Why would Kaworu have Gendo's DNA? The more likely choice is Keel Lorenz'. It even sets up a good comparison between the two men. Both cloned a being out of the person they love the most as part of the plan to see them reach immortality. Keel loves himself, Gendo loves Yui.
In part because of an off comment Kaworu said in 2.22 while Gendo and Kozo were orbiting the moon. Now that you mention it however there could also be a sense of contrast between Kaworu and Rei and their originals: Rei is a seemingly emotionless girl who learns to care for others and becomes more heroic as the series continues, Yui is a loving woman who has a dark side of her own that eventually becomes prominent as the tale ends; Kaworu is a rather open person without an understanding of humans who eventually chooses to give his life for them, Gendo is a cold person who understands human pain but instead closes himself to others and damned them for his own desire.
That's like giving a suicidal person a gun when one knows they are suicidal and then going 'totally wasn't my fault' when they inevitably turn up in the morgue.
Asuka smiled and poked him in the head with her free hand. "Look on the bright side, Shinji. Next time you're in Unit-01, you get to tell your mother about your impossibly hot and awesome girlfriend. Picture that."
Arael: "By his very nature, Tabris comes closest to representing the Forbidden Union between Lilith and our Father; a glimpse of his mind may prove most instructive."
Granted Evageeks and Evangelion.wikia are virtually verbatim on the subject but they say EVA-02 started to berserk before the Mass Production units voiced their objection to Asuka's continued heroics.
Arael: "By his very nature, Tabris comes closest to representing the Forbidden Union between Lilith and our Father; a glimpse at his mind may prove most instructive."
Misato: Okay, new plan to save the world. We need to keep Tabris distracted. Rei..
Rei: No. Shinji, Asuka, the world can burn before I let him...
Misato: Good to know, but not what I had in mind. Remember what you did to make Kensuke the most popular guy in school?
In Kaworu's defense, his body is 14. As the joke goes, even a stiff wind could turn him on. Also, even Asuka (who has demonstrated no bisexual or lesbian tendencies) thinks Rei's hot.
Kaworu internal thoughts: "Lilith's vessel appears to have adjusted to me. I can begin investigating the children she's so fond of..."
Rei internal thoughts: "MainKIllBurnMaimKillBurnMainKIllBurnMaimKillBurnMainKIllBurnMaimKillBurnMainKIllBurnMaimKillBurn."
Asuka Internal thoughts: "What's eating Rei and how can I help her?"
Rei internal thoughts: "MainKIllBurnMaimKillBurnMainKIllBurnMaimKillBurnMainKIllBurnMaimKillBurnMainKIllBurnMaimKillBurn."
"Alright, Asuka. This debriefing is being recorded," Misato began with a subtle reminder. I'm going to keep this as brief as possible, since the early indications are the sudden surge in your Synch Rate was due to something on Unit-02's side, possibly due to a side-effect of the repairs. So just tell us what happened from your side, at your own pace."
Asuka swallowed, trying to get control of herself. She'd have to speak slowly and carefully. If she said one word about Mama, she knew she might not be able to stop her mask from crumbling. And she'd have to talk fast. She needed to get out of here and somewhere the MAGI weren't watching before she couldn't hold it in anymore.
Soon enough, if not soon enough to Asuka's fraying composure, they reached the vehicle transport train's terminal on the surface. Misato drove them out onto the streets of Tokyo-3 and pointed them northward, heading for home. She waited until the station was well into their rear-view mirror before she spoke. "Alright, Asuka, we're clear. I swept the car for bugs this morning." She flicked a glance at the redhead in the car's mirror. "So… it worked?"
A sob burst from Asuka's mouth. She gasped for breath and clenched her friends' hands even tighter. "She's alive. My mother is alive."
Her mask of control shattered and she gave up trying to continue, her head dropping back against the seatback as tears streamed freely down her face. "Mama is alive," she gasped between sobs. "We can save her."
"Your Eva. If our theory is right, it might be your mother in Unit-00. Have you ever… felt anything? Tried to talk to her? Asuka said you told her 'she is angry' after the last berserker event."
Rei looked… almost frightened. "I… I cannot talk about it. Please…" she pleaded.
Misato's eyebrows rose. She'd never seen Rei scared of something. "Alright," she eventually conceded.
It took over half an hour of clinging to Shinji, weeping, and occasionally whispering 'She's alive!' before Asuka could manage anything like a stable expression. Shinji didn't say a word, just holding her while she let ten years of pain and loss pour out of her shattered mask. He'd seen Asuka without her clothes a lot over the last few months, but never this naked. He knew how much of a privilege she was giving him in this, too. Despite the tears, he felt a little glow of warmth that she would let him be this close to her, with all her defenses crumbled, and that she trusted him to be the one to hold her while she wept.
Naked is indeed the right word here. Asuka's let down all her mental and psychological barriers, and showed the world the Asuka that lives in Asuka's head.
So it's almost sure that your mother is in Unit-01!" Asuka said, an amazed smile dancing on her lips.
Shinji smiled back, but it quickly faded. "I... I want to see her too, but..."
"But what?" Asuka stared at him. "I... even with the... weirdness, aren't you still eager at the idea of having your mother back?"
He nodded a little, but his expression was still pensive. "I.. don't think it will be that easy."
"What do you....oh."
He nodded again. "My father knows perfectly well she's in there. If it was easy to get her out, he'd have done it already. There has to be a reason why not. I don't know... maybe Hikari came back out because an Eva can only hold one person? Or..." His expression got gloomier. "Maybe the Evas don't even work without a soul in them. Maybe mother had to do this, if they knew the Angels would come one day and attack."
"It started off like it was just two speakers just out of synch. Then it... separated more. They were... both Mama, but... one was the Mama I remember, loving, protective... but..." Asuka pinched her eyes shut and burrowed her face into his shoulder. "The other one... wanted me to die with her. Or for her. Or both. I... tried to talk to the good one. But... I don't know. They were both Mama! Just... wrong."
"But it was her," Shinji said. "And that means... they're not really gone. Maybe we can get them out, maybe we can't, but... just knowing they're still alive, still with us.. every time we sit in out Evas..." Shinji closed his eyes too, and almost held off a tear.
Asuka shrugged slightly in the seat across from her. "I know. And it's worrying me more the more I look at it, but I'm still just so happy she's alive to let it get to me right now. Just knowing she's there for me to talk to next time I'm in Unit-02 is the best thing I've found in years." She looked over her shoulder at Shinji, seated next to her. "Well... almost the best thing. Love you, baka-Shinji." She leaned over to plant a kiss on his cheek. "Thanks to you falling head-over-heels for me, we ended up here."
Asuka nodded. "That I'm 100% sure of. And she recognized me. And...ahem!" Asuka squeezed Shinji's hand. "I managed to tell her about my dear baka here, too. I think she was happy for me. She approves of him, I think."
Shinji turned redder and tried to sink into his chair.
Asuka smiled and poked him in the head with her free hand. "Look on the bright side, Shinji. Next time you're in Unit-01, you get to tell your mother about your impossibly hot and awesome girlfriend. Picture that."
While Shinji dissolved into further embarrassed goo
His smile broadened a bit as she rapidly walked closer. "Hello, Ayanami-san. I sense this is not a chance encou-OW!"
She slapped him on the right cheek this time. The sense of balance was an extra bit of satisfaction.
Nagisa pulled himself off the fence rail he'd stumbled against. "What did I do this time?" he said with some surprise. "I have not even spoken to you since lunchtime."
"This is your fault, you… you… stupid Rainbow Trout!" Rei shouted at him. "She is crying and hurt and upset and I don't know what to do and yet she still tries to make me feel better and I just had to leave her and run away because if I don't she'll ask why I can't say anything or she'll get hurt and aaaaRRRGH!" Rei said in one long blast. She raised her hand to smack him again.
This time The Fifth Child ducked out of arm's reach. "Please slow down and explain. I do not understand." He rubbed his cheek. "And I wish to avoid being slapped."
1. So Rei's worried HIC'll kill Rei and Shinji for knowing she's a clone.
2. Tough tiddy Trout-boy. You came to this neighborhood, you gon' be slapped!
"Asuka! She attempted communication with her mother's soul in Unit-02's Core during the reactivation test this afternoon, and succeeded! She cried! I have never seen her like this! She was… so happy, but couldn't stop crying once she began. And now she is asking me about my Evangelion, and if it is my mother in there, and I cannot even discuss it without being terrified that Commander Ikari or your masters will learn of it and kill them! She is upset and wants to help me and I cannot even explain why I don't have a mother without endangering her. And the longer I am silent the more I hate how I have to lie to them like this! Which is your fault! I was going to tell them everything about me! I was not afraid of them rejecting me, because I know they love me! But now… now I have to be silent and lie to protect them, because of you. I am now afraid of the day Asuka or Shinji ask me why I never said anything about the souls in their Evas…" Rei ran out of steam and slumped against the railing a few meters from him. "I hate you," she finished weakly.
1. Yes Rei. People can be happy and sad at the same time. It's why we have the description 'bittersweet'.
2. Lie of omission=Blame Kaworu? Makes sense.
"I am sorry. This is for their own protection. The men you call my masters have spilled a lot of blood to keep their secret, and would think nothing of erasing the Second Child if they learned she knew too much. The same for the Fourth. They would hesitate only a little even for the Third. That they know of the souls in the Cores is dangerous enough," Nagisa said gently. "People have died for knowing less."
now I'm scared that one day soon she or Shinji are going to ask me if I knew about their mother's, and why didn't I tell them and… and…" She looked at him with eyes that burned at him with matching pain and fear. "I cannot bear the thought they would hate me. That kind of betrayal they could not forgive."
"Did you know?" Nagisa asked quietly.
"I don't even know!" Rei shouted at him again. "Everything before I weaned myself of the drugs is a fog. I think I knew that the Commander's wife was in Unit-01 for a while, but I was so dulled and numb from the drugs I never even put the logic together that meant that was also Shinji's mother! It never even occurred to me to contemplate it, or tell him! And I knew nothing about Unit-02 even existing until it arrived here. It meant nothing to the Commander's Scenario, so he never told me about it!"
"If you didn't know, then why are you scared? I have seen you all together. They… the bond you have with them is almost as bright as the one they have with each other. Do you really think they'd abandon you, not trust you when you say you didn't know?"
"I don't kno-...wait, you can see our bonds?"
Two pairs of red eyes met. "I...yes," Nagisa said. "I do not think it's like yours, but… I can see something. AT-Fields shine to me. Your light… brightens around them.
And… I truly apologize for what I said when I first arrived. I did not understand their bond." Kaworu said. "Nor yours with them. I came here… please understand, I read all about Shinji Ikari, the famous Third Child. SEELE has all of NERV's files on him. I read about someone who was unwilling to be a Pilot, but successful at it anyway. Someone who had few or no friends. Someone alone, fragile, but pure. The very essence of a Lilim heart."
Kaworu shifted, levering himself up off the railing and turning to face Rei. "But then I came here. Earlier than I thought I would. I was so happy, to finally leave the lab SEELE had raised me in, and be allowed to meet this person. Yes, it was also to obey the Call, coming closer like this, but… to meet him, someone who had come to personify everything I knew about the Lilim so perfectly."
He stepped closer, right in front of her. "But then I met him. He was everything I had read about but… so different, as well. I did not expect to see him and the Second Child together like that. I have never even read about anything like that before! They… they are… Lilim are supposed to be isolated, separate, each alone behind their AT-Field! But those two… they are nothing like that! They are… I can't even describe it! Like two halves of a dance! They're constantly reaching for each other, even when they aren't even in the same room! They bend and curl around each other like two pieces of the same fire! It is… the Lilim part of me calls out to it, aching for something like that! I… I can feel the emptiness in me where something like that might go, but… I cannot understand it!"
He put his hands on Rei's shoulders and very lightly shook her. "It is something that… I can feel part of me hungering for, even as the rest of me cannot even grasp it. She… the Second Child is… she is what makes him glow, and vice versa. I… cannot wish to harm that. Him or her, not when they each are so much an integral part of the other's happiness. It is… like the Call, it fills that emptiness inside like nothing else. I… I wish I could have something like that." He looked right at her. "Do you understand what I mean?"
I absolutely do. Kaworu is feeling, if one wanted to be cynical, a biological call for reproduction, to propagate his species.
But, to be more reasonable: in seeing being that are supposed to be alone, together and sharing their innermost selves with each other, Kaworu feels that same desire in both his Lilim body and in The Call to unite with Adam/Lilith and become the dominant species. IIRC, since each angel is a 'possibility' for what Humanity might have been, Kaworu is the sole example of an entirely new species of humanity. And he knows he's alone.
His eyes widened as Rei grabbed his shirt collar in both hands and yanked him closer. "Listen to me well, you stupid fish. I had something like that. When I told them I loved them I felt better than I ever have before. They accepted me! I was not alone! I felt better just being around them! And now because of you I have to flee from them and withhold from them everything I wish to tell them! Your masters have robbed me of my greatest joy! And you even standing here threatens everything! It is fantastic that you now begin to understand why I am so ready to end you if you make any move that might threaten them! But… you will look me in the eye when I am talking to you, Rainbow Trout!"
Kaworu had looked away and sweat started heavily beading on his forehead. "I… do not know if that is a good idea…"
"Why not? I am talking to you!"
"Please understand! This body has urges and drives that I cannot control!"
Rei's eyes narrowed. "I am well aware of the compulsion the Call exerts on you, Tabris. That is no excuse. You bear that every moment and manage to look at me other times. Do so now."
"Not that urge! The Lilim ones!"
"....what."
"All of my will goes to suppressing the Call! I have little left for… um… stopping the others."
"Fifth Child, if you do not start making sense right now, I will bounce you off a tree again."
Kaworu swallowed heavily. ".....please do not look down."
Rei looked down.
There was a long moment of very tense silence.
"....you have got to be kidding me," Rei said tightly.
"I can't help it! It doesn't listen to me! You're being all hot and angry and alive and holding me close and it just… goes off by itself!" Nagisa almost wailed.
Rei looked at him like he'd sprouted another head. "I have slapped you, yelled at you, and I threaten to kill you in practically every conversation we have ever had, and this turns you on?" Rei's eyes started to glow. "You… stupid fish! This is just making me angrier!"
They both jumped and Rei's eyes darted downward again. "...oh come on!"
"I can't stop it! It's a rather intense feedback loop!" he said helplessly. "The Lilim parts of my mind are… making suggestions for things they want to do with you! You are unfortunately very attractive!"
Rei's eyes were small, dangerously narrowed lamps now. "I have a suggestion too, then."
Asuka has taught her pupil well.
"Rei Ayaname, I hereby award you your doctorate in the Tsundere arts, with honors."
In the audience, Taiga , applauded wildly.
... Given Yui's violent behavior in the Eva, I believe it.
Hell, all the times she picked Gendo up from bar fights were probably her ending them!/reference
Arael: "By his very nature, Tabris comes closest to representing the Forbidden Union between Lilith and our Father; a glimpse of his mind may prove most instructive."
"
