No subject

others quieter in his mind--quiet enough to let him hear and see what
his own heart wanted, too.  I took him from the black, and he...

He woke up.

It was quiet and dark in Ikari-kun's room, the small closet he'd
inhabited in the major's apartment.  The sheets were warm, and he turned
on his desk light, rubbing his eyes.

"A dream, was it?" he said to himself.  "No, that was--I don't know what
that was."

He shoved those feelings and images away--thoughts of dying, of pain.
They were a nightmare, and he was in something different.  He was awake
and home, in the major's apartment.

The major who kissed him.  The major who lay bleeding in the hallway as
he rode an elevator away from her.

He burst from his room and called out to her.  "Misato-san!"

"Ahh, Shin-chan, I need help!"

He dashed into the kitchen area.  He batted away plumes of smoke.  The
tile and cabinets flashed with the light of orange flames.

"Water, damn you!" said another voice.  "Get water!"

He scrambled to the bath.  He turned the faucet and filled a washbucket
to the top.  He ran back to the kitchen, the water sloshing and spilling
out.  He tossed the water blindly, into the thickest smoke.

"Not on me, too!"

"Sorry!"  Ikari-kun stepped closer as the fires abated.  "But what
happened here?"

"Well," said the major, "it looks like Asuka and I had a bit of an
accident."

The smoke cleared.  In a charred frying pan, two blackened eggs were all
that remained.

"Told you this was a bad idea," said Soryu, wiping her hands clean from
the char.

"As I recall, you were just as eager to give Shinji-kun a day off of
cooking duty," said the major.

Soryu stuck her tongue out, and the major did the same.

"It's okay, really," said Ikari-kun.  "I'll cook breakfast and lunch;
don't worry.  That is... maybe if I can get some help cleanining this
up."

The major made a mock gesture of salute.  "I'm at your disposal, sir!"

"To do what?" said Soryu.  "Halfway fix the mess you helped make?"

"I want to eat well, so it's the least I can do."  She patted Ikari-kun
on the head, ruffling his hair.  "Thanks for not freaking out on us
there."

"Honestly," he said, "you should've asked me to help you instead of
trying it yourself."

"Yeah," said the major, "you're probably right."  She smiled slightly,
taking a bucket of sponges and soap from under the sink.  She got to
work on the blackened pan without another word, but the intent of her
deeds was clear.

_I care about your burdens.  You don't face them alone._

With haste, Ikari-kun worked around the damaged stovetop, making a cold
breakfast and boxed lunches for the three inhabitants of the major's
apartment.  The major, still in her jean shorts, bade the children
goodbye from the kitchen as she toiled over the damage.  "Don't forget
to come to headquarters after school," she said.  "Ritsuko's going to
have a big surprise."

"The Angels are dead and gone; what more can there be for us to do?"
asked Soryu.

"You'll see," said the major.

Dressed for school, Soryu and Ikari-kun slipped on their shoes at the
doorstep.  "I hope that was okay," said Ikari-kun.  "It's really hard to
make a traditional breakfast with the rice cooker burned, and then
Misato-san forgot to get more soybeans _again_ and--"

"Stop making excuses," said Soryu.  "Just puff up your chest and
say,'You'd better like it or else!'  Show some spine.  I know you've got
it in you."

Nodding politely, Ikari-kun looked down.  His gaze settled between her
hips and her shoulders.

Soryu flicked him on the forehead with her middle finger.  "Pervert!"

"Ow!  Sorry."

_Don't be sorry all the time.  Be bold.  Look at me, and then be bolder
than that._

He tilted his head, studying her.

"What?" she said.  "Is there something on my--umph!"

He pinned her against the doorframe and covered her mouth with his own.
He touched her elbow and curled his fingers around her arm.

"Hey!" said a distant voice.  "Are you two still here?"

Soryu shoved Ikari-kun away.  She pulled on her uniform and stood
upright.  "We're going!"  She dragged Ikari-kun from the doorway before
the major's response could be heard.  "Honestly, what were you thinking?
Ask before you do that next time."

Ikari-kun stopped.  "There'll be a next time?"

"Well..."  Soryu straightened her hair.  "Seeing as you're so
infatuated with me, I could hardly think you'd resist."

"Asuka..."

"Take a joke, will you?  I mean, you know..."  She crossed her hands
behind her back, looking to the sky.  "Don't you want there to be a next
time?"

Ikari-kun's gaze softened.  He smiled.  "Yeah, I do."

Soryu turned to him and leaned in.  Their lips touched for two
heartbeats, and before a surprised Ikari-kun, the Second Child pulled
away with a wink.

"Looks like next time was just now," she said.  "See, Shinji?  You're
pretty cool when you stop being so timid.  It just took a little of my
coaching to bring it out!"

Ikari-kun laughed to himself.  "I like you, too, Asuka."

A touch of red came to her cheeks, but she composed herself.  "You'll
have to put that in writing.  Leave it with all the other love letters.
Don't worry, though.  I won't throw yours away."

The sky was clear and blue.  The sun was bright but not so hot as the
Japanese knew it to be after Second Impact.  It was warm but mild.  A
breeze blew in from the ocean, but between the skyscrapers and brick
buildings, the winds swirled chaotically.  Tokyo-3 stood untouched, and
it was Ikari-kun and Soryu, along with office-workers and classmates,
who walked the city's pristine streets.

At the door to room 2-A Ikari-kun and Soryu arrived.  The halls were
quiet, and it was with trepidation that Ikari-kun slid open the door.

"Congratulations!"

With a banner and streamers, the children of their class greeted them.
The Angels were dead.  There was, it seemed, cause to celebrate.

"Wait, wait, wait a minute!" said Ikari-kun, holding up his hands to
defend against the swarm of well-wishers.  "We didn't do anything,
honest!"

"What are you talking about?" said Aida-kun.  "You're heroes, all of
you!"

"It's about time someone recognized that," said Soryu.

"Don't be so quick to take all the credit!"  Through the crowd, a boy
pushed through the crowd.  With a white stripe on his shirt and two more
down his pants, his uniform was outside regulations, but no one seemed
to object.  "As I recall," he said, "there were a couple others here who
had a hand in saving the world, thank you very much."

"Toji!" said Ikari-kun.  "You--you're--"

"What's the matter?  You look like you haven't seen me in years."

Ikari-kun waved him off.  "It's nothing, really.  I guess I'm just
caught up in the moment."

The celebration continued.  Soryu began an impromptu speech.  A group of
girls handed out drinks, which the class representative insisted be
cleaned up and disposed of before classes began.  Ikari-kun made his way
to the far side of the room and sat beside the only person who looked
out the window.

"Ayanami," he said.

I faced forward.

"Why aren't you joining the party?"

I looked away.

"Are you... not sure what to do?"

I said nothing.

"Wait here," he said, and he pushed through the crowd of students again.
He gathered various items:  a cup of juice, a cone-shaped hat, a piece
of plastic that makes noise when one blows through it.  He put the cup
in my hand, the hat on my head, and the noise-maker he left on the desk
for me to try.  "Stand up," he said.  "Walk around.  This party is for
you just as much as me."

He took my hand, and I stepped from my seat.

In light of the last Angel's death, classes were canceled.  The room was
crowded with even more students who came to congratulate Ikari-kun and
the others.  There was talk of a festival, which Ikari-kun tried to
object to, but to no avail.

When school hours ended and the celebration had yet to conclude, the
major called Ikari-kun, reminding him that he and Soryu were expected at
Nerv.  Obligingly, they left the party and descended the escalator to
the pyramid.  Inside, all the personnel were there to greet them and
give their thanks.  The lieutenants Hyuga and Aoba raised the control
center in an ovation as the two children passed, but their destination,
they learned, was the cage instead.

"Quite a lot of fuss for a place that has no purpose anymore," said
Soryu.  "You'd think they'd be quick to dismantle this pyramid and
everything in it.  Ah well, it doesn't matter.  If we can still pilot
Eva from time to time and kick ass doing it, what could be better?"

"I'm afraid that will be quite impossible."  In the control room
overlooking the cage, Doctor Akagi greeted them.  "The Evangelion have
served their purpose.  The Angels are gone.  Should humanity use them in
war with itself, all we've fought for will be lost."

"All the nations with an Eva are preparing for disarmament," said
Lieutenant Ibuki, looking back from her console.  "We can't let them be
used for war."

"But you can't do that!" said Ikari-kun.  "The Eva are alive!  You can't
just dismantle them like machines!"

"Yeah!" said Soryu.  "And I won't let you touch my Unit-02 without me
saying so!"

"But that's why you've been brought here," said the doctor.  "Unit-02
has already been destroyed."

"Impossible!"

"No, _necessary_.  It was necessary, for the body couldn't be sustained
for long without a functioning core--a soul inside to keep it intact.
If we were to salvage that soul, the core had to be broken and the Eva
allowed to die."

" 'Salvage?' " said Soryu.  "Just what did you salvage?"

"Asuka."

There was a voice behind them.  It belonged to a woman.  Her dark hair
came to her cheeks.  A pair of nurses walked beside her.  She wore a
blue hospital gown, and she wheeled a stand of fluids with her, but her
posture was upright and strong.

"Ma--"  Soryu stopped.  "Do--do you know me?"

"Of course I do," said the woman.  "You're my daughter."

"Mama!"

The mother and daughter Soryu embraced gingerly, for it was the advice
of nurses and doctors to be restrained.  Even so, Ikari-kun watched them
with envy.

"Asuka's real mother," he said to himself.  "She was saved from Unit-02,
so that..."  His eyes widened.  "Ritsuko-san, does that mean--?"

"Unit-01 is about to finish the process," said the doctor.  "Why don't
you go down there and look for yourself?"

Eagerly, Ikari-kun dashed through the halls, scampering down to the
catwalk.  It was there, with the chest of Unit-01 exposed, that the
Commander stood, eying the red sphere of the core.

"Forgive me, Shinji," he said.  "I thought that, without Yui, my life
would never be whole.  I put everything aside to be with her again, but
I forgot what she'd want me to do.  I forgot what I should've done."

A booming voice echoed through loudspeakers in the cage.  "Initiating
final extraction procedure..."

There were sparks and flashes of light.  They blinded Ikari-kun, and he
shielded his eyes with his arms to keep the glow at bay.

But when he looked again, the medical teams were rushing in.  The core
had shattered, and prone on the floor, naked in a pool of LCL, lay the
woman whose face he scarcely remembered.

"Mother?"

As the medics draped her in a warming blanket, she smiled at him, but
her true thoughts rang clearly in his mind.

_I've wanted to see you for so long, yet I can't help but think of what
could've been.  My dear Shinji, how can a mother tell her son that she
wants to go to the stars, so her child will always be remembered?_

Ikari-kun stepped back, watching his father and mother embrace each
other.  The cage was awash with cheers and celebration, yet Ikari-kun
couldn't find it in himself to smile.

"Is this not the world you wished for?" said a voice.  "Is this not a
place you could stay in?"

He stiffened.  "Ayanami?"  He peered over his shoulder.  "No, not the
same Ayanami.  You--you're the real one."

I approached him on the catwalk.  "Isn't this the wish of people?" I
said.  "To bathe in joy and satisfaction?"

"It is," he said, "but I feel... like it's not enough."

Further down, the Commander helped his wife to her feet.  She walked
unsteadily, laughing at herself, and even the Commander bore a slight
smile.

"This world--it's everything I've wanted to see.  My mother, my friends,
Asuka--they support me now.  They're here for me now.  I don't feel
alone, but still, it's like I hear them.  I know what they want from me.
Sometimes, that makes things easier, but other times, it feels like what
seems happy is fake."

"You do hear them," I said.  "You all hear each other and know each
other's hearts.  You know one another's desires, and you know what to do
to appease them."

"And I can do that," he said.  "When you know what other people want
from you, it's easy.  We won't want anything after a while.  We won't
know if what we want comes from ourselves or others after a while."

"That is Instrumentality."

"And there's no pleasure in it," he said.  "Ayanami, I thought I wanted
everyone to go away, but I was wrong.  I want the chance be happy with
them again.  I want to see them all again.  You've shown me that."

Walking gingerly, Ikari Yui approached her son.  She reached out with
her hand, yet Ikari-kun stood there, looking at her.  No, he looked past
her.

"Even if it means I won't know what they want," he said, "or what I want
from them, even if that hurts me or hurts them--I want to see them
again, for real."

Then in this dream there was no longer any point.  I shattered that
world.  I sent it back to the abyss.  Ikari-kun, the most broken person,
the one who wished all humanity to die and no longer trouble him, had
instead given humanity a reprieve.  If he could welcome living
separately again, with the walls of the heart dividing people, then
everyone should be given that chance.

To do that, I would have to die, for I held the souls of humanity within
me.  Their only release would be with my death.  I scattered their souls
among the oceans.  I let the sea of LCL within me bleed into those
waters.  I let Unit-01 and Ikari Yui's soul escape my body, and by the
fading light of Earth's sun, the Eva floated into the cosmos.  It would
be an eternal testament to humanity and Ikari-kun, just as his mother
wanted.

And Ikari-kun himself?

He emerged from the LCL sea.  He floated to the deserted shoreline.  He
was the first and only for too long.  In the emergence of the Black
Moon, all that was left of Tokyo-3 and the Geofront had gone.  There was
only Ikari-kun and the remnants of civilization.  He used those
remnants, and the sands there, to make markers for the dead.

He was alone.

So I looked deeper into the sea.  I searched for someone whose heart I'd
glimpsed.  I found her, cowering, clinging to herself.  She imagined
herself in bandages, covering up wounds that had long since killed her.
She was unwilling to let anyone else touch her and change who she
thought she was.

"Leave me alone!" said Soryu, calling into the dark.  "You think you can
play with my mind, First?  You think you can make me like that stupid
Shinji because you made me believe something that was a lie?  That makes
me sick!"

"You cannot lie to me," I said.  "I've seen inside your heart."

"Then you know what that makes you?  No better than that Angel!"

"You want people to pay attention to you," I said.  "Ikari-kun, your
mother--you want their eyes on you and only you."

"Mama?" she said.  "That's right; Mama's here.  You leave me alone with
Mama.  I don't want to hear any more from you!"

"Then you abandon Ikari-kun, and you'll never feel his eyes on you
again."

I left her there, in the LCL sea.  I visited from time to time.  I
questioned her.  She was a stubborn one.  She took long to understand
herself.  I don't know all that she experienced, trying to find what was
important to her.  What I do know is that I wasn't the only one
encouraging her to go back.

"Mama," she called to the blackness as it faded away, "you'll come back
for me again, won't you?"

She would.  If she couldn't imagine herself in her heart, then I would
help.  That is what I've decided.  That is the future I choose to live
in.  Ikari-kun and Soryu met on the beach, with one half of a severed,
petrified head watching them from a distance.  It was my head--the
physical head of the god I became to bring humanity together.  To give
mankind its repreive, that being has to die.  I have to die.

But it is as I have written it.  I am everywhere and nowhere.  Past and
future are the same to me.  To give Ikari-kun a future, I will die.
That is the choice I make, and it is certain, but it doesn't limit me.
That fate is my end, but I am not ended.  I am the existence that gazes
upon man as it struggles to better itself.  Death is my release, and I
welcome it.  I treasure it--that I have chosen the time and place at
which I'll die--but for now, I watch.  Until my task is finished, I
watch.  There are billions of souls in the seas, and I've helped bring
release to only two of them.  Others will emerge of their own volition,
but more will come with my help, my guidance, my aid.

And when I don't peer into the human heart, I watch Ikari-kun, just as I
do with all mankind.  I've watched him meet Soryu and reunite with her.
I'll watch them lead humanity to a new era and face a threat that
corrupts from within and attacks from without.  Those are longer
stories, to be told another time, but I'm always watching.  I see now
that the Ikari-kun I know is different.  He's changed, as people do
change.  I've gone back.  I've seen the boy who walked the streets of
Tokyo-3, oblivious and wanting, as he dialed a public phone.  He waited
there for a guardian he'd never met, and for a moment, as the birds flew
away, he saw me, and I saw him.  He was uncertain then.  He hoped his
father or someone else would show him a place where he'd be wanted.  The
boy who lies on the beach now is different.  He's damaged.  He's tired.
His experiences have changed him.

He's his own person now.

And so am I.

I write from an apartment, the one numbered _402_.  Through the window,
Tokyo-3 is pristine and alive.  The second Ayanami Rei sleeps in her
bed, and in a notebook assembled from hers and mine, I write.  I'm
reminded of something I read--of the sacrifice a barrister made for a
woman he loved and the man she favored instead.  I didn't understand the
barrister's deeds before, but now, I feel some kinship with him.  I am
the one who watches from afar, knowing that I go to my death.

Like the barrister, I'm at peace, for this is the fate--the purpose--I
choose for myself.

THE END