Chapter Text
Light. Dark. Reach. Love.
Young. Old. Scar. Hate.
Blood. Skin. Bone. Flesh.
Eye. Mouth. Hand. Light.
Chest. Thigh. Neck. Face.
Hurt. Kill. Stab. Shoot.
Sun. Sky. Moon. Star.
Me. You. Him. Her.
'Light...? Where am I? Why am I here?'
A quiet, frail and small boy lay on the grainy sands of the beach after a countless amount of time being the only person on Earth. The past few days of being the only human being on earth have not taken kindly to this boy, only leaving him the solace and peace of loneliness and grief. The first time he awoke on the beach he could do nothing but scream and wail as he sat by the shore, at first he noticed the scarlet halo enveloping the earth and cutting through the moon like someone had cut the sky with a blade. The pale white moon covered with the ruby "blood" of that smear felt like something out of an art piece, yet he saw it with his very own eyes. To the horizon on his right to his dismay is the head of his friend with her white ghostly face and diamond red eyes, every time he even gave that face a gaze it felt like he was staring at the death of his friend due to the 10th Angel and at his failure and inability to do anything to stop it. So, he decided to ignore her. Only focusing on the moon and the pale white stars in the sky, remembering him of his mother's words.
'As long as the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth exist, everything will be all right.
He smiled a little at his mother's words, before quietly sitting back down on the sand and crying into his hands. Fortunately for what little kindness and generosity the human anatomy could provide for him, he was able to fall asleep due to the exhaustion and anxiety. The boy woke up a jumbled mess on the beach, with the slow waves of the Red Sea catching up to his hands. Once he took notice of it, he recoiled and jumped back like his skin touched a hot stove, only looking back at his hand and sighing in relief when he noticed it didn't have any painful effect. 'Is this... reality?', he thought to himself. But he knew that no one would ever give him the answer to that, even if he squeezed their very last and dying breath for it. With a gentle shuffling of his shirt and pants and him swiping away the gravelly texture of the sand on his skin and clothes, he stood up.
Even when it took almost all of his strength to do so, he looked around standing at a world that he created. A broken, red, dark and desolate world that he made due to his own choice. A world created by his hate of humanity. Yet his hate dwindles compared to the guilt of his own actions or inactions depending on anyone's point of view.
'This is what I deserve.'
Minutes felt like years as he wandered around, occasionally looking for anything that resembled a place the boy was familiar with. He could do nothing as he saw the destruction and famine he caused, only giving a tired and exhausted face to the world as he wandered. Loneliness was something he could deal with, especially when all his life he felt as if no one would ever notice or care about him. But to truly be the only person left on earth? He felt a quiet chuckle on his lips as his old self would've wanted this, at least not until he knew that he wouldn't be able to survive for a week.
The wandering and walking felt like days, until he decided to lay on a patch of a dirt and rest his head on a piece of wood as he mindlessly stared at the sky. The sun had begun to rise, but the moon still lingered clinging onto the beauty of the night. As he closed his eyes, he started to dream of what felt like another life. Darkness envelops his mind before he's tugged on by an invisible force to the direction of the deepest and darkest parts of his thoughts. Voices, familiar voices start calling out like sirens as if they're asking for his penance and repentance.
'Anywhere can be paradise as long as you have the will to live'
'You never even loved yourself!'
'I'm not gonna feel sorry for you. If you don't like feeling pain, then you can just sit here and let them kill you!'
'Stop talking like a stubborn little brat! Like it or not, you're still alive. Get moving and DO something! You can die later!'
'How can I ever understand you if you won't say anything? You never talk to me, but you expect me to understand you! That's IMPOSSIBLE!'
'I know all about your little jerk-off fantasies about me. Go ahead, and do it like you always do... I'll even stand here and watch you. But... if I can't have you all to myself, then I don't want ANYTHING from you'
'I'm so fucked up.'
'This is it, Shinji. Do you want to run away, or do you want to pilot the EVA? It's your call. If you sit here and do nothing, then you're already dead!'
Waking from the nightmare, he jerked up and almost threw himself on the ground as he vomited a piece of whatever his empty stomach had left. 'That's.. my name, Shinji Ikari', Shinji stood up and clutched his hands over his stomach, feeling the hunger and the yearning for food that his stomach gave him. 'I don't need food. Hell, I don't even deserve it' Ignoring the orders of his body, he stood up and wandered around before he noticed something in his pocket that he'd forgotten. A simple, yet so elegant cross that his surrogate mother gave him in her last moments for him to remember her by. Tearful eyes came over him as he starts to remember her actions that protected him which resulted in her death due to his insolence and unwillingness to even do anything to even try and live. 'Why am I even alive now, why am I trying?' His mother's words came to him again just in time before he could do any more damage to his mind.
'Anywhere can be paradise as long as you have the will to live'
While the architecture of modern civilization was heavily destroyed due to Third Impact, nature starts to slowly retake it's course and takes over some of humanity's creations. Noticing the destruction of the city behind him, Shinji decides to ignore it and walk over to a flat patch of land as he gathers whatever he could to make a simple graveyard for his friends that he lost. Days pass and due to his persistence of fasting and self deprecation it takes longer than it would have but once he finishes, he takes a shard of rock and carves the names of the people who were there in his life.
Misato Katsuragi. Rei Ayanami. Kensuke Aida. Toji Suzuhara. Hikari Horaki. Asuka Langley Soryu.
The last name he wrote was that of the fiery redhead girl whom he shared the most complicated relationship with, yet whom he loved. Shinji knelt down just below the height of the wooden pole and put his hands on the patch of dirt that marks the spot for her grave, running his fingers through it as he imagined it was her skin and her body, trying to imagine the comfort that she would bring him. As tears fell onto the ground, Shinji could only remember how no matter how much she had hated him, he still cared for her even when all they've done is hurt each other. Once he finished mourning his friend, he stood up and walked over to Misato's grave. Taking a rock and a nail that he found nearby from a broken house a few miles away, he took the cross that his surrogate mother gave him and nailed it to the wooden grave.
'No soul would ever live to see this' Shinji thought to himself, it would only give him penance and peace of mind and he thought of that as selfish. But he thought that it would've been enough to try and repay the debt he owed to the people around him, even in their death. As the sun started to rise upon the humble graves of those he knew, Shinji kissed the nailed cross on Misato's grave before he turned around and left, following his footsteps back to where he first woke up from the dream he called 'Instrumentality'. The wind and the waves were his only friend as he trailed back his way on the shore, only occasionally stopping by due to the soreness of his legs. For what seemed like countless weeks of doing nothing but walking and following his footsteps that were noticeably fading due the wind and the waves, he felt disgusted with himself but his weak body decided to kneel down and crawl to the shore as he sipped the red liquid, only enjoying the few seconds of his thirst lessening in pain before realizing what he was consuming and prompty spitting and vomitting it back into the ocean. 'I feel disgusting'. He ignored his thoughts and began to continue walking before he eventually fell down and clenched his stomach in hunger as he could only crawl around and look for food, before eventually settling on dried leaves and grass as his main source of sustenance due to his self hatred. After what little energy he got from those leaves, he stood up and continued walking with only his thoughts for company.
Shinji never thought of himself as a good person, let alone a good friend to anyone. The only person he managed to even connect with on a personal level was Rei, whom he saw sacrifice herself for his life. And then there was Asuka, who he felt genuine feelings for even if only for a moment. He once risked his life diving into hundreds of meters of magma without any protection just to save her, and even after that she never saw their relationship more as teammates. 'But, was that really her? In the train? With Rei, and Misato? No, it can't be. She must've had her own torment and pain. But, it felt like her. Even in the kitchen... if that was her, maybe... no. It's impossible.' His head shook as he tried to rid himself of those thoughts, Shinji traced his way back to the exact spot on the beach where he woke up from Instrumentality and layed there, staring at the orange hue of the sky due to the sunrise.
'Would it've been better if I did nothing? No, but then Asuka would've- ... She would've died for no reason, and Misato would too. But, did I have to destroy the entire world? Do I even deserve to die? Am I still alive?'
Thoughts and memories came into Shinji's mind as he remembered Third Impact and everyone's souls merging into one, he could remember fathers that aren't his, mother's that aren't his, and children, and pets, and eventually after a trillion lifetimes in his mind he remembered something. In this person's life he saw how their mother disregarded them, how they were left by their father, how their mother thought of a doll as her own child, and how for her entire life no one told her that she was loved. Just as he saw the life through that person's eyes, he is thrown back into his own mind. Sitting on a chair with a beam of light over his head and just as he looks to see the bare feet of another person in front of him.
"Asuka-", before he was promptly cut off by the voice of the red headed girl in front of him.
"How disgusting."
There he is again, on the same beach, on the exact same night, on the exact spot he's laying in between the grains of sand, with the exact stars lining up on the sky for his eyes to see, with the exact same clothes and the exact same moon and sounds of ocean and wind for him to wake up to. Shinji starts to jerk his body forward and sits up while his legs are unable to move due to the lack of energy, just as he looks forward to the same red sea, the same night sky and the same moon he turns left and notices a small tinge of red. Only this tinge stretched it's body like a person, and had the face of the person whom hated him the most and the hair to compliment it. There she was, the Second Children, Asuka Langley Soryu besides the Third Children, Shinji Ikari.
His eyes widened at the sight of her, and his breath shook along with his body. 'She's here...? With me? Why? How... is she here?', but just as confusion overtook him, anger took over even quicker as his hands palmed into fists and he felt a surge of hate and rage at her. To anyone else it would've been the most disgusting and heartbreaking act, but to Shinji it felt like his justice and his right, like it was destined from the day he met her. With rage overtaking his heart, he crawled over and knelt on top of her stomach while looking at the new additions to her appearance.
A bandage covered the entirety of her right arm and an eyepatch adorned her right eye, Shinji assumes this is from her final moments during the fight with the Mass Produced Evangelions but he thought she died long before she could be treated. But even with a tinge of sympathy at her injuries just like how it was when he first met Rei, he could only hate her, hate her life, hate her heart, hate her actions, hate her words and hate everything she represented to him. He hung his head low and in an instant put his thumbs on her throat as his other fingers wrapped around her neck, even in the act of hatred and violence he couldn't look at the very sight of the girl he had loved and cared for. Even in Shinji's most weakest state as for who knows how long he had gone for a long time without food or water he only uses adrenaline and anger as his source to choke the living soul out of the girl in front of him, only seeing her face jerk slightly when he increased the pressure with her eyes staying dead and lifelessly open, not even looking at him. After a while, he didn't notice her bandaged arm starting to twitch and move until it was too late and he saw it in his peripheral vision move and stroke his left cheek.
As he squeezed the very last and dying breath of everything he's ever dreamed of, she responded with caressing the only person that she's ever come to hate more than herself, and when Shinji felt the soft fabric on her hand touching his face before slowly rubbing down and tracing parts of his jawline he felt shock and fear come into his chest. He's hurt people before and he's done even more to other things than that, but he's never received any kind of love or affection from anyone in his life that wasn't for their own benefit. Yet here he is, strangling the only girl he's ever loved and yet she touches him? Once Asuka's hand stops on Shinji's cheek, he starts to let go of her throat and starts to weep and shake.
'What did I do to you... Is this real? Are you... Asuka?'
Asuka doesn't respond with any more movement and when Shinji starts to kneel lower onto her stomach and weep and sob, Asuka's eyes follow his body and can only respond with:
"I feel sick"