Opening his eyes, he frowned. When the hell had he fallen asleep?

Turning his head sideways, he realized he was not in his sleeping bag. Nor was he in the same building he had last been in.

It took him only a moment later to realize he could not move his arms or legs either.

Anxiety rose as he struggled against the chain, desperately trying to figure out how to get out.

Before he could get any further, a familiar voice broke the silence.

"You aren't going anywhere."

Oh. Ohhh no.

Seemed like his suspicions were confirmed. WILLE had finally caught him again.

Craning his head, he faced the direction the voice had come from. The click of boots echoed as a figure emerged from the corner of the room, the light letting him see their features.

Captain Katsuragi stopped only a few paces away from the table he was chained to, gaze cold and venomous, even through the visor she wore.

"Did you really think you could escape us? Escape me?"

Shit. Seems like she wasn't willing to play games this time around. He increased his struggles, the handcuff cutting into his skin with the force.

"I regret what I did to you after the third impact. I should have told you what was going on. I blame myself partially for what happened."

He paused, confused as to her goal. The sudden shift in tone threw him off.

He stared as she looked down upon him, her gaze cold and professional.

"But fourth impact? That was different. Far different."

She leaned forward, her face inches from him.

"And because of that I can't say I feel bad about what's going to happen next."

She reached into her jacket, pulling out a simple remote, pressing a button on it and shoving it back in.

"And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels that way."

The room lit up, numerous figures previously shrouded in darkness visible.

Familiar faces dotted the room, the majority of the people he had known from NERV present. Gazes cold, eyes observing him, like a piece of meat.

One lone figure stepped forward. The beret gave who they were away.

Sakura Suzuhara. It had been a while he had last seen her. A small medical bag sat in her right hand.

Reaching into it, a thin IV tube was produced, where wordlessly, she put it into his arm, practice evident in the motion.

"You took so much from me."

Wow, he hadn't expected that. The venom in her voice was surprising. From what he had known of the girl before, she seemed like she couldn't have hurt a fly.

A syringe was promptly pulled out, and it only took him a second to realize what was happening.

They were going to kill him. By the looks of it, a lethal injection too. How wonderful.

He would have continued struggling, but he decided to stop, accepting his fate.

Even if he somehow managed to escape the restraints, he had a crowd of angry, likely armed, men and women who wanted nothing more than to see him dead. Fighting would be pointless.

They were the audience, he was the show. Seemed like his last episode was coming up.

He watched, face neutral as the syringe was connected to the IV, watching the liquid that would spell his doom make its way through the plastic tube and into his veins.

He closed his eyes, and waited for when he wouldn't be able to open them again.

5 seconds.

10 seconds.

30 seconds.

1 minute.

2 minu-okay what the Hell? He opened his eyes and found that he was infact still alive, and still strapped to a table.

The small crowd watching him seemed to be just as confused as he was, looking at each other with raised eyebrows. Someone stepped up, the blonde buzz cut immediately recognizable.

"Well, it seems my suspicion was correct." Ritsuko sighed, glancing over to Katsuragi and Sakura, who both looked at her with furrowed eyebrows, silently encouraging her to continue.

"Years ago, when I was still affiliated with the man, I had tried the same thing on Gendo Ikari a few days post third impact, after one of our… meetings. I had found out he had a natural resistance to it when he had woken up the next morning, completely unharmed."

She turned her gaze to the younger Ikari, who was darting his eyes around the room in confusion.

"It seems his son inherited that."

"Well it seems like the brat has managed to even mess up his own death!"

A familiar redheaded figure stomped it's way to the front of the crowd, crossing her arms with a scowl on her face. She turned to her commander.

"Well, what now?"

Katsuragi, who had been doing her best to emulate a statue, spoke up.

"Well, it seems like we'll have to do this the old fashioned way then."

She moved forward, stopping only inches from where he was.

Before he knew what was happening, she reached into her jacket, and pulled out another familiar object.

A second later, he was staring directly down the barrel of her trusty service USP40 still around after all the years. The black slide was worn, holster wear exposing polished metal on the edges.

The barrel was just as beaten, the years of use evident, the hollow point round within the chamber clearly visible thanks to the gun being only two inches away from his eye.

Her finger was already on the trigger, the safety off and the hammer back.

"I hope you appreciate what you created."

BANG

PRESENT

EARTH, SOMEWHERE IN THE RED WASTELAND

The familiar feel of sweat dripping down his face helped ground him back to reality.

He let his breathing even out as the remnants of his dream faded, leaving him once again in silence.

Sighing, he sat up, staring into the pitch black darkness surrounding him.

He brought his arm up, checking the digital watch he had "liberated" a few months ago, taken from the corpse of a SEELE grunt who hadn't noticed the IED Shinji had placed for him and his squad.

03:30

Oh just wonderful. Well, at least he had managed 3 hours of sleep this time.

Growling in frustration, he stood up, fruitlessly trying to stretch away the pain that resided in nearly every joint and muscle within his body.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, he grabbed his pack of cigarettes, lighting one up before stowing the pack away again, reaching into an adjacent pocket to pull out a small notebook.

He flipped through it in silence, letting his eyes lazily skip through the words and numbers written as he went through it.

His eyes settled on the two words that took up all the space on the last page. Lingering on them a moment before closing the book shut.

A parting gift to the world, I suppose.

He shoved it back in it's respective pocket, and took another drag of the cancer stick, letting the smoke linger before exhaling.

He let his gaze wander to the land around him, the silhouettes of the failures of infinity visible in the faint moonlight. He wondered who they had once been, the men, women and children that now were these aberrations of horror.

Stubbing out the cigarette, he began to get ready for the day, packing his gear and shrugging on a jacket and mask.

Making his way towards the nearby city, he began his trek, hard rubber soles impacting dirt and rock.

He thought back to what was written in the small booklet of his, and the plans written within.

He couldn't be redeemed. He knew that. What he had done, there was no coming back from that.

No magical fix that would suddenly absolve him of the genocide he had unknowingly caused.

He couldn't bring back the souls he had damned, and it seemed like fixing the world was no longer an option after his failed attempt during fourth impact.

But he could still always try.