Windup Heart: an Evangelion fanfic (NGE)

[blindinkpoet]

A very compelling premise, wrapped in very well written prose. I'll stick around, hoping for light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[Telegraph Nine]

A very compelling premise, wrapped in very well written prose. I'll stick around, hoping for light at the end of the tunnel.

Click to shrink...

Hey, I just wanted to take the time to say thank you for taking the time to comment, even though it's been such a long time since the last chapter. Real life and mental heath issues have been kind of kicking my ass lately, but I am still working on this. Chapter seven is up to 3.7k words, and hopefully should be ready to post before too much longer.

 

[blindinkpoet]

I totally understand on both accounts. It's been a year 😅

I look forward to the next chapter then

 

[Telegraph Nine]

CHAPTER 7 - Blood And Water/And The Truth Shall Make You Free​

The hum of equipment filled the sterile room, underpinning the silence. Normally Maya never noticed it. Now she couldn't get it out of her head.

"No unexpected harmonics detected at standard operating depths," she reported. "C-Type analysis shows no lasting effects from the cross-compatibility experiments."

"Increase plug depth to maximum-plus-five and run it again," Ritsuko said.

Maya pressed the buttons, looking out through the console window to the three test plugs half-submerged in a lake of coolant. She cringed a little inwardly as the pilots' faces on the camera feed took on a subtly strained look. The three of them were being pushed hard today.

It was necessary, of course. They had to ensure the Evas were safe to use. But Maya still felt sick.

Something was wrong. Not with the tests, they —so far at least— seemed to be coming up clean. But her mentor and Captain Katsuragi had somehow started throwing up ominous exceptions.

Usually they talked. Not much, not about anything in particular, but a low-grade background banter Maya listened to as she worked. Not this barren silence filled with the whirr of machinery, broken only for what was unavoidable to say.

It wasn't her place to wonder, to pry into her superiors' personal lives. Maya reminded herself of that, again and again. But still the thought sat in her chest, gnawing itself out an ever-growing hole. After the malfunction with Unit 00, Ritsuko had seemed… troubled. Worse than, really, but that was the only word Maya would let herself think. She didn't know what happened between the two women, but… surely if Ritsuko needed a friend, she needed one now more than ever?

She sighed and dragged her mind back to her work. Test after test, procedure after procedure all added up to the same overall picture. Asuka still far outstripped the others in sync rate, with Rei and Yuki improving only sluggishly. Wherever they looked, there was no hint of the hidden feedback loop that had caused Unit 00 to go berserk during the compatibility experiments.

And then, eventually, it was over. Ritsuko leaned in close over Maya, reaching past her for the switch that toggled radio to the pilots. "We're done. You can go now."

Hatches opened on the three test plugs, retractable bridges extending over the lake of coolant. Directors Katsuragi and Akagi turned to go, heading for opposite doors.

"Ma'am, wait."

Ritsuko paused in the doorway, turning. "What is it, Maya?"

She took a deep breath. "I was just wondering…"

What happened between you and Katsuragi? The question sat on Maya's tongue like a lead weight. She had been working up the nerve to ask all through the tests, but now the machinery had stopped. The hum that had filled her thoughts was gone. Her fingers curled into fists in her lap as the moment stretched, thinner and thinner.

And snapped.

"...if we would be starting the seventh stage of the Magi restoration tomorrow," Maya finished, instead.

"Ah, No," Ritsuko said. "I have to attend Kiyomi's wedding tomorrow. Hopefully the day after."

"Have fun, Ma'am!" Maya pinned her smile in place until Ritsuko left. She did a quick mental calculation on the odds of anyone watching the security footage from this particular room. When she was sure no-one was looking, she slumped forward onto the console in front of her, face hidden.

It would have been inappropriate to say anything, anyway.

and

She's your BOSS, remember?

and, finally

I'm such a coward.

❀—❀—❀​

Asuka walked slowly down the row of bathroom stalls, carefully checking each for occupants. All empty. She continued until she reached the final stall, the one just out of view of the security camera. It had taken her the better part of a week to find this spot.

NERV Japan's bathrooms were all built to the same identical plan. At least, in theory. But the women's bathroom one level down from the pilots' lockers was positioned directly under the coolant tank used for synch tests, and its ceiling was a foot lower as a result. The decreased height of the ceiling moved the camera, and changed the lines of sight just enough.

Asuka opened the stall door and had a seat. Mentally, she reviewed the route she had taken to get here, making sure no-one could have noticed or followed her. Only then did she reach down into her bag and pull something out.

It was pink. It glittered. And she hated it.

Asuka stared down at the book, forcefully reminding herself that anything electronic she could get her hands on would be subject to the Magi. Paper was the only way to keep secrets. There hadn't been many options in Tokyo Three's shops, at least this one looked like it would take more than a couple minutes to pry open.

But it was still inescapably, nauseatingly something made for a child.

She had replaced the cheap heart-shaped toy it came with with a sturdy five digit combination lock and shoved it down to the very bottom of her bag, trying not to think about the fact it was there. But it was. And she needed to use it, if she wanted to be any use to Kaji and Misato. If she wanted to find out what was really happening.

Asuka swallowed her disgust and opened the diary, trying to touch it as little as possible. Entry for the 17th of October:

Her pen moved across the page, noting down tiny details of how Ayanami and Amagiri carried themselves, how they'd behaved in the locker room, the glimpses she'd managed to get of their synch readings. Occasionally she stopped to close her eyes, replaying events in her head. Even the tiniest detail could be important.

Or it could all be useless.

Asuka's grip tightened on the pen, the unbroken line of cursive german juddering to a halt. She shut her eyes. She would do it. She was Asuka Langley Soryu. She'd be vital to this, crack it all wide open and pull the truth bleeding from inside.

Somehow.

Asuka itched to do more, to go further than just taking notes. Staking out the dolls' apartment, breaking into Dr. Akagi's office, she knew could do these things. She would be good enough. She had to be.

Kaji was the only thing holding her back. Asuka could still see his face, dark eyes looking into hers in a way she'd never seen before. Not as a charge to take care of, or even as a friend, but as a partner. A co-conspirator. Someone he trusted with information that could end his life.
She wouldn't let the trust in those eyes turn to disappointment. He had made her promise, and she'd hold to it. Nothing reckless. No matter how much it felt like thorns under her skin to watch him and Misato go into danger while she stayed behind and scribbled notes.

Asuka shoved the log-book back down into her bag and stood, striding out from the camera's blind spot. Her mind boiled with thoughts as she left the bathroom, plans and theories and patterns rising and sinking again. Under all of it burned determination, the same smouldering will she'd used to bend hundreds of thousands of tons of armored giant to her will.

She WOULD prove what had happened. All she needed was time.

❀—❀—❀​

By the time Asuka reached the surface the sun was low in the sky, casting the city in shades of amber and bronze. Hikari Horaki stood waiting by the gate. Asuka emerged, she tossed something to her.

"Thanks, class rep," Asuka said as she caught the juice box. She pierced it with the straw, letting the watered-down flavor of apples start to wash the metal tang of LCL from her mouth.

Hikari wrinkled her nose. "You still smell like that stuff."

"It's part of being a pilot," Asuka said as the two girls fell into step next to each other. Walking home from tests with Hikari was something she'd done for a while, though the class rep was usually more talkative than today. She didn't mind. Silence suited Asuka fine as they crossed the empty blocks.

"So, I have a favor to ask…"

Asuka blinked, dragged from her thoughts. "Huh? Like what?"

Hikari told her.

"Absolutely not!" The book was heavy in Asuka's bag. She still needed to review, consolidate. "I don't have time to go out with some random guy!"

"Please?" Hikari pressed. "Ever since he found out I knew you he won't stop asking my older sister about it, and she won't leave me alone."

"That kind of desperation is pathetic," Asuka said, crossing her arms. "If he wants to talk to me he should do it himself. To go through someone else is the act of a coward!"

Asuka found herself thinking back to Kaji's lectures: every person who knew a secret was an extra moving part in a machine, another place it could break. Fewer was better. It was the reason she couldn't tell Hikari, couldn't let her in without risking herself and Kaji. Couldn't share why she was so... busy now.

But… maybe there was another way. Inside Asuka's mind an idea germinated, roots digging into the soil. She could get Hikari's help without telling her.

"Although… I might trade a favor for a favor," Asuka said slowly. "I'll take this loser on a date if you do something for me."

"Thank you!" Hikari said, rushing forward to grab Asuka's hand. A moment later she let go of it, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry. It's just been rough with Kodama bugging me constantly. Sometimes I wonder if it's really her who wants to see you. So, what do I need to do?"

"I'm… concerned about Rei and Yuki," Asuka lied carefully. "Can you check on them for me?" The words felt like they'd burn her tongue even as she forced them to sound casual. "Only, you can't tell them it came from me."

Suddenly Hikari was smirking.

"What!?"

"Nothing! Just, it's cute that you don't want them to know you're worried," Hikari said.

"IT'S PROFESSIONAL!" she exploded. Asuka's nails dug into her skin. "I pilot with them, I need to be able to trust them!" In her mind, an image rose up. The third in a set, hair dyed red to match her eyes.

"If you say so," Hikari said, laughing. "Anyway, this is my street. I'll see you at school tomorrow," she said as she turned to go.

Asuka stood for a long moment, watching Hikari leave. She took a deep breath and turned to go too, towards another long night pouring over her notes. Whatever it took to get the truth.

As she passed a trash can she threw away the empty juice box. It really hadn't done anything at all to help the bitter taste in her mouth.

❀—❀—❀​

Hikari finally caught up with Rei the next day during lunch, on the roof of the athletic building.

It wasn't the roof people usually went to. The top of the main building was paved, with a fence at the edge and even a few benches here and there. It was meant for spending time on. This one wasn't. Dirty gravel crunched under Hikari's shoes as she walked between ventilation pipes, electrical transformers, other things she couldn't identify. All the parts of a building kept out of public view.

And there among them was a blue-haired girl with a book open in her lap, eating something from a vending machine.

Hikari took a deep breath. Talking to Rei could be… difficult. She had a stare that felt like it could pin you against the walls. But it was her duty. As class representative it was her responsibility to make sure that all the students under her were okay. She had to do this.

Which didn't mean it was easy to know how to start. Hikari sat down opposite Rei, the sun-heated metal of an air conditioning unit nearly burning her back. Rei didn't appear to notice her.

Um.

Time seemed to melt and warp in the heat as the silence stretched. Hikari ran through dozens of openers in her head, each sounding more awkward than the last.

"Can I help you?" Rei asked, still not looking up.

"I—" Hikari swallowed. Honesty. Honesty was the best policy, especially because she couldn't think of anything else. "I wanted to check in on you and your sister."

"My sister?"

"Yuki. Yuki Amagiri," Hikari said. She hesitated. "You two are related, right?" The family names were different, but they looked identical aside from the hair. Most of her classmates called them 'the pilot twins.'

Rei turned a page in her book. "Genetically." There was something in her voice Hikari couldn't quite identify.

A nasty thought was starting to form in Hikari's mind. "How long have you known her?" she asked, already suspecting the answer she'd get.

"A month."

She'd been right. Guilt, sympathy, began to pool in Hikari's chest. It was always just so easy to forget about Rei, the quiet girl in the back of the class. People like that, you never stopped to think that they had their own lives, their own struggles. "Have you ever had any family before?" she asked softly. A breeze blew over the roof, touseling her hair.

"No. NERV sees to my needs." Rei carefully marked her place in her book and looked up, red eyes locking unblinkingly onto Hikari's own. "Can I ask the reason for these questions?"

"It's my job as class representative," Hikari said, fighting the urge to look away. She had been lucky. Even with Mom gone, her family had mostly stayed together through the chaos after Second Impact. Not everyone was so fortunate. There was even a term for them: impact babies. Children left without a family or records.

Somehow, she'd just assumed the pilots were above things like that. Stupid of her. "Is it scary?" she asked eventually. "Having someone for the first time?"

Rei was silent for a long moment, finally breaking eye contact. "I don't 'have' her."

"You do," Hikari said, conviction entering her voice. She couldn't fight Angels, couldn't do anything to keep her family safe. She was on the wrong scale, too small a person to do anything like what the pilots did. But this at least was a problem she could help with. No monsters, no military operations, just a family. "Even if you didn't grow up together, you're still alike. You've always been sisters, even if you didn't know it yet."

Rei's gaze fell to the machinery and constructions around them. "I don't know how to be a sibling."

Hikari smiled. "You'll figure it out. Are you the older or the younger?"

A moment's thought, then: "Older."

"An older sister's job is to look out for her little sis," Hikari explained. "You've been around longer, you know more about the world, so you can help keep her out of trouble."

"I see."

Hikari kept her smile up, biting back the awkwardness. "If you need any help just ask me, okay? I have two sisters, so I've had lots of practice."

"Understood."

Distantly a bell rung. Hikari pushed herself to her feet, grateful on some level for the out. "Well, I'd better get going. See you in class." She didn't regret coming, though. In her chest, a tiny flicker of pride was glowing.

Behind her, Rei looked like she was trying to solve a very complicated problem.

❀—❀—❀​

Misato discreetly massaged her temples, silently cursing the thoughtfulness of whoever had arranged seating for this wedding. She should have seen it coming. It was public knowledge that she and Ritsuko were —had been— friends. And her and Kaji's plan had involved the two of them seeming to draw close again as cover. It shouldn't be a shock that some planner had seated the three of them together at one table. It was considerate.

They couldn't have known it meant she was sitting next to the woman who had held her at gunpoint less than a week ago.

The buzz of voices and laughter came from the tables around them, only underlining the way their few thin, clipped attempts at conversation collapsed into silence. Not that Misato knew what she would have said even if she had been able.

It would have been simpler to hate Ritsuko, easier. She couldn't manage it. All three of them had changed so much since their time in college. Back then they had been kids playing at adulthood, trying it on like a too-big coat. Misato knew she wasn't the same naive young woman who had signed up for the UN peacekeeping armies. She had seen things. She had done more than a few of them herself. Why was it such a shock that Ritsuko had changed just as much?

It was just that Ritsuko had always been the sane one, the one that seemed to have it all figured out. Rits had been the exasperated voice of common sense in the chaos she and Kaji attracted. When Misato had come home too drunk to stand, Ritsuko had put her to bed. When she had lost a third of her skin and nearly a tooth wiping out on a borrowed motorcycle, Ritsuko had been there with bandages and iodine to affectionately call her an idiot.

It was like coming back to a place she used to live and finding that the entire block had been demolished. The two images didn't fit together. One was the Ritsuko who insulted her coffee, who joked that Misato shouldn't be allowed within fifty feet of a spice rack. The other was the woman crying softly as she aimed a gun at her heart. Someone who had gotten lost somewhere in those years apart. Someone she couldn't afford to not consider an enemy.

Kaji was a comforting presence beside her, tucking into the food she and Ritsuko only picked at. Maybe if she had written more, been better at keeping in touch… but no. Regrets were for later, staring down the inside of a bottle. The question was what she was going to do now. An image of Asuka rose in her mind, alone under a pitiless white light. Another face she had been shocked to see cry.

You can't help them both.

Her stomach twisted. Misato wasn't at all sure she could manage to help either. But if it came to a choice, she knew on which side she'd fall. She'd hate herself for it, but she had acted against NERV for Asuka. She could add one more burning bridge to the inferno. Even this one.
Ritsuko flagged a waiter to their table to refill her drink. Again. And that was wrong too: back in college, Ritsuko had always been the one to hang back, to stick to fruit juice and seltzer water when everyone else was plastered. Now she was acting like someone actively trying to get as drunk as she could.

Then again, maybe she was just trying to deal with the silence. Misato badly wanted to do the same. It would have helped her feel better at least, but old instincts refused to let her guard down next to some who could be an enemy. So she forced herself to take tiny little sips, hating it.

The wedding went by, little by little. Each moment passed like it was being pulled out by the root. Misato tried not to look at the clock too often. Eventually it was late enough that her one excuse was plausible.

"Well, I should get home to Asuka," she said finally, standing. The words felt strange in her mouth.

"I'll have an early night too, then," Ritsuko said. By now her cheeks were slightly flushed with alcohol. She stood, or tried to. As she rose she wobbled, grabbing Misato's hand for support. "Sorry," she said. "These heel are murder. And I haven't gotten this… this in a long time."

Kaji said something, but Misato didn't hear it. She kept her expression carefully, rigidly neutral as the three of them made their goodbyes and headed out. They went their separate ways.

Misato drove for a couple minutes, then pulled over.

It was only then, sitting alone in her car, that she carefully unfolded and read the scrap of paper Ritsuko had pressed into her hand.

❀—❀—❀​

Ants marched in single file across Rei's ceiling. She didn't know where they were going. Presumably they did. Guiding them wasn't her responsibility. The ants had simply turned up one day and never left. They had been the only living things in her apartment beside herself. No longer.

A month before Yuki had arrived, a bird had died in the stairwell of the building. The ants had found it before she did. Rei had passed it twice every day, watching in snapshots as a living body became just pieces.

Ants had crawled between the thing's feathers, into and out of the empty sockets that had once housed eyes. Rei had seen the same kind of birds eat ants, send entire formations scattering for cover. But they would consume it for their purposes regardless.

So much like humans.

In the other room, a sound Rei had been tuning out stopped suddenly. Dr. Akagi had given Yuki a laptop shortly after her creation. As far as Rei could tell, Yuki used it only to play a tiny collection of pop songs over the tinny speakers. Either Yuki had gone to bed, or the laptop's battery had died. Rei just listened, the same way she listened to traffic noises and the screaming whispers of the cicadas.

So many ants, all alike. She wondered if they could tell themselves apart. Did one ant look at another and think 'this one is special'?

Could she?

She and the Fourth Child weren't siblings in the usual sense. Rei of was certain of that. It was impossible to be born to the same parents when neither had been born. They were a product of humanity's hands, not it's blood.

No. You are not a human work.

Rei forced the thought down, back to the place it came from. A locked door in her mind, a spot left carefully unexamined. She and the Fourth Child were alike. Similar, but not the same. Two objects in a set that had always been empty beside herself.

Someone who wasn't a part of the thing called Rei Ayanami. Someone like her.

It was a fact, the data in, conclusions drawn. Long since, really. But fact and interpretation were opposite sides of a vast abyss, one she hung over by the finest thread.

You've always been sisters, even if you didn't know it yet.

It wasn't true. Not in the literal, biological sense. They hadn't grown up together. They hadn't truly grown up. But…

You've been around longer, you know more about the world. An older sister's job is to look out for her little sis.

Someone like her. Someone who would experience the things she had. Someone made for a purpose, a living instrument, replaceable. Someone surrounded by mirrors of herself, alone.

Alone.

Rei made a decision.

She shut her eyes and listened to the soft sound of her younger sister breathing. Above her, the ants marched on.

❀—❀—❀​

Misato held her pistol in one hand. The other held the scrap of paper Ritsuko had slipped her. It hadn't said much, just a time and place.
The time had been later the same night, hours away then. The place was here, a half-built room deep in D-wing. Somewhere that would be finished just as soon as NERV's budget could stretch to fit the seventh phase of construction. Misato's footsteps echoed against the unfinished concrete as she approached. She let them. Better not to take anyone by surprise.

A bank of windows filled one wall, bathing the room in the red emergency lights that filled the geofront at night. Ritsuko sat silhouetted against them, facing away from her. There was a large, empty bottle lying next to her chair.

Without turning, Ritsuko spoke. "Did you consider Shinji your son?"

Misato drew up short. "What?"

"I said, did you think of Shinji as your son," Ritsuko said softly. "That's why you're doing this, isn't it? To find out what happened to him."

"I—" Misato cut herself off. Her first thought was a mental flinch, to deny it on reflex. But Ritsuko deserved more than that, even as Misato was carefully ready to aim the gun in her hand. She could at least offer honesty. "He could have been. He—we were starting to feel like a family. If we had had more time…" She trailed off. No time for grief, not here, not now.

"Then you deserve to know what happened to him," Ritsuko said. Her voice was almost a monotone, blank. "You're familiar with Personality Transfer OS, how the Magi run off an imprint of a human mind?"

Misato nodded. "Yes." After the Eleventh Angel had attacked the Magi she'd spent a few frantic nights researching, making sure she knew what she had to defend.

"Yuki Amagiri carries within herself a piece of Shinji Ikari, harvested before his death. That's how she's able to pilot Unit 01."

Misato went very still. Her grip tightened on the pistol. "Is she Shinji?"

"No." Ritsuko's toneless voice was starting to wobble, to crack. "The commander thought it would be… kinder… to take only what was necessary to pilot. Maybe if we had more time, if I had been able to be more complete—"

Misato recognised the words. Not the specifics, but the meaning. If I had been a little bit faster, if I had just done something different… She heard them every night, echoing in the silence. "Shinji's death wasn't your fault," she said softly, hoping the words were true. "You did everything you could."

Ritsuko flinched as if she'd been struck. She was several feet in front of Misato, facing away, cast in silhouette, but even so the effect was visible. She was silent for a long time, and when she spoke again her voice was again cold, walls up. "…That's kind of you to say," she answered. "Does that mean you'll stop?"

Misato stopped to think about it, actually consider the question. She had answers now. Not all of them, not the whole picture, but pieces of the puzzle. Far more than she would ever have been told if she kept her head down. She could say that that was enough. The Angels were still coming, and she'd be no good to anyone if she was killed by her own side before she could help stop them. She knew Kaji wouldn't blame her for stepping away. The truth wouldn't bring Shinji back.

But this wasn't about Shinji, not really. Ritsuko had asked about the wrong pilot.

Misato had never thought of herself as mother material. She was crass, sloppy, cold and distant. Someone who could barely handle her own life, let alone someone else's. It was hard to imagine anyone less suited to be Asuka's parent.

But it didn't matter. No-one else would. Asuka was her responsibility, a life entrusted to her care. A life that had already had far more demanded of it than the world had any right to ask. If Misato didn't look out for her, there was no other soul in NERV who would. And in order to defend, she needed to know what she was defending against.

"I'll stop," Misato said.

"You liar." Ritsuko made a sound somewhere between a snort and a sob. "You really are just like him, you know that? No matter what I say, you won't stop. Not once you get an idea in your head."

Something glittered on the concrete by Ritsuko's feet in the red light. A tear. Misato opened her mouth to speak, but Ritsuko kept going.

"You won't just die. A brilliant tactical mind, and a maternal relationship with two pilots? There's no way they'll waste that." She gave a hollow, tattered laugh. "And it'll be my job to do it to you. My own friend!"

"I'm sorry," Misato said. She didn't know what else to do.

Ritsuko took long, ragged breaths, getting her breathing under control. "Don't be," she said, wiping her eyes and finally turning. "I'd forgotten how I get when I'm drunk. You don't have a clue what I'm talking about, do you?"

"I guess I'll find out," Misato said, swallowing. "Either one way or the other."

Ritsuko gave the saddest smile Misato had ever seen. "There's only one way, Misato. When you're caught, I'll try not to let it hurt too much. That's all I can do."

 

[blindinkpoet]

Damn. Just... damn. This hurts in all the right places, it's amazing. There's still hope for these people, even if they can't see it for themselves quite yet.

 

[Ljreys]

Oooooof right in the feels

 

[Mirriam Grave]

...is anyone else getting some weird Code Geass vibes?
I swear my emotions are telling me I am reading a Code Geass fic.

 

[blindinkpoet]

I haven't read many, so I wouldn't know ^^''

 

[WeBroughtMatches]

I love the familial relationship developing between Rei and Yuki.
I love all of this story but that part in particular has got a hold of me.

 

[Telegraph Nine]

Damn. Just... damn. This hurts in all the right places, it's amazing. There's still hope for these people, even if they can't see it for themselves quite yet.

Click to shrink...

I love the familial relationship developing between Rei and Yuki.
I love all of this story but that part in particular has got a hold of me.

Click to shrink...

I'm really glad people are enjoying this one! Honestly this was the chapter I was most worried about before posting (so far.) Mostly the first half, I think partly because it's largely exposition without much happening, partly because Asuka's now far enough removed from any canon situations that it's getting harder to tell if she's properly in character.

 

[blindinkpoet]

I think the fic has done a good enough job to justify why she'd be acting "out of character".

 

[Radmelon]

...I never considered Misato being used in the core of an eva. It's frighteningly plausible.

 

[Telegraph Nine]

...I never considered Misato being used in the core of an eva. It's frighteningly plausible.

Click to shrink...

It is! Though she's a more attractive prospect here than in canon, since both Yuki and Asuka would have good odds of being able to synch with her, as opposed to only Shinji originally.

She's also a prime candidate to have her brain used as the basis for a new member of the Magi series, at least in this story. That's why Ritsuko mentions her "brilliant tactical mind." Though that's slightly less horrible since A) that process isn't necessarily fatal and B) NERV isn't actively trying to build more Magi. Not that they can't do both, or that she'd live long after the scan either way.

Bottom line, when NERV mentions 'human resources' they're not being metaphorical.

 

[Renko]

Author's note: the character of Bina Miryala is borrowed (with the author's permission) from the amazing horror webcomic All Night Laundry.

Click to shrink...

I was really surprised when an unfamilliar name came out from the chapter.

Usually, I'm not a fan of OCs and changes in the concepts of the plot but since this is an AU....

I'll just see how it goes, I guess!

 

[grommile]

but since this is an AU...

Click to shrink...

I'd say pretty much every Eva fic on this site is divergent enough to be labelled an AU. (It's a natural consequence of the site's structure encouraging long-form works over short-form, really )

 

[Telegraph Nine]

Guess what? Windup Heart has received its first ever fanart!

Click to shrink...

The figure on the left is Yuki Amagiri, the one on the right is Rei Ikari from the Rebuild fanfic The Curious Case of Rei Ikari. Credit and a whole bunch of thanks goes to @waito_x for drawing them.


Fic Status Update:
Since I'm pinging anyone watching this thread anyway, I figure I might as well let you guys know what's going on. For anyone who didn't see it on my profile, I'm back from my brief detour into the Worm fandom and once again working on Windup Heart. I'm unfortunately also dealing with some mental health issues that make writing more difficult, but I am making slow progress and don't intend to stop any time soon. I've got a lot invested in Windup Heart, and I don't intend to let it die unfinished if I have any say in the matter. Just bear with me, and I'll do my best to make something worth the wait.

Chapter Eight is currently sitting at 3.6k words, and will be titled The Prisoner's Dilemma/Both Of You Fight Like You Want To Live. It will cover the Leliel fight.

 

[Astray Spiral]

Not a problem, take your time. All of us will be waiting for the next update.

 

[blindinkpoet]

Very much looking forward to it! But first and foremost, take care of yourself. You're more important than this fic, as good as it is <3

 

[waito_x]

Credit and a whole bunch of thanks

Click to shrink...

You are more than welcome. Empirically, to summon a Not Shinji increases Tokyo-3's chances against a SEELE/whomever endgame. That there are two of them is all the better.

Thank you in kind for the good conversation over at Ideas thread. 🙂

 

[waito_x]

As I was mentioning to Telegraph Nine recently, another fanart more directly relatable to the fic proper. Almost all of this was done just using Blender which I honestly didn't think was possible. Enjoy!

Spoiler: 240 kB

Might as well call it Operation Juice Box!

 

[grommile]

just using Blender

Click to shrink...

The phrasing "just using Blender" is hilarious

Blender is an absolutely incredible piece of kit that people literally create entire movies in, and I have no idea how to do anything remotely interesting in it because I have at least a strong approximation to aphantasia so while I can perfectly well tell "this attempt at an image is not what I want!", I can't get from there to "but if I do this it will be" because I literally can't imagine what the version I want looks like.

(Learning that word was quite a remarkable moment.

 

[Telegraph Nine]

Birds scattered into the air as the siren cracked the early-morning stillness like an eggshell. It started out low, a steady wail that climbed in pitch until it was a desperate shriek of warning. In the darkness of her bedroom, Asuka's eyes shot open.

She knew what the sound was, what it meant. An Angel. For just a moment, hanging between sleep and wakefulness, her first reaction was joy. A chance to show the world who she was. To prove it to herself.

The feeling didn't exactly fade as she got out of bed, but it did develop… layers. Memories wrapped around it, clinging to that bright spark of anticipation until it could barely be seen. Shinji's death. Her conspiracy with Kaji and Misato. The thing shaped like a girl that NERV could still call up to replace her, if their little treason was discovered. If the commander found a reason to go over Misato's head. If.

Asuka yanked her clothes on forcefully, pushing away the thoughts. She'd practiced this, throwing on whatever was closest to cover her until she could reach her locker and a plugsuit. Soon she was finished, and the pilot of Unit 02 stood in the mirror before her. Ready to face the world.

And if the girl on the other side of the mirror's glass felt like a lie, it was a lie she'd rather die than recant. Kaji and Misato were counting on her, now. "Alright, Asuka," she whispered. "No more mistakes."

❀—❀—❀​

The siren reached the sleeping ears of Yuki Amagiri. Each rise and fall up and down the scale tugged at her, pulling her further from unconsciousness. When she woke, it was to a red-eyed figure standing over her.

"We're needed," Rei said. She turned to go.

There were no further words as Yuki dressed and followed her fellow pilot. None were needed. Outside, a man in a black suit was waiting by a black car. They got in.

Yuki stared out the window as they drove, watching the tide of human beings flood past. Families, businessmen, children, streaming together towards the shelters. All perfectly neat and orderly, and all headed in the precise opposite direction from them. Something in Yuki's chest clenched, tight and cold.

Oh. So this was what fear felt like.

She had been created to pilot Eva. That was the justification for her being, the reason she was allowed to exist in this world. The food she ate, the bed she slept in, all of it was because of this. What she was about to do.

About to try. She had synchronized with Unit 01 before, run tests and drills. Actually facing an Angel was something else. If she couldn't…

On the other side of the window a small child fell, skinning her knee. Her mother simply scooped her up as she cried, pushing on towards a shelter without pausing. Yuki pressed her hand against the glass, but the scene was swept away as the car sped on.

She remembered the commander staring up at her, his face the first thing she ever saw. Calling her here, into existence. Because she was needed.

Needed to replace Shinji Ikari.

She'd never met him, the pilot who had killed two Angels singlehanded and been instrumental in the defeat of a further three. The boy who had given his life to save his teammate. The person she was supposed to live up to, to somehow replace.

Buried in her lap, Yuki's hands curled. She had been made for a purpose. She knew why she existed, in a way few other people could. Why should she question anything beyond that? Why wonder about anything else? It was pointless. A waste of NERV's time.

She wondered anyway, unable to stop. What would happen. If she could do this. What would happen if she couldn't. What Ikari must have felt like, heading out to face an Angel for the very first time.

If he had been scared, too.

There was almost nobody out on the streets anymore, now. Skyscrapers slid into the earth with hollow booms, revealing a morning sun just beginning to peak above the horizon. For just a moment, the light stung Yuki's eyes. Then the car fled into the dark of a tunnel leading below, and they were gone.

❀—❀—❀​

"Plug insertion complete."

"LCL density is within acceptable bounds, all filters showing green."

"Commencing pilot immersion."

The LCL seemed to boil as it flooded in to fill the cramped metal hull of the entry plug, churning through vents below her. Bit by bit the surface stilled as it rose, and by the time it reached Asuka it wrapped around her like a familiar coat. She shifted as the last air disappeared above her, trying to get comfortable in the pilot's chair. She had been through this more times than she could count.

So why did it feel different this time?

"Begin initial contact."

"Stage one connection opened, all readings normal. Progressing to stage two… stage two open, no problems. Stage three contact stable."

"A-10 nerve links activated."

With a jolt, the massive tracks that would carry Unit 02 to the launch rails started up. The tiny forms of technicians watched it, carefully out of the way. Something about those eyes was different, this time.

Asuka had never spared much thought for the interchangeable thousands who worked on the Evas, who repaired and cleaned her Unit 02. They worked for NERV, she worked for NERV. There wasn't a point in knowing more than that.

Except… she didn't work for NERV anymore. Not completely.

And they did.

The Eva's shoulders twitched slightly as Asuka suppressed a shudder, imagining them crawling over Unit 02, inside her, worming under her armor and skin. Whatever rotten thing was concealed behind NERV's secrets, they were part of it. Distantly, maybe. But they were the people who would turn on her, if things went wrong.

Enemies.

At the corner of her vision a pair of windows opened, revealing identical pale faces. Their Evas waited for her at the end of the track she was on, locked into the launch rails. Ayanami and Amagiri, the pilot twins. NERV's set of perfect matching china dolls.

Asuka met the red-eyed gaze, refusing to blink or look away. They weren't actual people. Things in the shape of girls, made to step into the space left behind by someone real. Obedient replacements, to let NERV forget that the originals had ever existed at all.

Two parts of a set, waiting patiently for the third. For the only real pilot left.

Asuka's jaw tightened. She wouldn't let that happen, no matter what it took to stop it. She knew what they were, 'why' and 'how' were in progress. Every day her list of notes grew longer, Kaji and Misato extracted more from behind NERV's walls of secrecy. She would tear the whole thing apart, drag whatever NERV was into the light of day. She had to.

Unit 02 came to halt, locking into place beside the other two Evas. Over the coms, Asuka heard Misato take a deep breath.

"All Evas, launch!"

❀—❀—❀​

Steam rose from the cup of coffee in Misato's hands, twisting and spreading through the command center's stale air. The taste was burnt and bitter, but it kept her awake, helped her pretend. It was far too early in the morning to feel like such a fraud.

"So, what can you tell me?" The words were familiar. She could almost hear a younger Misato saying them without a second thought. Now they felt like lead weights on her tongue, a tiny fig leaf over a chasm she couldn't begin to repair.

"Not much, I'm afraid." Ritsuko was a better actor than she was. The only thing to give her away was the tiny hesitation before she met Misato's eyes. "There's no pattern Blue and no detectable AT field. The Magi aren't even sure it's an Angel."

Funny, how it was almost a relief to not be uncertain anymore. It hurt, yes, but they'd both made their choices, both knew where the other stood. Ritsuko kept being right, even about something like this.

People always have something they won't give up.

They both had found something more important than each other.

"It's not a parade float," Misato said dryly. "Until we know more, we have to assume it's both an Angel and a threat. We can learn more in the process of dealing with it." Pictures of the thing from all angles were splashed across the command center's screens: a perfect sphere hanging against the early-dawn sky, its only markings something like dazzle camouflage in black and white.

Misato's eyes bored into it, as if she could divine its secrets just by staring hard enough. The last geometrically-shaped Angel had been more like a fortress than a single enemy, something that defied conventional engagement. They'd faced an Angel the size of a mountain falling from space, then an Angel the size of a microbe, too tiny to see. If this was a sequence, what came next?

If she had tried both plans and failed, what would be her next move?

Misato set down the mug of coffee and opened a line to the pilots. "Due to unusual readings, it's strongly suspected that the target possesses a nature or abilities unlike previous Angels. Therefore, the primary goal of this operation is to analyze its capabilities and responses, with destruction of the target as a secondary objective. Unit 02 will approach the target, watching for reactions. Units 00 and 01 will follow at a distance, remaining close enough to provide backup. Are there any questions?"

On screen, Asuka sat up a little straighter at the orders. A trio of acknowledgements came over the radio, one accompanied by an eager grin.

"Commence the operation." Sometimes, the only way to learn what a trap held was to spring it. One way or another, it was time to find out.

❀—❀—❀​

Yuki reached around behind Unit 01 to change umbilical chords, feeling the long metal pins slide out of her back as she swapped plugs. The weak morning sun hung low in the sky, and the buildings still above ground cast deep bruise-colored shadows. A harsh mechanical vibrato filled the air, shaking the ground under Unit 01's feet. The sound of the Angel.

She followed Rei as she advanced, trying to imitate the older pilot's movements. So far, the operation had been mostly this. Maneuvering, changing plugs, keeping buildings between themselves and the Angel. Unit 02 waited ahead, a bright patch of red among the shadows.

That stillness could collapse at any moment as the Angel revealed its secrets. Yuki didn't need to be told that much, though she had been. The knowledge coiled around her spine like a spring, winding tighter and tighter.

I exist because of this.

I could die here.

Pilots Ayanami and Soryu were in the fight as well. Yuki clung to that thought, repeating it like a mantra. Two pilots who had faced Angels before, and beaten them. Pilots who had proven they deserved to be here.

Not like her.

"I'm almost under it and it still hasn't done anything," Asuka said, sounding almost scandalized. "What, does it think it can just ignore us?"

"To not react to an enemy is the mark of either confidence or ignorance ," Captain Katsuragi said over the radio. "However, by ceding initiative it's put us in a position to punish that arrogance."

Something moved at the corner of Yuki's eye. A glint of light up on the mountains.

"Rail-mounted particle weaponry has been deployed surrounding the city, and all three Evas are now close enough to neutralize any AT field the target might deploy." The operations director's voice was almost crystalline in its calm. "We will destroy the target in a single decisive strike."

Asuka smirked within her window on Yuki's display, a new box showing the command center popping up. "So this was the plan all along, huh?"

"It was one possible outcome." Was it her imagination, or did Katsuragi smile back when she looked at Asuka?

Yuki looked away from the displays, trying to ignore a sudden tightness in her throat. It made sense. Asuka was the best pilot, the most useful to NERV. That must be why she was addressed with the most warmth.

Before his death, Shinji Ikari had surely been treated the same.

"Are there any other instructions?" Rei asked.

"Just be ready to extend your AT fields on my mark," Katsuragi said.

"All type 12 self-propelled mortars are now in position and charging," a voice called out. "Ready to fire in five seconds."

"Pilots, deploy fields."

The air around the three Eva's shimmered and bent, the space around the Angel being claimed. An invisible trap clicking shut. For just a moment, Yuki hoped. That it would work, that it really would be that simple.

"Fire!"

For an instant lines of light crisscrossed the sky, burning themselves into Yuki's vision. All of them converged on a single point.

The Angel wasn't there.

Around Unit 02 the shadows moved, flowing together. In the space of a breath they grew deeper until there was no hint of anything underneath.

"What the hell?!" Asuka yelled.

Words, shouts from the command flowed past Yuki's ears as she watched in horror, reaching her only in fragments. "—Pattern Blue—" "—the field isn't being neutralized! The topology is all wrong—" "—directly underneath Unit 02!—"

The red Eva was sinking, passing through where the ground should be into something so black there was no sense of depth or distance. A hole cut out of the world. Unit 02 floundered, moving like someone through hip-deep mud trying to reach a building, anything to grab onto. Even from past the edge of the shadow, Yuki could see Asuka wasn't going to make it before she slipped under completely.

It isn't just me, Yuki realized. She could die here, too. Something inside her clicked, like a tumbler in a lock.

It wasn't a decision. By the time Yuki's mind caught up to what she was doing Unit 01 was soaring through the air, leaping between buildings to reach Asuka. The buildings themselves were sinking now, listing sideways as they slid into the dark.

By the time she got there Unit 02 was entombed up to its chest. Yuki clung to the edge of the nearest roof she could find as it tilted, reaching out as far as she dared over the abyss. "Grab my hand!"

Behind Unit 02's four green glass eyes, Asuka stared at her over the coms, confusion written across her face.

Hesitating.

The concrete under Unit 01's grip crumbled, pieces falling away into the black as the building listed under her weight, settling deeper. The armored giant trembled, hand still outstretched, as Yuki fought to keep her balance.

And lost.

Unit 01 pitched forward, tumbling into the dark as the roof gave way. At the last moment she managed to push off, turning the fall into a lurch towards Unit 02. Yuki tumbled on top of the other Eva in a clash of metal and sparks, clinging to it in a tangle of red and white limbs as they slipped below the impossibly-black surface together.

The last thing she heard before her coms turned to static was the commander stepping in to personally order Rei to retreat.

❀—❀—❀​

EVANGELION UNIT 02 (NERV GERMANY) PLUG B1702: LIFE SUPPORT ONLY MODE — ESTIMATED OPERATIONAL LIFESPAN 16:04:27 REMAINING

The hollow of the entry plug stretched diagonally above and below Asuka, metal colored copper by the LCL within. From her seat curled in the pilot's chair, those walls were almost the only things she could see. The walls, herself, and two lines of text glowing on the cuff of her plugsuit. One was a timer counting down: sixteen hours, four minutes, and ten seconds left to live. The other showed a radio link to another Eva.

"This is your fault," Asuka hissed. The words were like chunks of broken glass inside her chest. It hurt to get them out, but leaving them inside was worse. "What the hell were you thinking, charging in like that?! I was FINE without you! No one asked for your help!"

"I—" came the soft voice over the radio.

"SHUT UP!" Breathing heavily was hard in LCL, the liquid mass gushing in and out of her lungs, but Asuka was managing it. "I know exactly what you were thinking. You want to be Shinji, don't you? That's all you were ever built for, to step into his life and pretend he was never there!" Her fists clenched, so tight it hurt. "Well, I still remember him! YOU AREN'T SHINJI!"

"I'm sorry."

"Liar." She spat the word into the LCL in front of her like a curse. Her eyes burned, chest gasping raggedly. It was… hard to catch her breath, breathing liquid. That was why. The only reason. "All you are is the commander's doll, just a perfect little toy soldier to wind up and send out. Why the HELL would a weapon need feelings?!"

There was a long pause as she caught her breath, that shuddering gradually coming under control. Eventually her hands rose, hugging her knees close to her chest. "I'd rather die than be saved by something like you."

I'd rather die, period.

Asuka longed to activate the sleeping Eva around her, to feel Unit 02 in the back of her mind again. She knew it wouldn't help. Before they had shut down, all the screens around her had shown was an white void and the other Eva. Whatever this place was, none of Unit 02's sensors could confirm it even had an edge.

She almost wished the Angel had turned out to be full of crushing spikes or molten rock. At least that way she wouldn't be trapped alone with her. Nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to even think about except the thing inside the other Eva. Unable to look away.

She shuddered.

"Is that what I am? A doll?" came the voice over the radio. Asuka's finger hovered over the switch that would cut the transmission. She could turn off her receiver, shut out whatever the fake they'd built to replace Shinji had to say. Be truly and completely alone.

She thought about the nothing outside, silent and empty without any end she could reach.

"What else should I call you, Fourth?" she said, instead. The words were jagged and barbed, a challenge. "A fake thing that looks like a person but isn't? That sounds right to me."

"I am a person." The words were bruised, hurt.

"Bullshit!" Asuka spat, but under the anger there was a bitter triumph. At least that was a reaction, a crack in the apathetic shell the pilot twins always wore. "Real people have families, things they care about besides piloting! All you are is a tool to be used by other people! You make me sick!"

There was a long silence as the words hung heavy in the LCL, so long Asuka almost thought it wouldn't respond. Then, almost too quietly to be heard:

"You're right."

❀—❀—❀

​

"You're right." Yuki curled in on herself in her seat, wishing she could fold herself away, vanish into some tiny disant point. Tears stained the LCL in front of her face.

"…What?" The word sounded like someone had abruptly gone off script. Maybe she had.

"I said, you're right," Yuki repeated. Her lips felt numb around the words. "I shouldn't have… I'm not him. I can't be. I'm s-sorry for trying…"

She had been made to pilot, to fight Angels. The knowledge was carved into her, more fundamental than her first early memories of waking up. It was her reason for being, the thing that gave her permission to exist in this world. Replacement, substitute, pilot.

And she had failed.

Not a little bit. Not mediocre. Not 'room for improvement.' There wouldn't be a second chance. She was going to die here. The thought was like a spear of ice through her chest, and she couldn't understand why.

It shouldn't matter. The loss of two Evangelions, that was terrible. So was Asuka's death. But she was right. Yuki wasn't an experienced pilot, or a person with hopes and dreams of her own. Just some artificial thing to wind up and set down.

Why should she care so much about something like herself?

"Shut up!" Asuka snarled "Just stop CRYING, goddammit!"

Yuki tried. She couldn't manage it. Heaving sobs started somewhere around her stomach, rising up her spine to make her shoulders shake as she gulped for air. It wasn't quiet or dignified or polite. It just hurt.

"You don't deserve to cry." The voice was different now. Cold, quiet in a way that couldn't be called soft. "You'd die if the commander told you to, wouldn't you?"

"I…"

The question fell into Yuki's mind like a slab of rock into a racing stream. Bitter thoughts, suddenly diverted, spilled in new directions. And from the dark water under the surface, something churned upwards.

"I… don't want to die."

The moment the words left Yuki's lips she wished she could shove them back inside. But she couldn't. It was true. Shame rose up like a tide, carrying with it fresh tears.

"I should," she managed to get out. "I'm m-meant to." To pilot, to obey orders, to be an instrument of humanity's continuance. That was what was needed of her. The fact that she was even here to hear the instructions was the demand. It was her function.

A function she couldn't fulfill. A function that, to her despair, she realized she didn't want to fulfill. Not completely, not to the bitter end.

Not like Shinji had.

"There's something wrong with me." The confession came out hollow, barely more than a whisper. Too afraid. Too concerned with things that should matter to her. Not enough like…

For a moment she thought of Shinji again, the hero who had laid down his life. But the thought crumpled in on itself, impossible. She could never have been him, even if she had done everything right. Even if she didn't feel like this. He had been the commander's son, not some constructed thing like her.

Like Rei was.

If Ayanami had been here, she would have been able to answer Asuka's question without shame. To be what Yuki wasn't.

"…You really are an idiot," Asuka decided eventually. Silence fell, and after that neither girl spoke for a long time.

❀—❀—❀​

ESTIMATED OPERATIONAL LIFESPAN 04:13:56 REMAINING

Asuka stared up at the curved metal of the entry plug's ceiling. It felt more familiar to her than most of the places she'd lived. Now it was probably going to be the last thing she ever saw.

Hunger squirmed painfully in her gut. She hadn't eaten since the night before.

I never realized I could be too exhausted to be afraid.

It seemed impossible, to somehow get tired of her own imminent death. But after twelve hours of waiting she just couldn't muster the energy to care any longer. To feel much of anything.

Maybe it made sense. Put a mechanical part under enough tension and sooner or later it had to either stretch or break. Maybe people were the same.

She could see the countless pages of her piloting manuals flipping by in her mind, all with perfect useless clarity. She knew enough to figure out exactly how she was going to die, but not to stop it.

This was probably the one situation where running out of power wasn't the issue . The amount of energy it took to make an Evangelion move and live was immense. Supporting one human body wouldn't put much of a dent in it.

The problem was that the Evas had never been designed to operate without support staff on hand, ready to extract the pilots within hours if needed. What would the point have been, when they couldn't travel further than the end of a cable? Long before Unit 02's batteries ran empty, things would start to just… break.

In her mind's eye Asuka could almost see countless microscopic particles rising from her body into the LCL. Dead cells from her skin, flecks of saliva or mucus from her respiratory tract, even the little tears that kept her eyes from drying. Drifting, becoming trapped in LCL filters that were designed to be replaced after each sortie. Gradually clogging, making them less efficient with every breath. Things that wouldn't matter, unless you tried to pilot an Eva for two thirds of a day at a single stretch.

It wouldn't be a violent death. The LCL around her would gradually start to become cloudy, to smell more and more strongly of blood. It would slowly lose the ability to carry oxygen as it broke down, each breath bringing a tiny bit less air than the last, a few more toxic byproducts. Eventually she'd start to feel confused and sleepy, slip into unconsciousness, and never wake up.

No.

Something inside her rebelled at the thought, refusing to just let herself die. The rest of Asuka watched it dispassionately, like an insect struggling under a magnifying glass. She wondered why it thought there was a choice.

Somewhere around hour five she'd tried to climb back and change the filters manually. It had been a stupid plan. Even if she could have somehow pried open the panel without tools, she had nothing to replace them with. But it had let her believe for a little while that she might still get out of this.

At hour eight, she'd considered ejecting the plug and just hoping that the white void around them contained air. That had kept her going until she thought to check Unit 02's telemetry and found that the last recorded temperature was around forty below zero. Even if there was oxygen out there, she'd have just traded suffocation for freezing to death.

Her final plan had been to deliberately flood her entry plug's workings with LCL, then swim up to the air pocket created at the top. To hope that the stale air caught in the hollows and crannies of the plug's mechanisms would be enough to let her keep breathing for another hour or two once the LCL became choking.

It could have worked, maybe. If she timed it just right, if she could input the commands before she passed out, she might have managed it. And all that success would have meant was clinging to life for a little longer before suffocating anyway, in the same spot.

It was just a way of pretending, in the end. Of deluding herself. That rescue might still come. That there was something she could still do. That she wasn't going to die here, all alone. She was sick of it.

You should have died a long time ago, something inside Asuka said. She couldn't bring herself to argue.

"I held it off for a while, though," she whispered to nobody. Did that count for anything? She'd thought it did, once. Dying, watching a thing called by her name take her place… all this time and she had ended up right back here again.

So slowly they barely seemed to move at all, Asuka's eyes slipped shut.

I'm tired of all this.

For a long time, there was nothing. Then a voice in the darkness. "Did you say something?"

Her eyes snapped open. "What?"

"I thought I heard you speak," came the voice again. After a too-long moment Asuka placed it: the Fourth Child, over the radio. She'd long since stopped really hearing the soft static from the open connection, forgotten someone could hear her. Neither of them had said anything for hours.

"It's nothing," Asuka said sharply. She bristled for a moment, waiting for a response, but none came. There was just the quiet swish-thump of the LCL filters, the noise of her own breathing. Static on the open line.

It occurred to Asuka abruptly that those could be her last words. 'It's nothing' and then silence. They didn't seem like very good ones.

Eventually the silence broke. "What do you think they're doing now? Outside?" asked the other …pilot? Asuka wasn't sure if Amagiri counted as a girl or even as a person, but she was a pilot if she was anything at all.

"How the hell should I know?" Asuka retorted. It would be heading toward evening, out there. She tried to picture it, the sun hanging low in the sky, the geofront buzzing with feverish activity, working towards… what?

Misato would keep trying to get them back as long as there was a chance they were still alive. Asuka knew that. But that only mattered if Misato herself was alive. The Angel has taken out two Evas before they'd even had a chance to fight back. Maybe there had been no rescue because the Angel won.

Or maybe they had beaten it, and it didn't matter. Tirelessly looking for a solution only worked if there was one to find. Sometimes people didn't come back.

"I think…" Asuka said slowly, "I think right now, Dr. Akagi's telling Misato that there isn't a way to save us." She wondered how Misato would take the news. Underneath layers of concrete and metal and stone, she imagined a thing with red hair in a tank of LCL beginning to grow.

"If you die, will they just make another?" Asuka asked. The question was a farce, a paper-thin mask over something bigger, darker. It wasn't Yuki's replacement she was imagining.

"I don't know."

"How can you not KNOW?" Asuka demanded. "What, did they just not bother you TELL you any—" She stopped. Even through the numbness, even through the fuzziness that came with not eating, she could feel a thought taking shape. Deciding his spares only needed only to understand enough to pilot sounded exactly like something the commander would do.

"...You don't know any more about this than I do, do you?" Asuka said, very slowly. It wasn't a question, not really.

"No."

"Oh," she said. "Oh, that's just WONDERFUL. That's rich!" The words came out saw-edged, a parody of brightness. "That's goddamn perfect! It turns out you were just as in the dark as me this entire time, and I only find out when it doesn't even matter anymore because now we're both about to FUCKING DIE—!" Her voice cracked and for a few long moments Asuka's world narrowed to the struggle to control her breathing as she fought not to sob. Don't cry. Tears will clog the filter faster. The thought made her want to break into manic giggles instead.

It wasn't fair. Last time, back at the volcano, it hadn't been like this. Even for the few moments before Shinji dove in to save her, it hadn't hurt. Just a moment of realization as her armor cracked and imploded around her, then resignation. There hadn't been time to feel this afraid.

It wasn't fair for it to take so long for her to die.

"I know," Yuki said softly. Now that Asuka was listening for it, the other girl's voice shook subtly. She wondered if Yuki too would be crying if it weren't for the other girl listening in.

"What should you do before you die?" Yuki asked after a while.

"Live?" Asuka answered. It was a dumb answer, but talking was better than watching the numbers glowing on her wrist slip by in silence. Better than being alone. "Think of something profound to say as last words. Figure out if you have regrets. Tidy your things so whoever finds you doesn't have to clean a mess."

There was silence as Yuki considered that. Then, finally, "Do you regret anything?"

"Of course not!" Asuka shot back, a reflex so old she didn't think about it anymore. The answer hung between them for a long moment before she added, "Do you?"

"...I haven't lived long enough," she said quietly. It sounded like a confession.

Asuka's lips twisted, pulling into something that in other circumstances might have been called a smile. "I guess we're both set, then."

❀—❀—❀​

00:49:17 REMAINING

Asuka didn't need the numbers on her wrist to tell her the filters were almost done. The soft hum of machinery had risen to a grinding scream, the noise of a system at war with itself. The LCL she breathed was brown and rancid, thick with gelatinous chunks that made her hack and cough when one slipped into her lungs.

Her heart beat frantically inside her chest, like a wheel spinning faster and faster without ever touching the ground. No matter how hard she tried she couldn't seem to catch her breath. Even just laying in her pilot's seat felt like she was running a marathon. Oxygen deprivation, some part of her diagnosed distantly.

Her head felt like something only distantly associated with the rest of her body. A vast dark chamber, each thought taking an age to travel from one side to the other. Words and memories rebounded off each edge before beginning the long lonely journey back the other way.

Regrets. Things she should have done, should have said. The person she should have been. Too late now.

Last words. Things left to say, to do in the time she had left. But there was only one person who could look at her anymore.

Somewhere in the cavity of her skull the two thoughts met, ricocheting off in new directions. A new one sailed away from the collision.

Before you go, clean up the mess you've made.

"...Hey, Fourth?" Asuka said.

"Yes?"

She considered her words, trying to gather enough LCL to form them between labored breaths. She should have hesitated, but there was no room for it. No matter how wide the void inside her stretched, every inch was filled by the knowledge she was going to die. It was freeing, in a way. There just wasn't any space inside her left to be afraid of a frankly pathetic girl with red eyes and badly dyed hair.

"That stuff you said earlier," Asuka said. "About not wanting to die if you were ordered to. That's what a person would say."

The response didn't take long. "I'm not supposed to be—"

"Don't be stupid!" Even the effort of raising her voice forced her to stop and try to catch her breath. Not that she could. Gritting her teeth, Asuka pushed forward. "You either are a person or you aren't. And if you are, then…" She almost stopped there. Every word was an effort, heavier and more exhausting than the one before. But some things needed to be finished. "Then you're not the problem. NERV is."

When a response came, it was soft enough that Asuka had to strain to hear. "...Does it matter, now?"

For a moment she almost shot back with 'find your own last words then, if you can do better.' But they wouldn't be last, then.

Besides, Asuka wasn't sure she could have managed it if she'd tried. The words had taken something from her in a purely physical sense. The lights illuminating the entry plug, formerly a comfortable level, now seemed so painfully bright she had to shut her eyes. Exhaustion settled over her like a blanket, the fingers of sleep tugging at the frayed edges of her thoughts. She didn't have much reason to fight it.

Funny, how she didn't feel heavy anymore. More like she was floating.

…I guess this is it, she thought, half awake. I'll see you again soon, Mama.

Asuka Langley Soryu, Second Child and pilot of Evangelion Unit 02, slipped quietly into the night.

Almost.

❀—❀—❀​

00:21:04

The sound woke Asuka by intervals, each repetition dragging her a little further up onto the cold, stony beach of consciousness. Everything hurt. Her thoughts were mist and treacle, achingly slow and wiped from memory the instant they were gone. Distantly, she knew something was wrong. She wasn't supposed to wake up again.

After far too long, she identified the thing that had woken her. A noise that had been repeating for she had no idea how long. An insistent beeping, refusing to simply let her give in and die.

Wishing she had the energy to groan, Asuka started going down a mental list trying to figure which of Unit 02's alarms she'd forgotten to mute. Not the low-oxygen alarm. Not LCL pressure. She'd be long dead by the time the low-battery warnings sounded. So why wouldn't the idiotic hunk of metal and dead meat around her just let her rest?

No, that wasn't right.

Not an alarm.

That was the alert for an incoming transmission.

Asuka's eyes snapped open, the lights inside the entry plug stinging them through the murk. Everything was the same as before she drifted off, except for a softly blinking light on the console in front of her.

A message, when she and Amagiri should be the only ones in this abyss.

Don't hope. Not yet.

Reaching for the switch to accept the message might have been the single most exhausting thing Asuka had ever done. The bones in her arm felt like solid lead bars, sinking through flesh made of soft clay. Muscles creaked as she tried to order them into action. Every cell in her body screamed at her to just stop, to rest.

Asuka refused. She might die here, she'd accepted that. But like hell would it be while there was something left she could still do.

Empires, entire civilizations rose and fell in the time it took her hand to cross the foot or two to the switch. People were born, grew old, and died. Continents crumbled to dust. But after an eternity, she felt something plastic click under her fingertips.

An image snapped into being in front of her, distorted and filled with static. A woman in a red jacket against a dark background.

"—is Captain Misato Katsuragi, attempting to contact pilots Soryu and Amagiri. We have have a plan—"

❀—❀—❀​

FIVE HOURS AGO:

Misato stood in an empty staging area near the edge of the city, the bare concrete bleached by the harsh glare of spotlights. In front of her waited Ritsuko, ringed by a semicircle of scribbled diagrams and equations on movable whiteboards.

"So," Misato asked, arms folded. "What can you tell me?"

Ritsuko seemed to steel herself before she began. "The Angel's AT possesses a self-intersecting geometry, passing through itself at least one point. It—"

"Inverted?"

She saw the other woman's eyes narrow at the question. Good-little-soldier Misato would never have heard of inverted AT fields, let alone know what the effects of an anti-AT field might be. As of right now, Misato couldn't possibly care about keeping up the charade less. Not with Asuka still trapped. Instead she met Ritsuko's gaze, challenging her to comment.

Ritsuko looked away first.

"...No," she said eventually. "The curvature remains positive across the entire field. Instead, the folding creates and maintains an imaginary space within its boundaries. In simple terms, the area inside the Angel's AT field has one more physical dimension than the area outside it."

"That's where the Evas went," Misato said.

"Correct. The two-dimensional object that swallowed Units 01 and 02 is almost certainly all we can perceive of the Angel's real body. The sphere in the sky is just—"

"A decoy," Misato said, cutting her off. A huge flashy distraction designed to hold NERV's attention while the real Angel got into position. She'd known something was coming, that there had to be a trick. She'd fallen for it anyway.

Asuka had paid the price for her mistake.

For just a moment her composure started to crack, a hairline seam crawling up the wall she'd put between herself and that other Misato. The one who had watched helplessly as Asuka slid into the dark. Who had seen Shinji die for her mistake, who had promised to burn down every single bridge she possessed for the girl in her charge. Misato pushed down that part of her as best she could, shoving her away. There was no time to be a parent, not here, not now.

Because outside the circle of light the spotlights cast, the darkness was waiting. Where the retracted skyline of Tokyo Three should have been was only an unnaturally flat horizon, no structure taller than a nanometer raised against the sky. A piece of her world cut away, Asuka still inside.

"Essentially, yes," Ritsuko answered.

"So where's the core?"

"Nowhere," Ritsuko said. There was something in her voice Misato couldn't quite place. "Or at least nowhere we can reach." She pulled one of the whiteboards forwards, flipping it over to reveal an untouched other side. Turning away from Misato, she divided the board with a long horizontal line. "Imagine that the 3D space within the city, everything we can perceive as being there is a single flat plane. With me so far?"

Misato nodded.

She drew a small circle over the line. "The Angel's core is located somewhere 'above' that plane at an unknown distance." A pair of stick figures joined the diagram underneath. "The captured Eva units are 'below,' displaced along the same axis in the opposite direction."

Misato filed the information away. Too much to hope for that the shadow would lead to the thing's core. "So how do we hurt it?"

Ritsuko didn't answer for a long time. "...We can't."

Misato stared at her. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I said we can't!" Ritsuko said, whirling to face her. Her voice echoed off the bare concrete. "I've been trying to crack this since we first lost the pilots, and it's impossible! If I had months I could maybe, maybe, develop a theory of where to start looking for an answer. I've run every calculation, every simulation I can think of. The technology doesn't exist to attack in a direction that wasn't there yesterday!" She looked away from Misato into the dark. After a time, she seemed to gather herself. "...I'm sorry, Misato," she said, not meeting her eyes. "Evacuate the city and use the self destruct. That's the official recommendation of the Technical Department." She turned and walked out of the circle of light, leaving Misato alone.

She recognized the odd note in Ritsuko's voice, now. It was shame.

Misato looked down. Her hands were shaking. No matter how tight she clenched her fists, they couldn't seem to stop.

She'd known it could happen, of course. No one won all the time. If there were any illusions left that her time in the UN armies hadn't burned away, Shinji's death had ended them. Sometimes there was nothing you could do. But even so, this felt… wrong. Broken. Like the two halves of a cracked sheet of glass, held together in their frame. Edges grinding together, throwing off flashes and splinters of reflected light.

They'd faced impossible Angels before, enemies as tiny as a plague germ and vast as a mountain. Was this one so far beyond those that there was nothing they could even try? Had they crossed some invisible threshold, the end of their ability to act?

Or…

A memory floated up from the depths of Misato's mind. Asuka staring up at her in a pitiless white room, eyes full of betrayal and accusation. I'll pilot by myself, for myself, no matter what. If I die, that's fine.

It was so easy to imagine Ritsuko's face there instead.

They had stopped impossible Angels before. They. Her and Ritsuko working together, bouncing ideas off each other. The enemy might have changed this time, but the two of them had changed more. Her fault.

If the Angel won, Asuka would die with everyone else.

The crack inside her opened wider, and memories swarmed out. Her faults, her failures, her mistakes. She'd killed Shinji, doomed Asuka, driven Ritsuko away. Everyone she'd cared about, everything she'd tried, all worse for her involvement. And for a moment Misato wondered if it would be easier to just… stop. Stop trying. At least that way, she couldn't make things worse.

Her lips moved soundlessly, tracing out the shape of something in the air. A memory.

I must not run away.

What sort of hypocrite would she be if she couldn't even live up to her own advice?

Misato shut her eyes and took a slow, shaky breath. She held it, then let it out again. The next was deeper. She imagined herself carefully wrapping up her regrets, her fears, her self-recriminations, and setting them to the side. There would be time for all of them later. It was hard. Harder than when she'd first learned it years ago, still struggling to speak. Harder than when she'd lain in a war zone, bleeding into the dirt. But bit by bit, she managed it.

No matter how bad you were at something, you had to try.

When she caught up to Ristuko she was leaning against the rail at the edge of the concrete platform, cigarette smoke twining through the air above her head. Misato took a spot next to her, staring out into the dark. For a long moment they shared the silence.

"Tell me about what we can't do."

She felt Ritsuko shift beside her. "What?"

"You said you'd run the numbers on everything you could think of. That none of them would work," Misato said calmly. "Tell me about the ones that won't. Show me where the problem is."

Ritsuko sighed, and for a moment she sounded achingly tired. "I can't. I already told you, I tried—"

"You tried to find a way," Misato cut her off. "We've already seen what happened when a pilot tried to take down an Angel all on her own. I'd rather not see an Operations Director try the same."

Ritsuko made a humorless noise beside her. "You're trying to pin this all on me?"

"…No. I'm not." Misato leaned against the rail, staring out into the dark. Over the glow of the remaining city lights, a few stars were peeking through. "It'd be silly, wouldn't it? To all be wiped out, just because we couldn't work together."

If Ritsuko had a response, she didn't give it voice.

"If the Angel wins, none of this matters. Nothing will, ever again. So…" For a moment she hesitated, then pushed it aside. She needed to do this before she could remember why it was a horrible idea. Misato turned towards Ritsuko and reached inside her jacket, drawing a pistol.

She held it out to Ritsuko handle first, pointed at herself. "If I've become someone you can't trust, can't cooperate with, then do it," Misato said. "The things you said would happen to me. If that's what it takes, when the Angel's dead I'll go with you. I won't try to stop it. I'll even hold the door." She took a deep breath and looked Ritsuko in the eyes. "But until then, work with me."

Ritsuko took the gun. She looked at Misato, face unreadable. "And if I tell you that the only way to stop the Angel is to sacrifice the trapped pilots?"

Misato froze.

Her thoughts whirled, so fast she felt she might fly apart. If she was forced to make that choice…

She remembered Asuka disappearing into the dark. Her fault. The girl she'd promised herself she'd help, no matter what it meant she had to give up.

The thought about Kaji. The man who'd trusted her with his life so she could actually have that chance.

The thought about Ritsuko, who could have turned them in at any time. Who was risking god knew what by keeping quiet, even as she begged them to stop.

You can't save everyone. If she'd doubted it in the past, Shinji's death had driven the message home. Sometimes there was nothing you could do. But as long as there was something left to do, she had to try.

Even if that meant saving the people she still could save.

Misato was surprised and a little ashamed of how little her voice shook. "If the Angel lived, would they survive the Impact it created?"

"No. They wouldn't." There was something in Ritsuko's eyes. For a moment she thought it was pity, but no.

It was understanding.

She wondered exactly how many times Ritsuko had had to make that kind of choice.

"For a while I thought we might be able to target the Angel through its AT field," Ritsuko said, looking out into the dark. "It maintains the imaginary distance, in theory if it were eroded badly enough the entire Angel would collapse back into normal space."

"So why won't it work?" Misato asked.

"If it had only managed to capture one Eva, it might have," she said. "But Unit 00 by itself… even if we pumped energy in until the core shattered, it just can't achieve the field strength on its own."

Misato drummed her fingers on the railing. "So we'd need two Evas, minimum?"

"Two Evas shouldn't be enough. They wouldn't be, if we played fair. But…"

Misato stayed silent as she spoke. Something in her gut told her this wasn't something Ritsuko would share if she believed they had more than twenty four hours left to live.

"There's a theory, based on the more controversial readings from Second Impact. According to the model, two resonating AT fields pass energy back and forth between themselves, each amplifying the other in turn. If two Evangelions could synchronize not just with their pilots but with each other, it should be possible to achieve the necessary field strength." Ritsuko sighed. "Or it would be. I checked, and there's no way to get Unit 03 here fast enough. Even if we had a pilot ready, even if we ignored the red tape, the logistics just aren't in place to ship something so large from America."

Misato chewed her lip as she thought. It wasn't just the Angel's nature that made things difficult. The enemy's opening gambit had effectively crippled their forces, leaving them at a third of their prior strength. Too little to meaningfully mount a resistance.

Except… if Ritsuko was right, Units 02 and 01 weren't exactly gone. From a certain point of view, they were still right there. Just not right there here.

"…Do those two Evas have to be in 'real' space for it to work?" Misato asked.

Ritsuko frowned at her. "I suppose not, why?"

"If Units 01 and 02 switched to minimum power usage as soon as they went under, they should have around four minutes of active time left each. If we could get a message through—"

She saw Ritsuko's eyes widen for a moment before her face fell. "We can't. Radio waves won't propagate in the new direction."

"What if we sent the radio to them?"

"That still requires us to move something at a right-angle to normal space. I already—"

This time it was her turn to cut Ritsuko off. "There's no way to send something up, towards the core," she said. "But down, if we don't mind it being one-way…" She gestured to the black expanse.

Several emotions flickered across Ritsuko's face in quick succession. First shock. Then deep irritation. And finally, for just a split second before her walls came slamming down again, a flicker of hope. "The Angel's imaginary space has a diameter roughly equal to the orbit of the moon," she said, folding her arms. "We'd have to requisition every radio transmitter within a dozen miles just to have a better than even chance of reaching them."

"It wouldn't be the first time we pulled something like that," Misato said.

"True." Ritsuko gave a weary sigh and began listing out points on her fingers. "We have no idea what the environment is like inside the Angel's imaginary space, or if the pilots are even still alive. If they are, they need to have flawlessly executed their training and conserved power immediately. And if all that's gone right, they then need to pull off an experimental procedure they never trained for in less time than it takes to make one of your instant meals." Ritsuko looked up at her. "Have I got that right?"

Misato looked back at her. "Have you got a better idea?"

For just an instant, the corner of Ritsuko's lips twitched. "No, of course not." She turned, heading back to the whiteboards. "Come on, we need to figure out how to make this happen."

Misato followed her. Soon there would be plans and details and logistics, the wheres and hows and whens of turning an idea into action. But for just a moment as they walked, she looked at her former friend.

They weren't back to what they'd had, what they'd been before. Misato knew that in her heart. She couldn't turn back the clock, fix what she'd broken.

But for right now, this was enough.

❀—❀—❀​

"Yuki! YUKI!"

Asuka's head swam, her knuckles white around Unit 02's controls as she shouted. Black spots flickered at the edges of her vision as her body protested throwing away the little oxygen she had left on making noise. She ignored it.

There was a chance now. A way out. But only if the girl in the other Eva woke up. Asuka gritted her teeth, adrenaline reaching icy fingers down her veins. If we both die because you're a heavy sleeper I swear to god I'm going to kill you.

"YUKI!"

The entry plug spun around her, the world tilting nauseously as she fought to stay conscious. Over the sound of her own gasping for breath, she nearly missed the mumbled reply.

"Transmission!" Asuka managed to hiss. Soon she could hear the faint echoes of Yuki listening to their instructions.

Not that there were many. Extend their fields. Somehow synchronize their Evas with each other. Erode the Angel's AT field from within so Unit 00 could take it down. All before internal power ran out.

No pressure or anything, Asuka thought as she gripped Unit 02's control levers. This is definitely one of Misato's plans. All or nothing, death or glory. Either Asuka Langley Soryu saved the day or they all died trying.

For just a moment, she found herself smiling.

From somewhere behind her came a shriek of agonized machinery, followed by a nasty-sounding clunk. A subtle vibration she had long since ceased to notice stopped. Asuka looked down at her wrist, and a row of zeros stared back at her. Her heartbeat was deafening in the sudden silence.

"Ready?" she said. It wasn't a question, really.

"Yes," came over the radio.

She took a deep breath, fighting the urge to cough from the taste of rancid blood. "Evangelion Unit 02, activate." Electricity cracked and arced through the contaminated LCL for a moment before it ionized, turning clear.

A countdown flared to life in the corner of her vision. The machinery that kept her alive was broken, but the systems that made Unit 02 a weapon? Those were working fine. The world blossomed into being through her Eva's senses.

If it could be called a world. A universe as blank and empty as a sheet of paper, containing only another Eva and herself.

Asuka shut her eyes. She knew how to synchronize. She knew how to make Unit 02 copy what she did. She flexed her fingers inside the entry plug, and armored digits bigger than her entire body moved with her. In theory, making her Unit 02 sync with the other Eva should be simple.

She thought back to the first time she had ever made Unit 02 move for her, back when it had taken all her concentration to even make the giant's finger's twitch. She remembered the feeling of something inside her opening. And she pushed.

She was falling. Asuka's eyes snapped open in panic at the sudden vertigo, something she'd thoughtlessly counted on to hold her up giving way. At the last moment she caught herself, reeling above the void. In the space between the two Evas, a wall of light snapped into being.

"It's not working!" hissed a strained voice over the radio.

A growl bubbled up at the back of Asuka's throat, something ugly rising inside her. They had been so close to surviving. To have hope dangled in front of her only to be ripped away at the last moment was… no. Unacceptable. She refused to die like this. Asuka reached out and grabbed double handfuls of the repeating octagons, Unit 02's fingers digging into the shimmering light. With every ounce of Unit 02's strength, she tore them open—

Yuki screamed.

It was long and loud, and it kept ringing in Asuka's ears long after it had dissolved into choking sobs and the wall snapped back into place. The sound of someone being ripped apart. Asuka stared in horror, fingers numb.

"N-not like… that…" Yuki gasped out over the radio. "Just… focus…" Asuka could see her now, in a little box at the corner of her vision. Her pale skin looked ashen, bruise-dark circles under her eyes.

Unit 01 pressed its hand against the flickering AT field between them, and after a moment Asuka placed her hand on the opposite side. Gritting her teeth, she tried to focus again. Images rose and burst in her mind like blisters as she struggled to sync. Ayanami, staring at her so blankly it was like she had been switched off. Dyed green hair, red eyes. A woman with brown hair in a lab coat.

At some point the Fourth Child had started to hum. Asuka knew the tune, she and Shinji had practiced to it against the Seventh Angel. "Stop that, it's distracting."

More images. Shinji in his school uniform, laughing. Shinji in her borrowed plugsuit, afraid. Shinji as he dove Unit 01 unprotected into an inferno of boiling rock.

Shinji.

Shinji.

Shinji.

Yuki wasn't Shinji. She needed to remember that. If she couldn't tell the difference, she was no better than—

Than—

Asuka's concentration shattered, frantically reaching for anything else to fill her thoughts.

She found something. She wished she hadn't.

The countdown beside her was in red, less than a minute left. They weren't going to make it. For just a moment, she was back beneath Mount Asama, watching the cables above her start to tear.

They were going to die. They'd done everything right, and even with Misato's help it wasn't enough. After all that, this was how it ended.

She opened her mouth to speak, only to stop as she saw Yuki's face, eyes shut in a look of perfect concentration. Would it be any kind of kindness to take her hope away early?

You shouldn't have tried to rescue me, Asuka thought. Both of them hadn't needed to die in this place. She tried to convince herself she meant the words. She should. Most of her did. But there was an old, buried part that wouldn't listen.

It was a horrible, selfish thought. But it was there.

If I have to die, I'm glad I'm not alone.

The wall fell.

Glittering octagons vanished as if they'd never been.

The two Evas' fingers interlaced.

❀—❀—❀​

Rei watched through Unit 00's eye as teams of NERV workers dropped the last few trucks of jury-rigged transmitters into the Angel, hoping for a response. The long range targeting apparatus unfolded over her eyes showed the tiny figures on the horizon as if she could touch them.

She'd never expected to return to the site of Operation Yashima. Never thought she'd perch alone at the mountain's peak, playing the sniper this time. But the spider's web of electrical cables and transformers that had once caught a nation was still in place. Even at a sliver of its former load, using it made sense. As the last pilot left, no one wanted her near the Angel's hole in the world.

Almost no one.

Rei, stand down. The commander's words echoed inside her head. It was sensible, prudent. She could follow the logic easily. But other words came after it.

You won't die, I'll protect you. A lie she'd told, the last time she was here.

An older sister's job is to look out for her little sis. A task she'd failed.

Somewhere in that darkness was Yuki.

As recommended for someone using a long-range high-precision weapon, Rei kept her breathing carefully, determinedly calm and even. It took substantially more effort than she was used to.

Rei was good at waiting. Waiting for orders, waiting to be needed. Letting days pass her by as they turned into weeks, into months, into years. Waiting for the moment she had been created for, the day he finally gave her his permission to die.

And so Rei waited. To find out if it would all work, if she'd get her sister back. For the moment there would be something, anything she could do. She didn't keep track of the hours. There was nothing the information could change.

The first sign something had happened was a crackle of radio in her ear. "The target's AT Field is being eroded!" A ragged cheer rose from the workers around her.

The sphere in the sky trembled, dark and light bands fading to a smooth, even white. Like an egg, about to hatch. The circle of darkness drew inward inward, impossibly flat no longer. It piled on top of itself, rising into mounds and hillocks. Beneath the globe in the sky, blackness bulged and rose, pouring upwards in an inverted waterfall.

When black and white met, both vanished. The sea of shadow and the shape above it shrank as they poured into each other, consuming themselves as normal geometry was forced back into place.

The globe had shrunk to a fraction of its former size when the last few drops of nothingness traveled upwards. For a moment black and white swirled around each other across the surface of the sphere. Then they split, opening like an eye to reveal red crystal beneath.

The Angel's revealed core burned like a coal, bathing the city in crimson light. Alarms and flashing warnings filled the corners of Rei's vision.

"High energy reading detected!" a man's voice shouted over the radio, "It's trying—!"

Rei's finger tightened on the trigger. "No."

A beam of light arced across the sky, striking the Angel at its equator. After a moment it burst out the other side.

The Angel screamed.

It was a child's scream, high and full of pain. Cracks spread and forked from the points of impact, arcing across the curve of the Angel's core. When they met, they didn't stop.

Around the dying Angel, empty space… broke. Jagged cracks shot through nothing at all, shattering the night sky like a dropped plate. The remains of the core blazed like a magnesium flare, and an instant later the cracks shone with the same light. An instinct Rei couldn't place or name made her shut her eyes.

Even through her eyelids, the world went white.

The ground beneath her Eva shook. A moment later the blast wave hit, carrying howling winds and dust.

When Rei opened her eyes, the cracks were gone. A pillar of green-white fire rose into the sky from what once had been the city center. Around her, fragments of consumed buildings rained from the sky, some incandescent with heat, some already forming a glittering layer of frost.

Unit 00's massive eye peered deep into the inferno. For just a moment Rei ceased to breathe entirely, her entire being seized in the grip of feeling she couldn't name as her eyes combed the wreckage.

Let her be there.

Veils of dust and smoke parted. There, in the heart of the flames, stood two armored silhouettes. They stood side by side, eyes blazing with light, their fingers interlocked.

❀—❀—❀​

Rei watched as the two entry plugs were pulled side by side onto a flat expanse of concrete. Only meters away, the edge of the crater still glowed faintly with heat. This close, it raised droplets of sweat on her skin.

She shouldn't have been first. There were others gathered around the capsule as it was pried carefully open, more important people. The technicians should have come before her, or the paramedics. And yet it was her standing before the hatch as it was forced open. No one had seemed inclined to stop her.

From the corner of her eye, Rei saw Director Katsuragi standing before the other entry plug. She wondered if it was for the same reason.

A dark stain spread across the concrete as the plug opened, the LCL within seeping out. Rei leaned forwards, half climbing inside. Yuki looked back at her, blinking in the sudden light. She looked sickly, haggard. But alive. Still here.

The silence stretched.

I don't know what to do in a situation like this…

On the advice of a memory, Rei tried to shape her lips into a small smile. After a long moment, Yuki smiled back.

It didn't seem like enough.

There was a commotion from nearby, the other entry plug. Evidently Director Katsuragi had attempted to embrace the Second Child, and the Second had objected. Loudly.

Was that better, more correct? How would a sister act, here and now? She didn't know.

And neither did Yuki. They were the same. No matter how badly she got it wrong, she realized, Yuki wouldn't know any more than she would. Rei pulled herself forward, splashing deeper into the half-drained entry plug. She wrapped her arms around her little sister.

It wasn't a terribly pleasant experience. Yuki reeked of decaying LCL, and the rubbery material of their plug suits squeaked against each other awkwardly. But through the layers of smart plastic, she could feel the warmth of another human body.

"What…?" a voice whispered in her ear, exhausted and confused.

Rei considered her words carefully. Best to stick to what she was certain of.

"I'm glad you're here."

 

[YoRHa_42s]

It's alive! My god, it still lives!

 

[grommile]

And so the porcelain crazes and cracks and flakes away, to reveal the girl within.

 

[waito_x]

Glad to see this update, was actually thinking about Windup Heart earlier and that made me go check SV. I particularly like the scientific back and forth about AT fields.