Tsu at AO3 and FFnet, this one is for you ;-)
NGE characters belong to their respective owners.
"Pilot's response has infinitely approached zero!"
"Eva series and Geofront passing through the E layer! -And still rising!"
"The Anti-AT Field from Lilith... it's expanding further! It's materializing!
More dramatic proclamations sounded off across NERV's Command Room's cold, battle-marred space. These were technobabble to lay-ears, doomsay to knowing minds; yet, distinction between the two group was mattering less by the second, as all present knew their fate shall be one and the same.
Past the point of return, humanity now had no choice but to passively await this impending Apocalypse largely of their own making.
"My wish to become one with Ikari-kun has been denied," bemoaned Rei, crestfallen. " . . . I cannot become Ikari-kun's savior after all." Submerged amidst the growing numbers within Lilith's massive collective consciousness, the angel/human/clone/goddess found herself overwhelmed by her prior clash with that one suffering soul out of many. "Is this how…rejection feels like?"
"And how does this Lilin experience feel for you?" asked Brother from beside her, his red eyes trained upon the massive Black Moon currently rising through the E layer.
"I feel…unlike I've ever felt." Rei closed her eyes, blocking out the vision of Shinji—determined to suffer on in spite of her offered aid—to focus on her current sensations. "It's making me…sad, empty…lonely? Finally I learn the true meaning of these often-used terms." But at what cost?
"So you understand now, the reason behind Shinji-kun closing himself off fearing interactions with others . . . the reason behind the Lilins' Hedgehog's Dilemma." Brother then continued on in a less clinical, warmer tone. "You know you're not alone in feeling this way at this very moment."
Opening her eyes to the world at large, Rei knew it was just as Brother had said. With her seed form's Anti-AT Field having exceeded critical limit, so too did all individual life-forms started losing their ability to maintain separate entities. This loss—as this was indeed a loss by human standard—now hammered at the senses of all currently experiencing it.
"This entire world…is overflowing with sadness," realized Rei, her connection towards those in the flesh having deepened to the point of physically manifesting as multitudes of her once humanoid form. "People are surrounded by emptiness... And loneliness has filled their hearts."
Brother's eyes upon her were expectant, encouraging. "Feeling the same as these Lilins do, isn't there something you may feel compelled to do at this time, Sister?"
"Even I understand empathy, Brother." Already working to ease the way for her transitioning children, Rei the Seed Mother directed those many minds already within her Seed Body to possess her multiple avatars, allowing for them to personally guide their own loved ones into the Collective Consciousness.
"True self-awareness involves being aware of the existence of others," stated Brother. "It is when you see parts of yourself—your own likeness and experiences—as reflected upon others that you can truly see yourself. With empathy comes the possibility of resonance between once individual hearts; the possibility of unity, of braving interpersonal contact in all its daunting glory." He regarded her efforts with apparent approval. "Sister, your current action is also key to surpassing the apathetic fear binding the Lilins to their Hedgehog's Dilemma."
"…" Rei's mood did not lighten as per Brother's encouraging words. Upon action, she was beginning to realize just how deeply the human psyche was wired to associate the body with one's self; that, and those in the Collective deviated from their usual behaviors in their un-buffered state. Focusing on her remaining acquaintances at NERV, she saw, to her dismay, that being embraced by an unhinged Major Katsuragi only ended up stunning the introverted Lieutenant Makoto, while approaching Lieutenant Shigeru as herself only ended up heightening his fear of returning to LCL. In other words, her empathetic gesture only ended up further traumatizing/confusing those already dealing with difficult transitions. "Is there nothing I can do to help ease their worried minds?"
"Sister, external help can only accomplish so much. Ultimately it's up to each individual to help themselves through daunting situations." Brother directed Rei's attention towards Vice Commander Fuyutsuki and Lieutenant Ibuki, currently getting drawn into the Collective Consciousness by Ikari Yui and the junior Doctor Akagi respectively. "These two, for instance, managed to transition with contentment in their hearts."
Rei grew hopeful at what she saw. "Then…for Ikari-kun…?"
At that, Brother's expression dimmed. "Lilins are easily petrified by unfamiliar changes, him especially so. As the appointed Messiah, Shinji-kun must surpass this hurdle by himself if he is to successfully lead his people in overcoming Hedgehog's Dilemma; there's little you or I can do for him on that front—"
Right then, a sound—an exclamation of shock-sharpened anger—intruded into the Seeds' own personal sanctuary. Startled by this unanticipated phenomenon occurring right inside her domain, Rei/Lilith directed a quizzical frown at Brother, only to see a broadening curl of his shapely pale lips.
"…Instead, now is our chance to help Shinji-kun with something else…something that can only be accomplished with Instrumentality in full swing."
By now, a full commotion of sorts had since materialized in front of the Seeds. A transitioned individual, petrified yet very full of himself still, could be seen snapping back at this tsunami of raging, advancing souls he was currently fleeing from.
"—gone! Begone!" cried the individual, agitated hands swatting about as though fending off angry wasps. "Away with you lowlifes and your petty accusations! I've always been above your judgment—now especially so—because I am now GOD! I— " Somehow, he managed to trip and went sprawling even while situated within the Seed Body; his fall incited derisive laughter and jeers from the gathered souls, much to his obvious chagrin. "I'll show you…all of you—" Looking wildly about, his frantic gaze fell past Rei and upon Brother. "…Tabris!"
"Greetings." Under Rei's inquisitive gaze, the elder Seed stepped forth not to offer this fallen human any aid, but merely to smile down upon his pitiful state in saccharine glee. "How are you enjoying your Instrumentality experience so far…Chairman Lorenz?"
For one long, immeasurable moment, her world was only one long, perpetual scream. Her scream, coming out of a raw throat refusing to quit, was hurting her, killing her. Her suffering. Her pain. Her angst. It was all about her. Only her.
"…ave you seen…"
Another person's voice was reaching her hearing. A voice both timid and young…another presence incidentally breaking this one out of her lone-suffering mode, incidentally prompting her to stop screaming and just listen to external noises.
"...dark-skinned boy around my age…yes, 8th grade…"
So it was another girl around her age. A girl totally unlike herself (a boy-chaser, even) had somehow intruded into what was supposed to be her own private heart of hearts. That voice…somehow, it was beginning to sound awfully familiar to her…
"…name is Suzuhara, Suzuhara Toji! He's been injured and—please, if you've seen him around…"
'…Hikari…?' Even as she recognized her friend's voice, Asuka found herself regaining full self-consciousness—likely a side effect of external factors breaking through that wall of stagnant pain once imprisoning her mind. Horaki Hikari, prim class rep at that humdum school, a good girl in every sense of the word…her only friend left after the collapse of both her sync rate and sanity; that girl was now trapped within this same chaotic limbo as her and god knows how many others perishing from worldwide Instrumentality. Even down at this low point of her personal despair, she knew she must pull herself together if only to help her friend through this no-doubt difficult moment. "Hikari!" Eyes opening to look outward anew, Asuka saw that she was now standing amidst a flood of people all matching forward in brisk, determined steps; the ghostly, fluid manner with which their bodies brushed past her's revealed their current state to be more LCL than human. No longer easily weird-ed out by Instrumentality's eerie mechanisms, she looked around the swarm of moving souls in search of her friend. "Hikari!" she continued crying out loud. "Hikari!"
"Asuka?!" Hikari's callback came high with surprise and very apparent relief. "Over here! Asuka!"
"Hikari!" Following the voice, Asuka found Hikari—whose soul still wore that Tokyo-3 Junior High uniform despite having since transferred away—waving wildly at her from where she was already running through the crowd towards her. Exhaling as her tension lifted, Asuka likewise hurried over. They met in a hug, with her frantic friend latching onto her like the lost child she really was. "You okay?"
"I… I'm probably not." Hikari's smile dimmed at the question. "I brought Pen-Pen along to the hospital to visit Toji. Kensuke was already there, pestering Toji yet cheering also him up like he always does. T-Then all of a sudden Pen-Pen just melted into some kind of orange water." The girl's freckled cheeks turned pallid as per her recollection of the increasingly sinister chain of events. " Kensuke hurried to film it, but then also ended up melting himself. Then this…vision of Ayanami, Major Katsuragi and Kaji-san appeared, and Kensuke was somehow standing there with them holding Pen Pen. I think that was when Toji and I started melting away too." Her eyes came to redden with hints of tears. "Toji…he told me to stick with him right when it happened. But afterwards I ended up here alone in this strange crowd. I can't find Toji or the others…."
"Hikari…" Asuka trailed off, not quite knowing what to say. So that was why her friend was asking around this goddamned Collective Consciousness for that stooge like some mad woman. Silly Hikari, getting all riled up all for some boy who told her to stick with her, only to disappear on her himself; no less silly than a EVA pilot hoping (stupidly!) that her fellow pilot might back her up when she fought one unit against nine, just because that pilot had once braved even a live volcano all on his own accord just to save her…
"…I kept asking around, but the people here acted like they could hardly see or hear me…" Hikari's haunted gaze lingered upon the obviously otherworldly crowd—a number of them "melting" at the edges in vaporous drops and bubbles. "They're… really all dead from whatever is causing people to turn into orange liquid, aren't they?" She turned back to face Asuka with the fragile smile of the self-acknowledged powerless. "…I guess we are now dead too, aren't we, Asuka?"
In reply, Asuka tried the "merging hands" trick on Hikari, briefing her friend on the current situation. She saw Hikari jolting as though from an unexpected slap, and wondered if that was how she herself had reacted earlier on to this strange process.
"The lessons they taught at school are all lies," rasped Hikari, a single tear escaping her wide eye. "Second Impact, and now this Instrumentality…all engineered by that same group of powerful old people hidden in the shadows." Delicate fists clenched, the former class rep made a visible effort to compose herself. "Even so, I need to find Toji in this Collective Consciousness." Her once vulnerable-seeming stance now strengthened with apparent determination. "He held me in his arms promising we'd stick together when our world fell apart: the feelings I had at the time were not false."
"Feelings…huh?" Asuka found herself reeling from Hikari's words, stunned. Promising to stick together when their world fell apart…just like how it was when she and her unit-bound mother fought to their death against SEELE's EVA Series. Yet here she was, rejecting her mother in Instrumentality right after their precious re-bonding, just because her mother had let her down by hurting her (distant! negligent!) father. So then…the feelings she had at the time of Unit 02's final battle, were they…false?
For that matter, were the feelings she had back when Shinji saved her from the volcano false? How about when she praised him for his perseverance when she first found him playing the cello? Had she been grinding down all her prior good impressions of Shinji to nothing just because he ended up letting her down?
Even though she herself, in her subsequent long fall, had also been letting him down?
In her heart of hearts, she had long-since realized how it was never really about others letting her down that had her world tumbling down. Rather, it was her own fear of being let down—of re-experiencing that feeling she had upon discovering her mother's horrifically-timed suicide—that ultimately burned down all her interpersonal connections and sent her falling—
"Asuka?"
"…nothing." Asuka turned away from Hikari's concerned expression, all thewhile quickly wiping away her own escaped tear under the guise of tossing back her fringe. "Let's just go find your stooge and the others—"
"There you are!"
It was Aida Kensuke, pushing through the crowd to intrude—and conveniently defuse—the girls' current awkward moment in that moronic-seeming way that was distinctively him.
"Horaki! Horaki!" Kensuke practically latched his monkey-like frame onto Hikari, before turning to greet Asuka as though in afterthought. "Oh, hi Soryu." The hyper-ness returned as he whirled back to again face Hikari "Anyway! Hokari!" He started dragging the girl away with him. "We've gotta hurry and go! Toji is already there on the witness stand together with the rest of Class 2-A! "
"Toji—what…?" stuttered Hikari, understandably baffled while no doubt also excited at getting to reunite with Toji, judging by her flushed face.
Witness stand? Class 2-A? Asuka frowned as she took it upon herself to voice the important question: "Hurry and go where, scatterbrain?"
"The Trial!" snapped Kensuke, as though appalled that Asuka would dare to be unaware of something this big happening here and now. "They're trialing SEELE and its leader Keel Lorenz for crimes against humanity—the least of which being their murdering the mothers of everyone in our class just to make goddamned Evangelion Cores!" The boy's lips drew back in the closest proximation of a hate-filled snarl on that comical geek face. "All these people around are victims of SEELE hurrying over to bear witness to the bad guys' downfall, and I know I ain't gonna miss this for the world! And best of all—" Anguish lessening, he glanced over a scrawny shoulder and at Asuka in this rather impish manner. "As the pilot of Unit 01 Shinji gets a major role to play at the trial. So tag along if you dare, Soryu." And he ushered Hikari away without waiting for Asuka's comeback, all the while spewing his obnoxious, juvenile laughter.
"Stupid stooge," muttered Asuka without much heat, distracted as she was by far bigger matters on hand.
Of course, with humanity having melted into one single pool, even world leaders would lose their worldly prestige, let alone some shady cult reliant upon their political and military influences. Yet, with everyone having already lost actual physical forms, how was anybody to exact meaningful retribution upon anyone? Like…it was now literally impossible to kick anybody's ass, so to speak. Or…perhaps those people now nailing SEELE (most likely NERV personnel like Misato) were again relying upon "divine" aid, this time in the form of that cruel angel Tabris. With Wonder Goddess Girl now stupidly eating out of his hand, that cunningly creative monster could most certainly find ways to pinpoint and screw individual SEELE members over, be they now just orange goo. Indeed, Tabris and Wonder Girl were most certainly behind this "trial", or a pushover personality like Shinji's would have no part to play within this soul storm of a Collective Consciousness, EVA pilot or not. Unless…his "major" role here was really the same as what he had played in the triggering of Third Impact—that of a compliant tool to be used by greater powers...
That Tabris and his nonsense about the Hog(?) Dilemma thing…just what designs did he have for the weak, easily-manipulated pilot of Unit 01—the only EVA to be a part of Instrumentality? What havoc was this angel planning to wreak through the EVA pilot?
"Goddamned stupid Shinji...!" Already Asuka was walking then running after Kensuke and Hikari, towards that fishy trial and that fate-chosen boy who even in Instrumentality remains the focus of everybody's persisting concern—including her own. "…stupid pathetic me."
. . . to be continued?
Endnotes: Writing/formatting etc are all rusty (SEVEN YEAR GAP!) but this is the best I can do for now. Hopefully, I can at least get to complete the story this time around.
