Chapter Two

The apartment was lifeless. The bed was neatly made, and while dust hovered around outside the room's walls, little of it found way into the place. It was always in shades of grey, this room. The light was always sharp and white, the walls were always solid stone dark. All was silent, still.
   There was a girl sitting at a desk. She sat upright, and her hands rested on her lap. She might have looked worried, though from the way her head tilted slightly forward, and how her eyes were at their usual half-opened state, she looked more solemn.
   The worst of it was the fact that the city was silent. There were no construction noises -- everyone was in the shelters.
   Ayanami Rei felt that she may be the only person in the city not underground now. She was probably also the only person outside of the battle who understood the significance of this encounter, this final encounter, the final Angel. And she could do nothing. She could not perform her duties as a pilot any longer, or even if she could she had nothing to pilot anyway. She was useless now, and yet...
   ...And yet she was still alive. "I have nothing else ... It is as if I was born to pilot EVA. If I stopped piloting, I would have nothing left. It would be the same as being dead." She should be dead now, by her own hands if not her maker's. The latter had done nothing due to the irrelevance of her situation towards her lack of machine to work with. But she herself ... she might see again, that did not excite her in any way, and she did not look forward to it especially. She could die now, leave this world, and she would most likely not be needed again. No, that was not true. The commander would have one last task for her, in this life or her next.
   The First Child did not lose a breath at this thought.
   She did, however, feel her eyes grow heavier. Tired. She was tired from this lack of direction, this meandering she had experienced since the day she could no longer see the world she lived in. She had fallen asleep at Ikari-kun's thoughts for her. Why? Why did she suddenly become so light-headed at his words?
   There were no noises. No sounds of battle. The ground did not shake.
   Whispered very softly, Come back.

"There is no argument."
   "There must be an alternative-"
   "I am telling you the alternative, Major," said the commander in a considerably louder voice.
   Damn him, thought Misato. Damn him for his negligence, and for making me do this.
   "Major Katsuragi," spoke up the vice commander in a calm tone. "Less than a minute ago, you ordered Captain Makoto to ready the self-destruct for this entire facility in the case the Third Child failed to achieve our goals, am I correct?"
   Misato's eyes thinned, but not before flaring momentarily in frustration and anger. Anger at herself.
   "The order the commander has given you is a considerably less costly one, and, like yours, guarantees a victory. The Third Child has failed-"
   "But he's still alive!" Misato nearly screamed at how horrible the situation was. She knew in her mind that she would not have killed herself and this facility if it meant destroying Shinji-kun's future as well. She also realized how selfish she was being. Worst of all, in spite of all morals and hopes, it was likely that the entire bridge and world was vouching for the commander's solution to the problem. Shinji was just one boy, and certainly, there would be no family to mourn his loss -- Misato glared even harder at the commander -- as there would the children of those who would perish should she have executed her plan.
   "Misato-san!" shouted Shinji over the comm. The bridge crew could do nothing other than watch as the seventeenth Angel progressed towards Heaven's Door, immune to all attacks from Evangelion Unit One. "Misato-san, what should I do!"
   The major shut her eyes and stifled the cry welling up in her throat.

"Shinji-kun." It was Kaoru's voice, his calm, soothing voice. The summoned boy opened his eyes to find that he was standing in a realm of nothingness. All was white, white, and whiter still. He looked for the voice, and found the seventeenth Angel standing easily, his hands in his pockets, smiling.
   "Kaoru-kun..." Shinji murmured uneasily. "Where are we?"
   "You're in transit, one might say," the Angel answered nonchalantly.
   "Transit?"
   "Yes," Kaoru continued in his matter-of-fact tone. "Yes, you are dead."
   Shinji evidently did not understand.
   "Don't you remember?" Kaoru asked. "You died, and so did I. Evangelion Unit One, Adam, consumed us both."
   "But why I am here, alone?" Shinji asked, a sense of dread creeping at him.
   The Angel smiled his sympathetic smile, and answered. "You won't be alone forever, unless you choose such a path, Shinji-kun." The two looked at one another across the white for a moment, one with fear, sadness, lingering frustration. The other simply smiled, though no longer only with sympathy, but hope, and the glee that came with it.
   "You are special, Shinji-kun. That is all you will need for now." The special boy was obviously only more confused by this statement.
   "Then..." Shinji began to ask, feeling almost foolish knowing the question he had in mind. "Then can I go back?"
   "Yes, you can, however," Kaoru added, serious all of a sudden, "things will have to be more complicated than you imagine. If you go back, you will be the same to yourself, but to all others, you appear, sound, and will generally not seem to be Shinji Ikari. The reason why this must be so is simple enough."
   Shinji nodded, not fully accepting that he was so lucky as to live a second life.
   "Furthermore, there is no way you will be able to tell others who you are. You may try, but will accomplish nothing. You will be more of a ghost than anything else."
   "A ghost?" Shinji asked curiously.
   "Yes. As I understand it, you had a great deal of unfinished wishes, desires, goals, and dreams, did you not?"
   "Yes," Shinji answered firmly.
   "Yes, the girl, Ayanami Rei. You've grown more attached to her over the past number of months, haven't you?" Kaoru asked in a calm tone, one that eerily had a hint of Misato's grin and tease.
   "I just ... want to see her again." Shinji's voice lowered to a whisper at the end of his sentence. He had run out of air.
   Kaoru stood silently. "You can see that now, even." His eyes pointed to the space between them. Through it, Shinji found that he could watch events go by, though they seems to pass by quickly. Misato was driving herself home calmly, and robotically, the way she did those days.
   "You must make a decision soon. If you want to go back, or if you want to spend your time on the other side of life with every other soul. Don't say anything yet," Kaoru interjected Shinji's answer from even being spoken. "There is a use for this," he said, referring to the events happening below. "What you will learn here may change your perception of the world you lived in."
   Shinji nodded slowly, and brought his attention back towards the world below.
   "But time passes by much more slowly here, as you will soon realize. Life, after all, is temporary, short, and everything after is eternal. It can only be this way."
   If the Third Child heard his Angel speak, he gave little sign of it. He was focused on other things.

"The target has been eliminated," reported someone -- Hyuuga, probably. Misato did not bother with anything after that. She exited through the doors, and walked as quickly as she could to her car. Let everyone else deal with whatever's left over, she thought to herself. I'm done.
    It was a very long evening. It would have been shortened by all the alcohol she had consumed, if not for the sound of the door ringing. Misato had been "celebrating" the end of the invasions rather heavily, so that by the time she made it to the door, she had to fight to keep from vomitting. She was not expecting a visitor, certainly not the one standing outside in the chill of the evening.
   "Where is Ikari-kun?" asked a girl with red eyes.

...

"It won't work without my password," Misato declared.
   Doctor Akagi stepped aside, and gestured with her hand in a mock-polite fashion. He smiled grimly as Misato unlocked the door leading towards Gauf's Room.
   "Kaji gave you everything, didn't he?" Ritsuko asked. Misato did not answer or even turn to face her. Ritsuko snorted lightly. "How fortunate you are."
   "How long do you think it will be before Ikari sends someone after you?"
   At this, the major did turn towards the doctor. So it was known that she had secretly passed on information to the Interior of the Japanese Defense.
   "You've been rather busy these past few days, haven't you?
   Misato felt the hairs on the back of her neck tingle. The hours spent hiding in a dark corner hacking through the MAGI system, always ready to spring up and flee at a whim's notice...
   "Did you betray me?" Misato asked steadily, her gun raised in a threatening manner.
   "Who betrayed who here?" the doctor asked, her smile unchanged at the sight of a gun directed towards her. "No, I didn't tell anyone."
   "Thank you, my good friend," Misato replied with a cold glare. At least she lowered her weapon.
   And on these terms, the two entered the doors.

"I told him I was sorry," Misato muttered sadly. "But I..." She broke off, looking up at the girl seated across the table, expressionless. The girl blinked twice in quick succession. "I don't think he believed me." The raven-haired woman wiped her eyes, and ranted on. "What could I do?" she cried. "And how could he even understand me? He didn't even have a second." She was referring to how she initiated the self-destruct sequence immediately following her apology to the boy. "I just couldn't bear anymore." And with that, Misato turned and vomited, thankfully into the waste basket she had placed by her side.
   When she had finished, she sat back up and sniffed a few times.
   "I really liked him, too -- I wish it didn't have to end like this." Misato was not referring just to the events passed that evening, either. Those days, the mood between Shinji and Misato was at an all time low. His last thought of her must have been that she thought nothing of him, or at best, not enough of him. And the fact that this was final was driving Misato to the point of screaming, with only alcohol and her churning stomach holding her back.
   "I must sound so ... so useless right now, heh?" Misato grabbed a fistful of hair and cried some more. When she had wiped them away, she looked up and saw the girl brushing one of her eyes with three fingers. She had felt a tear, and blinked many times in confusion.

"And so what began as two secret parties with seperate secret goals," Ritsuko exhaled the cigarette smoke from her lungs, "ended up as two secret parties secretly betraying one another and both losing everything." She coughed once and chuckled at the statement.
   "Seele, then, what did they want?" Misato asked firmly, though her voice was not as stiff as it could have been.
   The doctor, standing tall in the elevator in NERV territory foreign to Misato, snorted a little. "Seele, what they want is not for me to say. You have the commander to ask about that. The same goes for what the commander wants, although I'm sure, as he is, that you have known there was always something he wasn't telling everyone. The only title you need to remember is the "Human Instrumentality Project." You don't need me, or even Ikari, to help you find the rest."
   Misato glared at her friend. Did she have something to do with Kaji? There was too much in that last sentence that alluded to Ryoji's underhanded workings. After all, the first door they had opened this evening had been accessable only to Misato due to Kaji's skulking. Perhaps she was just being paranoid, but...
   "You didn't ask me to come here to answer questions about NERV," Misato declared. "Where are we going?"
   "This is about that child you socialize with these days," replied the doctor in a cold voice.
   "Rei?"
   "And the truth behind EVA, and its project. They are all the same."
   Soon, the two entered a laboratory. It held a curtain, a single examining table, and a small refrigerator.

"What are you going to do now," the pale girl finally asked. "Now that Ikari-kun is gone?"
   "I don't know," Misato answered, calm now. "But I'll tell what I know I will do now, though."
   Rei did not move, a non-gesuture that she was listening.
   "I must be really drunk to tell you this. But I plan to ruin NERV," Misato chuckled, nearly laughed. Rei remained unfazed by her lack of seriousness. "Remember Kaji-kun? Well, he's dead now, as I'm sure you know." The raven-haired woman brushed away some strands of hair and sniffed once. "But I-" Misato took another look at the girl, whose eyes were directed towards the table, and suddenly felt very awkward and stange. Sympathy. I feel sympathy for this girl.
   "I don't think I should involve you in this, any of you Children. This isn't your problem. None of this was ... you've been through enough." Misato leaned over the table and rested a hand on the child's shoulder. "You've been through enough, Rei."
   Then the girl began to cry. It began with a sob that somehow burst from her throat. The woman's words triggered it, and following the cry were tears. And at those tears, Misato embraced the girl, unsure what to say or ask.

"Is this ... the core of the dummy plug system?" Misato stuttered. She could tell even in the dark the room was wide, yet it seemed only to hold a single tube container.
   "Let me show you the truth," said Ritsuko in an incredibly blase tone. With that, the room was lit bright.
   "Impossible! EVA's dummy plug is..."
   "Right. This is the production factory for the core of the dummy plug system."
   "This is...?"
   "These are all dummies. They are also replacement parts for Rei."
   Misato stared wide-eyed at the faces smiling at her. Empty smiles, smiles that were anything but Rei Ayanami. And she was frightened and horrified.
   "Man found God, and tried to pick Him up. For that man was punished. That was fifteen years ago, and the god they found disappeared. Then man tried with his own hands to resurrect God. Adam was created. From Adam, man created what resembled God -- himself. That is EVA. We put what were supposed to be mindless souls into EVA. All these souls were salvaged ones. Rei is the only container that can hold these souls; these souls are born only in Rei. This, the Room of Gauf, is empty. These," Ritsuko stared blankly past the glass, "are merely empty containers, they have no souls."
   So Rei is not real, then. She's just a copy, spare parts. Misato felt her chest tighten and choke at the thought.
   "And so I will destroy them," the Doctor Akagi anounced. "Because I hate them."

"Thanks for listening, Rei," Misato said. The girl nodded, and then stood up. Misato stood up after her. "Let me take you home."
   Rei nodded, and the two remained silent for the duration of the drive. Misato sneaked looks every now and then at Rei. She wondered what Rei might have learned about Shinji, or heard from him. But now was not the time to ask such things. Rei was one thing Misato felt she had not understood yet through all her sifting through MAGI's logs.
   "Thanks again, Rei."
   "Good night." And a nod.

"Do you know just what the hell you're doing?" Misato hissed, lifting her aim towards the Doctor's spine, while around them, the "containers" desintegrated into nothing.
   "Yes, I do," replied Ritsuko in a calm, even voice. "These aren't human, just human in form. But I still lost to these dolls! I couldn't win him!"
   Misato found that she did not understand Ritsuko's words, but soon she was beginning to realize their meaning.
   "I could withstand any humiliation for him! I didn't care how wretched I became. But..." her voice fell weaker. "But he had already chosen ... he chose." Ritsuko hung her head in defeat. "I knew this, but ... I'm in idiot! Like mother like daughter -- idiots! Kill me if you wish -- I welcome death."
   Misato lowered her gun in sympathy, in disgusted sympathy. "You idiot, it would get you nothing." She said no more and retreated to her own thoughts as her friend finally broke down and wept.
   Rei, no, she is real. If she wasn't human before, then she is now. Misato looked down at her friend once more. The tragedy of EVA is its people. I'm one of them, too. And Rei as well.

...

"I..." Shinji murmured, "I see..." He looked at the bright floor, or into it, through it. He was watching events unfold on Earth, and watched in terror as the last of Rei's spare components felt apart in the red. The Angel beside him said nothing but frowned sympathetically towards his friend, who looked like his soul had inverted itself.
   How measurable the scope of man's life must be, for him to dwell in its boundaries through life, dreams, and even death.

Author's note: The End. Heh heh heh, just kidding -- of course it can't end like this! Now, I promise the ending will be happier -- perhaps "happy" isn't the correct term. But I promise to make it much more satisfying, how's that? From what feedback I received with the first chapter, I got the impression that Asuka fans would not be satisfied. Unfortunately, according to Anno's timeline, Asuka was missing for a long time after Rei II's death until she was found. Luckily, however, I do plan to use Asuka (what fic could go for a while without her?). She won't be lying on a hostpital bed until an army begins slaughtering scientists and technicians. Obviously, I plan to change some of the original story (but keep it recognizable, of course) but not make it the main focus. I plan to use everything I write. Thus, this won't be like Impact, where the political mechanisms behind the Third Impact are crucial, so for those interested primarily in the interactions between the Children can rest easy for this story's future.