NGE characters belong to their respective owners.

Note: First off, an apology for the long lapse between updates. Thanks goes to Lunar_L AO3 and Progdor for getting me to resurrect this fic after its long hiatus. This is a rather rushed effort, but I hope it will still please ;-)


"First Pen-Pen . . . now Kensuke-kun too . . ."

Stepping back from the amber drenched pile of clothes - all that was left of her school friend - Horaki Hikari ended up bumping against the hospital bed, the mere impact of which forced fearful tears out of her widened eyes.

"It'll be okay, Hikari," murmured the one on the bed, the quiet voice followed by the speaker's firm, warm grip upon her hand.

"Toji!" Turning towards her recovering boyfriend in desperate need of his reassuring presence, Hikari was then treated to a sight that had her blood running cold. "Toji . . ."

Suzuhara Toji, already seriously injured from his bout with EVA, now was dissolving from below the waist like ice upon fire - to the point that his newly attached artificial leg now was slipping off.

"It's okay," insisted the melting boy, appearing strained by the mere act of speaking. "Kensuke . . . Pen Pen, they've gone back ahead of us, that's all." His hand, slick and hot, tightened around hers. "We're all going back."

"Going . . . back?"

"To Shin-man . . . the Red Devil . . . everyone we've left behind when Tokyo-3 became unlivable. But now . . . now that they need help more than ever, we're . . . we have to . . ."

Listening on, Hikari found her own trepidation gradually easing despite the sheer nonsensical quality of the words. It could be because it was Toji's saying them; Toji, whom she liked, loved and bonded with; Toji, whom she had pledged to stay with even after his crippling injuries; Toji, whose hand now was merging into hers via some strange mechanism incomprehensible to her fourteen-year old mind . . .

"Toji-" she started, but stopped as the boy pulled her towards himself. " . . . Toji . . ."

"They've come," said Toji, his eyes staring off to behind her.

"Who-" Having followed his gaze, Hikari froze at seeing Rei, Major Katsuragi and Kaji-san standing together with what looked like a gathering of NERV personnel; amongst them stood Kensuke, holding Pen Pen and looking to be as dazed as she currently felt. "Wha . . . ?"

"It's time," stated Toji, tightening his arms around his girlfriend. "Hikari, stick with me-"

And the young couple's physical forms collapsed in twins splatters of LCL, leaving behind two sets of intimately entangled clothing upon the drenched hospital bed.


"Opposites attract."

"Opposing wills clash."

The pair watched, with glinting red eyes, the vast expanse of glowing, mobile dots currently sharing in their sanctuary; certain pairs were moving towards each other as though drawn, while others drift further apart as though repelled.

"Opposite personalities, once they interact, result in opposing wills," observed Rei, learning with the diligence of a good pupil.

"Yet attraction between interacting individuals will ultimately result in them clashing," stated her Seed Brother - he who bore the Soul of Adam - currently coaching her on the finer intricacies of human behavior. "Thus the Lilin Race's eternal dilemma."

Lifting a pale hand, he picked from within the fluorescent bunch one specific soul of utmost importance to the two of them; a somebody who was - like Brother had said - was fragile like glass.

"Hey." Pretty pale face soft with cherishment, Brother spoke to this precious someone in a voice like velvet over wind. "What's wrong, Shinji-kun?"

"Nobody understands me," mumbled Ikari-kun's volatile spirit, his appearance - as seen within the glowing globe - changing rapidly between that of an angsty teenager and a crying child as per how he imagined himself to be in his heart.

Having been complimented to her full consciousness, Rei, now geared with a better understanding of how people are, found herself both saddened and frustrated by Ikari-kun's current sorry state.

"You don't understand anything," she said, trying to use reason to save her one and only friend from his self-inflicted torment. "You're hurt by people who are really trying to understand you-"

"This is what this SEELE organization controlling NERV wants for the world, right?" asked Ikari-kun, cutting her off (while revealing how he had since become privy to the top secret info through the Collective Consciousness' mechanism). "I thought this is supposed to be a world without unpleasantness... without uncertainty." He was now seen tearing at his hair/slumping forward in a chair/curled on the ground/flat on his back in an agonized manner. "If not . . . then what were those pains everyone got put through even for?!"

To that, Rei shook her head, even while knowing he - so entrenched within his raging emotions and painful memories - was blind to her gesture. "You're over-simplifying things, thinking that everyone else is just like you. You're meek yourself, and so you reject all those more aggressive than yourself during human interaction."

As though reacting to her voice -– which she knew was but one out of many he was currently hearing from within the Collective -– the numerous fragmented versions Ikari-kun started fusing into one: Ikari Shinji, fourteen year old pilot of Unit 01, slowly uncoiling from where he was curled up at the seat of his cockpit.

" . . . so it's my fault?" asked the boy, staring down upon the stigmata marking his palms as though in morbid fascination. "My fault that people will not be nice to me? That I end up alone?"

"All Lilins fear of the pains of contact to varying degrees." Brother's gentle voice lowered, turned solemn. "Only those who can triumph over this fear get to be nourished by the warmth of companionship." His red eyes came to harden. "Shinji-kun, you have to understand - there is no way to get around this, no gains without pains-"

"TRAITOR!" Berserk, much like how he was during his more difficult battles in Unit 01, Ikari-kun now was pouncing at the barrier of his soul globe's confines as though trying to attack Brother. "You forced me to kill you just so you can get to control Instrumentality, didn't you? You made me a murderer just to get what you want, DIDN'T YOU?!"

Brother, despite being beyond physical harm, recoiled under the blunt of Ikari-kun's accusation. "Shinji-kun-"

"You've betrayed me!" shouted Ikari-kun, having none of it. "You've betrayed my feelings!"

'Betrayed . . . just like me,' thought Rei, thinking back to the hurt she felt when she finally realized how the Commander she admired had been using her as a disposable tool to further his own agenda –- a hurt that eventually prompted her to retaliate against him with her own betrayal. Having suffered the same, she knew Ikari-kun's anguish like she knew her own. "You've misunderstood from the start," she nonetheless said, not wanting Ikari-kun to use self-pity as an excuse to run away. "Brother did what he did not trying to hurt, but to help you."

Her words appeared to have reached Ikari-kun, who stopped railing against Brother, and instead focused his widened eyes upon her.

"Help . . . me?" asked the boy.

"To get over your fear of human interaction," clarified Rei. "Instrumentality, under Brother's guidance, becomes the process to end the Hedgehog's Dilemma plaguing humanity." As she spoke, she noticed Brother growing downcast from beside her; she focused her attention on Ikari-kun. "You felt betrayed because you've simply assumed his intention without asking."

"Even you, Ayanami?"

For a moment, Rei merely blinked in incomprehension, before the true implications of Ikari-kun's words sank in. "Ikari-kun-"

"Even you would not side with me now?" Ikari-kun's eyes - cloudy with torment - bore into hers like drills. "I thought . . . back when you sacrificed yourrself to save me, that you would always be on my side. But I was wrong, wasn't I?"

"Ikari-kun . . ." And, before Rei could continue on, tears escaped her eyes, much to her own shock. The last she had shred tears, it was when she first recognized her own loneliness. This time though . . . "Am I . . . hurt? From making contact with Ikari-kun?"

"Yes, this is also you," murmured Brother, addressing Ikari-kun in the tone of one speaking to himself. "The part of you camouflaged beneath your nicety: that cowardice-based vindictiveness with which you guard yourself. It can, however, hurt only those who try to get close to you."

'Just like a hedgehog and its thorns,' thought Rei. And, just like that, the hurt she felt from Ikari-kun's hostility lessened, as she remembered her current goal: to help Ikari-kun –- and by extension, everyone –- overcome their crippling fear of interaction.

"It's you fault," muttered Ikari-kun, directing his displeasure at Brother. "You're the one who have forced me to reveal the whole of myself, baring my ugliness for the world to see."

"My bad." Brother shrugged, hapless, before again donning his broad grin. "But . . . even knowing the whole of you, I still love you, Shinji-kun."

"Liar," spat Ikari-kun, refusing to be placated. "You and Rei and Asuka and Father and everyone . . . you're all just manipulating me via ambiguous words and on-the-surface kindness, all for your own gains." He lowered his face while again curling up wormlike unto himself. "Nobody wants to be with me for real. Everyone should just die."

Brother's grin disappeared. "Is this . . . what you really mean? That the Lilin Race you have protected all along as an EVA Pilot should just die?"

Sullen, Ikari-kun remained resolute. "Yes."

Rei, somehow stung by his words, cut in once more: "Then, what were those battles you've been fighting for?" Silence met her question; she remained undeterred. "What are those hands that burned themselves while prying open my entry plug for?"

Ikari-kun's downcast gaze fell upon his marred, upturned palms. "These hands can only do what other people want them to do." The aforementioned hands clenched into fists. "In the end, nobody cares whether I exist or not. This will not change, because everyone is selfish. So, everyone should just die-"

And, before he could go on, Rei had merged his soul globe into her own individual conscience, closing what distance once separating the two at the expense of blocking out Brother and the rest of the Collective Consciousness.

Ikari-kun tensed up at the intimate, violating intrusion. "Ayanami . . ."

"Ikari-kun." Rei, now directly within Unit 01's cockpit - his perceived world - clasped her own hands upon his. "Your heart went out to me back when I did not even know what sadness means." Avoiding her gaze – likely more passionate than he had ever seen from her - Shinji tried to back away, but was blocked by his seat. "If you are going to close up yourself now, right when the people in your life need you the most . . . Then, what is that heart for?" she asked pressing ar palm directly over his heaving chest.

" . . . I can't." muttered Shinji, whom she knew to be crying even with his face turned stubbornly away from her. "I can't stand you or Kaworu-kun or any of the others . . . Everyone is so disgusting . . . and, and I suppose am too." He let out a choked sound that straddled the line between laughter and crying. "That's right . . . I should just die, too."

Rei would have slapped him then, had she not since learned from prior experience the futility in such employing such an act on someone like Ikari-kun; no, something more to-the-point, more cruel, would be needed to change his stance. "If people disgust you, then why are you here, now, inside an EVA's cockpit?"

Ikari-kun jolted at her question. "Just now . . . Asuka was fighting . . . and Mama-"

"You have been piloting for a long time now," stated Rei. "Back then, did you not decide to become an EVA pilot because you did not wish to see me go into battle in my injured state?" She put up a video playback of their first meeting at NERV, then manually turned Ikari-kun's head forcing him to face the display screen. "I was a stranger to you, and yet you cared enough about my well-being to take up the dangerous task of piloting. If you truly dislike the presence of others, then why did you care about me, back then?"

"Ayanami-"

"If you truly dislike others, then why were crying, back then?"

Another video came on, this one showing Ikari-kun as a young child at the train station, crying with a large travel bag next to him.

Tears betrayed the Ikari-kun of here and now, he who clearly recognized the painful scene. Rei, watchful of his reaction, pressed on with hopes of getting her point across:

"Can you truly deny in you heart that you wanted to connect with people - with the Commander, with me, with Soryu, with Brother, and by extension, other people as well?"

"Ayanami." Drawing a trembling breath, Ikari-kun then surprised Rei when he suddenly grabbed onto her hands in firm, desperate grip. Is it okay for me to be here?"

Rei, still green to human interaction, remained silent as she was puzzled by his words.

"Is it okay for me to stay here as Ikari Shinji, as the Pilot of EVA Unit 01, as a NERV employee, as a student of Tokyo-3 High School?" clarified Ikari-kun in a hurried tone, as though desperate for her answer. "Ne, Ayanami . . .is it okay for me to call this a place I can belong to?"

Before Rei could offer any adequate reply, however, a change had came over their surroundings. It appeared that Ikari-kun's heightened self-awareness had him returning into physical form right inside the actual cockpit of Unit 01. The Unit's display, still operational, revealed its current high altitudes by showing an outer space view of Japan's distinctive landscape, now disfigured by a macabre gape. Meanwhile, a massive globe, orbited by aerial white giants, hovered high above from their point of view. It appeared as though they were ascending towards it at a disorienting speed.

"Ah . . . Japan . . . and the Geofront, the NERV Centre . . ." rasped Shinji, "Everything . . . everything that allows me to be EVA Pilot Ikari Shinji I was is now gone . . . destroyed, because I did not cherish them enough?" His nails, blunt and uncut, dug into Rei's flesh (as she imagined she still had them), inciting phantom pain. "Is that why . . . I've lost everything that matters to me? Because I . . .?"

"Ikari-kun . . ."

"There's no longer anywhere for me to even GODDAMN RETURN TO!"

Ikari-kun's subsequent screaming - which effectively blocked off all further attempts from Rei to reach him - lasted throughout the Black Moon's union with Lilith's flesh, after which nature took its course, as Instrumentality's mechanism started to affect all lives over the rapidly reddening Earth . . .

. . . to be continued?