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Disclaimer: I do not own nor make any claim on Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Children of Evangelion
Lay Down Your Burdens
2032 - Seventeen Years After Third Impact
Thirty-two-year-old Shinji Ikari stood on the gangplank overlooking Evangelion Unit 01’s bakelite cage. The last time he had piloted it was to maneuver it into that cage so that it could be sealed away. It had not twitched, breathed, or shown any sign of life in the sixteen years since that day. He used to come down here and speak to her, when he was younger, but had not been down here in over ten years.
He had changed, grown, and become the kind of man that he’d always hoped he could be. But Unit 01 had not changed at all. Its armor showed no sign of wear or decay. The soul of Yui Ikari had been quiescent for all those long years.
A distant rumble reached him, even all the way down here in the GeoFront, in a part of the old NERV headquarters that no one had set foot in since the day it was shut down.
The familiar voice of the woman who raised him spoke, “You want me to say it? For old times’ sake?”
It was a bad joke, but he smiled anyway. “I’m guessing that the UN finally gave you the go-ahead?”
She walked up beside him and looked up at the unaging behemoth. “After Mari’s little manifesto, the Security Council declared SEELE a terrorist organization. WILLE Protocol has been enacted by a unanimous vote.”
“Hm. Congratulations, Commander.”
She tried to downplay it. “It’s only an interim assignment. They haven’t chosen a permanent command staff yet.”
“Oh, come on,” he said. “With all the strings Ryoji pulled to get this passed, you really think he didn’t secure you a command to go with it?”
He looked at her. Time had barely touched Misato, even as she was nearing forty-seven–but it was thirty-seven if anyone asked. Or, maybe it was just his perception of her that refused to change. Her hair was showing no sign of gray, and she maintained her figure as much through stress as through diet and exercise. She’d gained a few wrinkles that she blamed on Ryoji and Kotomi. But, to Shinji, she still looked very much like the inappropriately dressed Captain that he had met all those years ago.
“You’re probably right,” she admitted. “Even so, we have no plugsuits. All of our ordinance was decommissioned, including the city’s defensive grid. We’ve got no pallet rifles, no progressive weapons of any kind. They even took the pylon spikes out of Unit 02. Unit 01 will be going up unarmed and without back-up.”
Shinji gave her a wry smile. “So, it really is just like the first time.”
She didn’t return his smile. “You know, Shinji, Ritsuko is still looking at other possible options. She says that this one looks weaker than its predecessors. An N2 might actually–”
“No,” he said flatly. “We both know that won’t work.” It brought up more memories of the first time they met. Misato yelling get down. The Alpine flipping over. The only things missing now were his father, and…
The click of heels walking down the gangplank echoed towards them. Rei approached them, wearing her doctor’s coat.
“I felt like I should be here,” she said in her calm, cool voice. “It seemed only right.”
Shinji smiled at her. “At least you’re not wearing bandages, this time.”
“Shinji,” Misato tried once more. “You don’t have to do this. We can–.”
“We’ve been over this, Misato,” he said.
There was no more Unit 00. Toji was topside in Tokyo-3 helping to coordinate civilian evacuations to the emergency shelters. They’d sent a VTOL for Asuka, but it would still take six hours, which was four more than they had. Who knew how much damage that thing up there could do by then? Or if they would even be able to get her here safely? He wasn’t going to put anyone else at risk for this, certainly not anyone he loved.
“I’m the pilot of Unit 01,” he said.
She smiled sadly and pressed her hand to his cheek. He’d changed so much from the callow boy she’d first met. She moved her hand to his shoulder.
“Get in the robot, Shinji.”
***
Six Hours Earlier
Shinji hated being here. He disliked being in the GeoFront in general, both for the memories it conjured and because he didn’t think it had any reason to exist anymore aside from being a macabre terrarium for the UN’s science experiments. The only parts still active were the science wing, which was under Dr. Akagi’s direct supervision, and the medical hospital, which acted as a back-up for patients that needed care beyond Tokyo-3 General’s expertise. It made the ward surprisingly busier than normal, especially when it was discovered that LCL was an effective treatment for the most common types of cancer.
Shinji wondered how many of those patients would feel if they knew that it was literal ‘soul juice’ that was saving their lives.
He sat in a chair in the examination room with Yosuke and Miya, who sat side-by-side on the examination table. Yosuke kicked his legs, bored, while his sister played a video game on her hardlight terminal, Warlock. Mai was in another room with Rei. Asuka had wanted to be here to help her through this, but her job and fate conspired against it.
Dr. Akagi sat on the other side of the examination room, typing notes into a computer. She’d subjected the children to just about every test she could think of. It was a condition of retaining their UN stipends that their children would be monitored for any long-term side effects from their time as Evangelion pilots. But Shinji insisted that it never be without parental supervision, and he was glad when Toji and Hikari backed him up on that. Their poor son, Taki, had to go through all of this first. As a result, he really didn’t like hospitals.
Mai appeared through the door a moment later, dressed and unhappy, despite Rei’s comforting hand on her shoulder. The twelve-year-old huffed and stood next to her siblings with her arms crossed.
“‘S your own fault for being an early bloomer,” her twin brother joked. Mai punched him in the shoulder.
“Yosuke!” Shinji chided him.
The boy hung his head. “Sorry, Dad. Sorry, Sis.” Mai cleared her throat and arched an eyebrow. Yosuke huffed. “I mean Onee-chan.”
His sisters giggled. Shinji decided that his son’s embarrassment was punishment enough.
“Everything checked out fine,” Rei said to Dr. Akagi.
“It’s not fair just because I’m a girl,” Mai whined.
“It’s not.” Rei put a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. Mai leaned into her touch. She clearly wished it was her mother, but Aunt Rei would work for now. “But that’s the way it is.”
Mai grumbled. “Well, next time you’re God, or whatever, maybe you could, I don’t know, change that?”
Shinji frowned at his eldest daughter, but Rei tossed him a knowing glance. This was just something he couldn’t understand, no matter how hard he tried. It meant the world to them that he did try.
Dr. Akagi nodded, but it was clear that she wasn’t paying attention to anything that was being said. “I’m getting some interesting readings when your tissue samples are exposed to LCL,” she said.
Shinji frowned at the doctor. “Why would you even do that?”
“Everyone in the world was exposed at the same time,” Akagi said. “There’s nothing to be worried about.”
Rei leaned over Ristuko’s shoulder, much to the older doctor’s annoyance. “Is that one Aki’s?” She pointed at a bit of data and Ritsuko nodded. “I see…”
Yosuko’s head perked up. “What is it? Are we gonna get special powers? Like Spider-Man?”
“The only thing you’d get is an extra dose of stupid,” Mai grumbled. “If that’s even possible.”
“Kids.” Shinji’s tone was stern, the only warning they knew that they would get. “Rei? What does that mean?”
“Only that their cells, which are otherwise completely normal,” she stressed, “are more conductive to LCL.”
“It could just be because they’re still young,” Dr. Akagi said, “and their AT Fields have yet to mature. With a few more tests, I could–”
Shinji asked, “Are we done here?”
Akagi nodded. Shinji collected his kids and ushered them out of the room. Rei followed to walk them out. Miya walked with her hardlight terminal still floating in front of her.
Akagi asked the girl, “Still on for chess on Thursday?”
“You’re not gonna beat me,” she said without taking her eyes off her game. “But since you seem to enjoy the humiliation, I’ll be there.”
The girl was so much like Asuka that it was disturbing.
“See you then, demon-spawn.”
Miya caught up with her family. Rei and Shinji walked ahead of the children.
“She’s just doing her job,” Rei said to him. She could tell that the idea Dr. Akagi might be using his children’s cells, for any kind of experiment was deeply upsetting to him. “She would never hurt them.”
“Just like she never hurt you?” He didn’t like the bitterness in his voice. “Sorry. All of this just…” He trailed off. His sister reached out and gently squeezed his hand.
“I know,” she said in a comforting tone. “But we agreed to put all of that in the past, where it belongs. Remember?”
“If she did do experiments on us,” Yosuke said, “I bet it’d be cool. All ‘blarg! Radioactive monster!’” He stomped around; arms raised over his head.
“Maybe she already did,” Mai said. “It’d explain you, stupid.”
“Yeah? Well, if she did, then it’d explain you, too, genius!”
Shinji and Rei stared at them. Miya ignored them.
Shinji asked, “Were Asuka and I anything like this?”
“Oh, no,” Rei assured him. “You were far more insufferable.”
“Idiots,” Miya muttered.
A red light flashed in the corner of the hallway, and then a familiar but long-silent alarm sounded throughout the base. Fear leapt into Shinji and Rei’s throats as they shared a look. It was impossible.
Dr. Akagi ran out into the hall, as well as a dozen other doctors and nurses in the ward. The doctor glared at the light but wasn’t surprised.
“I thought we had more time,” she said.
Rei whipped her head around. “Doctor?”
“They’re back,” she answered quietly. “Miya, contact Maya, tell her to meet us on the old command bridge.”
“Wait!” Rei’s eyes were wide with fear. “Aki is at the swimming pool!”
“I’ve got her,” Miya said. “Patched into the intercom. Hey, Aki. Get dressed. Meet us at the old bridge. Miya out.” She looked up at Dr. Akagi. “Anyone else?”
Ritsuko nodded. “Call Misato.”
***
“Ryoji! I already told you, no!”
Misato insisted on driving while arguing. Ryoji dug his fingers into his seat, cracking the old Alpine’s leather.
“Why not? You’d be perfect for it.” His wife fumed and glared at him. “Eyes on the road, please?” He did his best job of sounding calm and confident, but inside he was terrified. Her driving hadn’t improved a bit in all their years together.
“A hundred reasons,” she said. “Kotomi is–”
“Almost sixteen,” he said. “And let’s face it, she doesn’t need us for much anymore. She’s her mother’s daughter.”
Misato refused to give him the satisfaction of admitting that he was right. Kotomi was pretty, brilliant, and charged forward at everything. She also had her father’s aggravating charm and thought she could talk her way out of whatever trouble she got herself into. And then there was the way her best friend, Taki Suzahara, looked at her when he thought no one noticed. The poor boy had been wrapped around her little finger since they were six years old.
“Believe me,” Misato said, “we’re just getting to the age when a girl needs her mother the most.”
“She’ll need you to be there for her,” Ryoji admitted, “but you can’t protect her from everything.” Then he saw the red light ahead of them. “Mistao. Stop. Stop!”
She slammed on the breaks and the car lurched to a halt. Misato’s knuckles were white. She slowly eased her grip on the wheel.
“It’s been twelve years, Ryoji,” she said. “Even if the worst were to happen, I’m not sure that I’m the right person for it anymore.”
He reached over and put his hand over hers. He smiled that calm, knowing, arrogant smile that she knew so well.
“I wouldn’t have put your name forward if I didn’t think you weren’t the only person who can do it.”
She smiled back at him despite herself. “You smug jerk.”
She was about to lean over and kiss him when she was interrupted by her phone ringing through the car’s bluetooth speaker. She groaned and answered it, wondering why the hell Miya Ikari was calling in the middle of the day.
“Hey, Granny Misato,” the child said. She and her siblings always called Misato that because they knew how much it annoyed her. “Dr. Akagi needs you in Central Dogma immediately.”
Misato’s jaw dropped in confusion. “The old HQ? Why would she–?”
“They’re back,” was her cold response.
Misato and Ryoji shared a look of cold dread. She put her Alpine in gear and tore through the red light, causing the rest of Tokyo-3 traffic to come to a chaotic, screeching halt.
***
In the coming years, everyone would look back on the anniversary of this day, and ask each other the same question: Where were you when Tokyo-2 was destroyed?
Taki Suzahara was sitting in class pretending that he wasn’t utterly bored out of his mind. The teacher’s lecture had faded into the background a while ago, and his eyes drifted to the beautiful, long-legged girl sitting a few rows ahead of him. Her purple-black hair was held up in a long ponytail, and while she appeared to be following the lesson, Taki could see her laptop screen was playing an old recording from the Angel War. He wasn’t surprised. Kotomi had been obsessed with them all her life. Her mother’s quiet disapproval of her hobby only served to make her dive even deeper into it. Taki sighed, imagining that she would look at him with that same level of intensity.
“Taki Suzahara!” The teacher, aka Mom, snapped his attention back to the lesson. She glared at him, and his classmates snickered. It was just his luck that he’d get stuck in the very same class taught by his mother.
At that moment he was bailed out by Kotomi. She jumped out of her seat, eyes wide, and shouted, “Miss Suzahara! Turn on the news!”
Hikari blinked in confusion. “Kotomi? What–?”
“Now, please!” Her face was pale.
Hikari nodded and turned on the smart board. The image showed Tokyo-2’s downtown core in smoldering ruins. There were several horrified gasps but no one said a word.
“...reports of casualty numbers are still coming in,” the announcer said. “At this time, the UN is asking for everyone to remain calm. For those of you just joining us, we repeat, Tokyo-2 was attacked moments ago by a massive creature. It destroyed all of the key government buildings. The upper and lower chambers of the legislature were in session at the time, and there is no word on the current status of the prime minister. We... wait, we appear to have a visual on the creature.”
It rose from the ruins and the camera zoomed in. It was a hunched biped with a twisted, skull-like face, and slender tentacles for arms. More tentacles emerged from its hunched back, which glowed with menacing crimson energy. It opened its mouth, and the hunch glowed even brighter. A blast of crimson light erupted from its mouth and carved across the ground. The camera shook, and buildings were vaporized by the blast.
“It’s… it’s destroying everything in its path. There’s been no verified identification of the creature as of yet. It is unknown at this time whether or not it is an Angel. We’ll continue to keep our viewers updated as more informa…”
The creature turned towards the camera, as if it was aware that it was being watched. Its hunch glowed, and another blast erupted from its mouth. It struck the camera, and the broadcast went dead.
Hikari covered her mouth with her hands and shook her head. It wasn’t possible. They told her it was all over. It was supposed to be over.
Behind her, voices started to rise in panic. No one knew what to do. What if it was really an Angel? There weren’t any Evas anymore. How was it going to be stopped? All those people in Tokyo-2 were just… gone.
“Enough!” Kotomi slammed her hand down on her desk. Everyone stopped. Kotomi Kaji had been replaced by Class President Kotomi, and she wasn’t going to let things fall into chaos. “Miss Suzahara! Where’s the nearest shelter from here?”
That helped bring Hikari back to the here and now. She nodded. “Right. Listen, everyone! The nearest shelter is one block away. But we will only leave if and when the alarms go off. Right now, we all need to remain calm and—.”
The sirens blared outside.
***
Shinji had to kick the doors to Central Dogma open. No one had the keys.
“Would’ve been a lot easier if I could have done that at fourteen,” he muttered.
They stepped onto the control deck of Central Dogma. The place was dark and cavernous. It had never been the most brightly lit, but now it was downright frightening. Ritsuko turned on the lights while Maya pulled the dusty tarp off the terminals and tossed it aside. She began booting up the control systems.
Rei and the children walked in after them. The twins stared at everything with wonder in their eyes. They’d only heard about this place in stories their mom and Uncle Toji told them. Their dad and Aunt Rei never talked about it. Aki stuck close to her mother, holding her hand and shaking a little. She hadn’t had much time to dry off, and the air in here was freezing.
Miya snorted, unimpressed. “This stuff should be in a museum. You actually fought Angels with this equipment?”
“Believe it or not, demon-spawn,” Dr. Akagi said, “this was all bleeding edge twenty years ago.” She leaned over the main Magi terminal and typed away at it. “That’s strange. The Tokyo-2 node isn’t responding. Miya, can you link up Warlock? We need to see what’s going on out there.”
Miya’s hardlight console appeared in front of her, and her small fingers flew across its ethereal keyboard. The main monitor came to life above them with lines of code and swiftly typed commands.
“Tell Caspar to play nice,” Miya said. “Or I’ll write a subroutine that turns her output into showtunes.” She smiled as the code changed. “That’s better. Wow, the news feeds are going nuts. What…?” Her eyes widened.
Shinji immediately sensed his daughter’s distress. “Miya? What is it?”
She sent the stream to the main monitor. It showed the wreckage of Tokyo-2. Then, Miya brought up the news broadcasts showing the ‘monster’ that was responsible.
“Oh, god! Mom!” Aki squeezed her mother’s hand.
Rei pulled her daughter in close. They still had friends there. She had colleagues. The death toll was enough to make her feel sick.
“Dad?” Yosuke spoke up, unable to hide the fear in his voice. “Is that…?”
“It is,” Dr. Akagi said. “It’s an Angel, and it’s heading here.”
***
Asuka Ikari stared out the window of the hotel’s conference room. Okinawa’s glittering, tropical paradise waved back at her with a gentle breeze through its palm trees and over its glittering waters. She hated it. Her daughter was back home, having to go through her first “adult” examination without her mother there to support her. It wasn’t her fault that her boss had fallen sick at the last second, but she had to be the one to fill in for him.
She huffed. It wasn’t the job itself that she hated. She’d been in it for ten years, and the truth was that she was getting bored. That it was keeping her away from her family more and more was just an added aggravation. She should have been there for Mai today. Yosuke was capable of more than he knew, if he’d just trusted himself a little. She knew that her beautiful idiot could handle it, but sometimes she worried that Shinji stretched himself too thin for her sake, between his restaurant and managing the children by himself when she wasn’t around. And then there was Miya…
It broke Asuka’s heart sometimes when she looked at Miya. The girl was too much like her, and far more. She was smarter than Asuka had been at her age, and already advancing through Japan’s school system with the ennui of someone aware of their exceptionalism. Asuka knew how that felt. She also knew how incredibly isolating and lonely it could be. She would give anything to spare Miya from that.
She was broken from her thoughts of longing for her family by a sudden commotion at the other end of the conference room. Everyone else was standing around the smart screen that had been brought in for the presentation. Asuka immediately knew that something was wrong. The general tenor of the room was one of fear and grief. Several people were quietly sobbing.
She immediately understood why, when she saw the destruction. Tokyo-2 looked like a bomb had been dropped on it. Most of her colleagues were from there. They had families there. A cold fear gripped her heart.
That fear turned to icy rage when she saw the creature responsible for it on the screen. She immediately pulled out her phone and called Shinji. He answered, and then Mari Mikinami’s face appeared on the screen.
***
The Magi had confirmed the creature’s cell pattern by the time Misato and Ryoji reached Central Dogma. It was, as they feared, an Angel. Royji went out into the hall to call his superiors at the UN. Ritsuko and Maya were hunched over two of the three control terminals, and Miya backed them up on Warlock as they compiled all of the information the Magi could gather. The Toyko-2 terminal had been destroyed in the creature’s attack, but the Magi’s sister terminals around the rest of the world were lending what processing power they could.
Shinji answered Asuka’s call and put her on speakerphone.
She immediately asked, “Are you all okay?”
“We’re safe,” Shinji said. “Everyone’s here in Central Dogma.”
“Define everyone.”
Her children, Rei and Aki said hello.
“What about Hikari and Toji?”
“They know what to do in this kind of situation,” Shinji reminded her. “I want to know that you’re safe, Asuka.”
“Of course I’m safe, idiot,” she snapped. “I’m all the way in Okinawa while that thing is rampaging across half of Japan! Misato, why isn’t someone doing something?”
Misato had been on the phone with some of her old JSSDF contacts while she and Ryoji drove to the old HQ. “The JSSDF and the UN military are scrambling,” she said. “But with the bulk of the civilian government and JSSDF command taken out in one attack, it’s going to be slow going, and the best they’ll be able to do is slow it down.” She turned to Ristuko and Maya. “Where is it now?”
“It’s making its way to Tokyo-3,” Ristuko confirmed. “It’ll reach us in five hours.”
Yosuke finally asked the question all of them had been dreading. “Mom, Dad? Are you going to have to fight that thing?”
A chill had settled over the conversation. Legally, the Evangelions were no longer permitted to be used for anything. Only a direct order from the UN Secretary General would permit their deployment.
“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that it doesn’t come to that,” Misato said. It felt like falling back onto old patterns–knowingly lying to children.
Ryoji walked back in at that moment. “The UN Security Council is debating that right now. I put forward a proposal. Hopefully they’ll take it under serious consideration.”
Shinji suspected that, as usual, Ryoji Kaji knew more than he was saying.
“Asuka,” Ryoji said, “we’re sending a VTOL to pick you up, but the round trip is going to take six hours.”
Asuka predictably complained, but there was nothing else to be done for it.
Then, Mari Mikinami’s face appeared on the main screen.
***
She was thirtyish, with long, brown hair held back with a pink headband. She was moderately attractive, with an attitude somewhere between naughty schoolteacher and high-powered tech CEO, all teasing innuendo and arrogant swagger.
She sat at a broad, black desk, with her hands steepled in front of her face and strategic lighting hiding her eyes.
“Hello, Humanity,” she said in a cold monotone. “Seventeen years ago, you were brought to the brink of greatness. The Human Instrumentality Project, under the direction of SEELE, was meant to elevate Humanity out of its genetic dead-end and to the new phase of its evolutionary destiny–to be one as a new God.
“But you rejected it. So, now you will face the consequences of your decision.”
***
Aki asked, “Mom? Was that…?”
Rei nodded. There was a hatred in her eyes that she’d never felt for anyone else, but Mari Mikinami had been the only person in her life who deserved it.
Asuka growled. “What does that psycho think she’s doing? How did she even find an Angel? Adam’s gone!”
“Tabris,” Ritsuko said automatically.
Misato began to ask, “You think that’s why she…?” She trailed off, but everyone knew what she was going to ask. You think that’s why she chemically tortured and brainwashed Kaworu into becoming Tabris again? But, even ten years later, it still hurt too much to say it aloud.
Shinji looked at Rei. Her face was fixed, refusing to let any of the pain show through for her family’s sake. Sometimes, his sister could be the scariest person he knew.
Mai, for her part, gripped Aki’s free hand tightly and gave her cousin an encouraging smile. Aki returned a shy one in thanks.
“It’s only a supposition,” Ristuko said, “but it makes sense. Adam’s soul may have been destroyed, but we never knew how many pieces of him there actually were still out there. It took SEELE fifteen years to awaken the first batch, so it’s not inconceivable that it took Mari ten more to find the rest with the resources of SEELE and an ex-Angel at her disposal.”
Asuka vowed, not for the first time, to kill Mari Mikinami.
“So,” Ryoji said, “she attacks Tokyo-2 to take out the government that’s the most immediate threat to her larger goal, which is… what?”
“Settling old scores,” Shinji said. He knew that, for whatever reason, Mari Mikinami was obsessed with him. This had always been about the two of them. He just couldn’t figure out why. He turned and headed for the exit.
Misato asked, “Shinji? Where are you going?”
He looked back. “Someone has to prep Unit 01.”
Maya volunteered to help. The twins also volunteered. Shinji wanted to tell them no but remembered that he was barely older than they were when he’d had to manually prepare an entry plug, and he could use the help.
The Evangelions, it seemed, were still a family affair, and as Rei was so fond of saying, family must stick together.
***
Toji Suzahara had left work the moment he saw the destruction of Tokyo-2 on the news. He’d made it to Hikair’s school in record time, just as everyone was getting ready to head for the emergency shelter. He fought against the crowd of citizens that were heading for the shelter in a panicked herd while calling out for her and Taki.
“Dad! Dad, over here!”
He turned and spotted Taki and Hikari with his son’s classmates. Kotomi had, predictably, organized them into an orderly group as they headed down the street. Hikari was coordinating with the other teachers to help keep their students calm and safe as well, but she ran into Toji’s arms as soon as she spotted him. Toji pulled his son into the family hug and ignored the boy’s protest.
“Are you two okay?”
“Of course we are,” Hikari said. “Taki, go ahead and get back in line.” She sent the boy back to his classmates.
“I just got off the phone with Asuka,” Hikari told him. “It’s real. It’s an Angel.”
Toji felt his blood run cold. He’d feared it but didn’t want to admit to himself. He’d wanted to believe that this day would never happen, and the nightmares of their youth would stay in the past where they belonged. But, especially after Mari’s announcement, it seemed that just wasn’t meant to be.
“What are we going to do?” Hikari’s voice trembled. She’d never believed that she’d been a pilot candidate. She certainly didn’t have the temperament for it.
“What we always do,” Toji said. She needed him to be calm and decisive. “Get you and Taki to the shelter. Then, I’m going to try to get to the GeoFront.”
“Shinji’s already there,” Hikari said. Her hand automatically grabbed his wrist and squeezed it.
“Hikari, he needs me. I’m the next closest pilot, and he’s going to be all alone out there.”
“We need you here, too!” Hikari’s eyes began to water.
He sighed and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “Okay,” he said. “But if they call…”
She nodded. They led the students down the block to the shelter entrance, where people were packed together but no one was moving forward. There was a large, shouting crowd blocking the entrance. Toji told Hikari to stay put, and he worked his way through to see what was the hold up.
He pushed his way to the head of the crowd, where a handful of frightened people were arguing with a JSSDF Sergeant. The Sergeant and his men were blocking the exit while people screamed at them. Toji knew by the way the soldiers were standing that they were just as frightened, and that made them more dangerous. He had no love for an organization that had tried to kill him when he was only a boy, but one nervous trigger finger would be all it took to quickly turn the scene into a blood bath and do the Angel’s job for it.
He shoved his way between them and raised his hand. “Hey! Hey! Knock it off!” He used the same tone of voice his wife used on him and Taki from time to time. Apparently, it worked on more than just Suzaharas. The crowd, while not calm, at least backed down for the moment.
He asked, “Just what the heck is going on, here?”
One of the crowd, a middle-aged salaryman, pointed angrily at the soldiers. “They won’t let us in!”
The Sergeant spoke up. “We’re prioritizing wounded, sick, and young children first, in that order! If you would all just cooperate, we could–!”
“How cares about prioritizing?” The salaryman shouted back. “It should be whoever gets here, first! You don’t get to decide who lives and who dies!”
Toji frowned. He recognized the tone and attitude of a puffed-up middle-manager when he heard it.
“Hey!” Once again, his shout quieted down the crowd. There were a few murmurs. Some were starting to recognize him. That was both a curse and a blessing. The pilots’ identities had been revealed to the general public in the wake of NERV’s shutdown and the declassification of its files by the UN. The former Evangelion pilots had largely been left to live in peace, but every now and then it could be more of a hassle than it was worth when someone tried to call them frauds, or worse, war criminals.
Toji hoped that, at this moment, it would convince them to hear him out.
“We’re all scared,” he said. “No one wants to be here. We would all rather be at home right now, or with our families. But, that ain’t gonna happen if we don’t work together. And we’re not going to sacrifice the sick and children to do it, are we?”
He looked around at them, meeting as many of their gazes as he could. Some turned away in shame, others seemed to find their resolve.
“Send the injured and any children forward, first! Then we can all follow, all right?”
There was some grumbling of agreement, even from the middle-manager, who didn’t look chastised in the least, but seemed to realize that he no longer had the crowd’s momentum behind him. Kotomi had pushed her way to the front and was barking orders to get people organized. Toji grinned at her. Leave it to a Kaji to stay calm and take charge in a crisis.
“Thank you, Pilot Sozuahara,” the Sergeant said as his men began helping down children and people who’d been injured in the rush to get to the shelter.
“Don’t thank me till it’s all over,” Toji said. “But any chance I could get a lift to the GeoFront?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He turned and spoke into the radio on his chest.
Toji’s phone rang. He answered it and had to put a hand to his ear to be able to hear it above the dim of the crowd.
“Toji!” It was Shinji. “Where are you?”
“With Hikari. We’re trying to get everyone into the shelter without doing more damage than the Angel.”
“Can you make it here?”
“I’m working on that, too.” He paused. “So we’re going back out, huh?”
“Don’t know yet,” Shinji said. “Still waiting on the go ahead from the UN. But, after…”
“Yeah, I heard the broadcast. Any idea what that evil bitch is up to?”
“Aside from wanting to kill us all? Not a clue.”
Toji was just about to check back in with the Sergeant when another fight broke out. He rushed forward and shouted the instigators back down. The air was still thick with fear and tension.
“Shinji? You still there? I think… I can do more good helping up here than out there. I was always the worst pilot, anyway. I’d just cause trouble.”
In the Eva hangar bay, Shinji smiled. That might be true, but when it came to being a good person, Toji had always been the best of them.
“I know you got this,” Toji said. “You’re still my hero, after all.”
Shinji laughed. “Okay. You take care of the civilians; I’ll get the giant monster this time.”
“See you at guys’ night tonight?”
“I’ll be there.”
***
Shinji concentrated and felt Unit 01 wake. The feeling of Yui Ikari’s presence, her soul, sang through his skin. His senses slowly became attuned with the behemoth’s. Eyes, hearing, the weight of the armor on his skin, the strength in his hands and legs.
Misato had warned him that they didn’t know how they were going to dissolve the bakelite encasing Unit 01. He’s assured her that it wouldn’t be a problem.
Unit 01 flexed its body, and the bakelite around it cracked and shattered like glass.
Commander Misato Kaji and the others on the bridge stared at the monitor as Unit 01 moved from its cage to the launch platform with crimson shards raining from its body. The children, even Miya, cheered.
Misato asked, “Rei? Did you know the Evas could do that?”
Rei didn’t answer. She tilted the corner of her mouth into a knowing smirk.
Shinji’s face appeared on the coms. “Unit 01 is in position, Maj… Commander.”
Mei cheered, “Dad! That was awesome!”
Yosuke asked, “Are you going to kick that Angel’s butt, Dad?”
“Kids…” He was torn between not wanting to let them down and not wanting them to idolize any of this. “Listen to me. This is not a game. People are dying. I’m going to try to stop it, but…”
“You can, Dad,” Mai said. “We know it.” She sounded just like her mother. There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in her voice.
Misato turned to Ritsuko as she let the family moment play out. “How’s he looking?”
“Synch ratio’s a bit low,” Ritsuko said. “But that’s to be expected. It’s been almost twenty years. I’m amazed that he managed to wake her up.”
“Like you said. It’s been nearly twenty years.” She couldn’t hide her contempt for Yui Ikari in her voice. “Maybe she’s had time to think about what she’s done.”
Ritsuko decided that she wasn’t going to touch that one. “Well, Shinji,” she pivoted, “I have some good news. We managed to find one piece of equipment that wasn’t confiscated by the UN. It’s autoloading into the tower next to your exit point.”
Mia asked, “Which one? The pallet rifle?”
“A rocket launcher?” Yosuke seemed entirely too enthused about that.
Ritusko smirked and said to Shinji, “Your spear.”
Shinji returned the knowing grin. “Unit 01, ready to launch.”
***
The Nineteenth Angel, dubbed ‘Azazel’, appeared within sight of Tokyo-3’s security systems two hours after the destruction of Tokyo-2–they’d long learned that Angels didn’t stick to one speed as they came closer to their objective. They either slowed down and waited for their prey to come to them, or they sped up and made a death-run at the GeoFront itself.
But there was no longer any piece of Adam, the First Angel, here to lure them. So, what was Azazel here for?
Maya suggested, “Maybe Mari was telling the truth? Maybe she has some method of influencing the new Angels?”
“We can speculate later,” Ristuko said dryly. “Right now, our main goal is examining this Angel’s physiology for weaknesses.”
“Its AT Field seems… weak. Undeveloped.”
Misato asked, “Did you get that, Shinji?”
Outside, Unit 01 had emerged on the edge of the city. The arms tower popped up beside it with the Lance of Lucretius, the same weapon he’d wielded in the last battle of the GeoFront. It was a slim spike of black metal with red inlays, designed to pierce AT Fields. It wasn’t as effective as the Lance of Longinus, but it was still deadly.
Unit 01 picked it up and flourished it as Azazel came over the last hill. Shinji was suddenly very grateful that Asuka had made him keep up with his combat training all these years. He stood with the lance raised and ready.
Azazel leapt to close the distance and landed just over two hundred meters from Unit 01, a comparatively close range for the two giants. Its tentacles writhed, and the energy sack on its back glowed with menace. Its core wasn’t obvious. That meant it was hidden somewhere beneath its flesh.
Ritsuko said in a raised voice, “Shinji, be ready! It’s building up energy. I think it’s about to–!”
A blast of energy fired from Azazel’s mouth and tore across the ground. Unit 01 leapt away and landed on its feet next to the Angel. Unit 01 raised its lance to strike, when tentacles shot out and battered it in the chest and arms, knocking the Eva away.
Shinji caught his breath. The damned thing was faster than it looked like it should be. He expanded his AT-Field. It clashed with the Angel’s, and the air flashed where they met.
***
Misato asked, “How’s Shinji doing?”
“His psychograph is holding steady,” Ritsuko said. “As is Unit 01. His mind is stronger, but his synch ratio is still low. He’s going to have to do better if he wants to match that thing’s speed.”
Misato nodded. “Stay focused, Shinji,” she said to him over the comm. “It’s building up another energy blast. Get ready to move!” The good news was that its blasts were slow and predictable. As long as Shinji stayed alert, he could get out of the way in time.
Misato’s cell phone rang, and she answered it without checking who it was. “This is Comman–”
“Damn it, Misato!” Asuka screamed in her ear. “What the hell were you thinking sending Shinji out alone like that?”
“Ow! Shit!” She pulled the phone back and put it on speaker. “Asuka! At least warn me before you do that.”
The twins called out to her.
“Mom!”
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hey, kids,” she tried to sound brave for their sake. “Where’s your sister?”
“I’m right here, Mom,” Miya said with the attitude of a girl twice her age. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m trying to save the world, here.”
“You still didn’t answer me, Misato,” Asuka said.
“It was his choice,” Misato said. “I didn’t force him to do anything.”
“Of course you didn’t,” she said. “You didn’t have to! He’s got a goddamn martyr complex, and you know it.” She growled with frustration. “What about Toji?”
“He’s helping coordinate shelter assignments.”
“Well, what about Rei? Send her out in Unit 02!”
“I’m right here, Asuka,” Rei said, slightly annoyed. “And before you ask, Maya has already suggested that won’t work. We’re… too old to cross synch. Our AT-Fields are too set. With Unit 00 gone, I’m useless in this fight.”
Rei’s frank assessment defanged Asuka’s argument a bit. Aki squeezed her mother’s hand in an attempt to comfort her.
Asuka asked the question that had really been bothering her. “Why didn’t he wait for me?”
“No time,” Misato said. “I’m sorry, Asuka. There was no other choice.”
***
The fight had been going on for nearly ten minutes, probably the longest single engagement Shinji had ever had. It was definitely an Angel–it regrew tentacles each time his lance tore through one. Its body wasn’t much more than a hunched mass, like each wound caused it to overgrow new flesh, like cancer. That slowed its movements, but the more tentacles appeared, the harder it was to strike at the bloated sack covering its core.
“That’s definitely what’s powering its blasts,” Miya said. “It’s got the same cool-down time as Zuriel did.”
He really wished that she hadn’t reminded him of that battle. Just thinking about it made his neck ache.
“Great,” Misato muttered. “All he has to do is go berserk, merge with his Eva and eat the Angel’s core.”
Miya ignored her. “Dad, I’m calculating a trajectory. Can you hold out that long?”
“I pretty much have to, don’t I?” He raised his lance again. “Come on, you stupid squid. I’m right here! Come get me!”
The Angel turned and lashed out with its tentacles. Unit 01 spun its lance around, fending off the appendages as the Angel charged up its blast. He had the timing now. He leapt out of the blast’s wave and out of the tentacles’ reach. His spear sliced cleanly through the several that tried to grab him. He just had to keep up–
A mass of fresh tentacles burst from one of the torn appendages and wrapped themselves around Unit 01’s leg. Shinji felt the Eva’s armor crack under immense pressure, and then the world spun around him as the tentacles pulled Unit 01 down and slammed her into the ground. Concrete cracked and erupted around her and buildings shook.
He felt his ribs crack–he hadn’t felt that in almost eighteen years. He coughed, and the familiar taste of his blood coated his tongue. He couldn’t react before his leg was jerked up, and the world spun again as the Angel threw Unit 01 over its head and slammed her down onto the other side.
He thought he heard someone–his children, or Misato, or Askua, or Rei, hell, maybe all of them–cry out. Or it could have been the wind whistling around Unit 01’s head as the Angel tossed the Eva around like a rag doll, slamming her over and over into the ground. Stars and shadows filled Shinji’s eyes, and he could feel his brain rattling around even with the cushion of the LCL around him.
Finally, it stopped. He was dimly aware of voices calling his name. Asuka’s was, of course, the loudest. She was telling him to get up. He wasn’t allowed to die.
“Shinji! Do you hear me? Get up!”
He felt a warm, white light enveloping him.
“Shinji?” The voice was softer. “Did you hear me? Time to get up.”
He blinked his eyes awake. He stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Then he heard the voice again, gentle and calm. He turned his head and saw his mother standing in the doorway of a bedroom that wasn’t his bedroom. Well, it definitely looked like a teenage boy’s bedroom, with band posters on the walls and dirty clothes on the floor, but it…
“Mom?” His voice sounded younger. His body felt smaller. He looked down and realized that he was. He looked up at the mirror on the dresser. His fourteen-year-old reflection stared back at him.
A momentary panic took hold of him. “Mom?” He jumped out of bed. “What’s… What the hell? I…”
Yui Ikari rushed to her son’s side and grabbed his face in her hands. “Shinji, it’s okay! You’re here. You’re safe. It was just a nightmare.” She stroked his hair and looked at him with tenderness. “It’s okay. I’m right here.” Then she let go of him, still smiling. “Get dressed and come on down for breakfast, okay?” She turned and left him alone in the room.
Shinji whirled around, trying to make sense of all of this. A dream? It felt like this was the dream. The past eighteen years of his life had not been a dream! He remembered Asuka, and Rei, and the children.
“Shinji!” His father’s voice sent a chill through his body. “Come on down! Your breakfast will get cold.”
He dressed in his old middle school uniform and moved downstairs in a daze. Everything felt solid and real. He could feel the grain of the stair rail and the itching of his clothes and the air in his lungs. He smelled breakfast - miso and grilled fish. Just like he made for the children every morning.
His father was at the table, reading the paper, while his mother cooked. He stared at them, mouth agape, unable to make sense of it. This was… something he had wanted, a long time ago. But it had…
“Gangway, Bro!”
Rei barreled into the room from behind him. Their shoulders collided and he tumbled forward until he caught himself on the back of a chair.
“Rei!” Yui yelled at her. “No running in the house!”
“Sorry, Mom!” She grabbed a piece of toast. “But I’m late! I promised Kaworu I’d meet him on the way! Later!” She waved as she grabbed her schoolbag and rushed out the door.
Yui huffed. “Shinji, would you talk to your sister? I don’t like her hanging around that boy.”
“What?” He was genuinely confused. None of this was as it should be, yet everything felt… so right. Just what he’d always wanted. “Uh, yeah, Mom. But Kaworu’s a good guy, and Rei likes him.”
“Shinji.” Yui stepped into the dining room and put her hands on his shoulders. “You’re a good boy, but it’s your responsibility to look out for your little sister, understand?”
“She’s right.” His father joined her at her side. “Your mother taught me how important family is, Shinji.”
But there are some things a man should never forget. Yui taught me about the irreplaceable things.
Shinji remembered watching his father walk away from him while he stood on a train platform crying.
“No!” Shinji shook his head and reeled back from his parents. “This… this wrong!”
“Shinji!” Yui threw a hand over her heart and looked wounded. “How can you say that? We’re your family.”
He shut his eyes, and focused. He could almost hear Asuka. “No, you’re not,” he said. He opened his eyes again. “That was an accident of birth.”
Yui’s eyes teared up. “Shinji? How could you say something so cruel?” She turned and buried her face in Gendo’s chest to sob. Gendo just stood there, making no move to comfort her or admonish Shinji. It was like… he just wasn’t really there.
“Oh, knock it off, Yui.”
Shinji recognized that voice and its tone. It belonged to the second most intimidating woman he’d ever known, only after her daughter.
Kiyoko Zeppillin Soryu sat at the dining table with a cup of coffee in her hand and a tired expression on her face. She did Shinji the courtesy of nodding to him.
“Hello, Shinji. It’s been a while.”
He reflexively bowed. “Mrs. Soryu.” Then he straightened up and noticed that Yui had stopped crying. “What is going on? Oh, no! Was there another Impact? Am I–?”
Kiyoko shook her head. “No, calm down. It’s your mother’s cruel idea of trying to help.” She sipped her coffee and glared at Yui.
Yui returned the look. “It’s not cruel to want to save your child from suffering.” She turned to Shinji. “My dear boy. I’m so sorry I left. But I’m here now. I can help you. You can stay here, with me, like this!” She gestured wide at the home around them. “Don’t you see? This is paradise!”
He shook his head in disbelief. “Are you crazy? This is a lie, Mother! Asuka and the kids–your grandchildren! That’s my paradise, not this! It was never this.” He walked up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “This will always be a lie, and I can’t accept that.”
Yui’s eyes filled with tears. She gently stroked her son’s face. “But I just wanted to make a world where you could be happy.”
“By destroying the one I live in?” He took his mother’s hand in his. “I am happy, Mother. It was a world that I chose for myself. No one else made it for me.”
As they spoke, the home around them began to fade into a white light. Yui sobbed on Shinji’s shoulder and apologized for abandoning him all those years ago. He hugged her back and told her that there was nothing to be sorry for. It was all over a long time ago, and he’d moved on. Then, she faded back into the light.
Kiyoko stood next to Shinji and watched with him as Yui’s spirit finally calmed and returned to its rest. Shinji realized that his mother-in-law was smiling at him.
“I’m sorry, too, Shinji,” she said, “for how harshly I judged you all those years ago.”
He nodded. “Thank you. I need to go back. Asuka and the children…”
“I know.” She put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. “The time is coming, very soon, when you will be able to lay down your burdens, Shinji. But there’s one thing you have to do, first. Get up.”
***
“Do you hear me, Stupid Shinji? I said get up!”
It was Auska. She was yelling at him.
“You promised me, remember? You’re not allowed to die. Now keep your promise and get up!”
That’s right. He remembered, now. He promised.
Azazel brought a tentacle down towards Unit 01’s head. A purple-clad hand reached up and grabbed it mid-swing and squeezed. His leg felt broken as he hauled himself up, wrapping the tentacle around Unit 01’s hand for leverage. The Angel let out a scream of hate and rage. Unit 01 opened its mouth and screamed back.
Azazel’s energy sack began to glow again. Unit 01 lunged forward and smashed her fist into its face, and the energy sputtered as its faceplate shattered.
He could hear his children and their cousin cheer him on.
“Yeah!”
“Way to go, Dad!”
“Get ‘im, Uncle Shinji!”
Azazel screamed as Unit 01 continued to shove its fist into its face. Its tentacles writhed and started to wrap around her torso and neck. It tried squeezing the life out of her. Shinji roared and pushed forward. Azazel’s energy sack expanded, but with nowhere to go, the bulbous flesh exploded and took its spine and several tentacles with it.
Unit 01 shoved her hand through the Angel’s ravaged body, and her hand emerged out of its back with its S2 Core in her grip. She crushed it, and then all Shinji could see was a cross-shaped blast of light.
***
Shinji opened his eyes to a once unfamiliar ceiling. He groaned.
“Hello again, old friend.”
“Shinji?” Asuka sat beside him. Her eyes were red and strained. She’d been crying, but he knew better than to call her on it. “You–!”
“I know, I know,” he said. He smiled at her. “I’m an idiot.”
She half laughed, half sobbed. “The biggest idiot ever.” She leaned over him and hugged him. He winced at a pain in his leg. She let him go and looked down. His leg was wrapped in a cast.
“Just a break,” she said. “Psychofeedback. Ritsuko said your synch ratio was at two hundred percent when it happened.”
He didn’t need the implication explained to him. At that high of a ratio, the line between Eva and Pilot began to blur. He was lucky a broken leg was the worst of it.
Asuka asked, “Did you see her?”
She’d long ago worked out the approximate synch ratio and mental state a pilot needed to be in to experience Contact with an Eva’s occupying soul. She hadn’t shared it with Ristuko, only with her fellow pilots.
He nodded. “Yes. And Kyoko. She says hi.”
Asuka smirked. “She’s finally forgiven you for taking my virginity?”
“Sort of.” He sat up. “Where are the kids?”
“In one of the spare faculty bunks.” For some reason that felt… familiar. She pushed it aside and realized that he was smiling stupidly at her. “What?”
“I’m waiting for you to critique my piloting,” he said.
She put her fists on her hips and scowled at him. “Oh, I’ll critique it alright. You were sloppy and undisciplined. Frankly, it was embarrassing.” She stood up. Her eyes were beginning to water. “And if you ever do anything that stupid again, Shinji Ikari, I’ll kill you myself, do you understand?”
He kept smiling at her. “I’m sorry that I made you worry, Asuka.”
She wrapped her arms around him again, not caring if it hurt him, and sobbed. Rei respectfully waited just outside the door until Asuka had finished crying, and then walked in. She smiled at Shinji.
“How are you feeling?” She walked up and started to examine him.
“My head hurts a little,” he said.
“You’re lucky that’s all that hurts,” Asuka grumbled.
“The painkillers are wearing off,” Rei said clinically. “But you’ll be fine with ordinary aspirin while your leg heals.” She carefully examined his leg.
He asked, “Will it heal before the next one?” His wife and sister looked at him quizzically. “You heard Mari’s speech. There will be more.”
“Dr. Akagi and Commander Kaji have a plan for that,” Rei said.
“Commander Misato.” Asuka grunt and folded her arms. “That’s still so weird to hear.”
“She said that she wanted to speak with us, now that Shinji is awake. We should go see her.”
“I’m coming, too,” Shinji said.
Both women knew that there was no point in trying to argue with him. Asuka brought him a wheelchair and Rei helped set his broken leg in it. They walked through the old hallways of the medical wing quietly. The emptiness of the place used to feel overwhelmingly monolithic, like the building itself was a living thing. Now it felt ghostly, as memories they thought they’d forgotten years ago came rushing back.
“I thought we’d left all this behind,” Shinji said.
Asuka asked, “Did we really ever?”
When they reached the Commander’s office, Misato waited for them behind her desk. She was smiling. Ritsuko stood at the window, her hand twitching. She hadn’t touched a cigarette since Third Impact, but she looked like she really needed one.
Misato stood up. “Ladies and gentleman, welcome to WILLE.”
End of Lay Down Your Burdens.
To Be Continued in Mikinami Rising (Or: The Adventures of Red Devil and Monkey Boy)