NGE characters belong to their respective owners.

Notes:

I know, I know I've let you down. I've taken over 3 months just to get this tiny tidbit out (cries). Life. Too. Hectic.


"…why…"

Feeling trapped within the confines of their box, Toji watched the godforsaken reunion currently unfolding onstage with fists clenched.

"Shinji…he's been fighting on our side all along, protecting us against monsters of that freak's making…all the way till now. So…why…?" He swept his arms about the witness box—where his classmates merely faced forward glassy-eyed—in acute exasperation. "Why has everyone grown so frigging accepting of these two…beingtogether?!"

"But you are too."

The verbal jab had Toji glaring to his left. "Ken…"

Kensuke held Toji's glare with glinting eyes and glasses. "Like us, you're also growing increasingly accepting of the fact that Shinji and that guy did share a past…and are now together again."

Irked, Toji tried to snap out some kind of retort…but found none ready. A labored moan from his right had the boy hurrying to hold onto his girlfriend, to keep the latter from collapsing backwards. "Hikari! What's wrong?!"

"…something strange deep inside of me is happening…" gasped a wide-eyed Hikari, her face pallid as paper. "Like I'm being torn into two different versions of me…in conflict…" Somehow, her hands were holding onto her abdomen; not unlike how a pregnant woman would react to panic, noted Toji…before wondering how his mind drew such a parallel considering his own limited experience on the matter.

"There's a part of you that recognizes how there's a part of Shinji-kun that is Blue."

Ayanami's abrupt intrusion into the tense conversation had the trio whirling towards her. Accompanied by this mature lady he did not recognize. the albino girl—still in court guard uniform—was watching some video on a phone held in the woman's hand.

"…and that does not sit well with the part of you hating Keel Lorenz," continued the girl, still not looking up. "There lies your current dilemma."

Frowning, Toji leaned over the Witness Box's rail towards Ayanami…and froze at what he saw on the phone's display.

The video showed a little girl getting strangled by a woman in what appeared to be a violent fit. The little girl's albino features made her immediately recognizable as a younger version of Ayanami, and the woman…she was the very same as the one currently in Ayanami's company showing the girl this chilling scene.

"Every sentient individual entity is a sum of its parts," stated this lab-coat-wearing woman currently having a gentle—almost maternal—hand clasped over Ayanami's relaxed shoulder. "As such, its parts are not always in perfect agreeance."

"Do not fight your empathy towards Blue and Kuhl," said Ayanami, at last glancing up and over at her stunned classmates with her now sagely red eyes. "Such empathy could be a sign that your connection to them are deeper than you yet know."

"A deeper connection to them…" A memory came to Toji then. Back when he was hospitalized at NERV after getting crushed in the Angel-infected Unit 03, he had this uncanny vision—one far too vivid to have been just a dream—where he was in this train car together with Ayanami and Shinji, listening in on them arguing about something vague yet seemingly profound…yes, he himself was indeed NERV's Fourth Child, a pilot just like Shinji and Ayanami. In other words, he, too, was someone with a direct connection to SEELE and also Keel Lorenz….

Heart pounding in his chest (his arms around the trembling Hikari and also Kensuke), Toji found his gaze getting pulled back to the front in spite of himself, as he again watched on hapless the continued interaction between his best friend and greatest foe in this life.…


"…to think how all of us Children got to live united in a singular world, our very own…"

The voice—tone and nuance just as he remembered it to be—drilled into Keel's hearing with such clarity, that the man had no choice but to accept that yes, this was no trick of Tabris' psychological meddling. This was indeed his Blue, present with him upon this Prisoner's Dock, within this Collective Consciousness.

Clean-cut schoolboy charm shining though even his weathered street kid garments, Blue appeared exactly as Keel remembered him to be: a fair youth who appeared delicate like glass in spite of his outstanding Wild Boy survival chops.

"—sharing a love that only few had ever known," finished Blue, beaming down upon the kneeling Keel in earnest adoration—the sight of which cut at the latter's guilt-ridden heart like a swarm of glass shards.

"…but at what cost?" Keel could not help but ask, voice marred by an uncontrollable tremor. "When it all came tumbling down, you and the Children all…ended up…" The scenes of carnage from that accursed day seventy years past resurfaced in his old heart with such violence, the usually poised Ruler now could hardly keep his eyes open against the onslaught of tears. "…all to save me…!"

Blue's smile never wavered within his blurring vision, but instead gained gravity as his eyes further softened in growing cherishment. "Kuhl…our lives are yours."

"…Blue!"

"Before joining the gang, we were all but motherless children once divided across the shady cracks of society. You were the one who turned our lives around by banding us together and giving us our unity. You gave us our happiness, our hope for tomorrow."

"…Blue…" Keel shook his head at the fourteen-year-old ghost's reckless idealism—something that his own eighty-five year old mind could no longer deem realistic. "…you naive…!"

"So don't cry for us, Kuhl," insisted Blue, every bit as stubborn as Keel remembered him to be. "We Coral Children died fulfilled knowing we have defended our leader unto the very end."

"…" Blinking back tears, Keel took a moment to compose himself. "Blue…you told me, when you laid dying in my arms, how, as the sole surviving member of the Coral Children, that I mustn't take my own life, but must live on instead."

While still smiling, Blues' near-violet eyes dimmed with apparent darkness. "I told you that, even with the Nazis losing the war, the winning Allied forces would still dismiss all Wild Boys as gross criminals, unfit to be included in their formal history—not even as victims."

"And you were right," rasped Keel, embittered at remembering the Allied Forces' callous attitude towards their kind in those fake-hopeful, propaganda-saturated post-war years. "Wild Boy survivors of the War were indeed kept out of the Allied's formal documentations. America, Britain, Russia, France…their sole act of true solidarity was in their unanimous denying of all reparations and state pensions to our kind…not only that, they've kept those like us victims criminalized for decades thereafter. Those new risen post-war tyrants, those ever-cold sheeple…had they shown even the slightest sign of empathy—or even fairness—to our survivors back then, perhaps I might not have decided…no." Shaking his head, he then steered the conversation back on track. "Back then, you told me how everyone wanted me to live on, and be living proof that us Children had once existed with a glory of our own." He looked Blue in the eye. "But Blue…you yourself didn't really care for a living monument, did you?"

"No," admitted Blue. "Nor did the other Children."

"Then…why?"

"Dying is easy. Living is hard. We all of us were since liberated from our worldly sufferings though death…but you, you had to go on braving this hellish world without the Coral Children…without me. We all simply wanted for you to live on…to not kill yourself after we were gone. To that end, any excuse had to do. Thank you, Kuhl, for not following us unto death back then…for living on, like I asked you to."

"Why…?" The question grinded itself out from between Keel's teeth, with perhaps far too much harshness than he intended for his precious Blue. "I've already sent you all off on that train to the Vatican, your futures were set." His words increased in pace and volume in spite of himself. "Why did you all have to come back to Edelweiss Bay? Why sacrifice your lives just to ensure that someone like me would live on?"

Blue faced Keel's rising agitation with lenient patience. "We found the forged docs and instructions to get that Nazi gold you left for us. Did you think the gang would have just taken the treasure and let you stay behind and face the Großadmiral's wrath alone?"

"Why NOT?!" demanded Keel, all the pain and anguish bottled up throughout these decades at last exploding to the surface in this twilight place and time. "Tobias and Hilarie were expecting their baby! Asuri and Kenneth had talents and contacts that could take them to Hollywood! And you, Blue…you had legit schooling! The others also have their own respective strengths…the whole gang could have spread the wealth and live the good life afterwards! That night…the Allied jets had already started bombing the area…the Großadmiral and his goons would all have died anyway with no way of coming after any of you over the missing Gold. Why'd you all have to be stupid and come back for me just to get slaughtered?! WHY?!"

"Because we knew, even then, that you alone bear more value to the world than the sum of us combined."

This other familiar voice—coming from further away, yet still substantial in its audibility—shocked the rage out of Keel and had him turning towards the masses present. "…Tobias? How—" He froze at the sight that greeted him.

The Class 2-A Witness Box, formerly containing those hostile 4th Level Pilot candidates rudely mouthing off on Keel and Blue's case, now was filled with what looked like his Coral Children, the whole gang of them looking just as how Keel remembered them to be. Tobias, Edelweiss Bay's top-performing rough trade and bouncer, now stood at the front and center of the Box, facing him.

"Out of us all, you're the born leader," stated Tobias, flashing Keel that familiar rugged smirk the latter still saw now and then in recurring dreams of the past. "The only one capable of being a symbol of freedom to bring salvation to our kind." From beside the bisexual Wild Boy, his girlfriend Hilarie—one of the many girls whom the gang had rescued off the local military brothel—smiled her demure smile at their leader.

"Living on, surely you will meet and connect with other motherless, or otherwise ostracized people just like us," said the lithe female Coral Child, looking as she did before her pregnancy started showing. "As with us, you can be their hope for tomorrow—that they may understand and love each other...as we all did."

"And they, in turn, shall fill the void we left behind," grinned freckle-faced Kenneth—their best pickpocket with an unusual passion for photography—from where his diminutive form appeared beside the young couple. "They can keep your company as your new followers and friends, and be the new gang for you to lead towards greatness anew."

"…fools…!" hissed Keel from between his gritted teeth, reddened eyes blinking back the sting of tears. "What greatness is there left for me to achieve with you all GONE?!" He trained his pained glare upon sad-eyed Blue. "How could you not realize that there's no greatness, no strength in me when I'm left on my own? The only reason I could even functioning as a gang leader, when I was really just some…do you really not know? Every breath I took back then, I breathed it for you guys. All on my own, I was and still am a weak nothing who couldn't do anything…couldn't even face my own life!" His voice stared cracking as he neared the verge of crying. "Without all of you together…with me, shouldering the blunt of this life, I'm…" He slammed a fist soundly against the ground. "…I'm nothing!"

As though oblivious to his anguished rant, other Coral Children present continued on voicing their idealistic pieces like spring hatchlings:

"…for you to cherish a new life…"

"…and suffer not again…"

"…accepting the fact that never shall we return…"

"…such is our dying wish."

"…our final wish…"

"…such follies of youth," muttered Keel, feeling trapped under his life-forged pessimism. "Anyone who lived to adulthood would know the impossibility of never suffering again down the road of life…" He stopped upon finally pinpointing the source of the peculiar sense of off-ness he got from this fantastical scene of reunion.

The Coral Children in the Witness Box, who appeared to be standing upright at first glance, were all actually leaning ever so slightly forward. Their last century thug/urchin attire also extend only to around their waist area, beyond which Japanese-style high school uniform trousers and dresses could clearly be seen….

"…what…?" Composure shattered, Keel scampered on his hands and knees to the side, and found, to his bone-chilling dread, upper torsos of those crass Class 2-A brats poking out from the backs of his Coral Children—not unlike how Rei-Lilith had affected a Tabris-shaped upper body in its procurement of Unit 01 earlier on. "This is….?! Tabris…!"

"Kuhl…" Blue, leaning forward over Keel's kneeling form all along, now revealed himself to also be just a torso protruding from out of Ikari Shinji's waist, with the Second Child currently arched backwards at an unnatural, contortion-istic angle. "Are you alright?"

"TABRIS!" snapped Keel, actually ignoring Blue as he looked skyward for the culprit behind what he feared had happened. "Tabris, the Children—you didn't—" And his frantic gaze came upon the since self-repaired, likely LCL-based LED screen, now displaying the following text:

[D. In-Depth Information: Circa 2000, when SEELE planned the imbibing of mothers' souls for EVA cores, Tabris exercised his might to contact all of the targeted expecting mothers and instilled, into their unborn children destined to become EVA pilot candidates, salvaged souls of the long-deceased Coral Children members.]

Against the rising volume of his own internal screaming, Tabris' harsh words came hammering at his psyche like hail from a destructive storm:

"In their past lives, the Coral Children were left motherless by outside tragedies beyond your control. Back then, you saved them even as they anchored the youth you were.

"This time, they were motherless only because you terminated their mothers' physical existences to further your own agenda. This time, your precious Children—each and everyone of whom you value above yourself—grew up without their first others, and knew life only as this disaster-filled existence upon a dying planet.

"All.

"Because.

"Of.

"You."


"…Kuhl…"

Two steps. One. At last the boy had made it to the shore, to right in front of his mate.

Head lowered in a mop of overgrown red locks obscuring his upper profile, this Kuhl in front of him appeared hollowed out—looking more listless straw man than charismatic gang leader. Heady with joy, the jarring off-ness seeping through every detail of their current reunion barely registered with the boy.

He already had both hands in mid reach towards that lowered face, when a raised palm from the latter stopped him from making contact.

"Kuhl…?" he asked, uncomprehending of the unexpected rejection from someone he was certain would be eager for his touch. "What's the mat—"

Whatever else he was about to say got drowned out by the gut-retching scream now exploding outward from Kuhl's very person, as the very space around the forest-flanked shore started cracking like it was all some brittle, breakable cardboard scene….


. . . to be continued?