I know it's been a long time, but I'm finally done with this part, and part 12 is in pre-reading. If you want to catch up on the previous parts, you can read them by going to http://members.tripod.com/~Sage_Ohlmin/evafic.htm and clicking on the red "A". If requested by enough people, I will repost the previous parts here between now and the time I post part twelve. Thanks for your patience.

Sparky
-- 


*-*-*-*-*
UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Biochemistry
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
--Isaac Asimov

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-- Attached file included as plaintext by Ecartis --
-- File: part11.txt

NEON GENESIS EVANGELION:
ASCENT OF THE FALLEN

By Sparky Clarkson

Part Eleven:
"Our fathers have sinned... and we have borne their iniquities..." 
(Lamentations 5:7)

*******

The buzz of quiet conversations filled the emergency bunker with a 
comforting hum, a gentle rumble that washed up against the cinder-
block walls and receded into the crowd, swirling in sonic eddies among 
the sea of people. The nature of man demanded it; no emotion, however 
powerful, could rule a crowd forever--eventually people would get 
bored, even of fear. After a few minutes of tense silence, the huddled 
citizens of Tokyo-3 had reverted to easy conversation, as if the 
distance between themselves and the battle meant it was not happening.

Touji, however, did not join in. In the early attacks, before he truly 
understood the horror of Eva, Touji had gabbed merrily along with the 
rest of them. Now, knowing the true extent of the pain the pilots bore 
to protect mankind, he couldn't bring himself to join in the banter. 
It seemed disrespectful for people to titter over who had kissed whom 
at what dance while children overhead fought through agony to protect 
them. While his friends fought, Touji spoke only out of necessity.

Hikari had accepted this habit as yet another sign of his good heart, 
and never pressed him about it. As he sat in the corner of the public 
bunker with his arm around her, the iinchou leaned against Touji and 
rested her head on his shoulder. Their intertwined fingers completed 
the union, the subtle changes in pressure communicating their feelings 
without the obstruction of unwieldy words.

Anita sensed her brother's mood, though she could not understand his 
reasons. Still, the new experience of being in the bunker prompted a 
whirlwind of questions from her young mind. Unwilling to disturb her 
brother, she had chosen to inflict them on Kensuke. She endlessly 
pointed out text reports on the monitors, people milling through the 
large room, or the various vents and lockers, but kept her questions 
quiet out of sororal respect.

Kensuke, for his part, had curled up in a ball, balancing his head on 
his knees and locking his arms around his legs. The usually garrulous 
boy answered Anita's repeated queries with terse, monosyllabic 
replies, and even these seemed to have been wrenched unwillingly out 
of him. Touji found himself becoming deeply concerned about his oldest 
friend--Kensuke always boiled over with excitement during angel 
attacks, going on endlessly about the footage he was missing, or how 
annoying the news blackouts were.

Touji's thoughts were interrupted by a searing pain in the left side 
of his chest, a flash of agony that froze the breath in his lungs and 
caused his vision to blur with tears. As he blinked them away, Touji 
saw that Hikari had raised a hand to her breast, and Kensuke had 
collapsed onto the floor. The other occupants of the room had stopped 
in mid-motion, their expressions revealing bewilderment and fear.

"What happened?" Anita asked quietly, rubbing her side.

The answer came to Touji even as Kensuke wheezed, "Shi... Shinji. 
Something's happened to him." Touji nodded grimly, certain in his ever 
more troubled heart that his friend was in danger. After a moment, 
Touji realized that his sentiment was widely shared.

The room had fallen silent.

***

The sharp impact whirled Asuka around in mid-stride and sent her 
crashing to the floor even as she gasped at the piercing pain. _I've 
been shot,_ she concluded as she tried to push herself back up. As the 
sting vanished, though, she realized that no bloodstain had begun to 
creep across her yellow sundress, and that her continued breathing 
contradicted any expectations of a punctured lung.

Misato had also staggered against the wall, and righted herself just 
as Asuka got back to her feet. "It's Shinji," Misato panted, then 
shook herself. "Come on!" she called, "We've got to hurry!"

Asuka nodded, and the two took off again even as Asuka wondered, _How 
did we know that?_

***

The upward momentum of the bullet as it impacted on his spine caused 
Shinji to lift in the air slightly before he fell gracelessly 
backwards into the LCL. Kaoru, ignoring a sudden, stabbing pain in his 
chest, lunged forward and lifted Shinji's head out of the liquid. He 
knelt and lay Shinji's head in his lap, then started to apply pressure 
to the wound. Gendo raised an eyebrow and lowered his gun.

"You made an unwise decision, Third Child," the commander said, 
frowning. "You should have let me kill him. My plans would have gone 
much more smoothly if you had. Then again, you were never a very 
willing tool. I should have foreseen that you would ultimately be more 
trouble than you were worth.

"I... couldn't let him die... again," Shinji wheezed struggling to sit 
up against the pressure of Kaoru's hands.

Gendo's knuckles whitened as he clenched the gun tighter momentarily, 
and the small ebony weapon trembled in his grip. Then the glimpse of 
emotion retreated behind the Commander's smirking mask. "I see you 
have learned nothing from me, pilot," the bearded man said 
disdainfully.

"You're wrong... father," Shinji replied, "You taught me... who not... 
to be..." His voice trailed off into inarticulate gurgles as Kaoru 
tried to get him to relax. Shinji's legs had already gone limp, the 
nerves tying them to his brain destroyed by the lead slug.

"Don't go, don't go, don't go, don't go," Kaoru mumbled feverishly as 
tears poured from his eyes. He increased the pressure on the wound, 
fighting futilely to stem the flow of blood that weakened his friend 
even as it threatened to drown him.

A cold smile stole over Gendo's heretofore stoic expression. "You're 
no use to me, then," the bearded man said, carefully training his gun 
on the spot equidistant between Shinji's eyes. "For Yui's sake, I'd 
let you live, but I'm too close to my goal now to take any chances. I 
can't have any other humans around who might interfere with my 
ascension."

"Answer... one question... please," Shinji wheezed, struggling against 
his failing muscles to sit up. Gendo frowned and looked at his watch, 
then shrugged and waved the pistol. Shinji took in a rattling breath 
and asked, "Why couldn't you love me?"

***

Misato and Asuka stormed into the command center, but nobody turned to 
greet them. The technicians' eyes were glued to the main screen, which 
displayed the scene in Terminal Dogma. The sight needed no explanation 
for Misato's paranoid mind. Rei, sporting a few light bruises, lay 
shuddering at the base of the massive crimson cross to which the now-
whole giant Lilith had been affixed. The red-eyed girl's pale skin 
glowed with a faint blue aura that matched the color of her hair.

Shinji lay partially submerged in the shallow LCL lake a few meters 
away, his head resting on Kaoru's lap. The weeping grey-haired boy's 
hands were pressing down on the left side of Shinji's chest, in a vain 
attempt to stem the growth of the red stain spreading across the 
younger boy's T-shirt.

A few paces away stood Ikari Gendo, carefully aiming a small pistol at 
his son's head. The Commander froze as if tensing to fire, but 
something seemed to keep him from pulling the trigger. A moment later, 
he lowered the gun fractionally; enough to keep Shinji safe for the 
moment, but not enough to assure Misato that it would not be raised 
again within moments.

"Oh no you don't, you son of a bitch," Misato snarled, her eyes locked 
on the grim figure who had helped ruin everything precious in her life 
since she was twelve. "Not this time. I'm going down there!"

Makoto turned, only then aware that Misato had arrived. "We can't send 
anyone with you," he warned, "we're focusing all our manpower on 
getting the Evas out of cryostasis."

"I don't care," Misato said. "I'll kill him myself." She turned to 
leave the command center, but Asuka stopped her.

"If my Eva isn't ready... I want to go with you."

Misato almost told the girl not to come, but she saw a familiar gleam 
in those blue eyes, warning her that the redhead wouldn't be deterred 
by something as simple as words. "Fine," Misato said, and removed a 
second gun from inside her jacket, "but if you're coming along, you're 
coming armed."

Asuka accepted the gun eagerly, but after staring at it for a moment, 
looked up at Misato with a more tentative expression.

"Um, Misato, exactly how do I fire this? The only guns I've ever used 
were for Eva..."

Misato took the gun back. "This," she said pointing out the relevant 
feature, "is the safety, and this is the trigger. Turn off the safety, 
point the gun at an acceptable target, and depress the trigger."

"And is..."

Misato cocked the gun and handed it back to Asuka. "Yes," she said. 
"Ikari Gendo *is* an acceptable target."

***

Gendo lowered the gun slightly, keeping his eyes trained on the pale 
face of his son. "I once wondered the same thing," he said. He paused 
for a moment, then continued, "Do you remember the day I left you at 
the train station?"

Kaoru, still bent over the ever-limper form of his friend, saw 
Shinji's face briefly twist with a pain that was more than physical. 
He caressed Shinji's cheek lightly, his fingertips trailing blood 
across the pale skin. The tense expression relaxed slightly, and Kaoru 
moved his hand back to press on the wound.

Gendo apparently took Shinji's agony as an answer, because he 
continued, "As I walked away from you, hearing your sobs, I asked 
myself why I felt nothing. Only a while ago did I truly understand the 
answer.

"You see, pilot, all my life I've had a closed heart. I do not even 
recall loving my parents, and my emotions did not change significantly 
for many years. I made my way by never caring about anyone other than 
myself.

"When I met your mother and fell in love with her, though, that 
started to change--my callousness faded as my affection for her grew. 
I suppose most people still thought of me as cold, but I knew how much 
I had changed."

As Gendo spoke Kaoru realized that Lilith's features had changed. The 
seven eyes were no longer arranged in two columns over a triangle. 
Instead, they had moved to equidistant positions around the edge of 
her face. As Kaoru sneaked a glance at the white giant, he saw glowing 
cracks appear in the purple mask, connecting each eye with two others. 
Lilith's face now looked like a seven-pointed star had been etched in 
it, with an eye on each point. _The seal,_ he thought, but before he 
could consider the development any further, Shinji convulsed slightly, 
drawing Kaoru's attention away from the white giant.

"The day she disappeared, though," Gendo continued, heedless, "I felt 
that new warmth die. My heart closed again, and any affection I had 
felt towards you--or anyone else--while Yui was alive disappeared. Yui 
was the key to open my lock; without her, I can love no-one."

Gendo raised the gun once more. "In a sense, I will regret this," he 
said, taking aim at Shinji's head again, "Perhaps, with Yui back, I 
could grow to love you again. But I cannot risk failure now. You and 
your friend will have to die."

***

"Dammit dammit dammit DAMMIT!" Misato shouted, punching the door of 
the elevator. "Why does this thing have to be so damned slow?"

Asuka said nothing, as she gazed at the heavy black pistol clenched in 
her pale, delicate hand. In her mind's eye, she saw herself staring 
down the barrel of the gun, ready to fire. The Commander stared back, 
his cold eyes shielded by his amber glasses.

Asuka's finger squeezed down on the trigger several times before she 
snapped back into the reality of the humming elevator. Silently 
thanking Misato for leaving the safety on, Asuka relaxed her hold on 
the checked grip and turned to watch the numbers tick by slowly.

***

The obsidian goat hoof tapped the steamy asphalt loudly as Keel Lorenz 
stood at the intersection of two empty streets, watching the last 
vestiges of purple twilight disappear behind the western horizon. A 
half-hearted breeze wallowed through the muggy evening air--too weak 
to move any of the limp paper littered across the sidewalks of the 
shopping district, too gentle to disturb the flies feasting on food 
discarded by fleeing citizens. As the lethargic wind brushed across 
the old man's face, however, he turned towards its origin: the center 
of Tokyo-3. The corners of the old man's mouth turned upwards in a 
crafty grin that etched more wrinkles into his eroded face.

"I feel the boy's passing, my children," Keel whispered, tightening 
his grip on the ebon cane, "Soon, we will have our chance, despite His 
best efforts." As if in response, several flies flitted away from an 
abandoned rice ball and began buzzing around the gnarled hand that 
clutched the twisted visage of the dragon. "Very soon..."

***

Gendo once again raised the gun, slowly aligning its barrel with the 
center of Shinji's forehead. Tensing himself to make the shot, he 
briefly turned his head to check on Rei.

His fingers went limp briefly, maintaining a hold on the gun only by 
their friction against its checkered grip. He turned his head rapidly 
from side to side, scanning the vast cavern carefully for every 
change. "Impossible..." he muttered, taking in Rei's blue hair, 
Lilith's white skin, and the lake of orange LCL. Only moments ago, the 
hair had been black, the skin orange, and the lake clear.

"How..?" Gendo whispered. Recalling himself to the situation, he 
tightened his grip on the gun and once again brought it in line with 
his son's head. With his left hand, he removed the wire-rimmed 
glasses. He held the oval lenses up in front of his face, staring at 
the now-clear glass through slightly near-sighted eyes.

With a shrug, he tossed the useless glasses aside, ignoring the splash 
as they fell into the viscous LCL. "I don't need them--I'm close 
enough," he growled, steadying his arm to fire the final shot. 
"Nothing can prevent my victory."

Nonetheless, he lowered his arm immediately when he distinctly heard 
Yui behind him saying, "Stop."

***

The elevator shuddered as it finally reached the end of its descent. 
For a few agonizing moments, nothing happened, even though Misato was 
hammering away at the "Door Open" button. Just as Misato reached for 
the emergency release, the doors started to slowly slide apart. As the 
rarely used machinery creaked away, the Major carefully flicked the 
safety on her gun off. "Pray we're not too late," she muttered as she 
sprinted into the hallway leading to Terminal Dogma. Asuka followed 
closely, readying her own gun and muttering a silent prayer that she 
would have one good shot.

***

"Shekina," Kaoru whispered reverently as the voice reverberated in the 
giant cavern. He kept his eyes on the pallid face of his friend, 
however, probably fearing that if he looked away he would never see 
Shinji alive again. Gendo decided that he no longer posed a 
significant threat.

"I will not permit this," Yui's voice added.

The commander whirled around to see the source of the voice, sending 
eddies whirling off in the thick soup of LCL. Hampered by the loss of 
his glasses, he swung his head around wildly for a moment before 
calling, "Yui, where are you?"

"Where I have always been," the voice replied.

Gendo froze for a moment as realization sank in. Then, slowly, he 
raised his eyes up beyond the level of the LCL to focus on the purple 
giant that had silently moved to stand beside Lilith. "No..." he 
whispered, "not like this..." The gun fell from his limp fingers a 
moment before they clenched into a fist. "It wasn't supposed to be 
like this!"

"Tantrums will not serve you now, Rokubungi Gendo!" Yui's voice said, 
reverberating inside his skull. "You knew the consequences when you 
chose this path--only your sins blinded you to them."

"I only wanted to have you back," Gendo replied, his voice cracking in 
frustration. "I only wanted to love you."

"I was not yours to have," Yui replied. "You knew that ten years ago."

"Yui!" Gendo cried, "Please understand--you have no idea what it was 
like, being without you!"

"Perhaps it was like a child being without his father," the woman 
trapped in the Eva replied quietly.

"Mother..." Gendo heard Shinji whisper behind him. He spared a glance 
at the boy, laying helpless in the LCL, his face damp with sweat and 
Kaoru's tears.

"You have disappointed me, Gendo," Yui continued, "You have 
disappointed our Father. We entrusted you with the greatest of duties, 
and you failed us. Why did you turn your back on the true path?"

"Because I love you," Gendo replied, "you were the only one who ever 
loved me."

"Love?" Yui asked. "I do not think you understand it. Love surrounded 
you always, Gendo. Your son loved you, but you sent him away. Could 
you not see that my spirit lived on in him, Gendo? God gives all men 
eyes enough to perceive love. Men are blind only if they do not wish 
to see."

Gendo tried to speak, but found himself choking on the words.

"Even Naoko and Ritsuko would have loved you, given the chance," Yui 
continued, "yet you gave them nothing. Did you pity them as you used 
them, Gendo, or did you think them so far beneath you as not to merit 
pity?"

"They could never compare to you," Gendo whispered, tears filling his 
eyes as the first sense of defeat trickled into his heart.

"So you made a copy," Yui said, extending the Eva's hand towards Rei's 
nude form. "Yet even she could not satisfy you."

"She was not you. She could never be."

"Because she lacked emotions, Gendo, or because she lacked a womb?"

Gendo looked away, unable to face the monstrosity he had created. It 
wasn't supposed to be this way. Keel had promised...

"You were always too proud, Gendo," Yui said, the anger gone from her 
voice. "I hoped you could overcome that weakness, but you chose to 
learn the wrong lesson from my 'accident'. Rather than understanding 
how your hubris had stolen that which you considered most precious, 
you decided that if you just tried harder, you could learn how to 
outsmart fate."

The Eva's arm dropped to its side. "You sat smugly in your fortress 
and threw children in front of you to stave off the wolves," Yui 
continued, "children you prepared for battle by making them hate their 
lives. They would have fought for love, Gendo, but you chose to make 
them fight from pain. Did you think it would confuse the Almighty? Did 
you truly believe that by being the first to merge with Lilith you 
could replace Him? Did you think you could outwit God?"

"You knew better, Gendo, knew that day when I told you what I was. All 
men are free to choose their own path, Gendo, but they cannot help but 
act for the greater glory of God. God's plan goes forward, Gendo, but 
yours is now shattered on the rocks of time, soon to become dust. You 
shall not supplant Him--nor were you ever in any likelihood of doing 
so.

"You spent so much time with the old books, but you never learned, did 
you? All that time, trying to see the future, when your fate was 
spelled out clearly. 'L� il�ha ill All�h,' the books say, and 'Thou 
shalt have no other gods before me.' There were no codes, no ciphers, 
no hidden meanings--only the indelible proof of your inevitable 
failure.

"Proof to which your pride made you blind. No man may become God; it 
is beyond man even to understand Him. Only through love may man come 
close to seeing the heart of the Almighty, and you rejected that from 
the beginning."

***

Misato and Asuka paused momentarily as they entered Terminal Dogma. 
The situation had changed in the cavern since they last got a glimpse 
from the command center. Shinji's condition had worsened--blood had 
dyed his shirt crimson, leaving his skin white as the fabric had once 
been. He shivered in Kaoru's lap, but aside from that seemed unable to 
move. Kaoru continued his effort to maintain pressure on the deadly 
gunshot wound, but the hopelessness on his face revealed that he knew 
the effort to be futile.

The bluish glow surrounding Rei had grown so bright that neither 
Misato nor Asuka could look at her for long. The shimmering radiance 
became brighter and darker in a slow, steady rhythm, like the 
breathing of someone sleeping.

Gendo, too had changed. Bereft of his glasses and gun, he stared 
blankly up at the massive form of EVA-01, which now stood next to the 
giant crucifix. His arms were out in a gesture of supplication, but it 
was not clear what he was pleading for, or whether he expected his 
prayer to be answered. Misato considered crouching and killing the 
commander right then, but Asuka's urgent shaking of Misato's shoulder 
brought the major back to the more important goal.

"We've gotta save Shinji," she panted. "You know first aid, right?"

Misato nodded, desperately calling up whatever she could remember of 
the emergency techniques she'd learned in the first days of her GEHIRN 
training. "Yeah," she said, "I'll try to help Kaoru out. I want you to 
follow twenty paces behind me, and keep your gun on the commander. If 
he twitches, kill him. Otherwise, let him be."

"Why?" Asuka asked.

"Because," Misato growled, running into the LCL, "He's mine."

***

"Then I can do nothing?" Gendo asked.

"No," Yui replied. "You have brought mankind to the critical point, 
but you shall not pass. You have committed crimes uncounted against 
God and man. There must be an accounting, and its time is now."

Gendo nodded, casting his gaze towards the ground. Defeat tasted 
bitter in his mouth. The whole world, it seemed, had conspired against 
him. Even his dearest Yui had turned against him, bringing his 
downfall with an almost gleeful vengeance.

"You chose this fate," Yui scolded, seemingly reading his thoughts. 
"Today could have been your great victory, but you staked everything 
on a path you knew would lead to ruin. You may yet destroy mankind 
with your selfishness." She paused, then added, "Tell me Gendo, was 
this reward worth the choices you made?"

Gendo glanced at his dying son, watching helplessly as Shinji's blood 
poured from the wound his father had inflicted. The commander's 
shoulder's slumped. "No," he murmured, "I have wasted two lives. I am 
sorry, Shinji."

And then he was crushed into the floor by the rapidly descending fist 
of EVA-01.

***

Black blood welled up from the loose, wrinkled skin that draped itself 
over the bones of the old man's hand. His lips twitched upwards in a 
grin as the fly hungrily drank the meal it had just found, swelling 
it's iridescent green body with the oil-like fluid. After a moment it 
lifted heavily off the gnarled hand, wobbling uncertainly in the air 
as its wings fought desperately to keep its distended body aloft. Even 
as the insect buzzed drunkenly off into the deepening twilight, 
another took its place, tearing away at yet another spot of the old 
man's skin.

The flies around Keel Lorenz were now so thick that they seemed like a 
thundercloud, blood-sated insects dropping to the earth like its 
hideous black rain. Still, even more flies came, streaming through the 
muggy air from every point of the compass. Obsidian rivers in the sky 
blotted out the moon and the first, gleaming stars, and the engorged 
brothers made a carpet on the ground, a crawling black ocean that 
crept along the streets and up the sides of buildings. Occasionally 
knots of the insects would build up into shapes--a man here, a wolf 
there--but they could not maintain their forms for long.

_Not yet,_ Keel thought, his grin broadening as a serpent briefly took 
shape in the sea of flies. _Not quite yet, but soon._

The skin on his arm dropped away, revealing scintillating black 
scales.

***

Kaoru wept openly over Shinji as Misato approached. Already, the 
brown-haired boy was limp and essentially still, his breathing so 
shallow as to be almost undetectable. Misato stripped off her jacket 
as she dropped to her knees, wrapping the garment around Shinji to 
keep him warm while she helped Kaoru apply pressure to the wound. As 
her fingers closed around Kaoru's hand, she glimpsed movement out of 
the corner of her eye.

She quickly turned her head just in time to see the massive fist of 
EVA-01 slam into Ikari Gendo's head, not slowing as it followed the 
motion through until its hand slammed into the floor of Terminal Dogma 
with a resonant boom. In that moment, Shinji convulsed and let out a 
loud, agonized cry that quickly trailed off into a whimper.

Misato scowled momentarily at the purple giant that had caused her 
charge so much pain, then returned her attention to Shinji. "Hold on, 
Shin-chan," she whispered, "The pain will be over soon--people are 
coming to help you."

"He feels his father's dying agony," a melodious, feminine voice 
announced. Misato turned towards the source, as Asuka arrived, only to 
see EVA-01. She decided could not spare any time to worry about the 
giant mechanoid. If it meant to kill them, then she could not stop it. 
If not, she had to keep Shinji alive until the emergency medical teams 
could make it down.

"What the hell is going on?" Asuka asked, echoing Misato's sentiment 
as she dropped her gun into the LCL and placed her hands over Shinji's 
wound.

Kaoru lifted his head from staring at his friend. Pain and grief had 
already etched themselves into his tear-stained visage. "I understood 
too late," he said, his voice breaking as he struggled to hold back 
his sobs, "I figured it out when Shinji told me that his mother had 
been absorbed into his Eva. I had suspicions, but... I wasn't sure 
until a while ago. Shinji's mother was the first messenger, the most 
powerful messenger. She was Shekina, the female aspect of God."

"Shekina?"

"I have many names," the female voice said, though the Eva's jaw did 
not move, "Pista Sophia, the Holy Spirit, Metatron, Mary... I came to 
open the door, to give man his chance to at last return to God. Rei, 
Kaoru, and my dear Shinji were born by or created from me. Two were 
meant to serve as vessels, and Shinji... he was meant to serve as the 
conduit for ascension."

"Save him, Shekina!" Kaoru shouted. Misato felt her heart break at the 
words, because they emphasized what she already knew, but could not 
yet admit. No human effort could save Shinji from the wound he had 
been dealt by his father.

EVA-01 did not reply. Instead, it slumped to its knees in a position 
of prostration, and the light in its eyes died. Misato turned away, 
resting her gaze on Shinji. The pain had disappeared from his face, 
and his breathing was verging on undetectable. He looked peaceful and 
almost happy. Tears filled Misato's eyes, blurring her vision.

But she did see an unfamiliar hand stroke the boy's cheek, a hand that 
glowed white in the fairly dim atmosphere of Terminal Dogma. A 
strange, radiant woman in a lab coat knelt next to the boy in the pool 
of LCL. "I cannot," Yui said sadly, "God commands that it be so. But 
do not cry, children. Do you not remember that in God we find life 
eternal?"

The glowing woman disappeared, and with a final sigh, Shinji died.

***

Shinji recognized the voice, the same honeyed tones that had 
reverberated in his mind during the battle against Azrael. "You have 
come to us soon, Shinji. I wonder why. It did not have to be so," it 
said.

Shinji's sight returned to him and he found himself kneeling in the 
center of a strange chamber. In front of him, a huge sapphire monolith 
stood, glowing brilliantly in all the colors of the rainbow. The sight 
was so incomprehensible that Shinji could not bear to look at it, so 
he bowed his head. More monoliths encircled him, nine to go along with 
the one before which he was prostrate. Two were darkened, but the rest 
glowed in single tones, mere components of the greater light, seeming 
dim in comparison with its magnitude.

Shinji realized that he was naked, but for some reason he was not 
embarrassed. It seemed somehow right for him to be unclothed before 
such power. He stared at the white marble floor between his knees, and 
said, "I couldn't let Kaoru die again. Not for me. Not because of my 
father. I... I had to stop it."

Again the familiar voice of Azrael filled the chamber. "What made you 
decide to make your stand now? Why did you not put yourself in Touji's 
place?" it asked.

"Now?" Shinji asked, "Because now was the only time I could! Father 
always planned ahead, always knew what would happen next... but just 
that last time I had the chance to surprise him. I would rather he 
kill me than Kaoru or Rei, or anyone else." A tear rolled out of his 
eye as he continued, "I just wanted him to stop hurting people."

The chamber was silent for several moments. Then a calm voice asked, 
"What did you want him to do instead?"

"It's... it's selfish," Shinji murmured.

"That is nothing to be ashamed of," the voice said. "Selfishness is 
part of being human--all men desire things for themselves. To want a 
thing is not in itself evil. Only coveting that which you do not 
deserve is a violation of God's law," it explained. "So tell us, 
child, what did you desire?"

"I wanted him... I wanted him to love me," Shinji whispered. Again, 
the tears threatened to overflow his eyes.

The circle was silent again. Then a voice boomed forth from the 
brilliant light in the sapphire. It seemed that it spoke with every 
tone in the spectrum of man's hearing as it said, "Then you have 
nothing to fear, child. For behold! You have found the middle path, 
the balance between the needs of the self and the needs of the many. 
Your action served both yourself and mankind, selfishness and 
altruism, and did so evenly, and as each deserved. You have found the 
path I meant man to walk on from the beginning. The time, then, is 
truly come. Go with my blessing, Ikari Shinji."

With the slightest rustling sound, the boy vanished.

And then the voice from within the sapphire boomed once more. "The 
time is come, my children. Unseal the heavens, and gather the armies 
together in the appointed place. The last battle is upon us."

The other voices chorused, "Let it be done," and all the monoliths 
vanished.

***

"No..." Kaoru moaned, his head drooping forward over Shinji's body. 
His hand still kept up pressure against the wound, a futile act 
reflecting a shattered heart. The grey-haired boy looked as if all his 
10 billion years had hit him at the same time. Though no physical 
change had manifested itself, the horror and pain in his mahogany eyes 
made his age all too apparent.

Asuka held Shinji's right hand in her lap, gently stroking the thin 
fingers as if doing so could bring life back into the motionless body. 
Her lips trembled, and tears spilled out of her eyes as they stared 
vacantly at Shinji's bloody chest.

Misato, kneeling at Shinji's feet, tried to hold back her tears, but 
failed miserably. They fell into the LCL, making tiny ripples in the 
fluid. She wanted to hold back, to be strong for the children, but she 
knew that nothing she could say or do would ever ease their pain. She 
glanced at the base of the crucifix, looking for Rei, but she could 
see the girl nowhere. Devastated as she was, only a slight glimmering 
of fear passed through her--with Shinji gone, the loss of the distant 
First Child seemed only one more demon in a nightmare.

Misato began half-heartedly scanning the room through tear-filled 
eyes, but stopped when she heard Rei's quiet voice say, "I am here, 
Misato." Slowly, as if pushing against a great weight, Misato swung 
her head to look at the spot from which the sound had emanated.

Rei stood just to Shinji's left, her feet hovering a few centimeters 
above the surface of the LCL. All her physical injuries had 
evaporated, and she glowed with a soft blue light that seemed to 
emanate from the turquoise-feathered wings that had grown from her 
back. The hospital gown she had worn had transformed into a tunic of 
the same color, and her hair had changed shade slightly to match the 
wings.

Kaoru looked up from the peaceful visage of his dead friend and said, 
"Rafael," in a broken and empty voice.

"Why so sad, Tabris?" Rei asked. "One might think a person dear to you 
had departed." Shocked by the cruelty of the statement, Misato gasped 
and half-stood, but Kaoru only ran his free hand through Shinji's 
hair.

"I see," Rei said, "You fear the separation." She knelt on top of the 
LCL and gently grabbed Shinji's left hand. "But I say you are all 
mistaken," she continued. "Your friend has not passed away. For in God 
you shall find life eternal, and through this boy, you will once again 
find God." The glow surrounding the angelic girl grew and surrounded 
Shinji's body.

Their was a sound of inhalation, but Misato did not know from whom it 
had come. The matter was cleared up when Shinji coughed loudly. A 
small stream of blood spilled out of his mouth, but he coughed again 
and his eyes fluttered open. "How..." he whispered, "I was... I 
saw..."

"Hush, child," Rei said, "You have merely passed through a stage. You 
were judged, and found worthy. Now come with me." She gently pulled on 
his hand, and Shinji stood. His effort to do so was unsteady 
initially, but Kaoru supported him until he was firmly on his feet. 
Rei led Shinji towards the cross, with Asuka helping him maintain his 
balance. Misato and Kaoru followed behind.

When the group had reached the cross, Rei levitated so that she was 
even with Lilith's face. She turned to Misato, and said, "Lift him 
up."

Misato shook her head, disbelieving, but took hold of Shinji around 
the waist and lifted him as high as she could. To her surprise, the 
boy hardly weighed anything at all.

The lines on Lilith's face grew wider, and suddenly the heptagonal 
figure formed in the center of the star created by the seven-line 
pattern fell away, and radiant light shone from behind it. Misato 
could not see what was within, but she heard a warm, feminine voice 
ask, "Have my children found their way back to Him, whom I forsook so 
long ago?"

"This boy has witnessed the almighty and returned," Rei explained, 
indicating Shinji with her right hand.

"Then I am forgiven," Lilith said. "If death no longer binds my 
children, I need not stay to protect them." The giant flexed its arms, 
and its hands came away from the cross as if nothing had bound them. 
Misato drew in a sharp breath, but the giant made no hostile motion. 
"This child's sacrifice, and his father's cruelty, have shown me my 
error. I should not have tried to rule mankind as a goddess. Allahu-
akbar, archangel Rafael. I submit myself to the rule of God."

Rei reached out to touch Lilith, and both she and the white giant 
disappeared.

***

The last tattered shreds of skin fell to the ground, and with them the 
final traces of Keel Lorenz. In his place there remained only a 
twisted mass of serpentine flesh, as if twenty snakes had been tied 
together and placed in a mold. Free of the constricting form that had 
imprisoned it, the black-scaled beast began to stretch and unfold, 
growing as it did so to an impossible size.

The obsidian carpet about the beast's feet began to writhe with even 
greater vigor, taking on and discarding shapes more rapidly than ever 
before. The air had grown still, its silence broken only by the 
intermittent buzzing of fly wings as the engorged insects fought for 
position. Nightmares began to take shape in the streets of Tokyo-3, 
even as a greater evil expanded overhead.

***

The oppressive silence in the shelter broke out again into quiet 
murmuring. Touji felt like a cool breeze had just blown on him, 
pushing away the weight that seemed to have centered itself on his 
shoulders in the past few hours. "Something's changing," he said.

"I know," Kensuke said, "and Shinji's all right." Touji nodded, 
recognizing this as the truth without understanding how he knew it.

"I wonder what kind of change it is," Hikari mused, stroking Anita's 
hair.

"A good one, I hope," Touji replied. He'd meant to say more, but as he 
spoke, he felt a strange dissonance in his consciousness. He suddenly 
felt small and weak--a little boy with a fake arm and leg, powerless 
to defend himself or anyone else. The thought made him afraid.

"Something's wrong..." Anita whispered, her eyes filling with tears of 
panic.

Touji had no words to reassure her.

***

"So that's it?" Misato asked, lowering Shinji to the ground again, 
where a crying Kaoru joyfully embraced him. "That's everything?"

"I hope so," Asuka said, her own eyes tearing up, "I can't take that 
kind of shock again."

Shinji, quickly regaining strength after his strange experience, 
hugged Kaoru back and murmured a few comforting words next to the 
grey-haired boy's ear. After a few moments, Kaoru regained some 
semblance of control over his emotions and relinquished his iron grip 
on Shinji, who was immediately snatched into Asuka's arms.

Asuka kissed him as forcefully as she could. "Never do that again, 
Dummkopf," she scolded, tears running down her cheek. Crushed against 
the redhead's chest, Shinji could hardly manage a reply, but did hug 
the girl back. She released him into Misato's arms again.

As she pulled Shinji close, the situation finally sank into Misato's 
mind. Shinji's lightness of a few moments before had made him seem 
alien, almost incorporeal, but now, in her arms, he had weight again, 
and heat. This was no dream, no apparition, but her Shinji, alive and 
in her arms, when only a few minutes ago he had been dead.

Once again, Misato had neither the strength nor the desire to hold 
back her tears. She could only mutter, "Thank God... Shinji... thank 
God..." as she rocked the boy back and forth.

After a few moments Misato got hold of herself and let go of Shinji. 
With a wink at him, she started leading the children away from the 
massive crucifix, passing by the doubled-over form of EVA-01. The 
giant beast looked almost as if it was praying, bowing in supplication 
before the giant crucifix in the center of the room.

"So, what happened?" Asuka asked, "While you were... away, I mean."

Shinji shook his head, a motion that in his still fragile state would 
have made him fall over had Kaoru not taken hold of his arm. "I'm not 
sure," Shinji said, when he regained his balance. "It all seemed so 
strange... I remember giant pillars of light, and a strange room..." 
he trailed off into a thoughtful silence. "I guess I just don't have 
the words to explain it," he concluded with a shrug.

"Well, at least it's over," Misato sighed in relief. "I'm glad Third 
Impact wasn't like the Second."

"It... it hasn't occurred yet," Kaoru said.

The others turned to him, and Misato opened her mouth to ask him what 
he meant. But she was interrupted as the alarms, which had been silent 
since she arrived in Terminal Dogma, once again began clanging loudly.

***

"Freedom," whispered the voice of Keel Lorenz, spilling over blood-
blackened teeth and evaporating in the muggy air. "I have been trapped 
so long," it muttered, "caught in this feeble form, despised by these 
*mortals*..." A bitter laugh punctuated the thought. "Well, now they 
shall learn their folly. The Third Impact has come, and with its power 
I shall build a tower to the Heavens and topple Him!" He swatted a 
building with an obsidian claw, lips twitching into a smirk over his 
fangs as it collapsed into dust. "I shall build a tower with their 
souls..."

*******




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