Chapter 31.5
On the shore a girl awoke, and stared up at the afternoon sky. A few seconds later her upper body shot up to vertical and she stared across the water, brushing a lock of red hair off her face with her left hand.
There was a massive orange ball floating above the water, rapidly drawing away from them. For some reason this didn't phase the girl.
"Are you alright, Asuka?"
She turned to her left. A girl with blue hair, wearing a school uniform, was kneeling on the sand nearby, gazing concernedly at her. The redhead's brain finally kicked into gear. Asuka. Right. That was her name. She vigorously shook her head, red hair flying all about her, to clear the last of the cobwebs from her mind.
"Yeah, I'm fine, Wondergirl," she finally said as soon as the brief dizziness passed. "Where are we?"
"This is the same part of the beach where you and Shinji once returned from Instrumentality."
Asuka raised an eyebrow. "How are you so sure?" Rei pointed to her right, and she looked in that direction. "...Oh."
Several familiar wooden grave markers sat in the sand. The same ones that Shinji had placed when he had started to believe that nobody else would return from Instrumentality.
Shinji.
"Wait, where's-"
"Right next to you. You are holding his hand."
Her left hand was empty, as that was the one that had brushed her hair away from her face. She gently clenched her right hand, and was rewarded with the sensation of flesh and bone putting up resistance. And then she received a returning squeeze.
Asuka's head swivelled sharply around, her nose coming within millimetres of colliding with the one on the face of the brown-haired boy staring intently at her.
"Hi Asuka," Shinji said with a weak grin. "I, um, won't bother asking how you're feeling."
Asuka sighed and let her head droop a little, so that their foreheads bumped gently together. "I'll tell you anyway, dummy: tired."
"Well the good news is that you still have a bed to sleep in, it seems." Shinji used his other arm to point towards Tokyo-3. "Looks like everything's still intact. That orange ball thing is moving out over the ocean."
"That is... what is left of Instrumentality, I believe," Rei clarified. "Adam and Lilith are still in there, but they will be leaving Earth very soon."
Wait.
His other arm.
Asuka yanked her hand out of Shinji's left hand and attached it to his right. Again she gave a squeeze, and...
Got another squeeze in return.
She wasn't going to jump to conclusions, though. Maybe Lilith had been nice enough to reattach his prosthetic limbs too. Somehow. They would have still been in Unit-01's entry plug anyway. Was she omniscient and thus knew how to deal with prosthetics? Maybe Shinji had just been paying attention.
Asuka pinched the skin on the back of Shinji's right hand, and watched as the boy's face twitched a little.
"You... you felt that?" she whispered.
"Um, so there's good news, good news and a little bad news," said Shinji with an embarrassed chuckle. "The other good news is that... well..." He wiggled his right elbow a little. "Just like Toji, I came back whole."
Asuka looked down. There, half-buried in the sand, were his school uniform-covered legs. All of his legs.
Shinji was nearly bowled over as the redhead threw her arms around him in a joyful hug. As it was he had to put an arm out as best as he could within the embrace just to keep the two of them from toppling into the sand.
"I believe it can be said that we are all okay now," came Rei's voice from behind Asuka, who gave an abashed cough before pulling herself and Shinji to their feet.
"So what's the bad news?" asked Asuka.
"Well, um..." Shinji nervously scratched the back of his head. "There's actually two bits of bad news now. I don't know if the patrols are still running along the beach, so it might be a while before anybody knows we're back."
Asuka shrugged. "Fine, then we'll walk back to the city. What's the other bad news? Did you twist your ankle? That's just great. Not even an hour back on your new legs and you've already hurt yourself."
"No, nothing to do with me. It's... um... that." Shinji pointed skyward, and the two girls turned around.
Though they were still far away, there was no mistaking the trails of dozens of missiles streaking across the sky.
"Are those..." Asuka began, horror creeping into her voice.
Rei nodded. "They are missiles. Heading directly for Adam and Lilith."
The Second Child's eyes were now like dinner plates. "...They're fucking nukes!" she yelled.
Shinji gasped in horror, before making a questioning noise. "W-wait! How do you know they're nuclear missiles and not N2s?"
"Because Misato probably watched us go down and decided it was time to nuke the assholes!" After a glance between the incoming missiles and the orange ball moving steadily away, she added, "I'll bet they're the strongest ones she could get. We'll probably be caught in the blast!"
Rei's eyes widened to match Asuka's. "Oh... shit," she whispered, before getting to her feet and sprinting across the beach.
"W-Hey! Wondergirl, I hope you're leading us to an Angel Shelter!" Asuka shouted, before grabbing Shinji's hand and taking off after the fleeing bluenette.
"No!" Rei yelled over her shoulder. "There's a NERV outpost on the beach to aid people returning from Instrumentality! Even if nobody's on duty, there should still be communication equipment we can use!"
Even while dragging the Third Child, Asuka soon caught up with the other girl. "How the hell do you know where it is?"
"Because that's where I was taken when I returned!" Rei said, before putting on a burst of speed.
In a few seconds, the outpost was right in front of them, and Rei only halted once she was inside the perimeter. Her head jerked sharply around for a moment, before heading into a tent that looked exactly the same as the others.
Asuka and Shinji made it to the tent just in time to catch Rei say, "-me through to Commander Katsuragi! This is urgent!" A pause as she listened. "My authorisation is that I am the First Child, Rei Ayanami. Now patch me through or I'll see to it that you get reassigned to waste management! … Misato! It's Rei! I need you to-"
Even Asuka could hear the shriek through the handset as Misato let the extent of her joy be known. She growled and pulled the handset away from Rei. "Misato! It's Asuka! Shinji's here too, now shut up and listen! You need to stop those nukes!"
"Asuka?! Where a-"
There was no time to waste. Asuka injected as much urgency as she could into her voice. "Stop the nukes! Now! Adam and Lilith are leaving Earth! They're no longer a threat to us! DO IT!"
"...Alright, alright. I'll trust you, Asuka. We're sending the order now. Just... stay on the line? Please?"
Asuka glanced at Rei, before jerking her head in the direction of the entrance to the tent. The girl ran outside, and for several agonising seconds there was no word, before...
"Nothing is happening!" Rei's voice reported, turning frantic. "They're about to hit!"
"Are we out of the blast radius?" Asuka asked, directing the question to both Rei and Misato.
"I... don't know!"
"Misato! Hurry!" Asuka hurriedly looked around the tent for something, anything to use as protection.
"Calm down, everything's fine now," came Misato's reassuring voice. "Those missiles were being laser-guided by the bombers. The pilots have been given the order to abort, and the lasers have been shut off. With no guidance, the missiles will fail-safe and not detonate on impact with anything."
"They-" Rei's voice cut off for a moment, and then she said, "...Oh. They have passed directly through and crashed into the ocean. With no explosion."
All three teenagers let out a sigh of relief at the news.
"Rei..." Shinji began. "Were you... just going to stand out there and watch them go off?"
The First Child said nothing for so long that Asuka began to think she had wandered off. Then the tent flaps parted and the bluenette shuffled in, staring at her feet.
"I... do not know why I remained out there," she bashfully admitted.
"Asuka? You still there?"
Asuka rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the radio. "Yeah, we're still alive. Missiles passed through and hit the ocean."
"That matches what we were just told. Now then... Just where the hell are you kids?!"
XX
"The preparations are finally complete?"
"Yes. Would you like a moment to say goodbye to your children?"
"...I think that would cause unnecessary problems at this stage."
"And you? No problems with that temporary body?"
"Why is my chest so flat?"
"...Shall we proceed?"
"Yes."
XX
A flash of light through the tent flap caught the attention of the three teenagers. They glanced at each other, before stepping outside and immediately being forced to shield their eyes.
The sky was glowing.
At least, that was the first impression Asuka got. Eventually, she was able to make out the floating orange ball of Instrumentality, and she noticed right away that it had changed. The orange hue was much darker, and there were cracks running all along its surface, like an egg about to hatch. White light spilled from the cracks, casting almost completely black shadows everywhere and overpowering the light of the sun.
The egg hatched.
With a shattering noise that forced Asuka to clap hands to her ears, chunks of hardened LCL flew in all directions as the piercing light went out. Most of the pieces landed in the ocean, but the ball had been close enough to land that Asuka wondered if any buildings had been hit.
And then she saw the three figures shooting up into the sky, spiralling around each other like planes at an air show. She could only just make out the red, purple and blue Evangelions before they were lost to sight within seconds, travelling faster than the missiles that had almost struck them.
A tiny voice pulled Asuka back into the tent and towards the discarded radio handset. She picked it up and held it to her ear.
"Asuka? Asuka are you there? What happened?!"
"I'm here," she replied. "...Something just happened."
"We know. MAGI picked up the biggest Pattern Blue signal ever."
Asuka chuckled. "Probably the last one ever."
Misato was just as quick with her reply. "Hopefully the last one ever."
XX
On the shore a boy awoke, and stared up at something he thought he saw leaving the planet's atmosphere. He blinked a few times to clear his vision, but whatever it was had disappeared without a trace. He sat up and looked at his surroundings, which consisted of sand, salt water, and a sand dune leading up to solid ground
He stood up, swaying slightly as he tried to adjust to his own legs, and fought down a wave of dizziness.
"New body. Weird," he muttered to himself. "And I appear to have been... kicked out?"
After an awkward climb to the top of the dune, the boy took a better look around. With the new perspective came confirmation of where he had ended up; back near Tokyo-3. Just as he was about to head towards the city, he noticed several broken chunks of orange material washing up on the beach.
"...I guess it was a good thing, then?" he wondered. "But what does that mean for those that were still trapped in there? And... did they get out in time?" He shook his head ruefully. "What am I saying? Of course they did."
The boy's thoughts were interrupted by a loud and harsh noise from behind and above. He turned, and saw a VTOL aircraft passing overhead, flying towards what looked like several tents near the other end of the beach. It set down for a few minutes, before taking off and flying back over him.
"I suppose it's too much to ask for a ride?" he quietly called after it, before suddenly turning pale as the aircraft halted and swung back around. It was hovering directly overhead before he could even think about whether the occupants had actually heard him.
The aircraft descended, and the boy saw what at first glance looked like a fireball sticking to its side, before he realised it was a red-headed teenager looking out of the passenger compartment directly at him.
Or rather, glaring at him.
The girl jumped out of the transport craft as it neared the ground, bending her legs to absorb the impact, but kept her gaze locked onto him. She remained still for a moment, as the downwash from the jet engines blew her red locks about like a fiery tail.
"I thought it was you," she finally yelled over the noise of the engines, before stalking towards him.
Too afraid of the look on her face, the boy remained frozen to the spot, unable to move as the irate girl approached. He knew what was to befall him, but that knowledge was useless.
And so once again he ended up on the ground in the foetal position, clutching at something he had never imagined could be capable of feeling such horrendous agony.
"We're still not even, Nagisa," said Asuka Langley-Soryru as she grabbed him by the shirt with one hand and dragged him to the aircraft. "But we're definitely a bit closer now."
"It's... nice to see you too," Kaworu groaned, but his words were drowned out by the aircraft spinning up its engines.
He was unceremoniously dumped onto the floor of the passenger compartment, and through the pain Kaworu made out who else had been picked up from the outpost.
"Hello, Nagisa," said Misato as soon as the door closed and cut out much of the vehicle's noise. "Consider yourself under arrest for the time being."
"The reason I am not hurting you right now," said Rei, "is because my brother is watching and I have more restraint than Asuka."
Shinji, meanwhile, was too stunned to speak. All he could do was stare at the white-haired boy who had befriended then betrayed him.
And Kaworu found he could not maintain eye contact with the person he had forced to kill him.
Tense minutes passed, as the teenagers stared at Kaworu. Eventually, Rei sighed and reached down to force him out of the foetal position and flat onto his back, stating that the new position would aid in recovery after such an injury.
When they finally arrived at NERV headquarters, armed guards were waiting for them as the passenger door opened.
"This seems... a bit much," Kaworu noted, but did not resist as he was passed into the custody of the guards and cuffed.
"You infiltrated NERV under false pretences, caused extensive damage to military property, and almost brought about Third Impact," Misato stated. "Pardon me for being cautious this time. Whether you're still an Angel or not, you're potentially dangerous."
The former Angel bowed his head. "I understand. Do with me as you wish. It will be less than I deserve. But before you take me away, may I say one last thing?"
Misato frowned, but nodded her acquiescence. Kaworu looked directly at Shinji, who flinched slightly at the attention before Asuka's reassuring hand found his.
"Shinji... I don't expect you to ever forgive me for what I did to you, but I am truly sorry for everything that happened between us last year."
The Third Child finally spoke. "Just answer me this," he said with a calm voice despite the anger in his eyes. "What you said to me last year, about us being... friends... were you telling the truth?"
Kaworu nodded resolutely. "Yes. Everything that I said to you was truthful."
Shinji looked away and sighed. The anger faded a little from his features. "In that case, once NERV is... done with you, I wouldn't mind... if you paid us a visit sometime."
One of the guards tugged on Kaworu's arm, and the boy let himself be taken away in silence. He kept a smile on his face towards Shinji, even as a crying woman came running into the area and tackled Asuka to the ground.
XX
One of the three glowing figures halted at a point a few hundred thousand kilometres past the Earth's moon, and turned to look at the blue and green marble they had just left. Its two companions stopped a short distance away. The human-created armour began to detach from their bodies and drift away.
"Not having second thoughts, are you?" wondered the red-armoured, masculine one of the trio. No sound could travel in the void of space, but all three heard him anyway. "It's a little late to change your mind."
"No," said the androgynous one in blue armour who had first stopped. "I'm just... taking one last look."
"Despite what Adam said, it isn't quite too late," said the feminine one. A piece of purple and green plate detached from her shoulder, and she distractedly reached up to knock it away as it brushed against her face. "You have until we reach the edge of this solar system to change your mind, Yui."
Yui shook her head, slowly. Her temporary body felt strange, even for somebody who had once controlled a similar enough construct. Perhaps it was the fact that she was now in a body made from Adam, instead of Lilith.
"I've made my decision, Lilith," she said, before holding a hand out in such a way that to her eye she appeared to be holding Earth in her palm. She smiled as best as she could with a face with no mouth.
"Goodbye, Shinji," she whispered.
With a final parting glance, she moved to rejoin the two Angels.
'Interesting,' Yui thought to herself, after some time had passed as they continued their journey to the edge of the solar system, and her scientific mind began to go to work. 'How are we propelling ourselves through space? And this quickly? It was only a few minutes or so to reach the moon. No visible form of propulsion. Is an AT-Field involved? How did those Angels that could hover propel themselves? Gravitational waves generated by their S2 organs, perhaps? I wish I had time to study this... Oh? Are we already coming up on Neptune? That's 30 astronomical units in... just a few hours!'
Adam soon held up a hand, bringing all three to a halt an unknown distance past Neptune. Almost all of their armour was gone now, only a few chunks left sticking to their limbs.
Something was waiting for them. Something that was coloured like the galaxy's most demented spherical chess board.
"Isn't that the Twelfth Angel?" Yui gasped upon recognising the black and white orb. "Didn't... didn't I kill it?"
Both Adam and Lilith chuckled at the confused scientist. "You merely damaged one of its apertures," Adam explained. "For which Leliel is a little unhappy with you."
"Leliel? ...Oh..." Yui gulped. "Um... please tell it- them... that I'm sorry."
The ball rippled, before letting out a sound that made Yui wish her temporary form had eyebrows.
"Did... did that abstract mathematical anomaly just chirp at me?!"
"Of course not," Lilith replied. She turned her attention to Adam. "Have you actually decided where we're going to settle down?"
The masculine Angel huffed. "Only since I came to the conclusion that Earth would be spared."
Lilith gestured, taking in as much of the cosmos as she could in one wave of her arm. "Then please, direct us to our new home."
Adam's head swivelled for a few seconds, then a finger stabbed towards a distant star. "We shall go there, Leliel."
The ball rippled and chirped.
"There! It-they just did it again!" Yui exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at the Angel.
"Stop levelling baseless accusations at my children," replied Adam.
Yui sighed and gave up, even as a sound reached her ears -or whatever her auditory receptors were in the void of space- that sounded like a twittering bird.
Turning his back on the exasperated scientist, Adam spoke to Lilith. "Epsilon Eridani is my choice. Any objections?"
Lilith folded her arms. "Well, it's not my first choice, but it's not my last either."
"Then let us go."
As he finished speaking, Adam held out a hand towards Lilith. The goddess reached for it, before hesitating and drawing back fearfully. The First Angel slapped his forehead in realisation, then gestured towards the last piece of red armour to detach, drawing it from his thigh up to his hand, where the metal began to shift and melt, forming itself around the hand before hardening again. In a second, he once more had a red metal gauntlet.
Lilith caught on quickly, and did the same. When she had her own purple gauntlet, she reached out, still hesitantly, to Adam.
Yui expected something to still happen when their hands clasped. She just wasn't expecting that something to be her letting out an involuntary squeal.
Two Angels and a mathematical anomaly stared at her. Though Yui could feel heat in her face, she had no idea if an Angel was capable of blushing. She cleared what was probably her throat.
"Don't we have somewhere to be?"
Lilith smiled widely. "Of course."
The black-and white orb shimmered, and an inky pool of darkness began to grow, blotting out the stars as it expanded. For a brief moment Yui wondered if she had just hastened the destruction of the universe, before she shifted perspective slightly and saw past the edge of the void.
"After you," Adam said with a gesture towards the portal. "Oh yes, I should mention that it may feel a bit... odd."
"I've been living in an Evangelion for ten years," Yui haughtily replied as she moved towards the portal. "I'm very used t-"
The void swallowed her.
"You didn't send her somewhere else, did you?" Lilith asked.
Adam shrugged. "Maybe." At a pointed glare from the other Angel he conceded. "...No."
"Good. Her punishment will not be being stranded."
"But how exactly is this a punishment, even a self-imposed one? Simply never being able to see her child again?"
Lilith sighed and shook her head. "You clearly don't understand humans, Adam. Or mothers."
Humanity's progenitor cast one last glance back towards Earth, before pulling them both into the void.
Go Rei! 
