watched this disgusting perverted excuse of a human being panting from his boiling rage, using her silence to draw out this painful moment of uncertainty and desperation for him. Until finally . . .

"No," she replied at last, delivering that cruelest blow.

For a moment, Shinji merely remained still, before his hands were to suddenly shot forward clasping around her throat, strangling her.

". . . no . . ." she continued on, somehow still managing to speak despite feeling her throat getting squeezed painfully shut (maybe it had to do with the nature of this strange place?), " . . . rather die than have anything to do with you . . ."

She heard, from where she was staring up at the ceiling, the sound of Shinji's agonized, hopeless crying, and found herself comforted by his despair and her own pain –- a combination powerful enough to keep even that painful knowledge of what had become of both her parents at bay.

". . . harder . . ." she urged him, all the while hating how similar her needy voice now sounded to Misato's "bedroom purring". ". . . do it harder-" And she stopped.

Where the ceiling once was now existed a wall of hexagonal shapes bearing various scenes, just like how the walls of the Room of Guf was like from a while ago. The only difference now was that the countless people within these countless scenes all had stopped whatever they should have been doing within their own worlds. Instead, every one of these individuals were staring at her and Shinji with rapt eyes, as though the Children - one still throttling the other - were leads on a live stage, and these people the engrossed audience.

"Keep going, Soryu-san!" the Angel called out to her from one of the scenes - one where the Commander could be seen in the background. "Don't lose that tension now - the World is watching!"


Not quite drowned out by the apocalyptic screaming coming though the apparition, the conversation between man and Angel continued on as followed:

"You're telling me that I'm not the only one privy to this . . . viewing?"

"This moment is currently getting broadcasted across the minds of all individuals held within the seed."

"For what purpose have you done this?" asked Gendo, his voice marred by a noticeable tremor as he observed Shinji's continued suffering in the near afterlife.

"For the sake of inducing resonance in the minds of many."

"Resonance . . . ?"

"The Lilin heart will only be moved by that which resonates with it. So what better way is there to make people feel for Shinji-kun, than to expose to them his bare-naked suffering?"

Gendo jolted at finally understanding what the Angel was trying to do. "Tabris, you're trying to . . ."

"The goal is to set Shinji-kun up as the Hedgehog Messiah in the hearts of the entire Lilin population," the Angel offered his exposition plainly. "Through his own suffering, the Messiah shall discover the solution to deal with that suffering; through watching this discovery through the crossing of Lilin hearts, the solution found shall bring salvation for all."

"What if . . ." Gendo paused briefly to blink back a sudden wet stinging in his eyes, " . . . what if my son is to fail in realizing that solution?"

"He will not fail," stated the Angel, sounding confident despite the maddening despair entrapping the Shinji shown within the scene. "The boy whom selfish old men had used and abused as a mere pawn shall rise and become the legend he's meant to be all along."


End Chapter 5 (could be a while before I can update again)