From: James Lee <aninosakanto@yahoo.com>
Subject: [Eva][FanFic] The Second Child/Promises To Keep, Part I

Neo Genesis Evangelion: Apocrypha
The Second Child - Promises To Keep

/***
 NOTE: This story runs in parallel with End of Evangelion, so it
 is NOT recommended that you read this fic without having seen the
 movie. This story describes the Third Impact as experienced by the
 Second Child
***/

Part 1 - Ascension / Don't Leave Me

A voice in the void. Rei Ayanami speaks.

"This is the climax of Evangelion's grand Blasphemy. To end the
circle. To contravene existence."

"Where Lucifer failed in an age long ago forgotten, Lorenz intended
to succeed in an age of science. SEELE sought Instrumentality through
the cessation of Otherness. In the beginning of the world there was
a man, a woman, and a promise, from whom sprung human history; thus,
at the end of the world SEELE sought to sunder the man, the woman,
and the promise, from each Other."

"And so it came to pass that the burden of the fate of the world
would fall on three grieving, alienated, lost children."

Silence. Darkness.

In the midst of the disintegration, the depths of LCL, of dissolved
existences, stray insubstantial strings of fragmenting memories float
in the abyss, breaking up into nothingness...

Here drifts a strand of a memory of Shinji's voice, crying in the
void...

"Help me.. Help me, Asuka. Hey.. wake up. Wake up.
Wake up. Hey.. Hey.. Asuka.. Asuka.. ASUKA!
Help me. Help me.
Help me. Help me!
Call me a fool, like you always do! Just please wake up!"

The memory of his crying floats into an echoing memory of Maya's
hysterical screaming...

"Shinji! Where are you? Asuka, she's.. Asuka, she's...!"

What's left is a whisper of the memory of his last sane word...

"Asuka...?"

The memories, and the voices, continue their disintegration,
fade into the void...

"ASUKA!!"

Asuka opens her eyes with a gasp, as if from the stranglehold of
a nightmare, and finds herself standing in front of a familiar
elevator at NERV. She looks around, panting, disoriented; she is
alone in the hot, dimly-lit corridor. It is deathly quiet, here
among the grim shadows; the only sound she hears is of her own
heavy breathing - tired, gasping, adrenaline-heavy breathing.
Her heart beating quickly, as if fleeing something terrible.
The blouse of her school uniform is drenched with cold sweat.
She cannot remember how she got here, or where she has just
come from.

The familiar dial indicating the elevator's floor level stares
dully back at her, cold and unmindful of her confusion.

The corridor is so dark she can hardly make out the lumps on
the floor toward the end of the hallway; they look almost like
corpses.

The doors open with a jarring ring, a ray of light, and a swoosh
of air, and Asuka hurriedly steps in. But as soon as she sees
the passenger inside she turns white, and as the doors close
behind her, her blue eyes narrow in remembered, barely repressed
anger. She has to contain an urge to lunge at the figure in front
of her, to tear her hair and choke her neck. Like a doll.

"You're late, Asuka."

"What are you doing here, First Child?"

The impassive, blue-haired figure in the school uniform remains
standing with her back to Asuka.

"I should ask you that question, Second Child."

"Don't get smart on me, you..."

The redhead abruptly grabs Rei's wrist and pulls, forcing Rei to
face her, and just as suddenly Rei's expression transforms as she
violently shakes off Asuka's hand. For a fraction of a second the
two women glare angrily at each other. Asuka raises her right arm
to slap her when Rei beats her to it, delivering a blow that sends
the Second Child staggering back.

"A doll, am I?" the First Child whispers, in a gentle breaking
voice, scarlet eyes blazing and fists clenched and shaking at her
sides, as she edges closer to the Second Child, who backs away in
shock at Rei's uncharacteristic aggressiveness. "No. I chose to
do this. I died to protect him. I died to protect him..."

The Second Child falls on her back as she withdraws, and continues
to back off. She feels a ringing in her ears, a roaring in her
head. Her mind reeling from the powerful whiplash in Rei's barely
audible voice, a surprising hint of outrage and anger, of
frightening, unimaginable power, in a voice so small. Lillith!
Ghostly white light flashing in her eyes. A flash of understanding
as Asuka nearly blacks out. Lillith! Images, overpowering in their
vividness, suddenly flutter in swarms through Asuka's mind.
Remembered images of the white-winged Eva series tearing her
red Eva-02 to shreds, of predators circling the sky for the kill, of
a spear slicing her upraised arm in half, and of spears impaling
her red Eva again and again, incredible pain, screams, dying...

"I died to protect you." Not Rei's voice. Kyoko's. "I died to
protect you."

"Momma!"

Her breath catches in her throat. She is back in the elevator,
looking up at someone who is suddenly a stranger to her.

She was dead, she realizes. Or is she? But what is she doing here?

The redhead's stunned face reflected in Rei's scarlet eye. A
moistness collecting in its edge. The reflected image of a
frigtened girl covers her face in her hands. The eye blinks. Rei
speaks.

"Why are you here, Asuka? Why do you live? Why do you die?"

Asuka's memory flashes mercilessly. Around her, LCL turning blood
red. Searing pain shooting down her right arm and blinding her left eye.

Screaming. A ghostly image of Rei appearing over her. Eyes the color
of blood looking down on her, expressionless, waiting... waiting.
She feels herself fading... into insubstantial nothingness...

"No!! I won't give up!!" she had screamed at her.

Spears impaling the red Eva, again and again, as she blacks out...

"Asuka?"

"Momma..."

Rei stops, and her eyes go wide like a doused fire, fists unclench,
as she stares down at the figure now huddled in the corner of the
elevator, her face hidden in her arms, crying disconsolately.

"Momma... I didn't want to die..."

Minutes pass. The dial over the elevator doors moves, slowly, almost
imperceptibly. As if time has slowed to a crawl, waiting for the
sobbing to subside. Hours seem to pass, inside the private world
of their elevator.

"Rei... whatever they did to you, you're in my head now, aren't
you?"

"I broke free from Ikari's father...," replies Rei, her voice in
a whispered monotone. "I broke free from his delusion... only partly
because of what you said, partly for Shinji, but also because I
wanted to..."

"I'm sorry, Rei... you were right... about the Eva..."

"... She's all right now, Asuka... her soul fled when the Eva died."

"But she's left me again..."

"You fought well. And she died protecting you to the last moment."

"I failed her."

The Second Child falls silent, her face still hidden in her hands.
The First Child calmly stares on, hesitating, weighing the words
on her lips.

"No, Asuka... you're not finished here yet, you haven't died...
your mission isn't done..."

"Just who are you, Rei? Why am I here? What role are we playing
now...?"

"There's a choice you need to make... with the Third Child..."

"Shinji? ... What are you talking about...?"

"He's been calling you."

Rei pauses, pensive, and turns her back to Asuka once more.
She appears to stare at something through the doors. Ayanami's
calm voice is but a whisper.

"Listen... can't you hear him? ...."

Light streams in through the suddenly translucent walls, which
seem to shimmer and go faint, then disappear. The two female
pilots, now clad in their plugsuits, seem suspended high up in
the clouds, storm winds howling violently all around them.

"Can you hear him?"

Asuka strains her ears, trying to filter out the wind, when to
her surprise she clearly hears, in her head, a familiar voice
whispering, anxiously calling her name. As if his thoughts had
reached out to brush hers. It is a touch with a strange yearning
urgency, and a desperate fear, she had never heard, or sensed,
before.

"I had to bring you here because I heard him calling out. You
are free to respond as you wish."

She suddenly sees the purple figure of Unit-01 hovering in the
distance. She nearly breaks into a smile at the sight, then frowns,
remembering that Rei is watching her. "You're too late, stupid,"
she starts to think, hurt and angry. But she gasps as the Eva
unfurls huge wings, bat-like and glowing like a vengeful demon's.
She knows only one other type of Eva that could unfurl wings.
Then abruptly her heart sinks as a single horrified thought
pierces through her mind...

"No! They're too many... they're going to kill him too..."

Just then one of the white Evas flies overhead, casting a huge
shadow over the two female pilots. The white Eva carries the bloody,
severed head of a red Eva, its eye sockets dangling like butchered
entrails, and heads for Shinji. Other white Evas, like vultures
dragging pieces of red carrion, follow.

Asuka screams her horror, but this is cut short, as her senses are
overcome by the heart-rending, despairing scream
of the male Eva pilot. The winds blow even more violently as Asuka
and Rei bend over, covering their ears from the blood-curdling
onslaught.

Yet Asuka can still clearly hear Rei whisper sadly, as if speaking
directly inside Asuka's mind.

"He knows he's lost you."

Something bright flies past them. A familiar, frightening shape.
A Lance of Longinus headed straight for Unit-01. Another remembered
image flickers through Asuka's mind, and her left eye suddenly
blazes with searing pain.

"No! Not him, too!"

The Evas surround him as the Lance seems to find its mark.
He screams again. And in the middle of his screams he calls her name
once more.

"Asuka!! AAAAHH!"

"Shinji! No!"

With renewed, mindless fury, and fighting back tears, she rises and
runs frantically in Shinji's direction.

She does not hear Rei's whisper, as the First Child watches her run
to him.

"It's your choice if you want to leave... or stay..."

A blinding light from Eva-01 engulfs all of them. Rei can feel
Lillith reawakening below, with her inside it. They feel the
Earth itself shudder.

"May God have mercy on us all."

The beginning of Third Impact.

Silence. Darkness.

A voice in the void. Rei Ayanami speaks...

(To be continued.)

From: James Lee <aninosakanto@yahoo.com>
Subject: [Eva][FanFic] The Second Child/Promises To Keep, Part II


Neo Genesis Evangelion: Apocrypha
The Second Child - Promises To Keep
-------

Part 2 - Alienation, Catharsis / A House Divided

(... continued)

A voice in the void. Rei Ayanami speaks.

"The Dead Sea Scrolls foretold the appearance of the last two
children of the last generation of Earth. That the fatal
sacrifice of one child would drive the other child to despair,
and would trigger the end of existence."

"The Scrolls foretold that this would be witnessed by
the last Angel, to watch over the last shards of their
broken hearts, of which nothing would be left but for the
last Children's lonely tears by the empty waters of Babylon."

"The Scrolls foretold, in Job's prophecy, that the End
could be averted by the faith of that last man, and the
love of that last woman. That their promise to each other,
made through the presence of the last Angel, would reopen the
doors to the Room of the Guf."

"SEELE, in their grand blasphemy, and seeking to prevent
Redemption, saw to it that the fate of the world would hinge
on these tormented children, these three imperfect sinners...
on a boy with no faith, on a girl who would scorn love, in the
presence of a powerless Angel, a lifeless clone who embodied a
hollow shell of a promise, a broken man's perverted hope."

Silence.

>From the void, Kyoko's voice, sad and forlorn.

"Your father has left us, Asuka."

A hollow voice dripping with heartbreak.

Then Touji's voice, young and mocking.

"Eh? The newlyweds are at it again."

Asuka opens her eyes and finds herself standing alone on a familiar
train platform. Feeling disoriented, she places a cellphone in a
pocket of her school uniform, and looks around nonchalantly,
unmindful of the woman's voice on the PA system, and the metallic
clanking of a slowing train nearby. Suddenly her eyes go wide as
she spots two figures on the opposite platform, and her face
transforms into an angry scowl.

"Well, it looks like he survived after all. And look who he goes
to first."

On the opposite platform, the Third Child whispers something to
Rei, and he smiles.

Unaware of the Second Child's glare in the distance behind him.

A thought turns suddenly inside Asuka's mind, bringing with it a
shifting memory. Hikari's voice.

"Rei likes him, doesn't she?"

"Wonder Girl? No, she's even more dense than Shinji, I can
tell you that."

"What do you see in him?"

A thought turns in her head, and she tries to shake it off, her
cheeks burning with new heat.

She turns around to run away, and sees train doors opening in front
of her. She hurries in, then as the train starts moving away from
the platform, she reluctantly turns to look back out the window.

Only Rei, staring silently out into space, is left on the receding
platform. She turns her head in Asuka's direction, and their eyes
momentarily meet.

"Where is he?", she thinks. Ignoring the city lights whizzing by,
Asuka stares at her reflection in the clear glass window. The whirr
of the air conditioning and the mechanical clunks as the train moves
over the tracks are the only sounds reaching her ears.
Minutes pass. She is alone in the train car, yet as she stares at
her reflection, she suddenly notices his reflection sitting next to
hers. A stray thought brushes her mind, as if she has somehow
strayed into his private, solitary refuge. She brushes the thought
aside.

She turns to face him down, and frowns. Unsettled. Her mind flailing
about for answers, but unwilling to show her fear.

"Why are you here, Third Child?"

He sits there silently, head bowed, eyes hidden, slowly clenching
and unclenching his right hand. A memory flashes in her mind. He
was screaming her name, calling for her. She grows more unsettled.

"Why did you call for me? Look at me!"

The boy doesn't reply. He stares ahead, eyes blank. Almost
catatonic. Like one trapped in a dream. Or imprisoned in a
nightmare. A mind that sees nothing of the world beyond the
looking glass of his eyes. A chill runs down the girl's
spine.

"What do you want?"

The boy's lips silently form her name, but no sound comes out.

"Don't you want me to be here? Don't you want me..."

Silence.

What did you just ask him, she thinks to herself, trembling.

A memory flashes in her mind. Back in the NERV staging area.
Of a red Eva being brought down with a useless dispensable pilot.
Of a purple Eva hurtling up the catapult to Rei's rescue.

("Why her? Am I so worthless to you, that you couldn't do
this for me?")

("You love this doll more than you do me, Momma?")

("No! I know better now! But this one isn't about her...")

Another memory assails her. A memory of a desperate battle
against the Eva series. Of a futile hope for help from a boy
she wasn't sure cared enough to go to her.

("Where is that moron Shinji!? I wait for him and he doesn't come!")

Of how he came too late.

She shakes her head, warding off the bitter memory. They are back in
the train, facing each other now. She rises and confronts him,
pushing her face inches away from his own, as her eyes blaze
angrily.

"Why won't you help me? Do you hate me this much?"

Silence. A lavender scent wafts up from his collar. Misato's
perfume. The same perfume she had once smelled on Kaji.
Trembling, she closes her eyes, murmuring.

"Why? Do I mean nothing to you..."

Kaji's voice reverberates in her head: "Not now Asuka... You're
still a child." Misato's voice: "No, you shouldn't have it... it's
not for children." Asuka: "But I'm old enough! So look at me!"
Shinji: "Here I come!"

Another memory stirs through her mind, twisting and turning.
Sounds of cello music. Her applause. The kitchen in Misato's
apartment, their home. Asuka staring at him, her eyes distant
and pensive. Shinji approaching for their first kiss. Only it isn't
Asuka he kisses, but a saucy brunette in a red jacket. Misato,
holding his cheeks in her hands, kisses Shinji full on the mouth,
clutching him closer, holding their kiss for a long tender moment.

Asuka stares at them, mouth locked open in shock. Misato finally
releases the boy from her kiss, grabs him in a fervent embrace.
They're not in Misato's apartment anymore, but by Shinji's entry
plug, after the encounter with the Angel Reliel, when Misato had
arrived ahead of Asuka to his side. As she stares, Shinji's face
changes to Kaji's, then back again to Shinji's. And in a few moments
the man/boy and Misato are lying naked in bed, Misato's feet
rising lustily up into the air as the man/boy thrusts
passionately into her. Asuka averts her gaze, red with anger and
embarrassment, and stares dully at a solitary electric fan.
Shinji's voice comes to her, apologetic, "Asuka...?"

She turns to look back at him, only now to find him quiescent on
his back, with Rei naked and straddled against him, her hands
carressing his bare chest. "Won't you be one with me, Asuka?"
he whispers. "It would be nice..."

"Geez, the sight of you makes me sick!" she yells angrily at him.

"I'm sorry... I'll go away now." he whispers sadly back. "Farewell."
And he disappears.

"You don't know what I want... moron..." she whispers in a choking
voice.

A memory of her pained voice from her encounter with Arael, a
memory of herself kneeling behind a closed sliding door, shoots
through her mind: "What are you doing here? You won't help me...
You won't even hold me! I don't need you! Nobody!"

Then Asuka and Shinji are back on the train. Shivering, she opens
her eyes, just in time to see images of Rei and Misato, blue and
red shadows, fading into the air behind a pensive Shinji. She
glares, clenches her fist, growls.

"I see, so that's it... Idiot... you womanizing pervert!...
you just want to use me... I never should have kissed you...
go ahead, enjoy them... I'll just stand here and watch you..."

She leans closer to him, raises her foot on the seat by his side,
nearly straddling him, his eyes inches from her bosom, her body
this close arrogantly mocking his discomfiture, his body tensing
at the dizzying sight and smell and nearness of her. She glares,
cruel, eyes cold as angry steel, and she whispers hoarsely into
his face.

"If I can't have you all to myself, then I don't want you."

(Rei, watching from behind Asuka, gasps in shock as she hears
two AT fields snap, for just a brief instant. The First Child
senses her two co-pilots' ego boundaries cross into each other in
that instant, and their Instrumentality dreamworlds merge into one.
But it only lasts for a moment, as Asuka withdraws, unknowingly
forcing her AT field back shut.)

Asuka finds herself momentarily dazed, her ears buzzing, her
mind drowning in the boy's self-revulsion, her mind struggling
to catch a disturbing strand of thought, trying to put words
to it, as a new image stirs inside her mind...

"So what? You're nothing to me, just a thing to feed my
adolescent fantasies." A hollow male voice, the Third Child
staring down at her as she lies in a coma in her hospital bed.
A strange, urgent look in his eyes, of inward self-hate and
outward, raging lust... and she feels Shinji's mind
desperately yank the memory away from hers, pushing her
consciousness back inside the train, where she still
stands in front of him.

Her face freezes in pained disbelief until she finally hears a
whimpering whisper from the boy.

"I'm... I'm sorry. I'm the lowest of the low..."

Her composure finally breaks, and she yells at him furiously,
violently.

"Idiot! You're pathetic! A coward! Wimp! How could you!
How could you! I never needed you! I would rather die than
be with you! I hate you! I hate you!!"

He's shaking madly, head bowed, words rushing out, rising.

"I'm scum. I know. This is all I'm good for! I'm worthless!
I'm not even good enough to take Kaji's place
as a toy, for you or for Misato. You only want me because no
other guy can stand you, because I let you push me around,
because you hate Rei, because Misato beat you to Kaji!"

"Why, you-"

"It's true, isn't it!? I was just a toy you threw away when you found
out we couldn't kiss right! Well, why don't you just go back to Kaji,
feed your big swelling gaijin ego, at least he won't spoil your dance,
won't ever beat your damn useless sync ratio, won't apologize, won't
choke on you, won't disgust you- "

"I hate you!!"

She slaps him. Hard. Her hands lash out, tightening around his
throat, shaking him like a doll. They crash to the floor.

And the next thing she knows she is in a murderous frenzy, breaking
the neck, not of Shinji, but of a limp, fragmenting effigy of him. Blood

splatters on the train windows.

"... help me... don't ... kill me... "

And Asuka wakens from her rage with a convulsive, heart-rending
shriek.

Shinji's disembodied voice whispers in her mind, "... but I was
just like you... even though this was what I turned into, when
you left and I... and I betrayed you... and became hollow shell of
a human being... but I was hollow to your eyes even before then,
wasn't I..."

Asuka collapses, kneeling on the floor, hands shaking. Eyes wide
open, distant, pained, unbelieving. She cringes at the shredded
cloth and wet bloodied stuffing on the floor. She stares at the
palms of her hands, stained red, and she closes her eyes, and
shivers, unable to stop herself from shedding tears.

"Mein Gott... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

She feels his presence in her mind shrinking away in anger.

"Liar! Why... do you have to be so ambiguous!" he yells.

"Where... you're... Go to hell, Ikari..."

"I will... I have to..."

"No... wait..."

The image of the doll fades, disappears. The train lights blink
out and die. The passing city lights outside barely illuminate
the scene inside the impassively moving train.

In the semi-darkness, only the sound of the train rolling
through breaks in the tracks, and the girl's soft muffled
sobbing, can be heard.

"Damn you Ikari... what happened to you, what the hell did
they do to you... I'm... I'm sorry... so sorry..."

For a long time, it seems, the train moves on, unmindful
of its lone passenger's existence.

Asuka hears footsteps. Rei's voice quietly cuts through
the silent shadows.

"Did you really try to understand him?"

"... I don't care."

"Do you really?"

"He's too stupid to understand me anyway..."

"Are you disappointed in him?"

"The moron hates himself too much for my opinion to matter..."

"You kept pushing him away."

"I... I won't let someone like him hurt me... like my
parents did..."

"Yet he still hurt you? Even when he was doing nothing?"

"It's too easy to die in the Eva. I couldn't depend on him, the
weakling. I mean, he didn't even want to be in it!"

"And this mattered to you?"

"It shouldn't!... We're Eva pilots! He and Hikari cared for Touji,
and look what pain it got them..."

"Didn't Kaji matter more to you in that way?"

"Yes, but he was different. He was Misato's. He was unreachable,
so he was safe. Not like... not like this idiot..."

"You denied that anyone could matter to you... Is this why you
wouldn't even let Shinji know, that time you checked on him
in the hospital after Leliel?"

"I shouldn't have to care... especially him..."

"Yet you kept minding him so. Is this why you lost so easily
to Bardiel and Zeruel, losing your focus, worrying over him?"

"Stop it, Rei..."

"You couldn't even make up your mind about wanting to
kiss him..."

"Stop it..."

"This feeling you hold back frightens you... why?"

"I'm not frightened!" yells the Second Child, and looks up at
Rei, only she isn't there. There is barely enough light with
which to see the face of the shadow standing over her a few feet
away, but she can see that the shadow has long red hair. And
angry blue eyes. And the shadow replies to Asuka in Asuka's
own voice.

"Not frightened, little child? Stupid, maybe. You don't want
to feel vulnerable, little fraulein, you don't want to let
someone else get inside and mess you up. You build up all these
defenses. You build up your own little AT field, for years, so
nothing more can hurt you, then one stupid person wanders into
your stupid life. He doesn't ask for anything. But he does
something dumb one day like rescue you, or kiss you, or just plain
tolerate you for what you are, and suddenly
your life isn't your own anymore. He becomes your weakness. You
hate him for it, and he never knew, that he took away your
armor, your invulnerability, and got inside you, long before
Arael did..."

"Shut up..."

"This boy was the last face you saw before you lost your mind
inside Arael! You lost your mind to run away from Shinji,
didn't you?"

"Shut up! Please..."

"... And now that the boy you knew is gone, leaving just this
pathetic shell you claimed him to be all along, now that you've
made it so that he can't ever be yours, now you have the nerve
to feel so sorry for yourself! You're like Kyoko, forcing him away
while you wallowed in your self-pity. You're more pathetic than
any of them..."

"... Who are you?"

"I am Asuka. I am you as you see yourself, idiot!"

The long-haired shadow approaches closer, then is briefly
illuminated by the light of a passing train, revealing the near-
emotionless face of a girl with short blue hair and scarlet eyes
betraying a hint of surprise.

Rei speaks to Asuka once more.

"He tried. He said he did. You never gave him a chance.
Were you afraid of what he would find?"

"He would find someone worthless! It's why I just had to be
better than him, be better than you and that weakling, always...
Without the Eva, without being the best pilot, I was worthless,
useless... Until I found out about Momma... and faced my fear...
to accept my self... but... but then it was too late..."

"You and he are the same then. Opposite movements of the same
dance. You two have been dancing the same dance all along, even
without Israfel, even up till now. Yet you both cling to your
alienation."

"... How would you know, Rei? How do you know so much about
him?"

Asuka looks up at Rei, who seems to change as the passing city
lights outside alternately enter and leave the train. Her
schoool uniform is gone, replaced by a lab coat that reminds her
of Ritsuko's. Rei's hair turns a shade brown. The eyes lose their red
tint, grow older, more tired.

"I know. I felt it whenever he was in the entry plug. I felt it
when the Eva tried to absorb him."

"Rei? You're not Rei..."

Asuka hears Kyoko whisper to her ear.

"This is his mother. She was in his Eva too."

"His mother!? Rei!?"

"Lillith has absorbed the Eva," answers
Yui. "We don't have much time, child."

>From out of nowhere, Shinji's scream, prolonged and hoarse, suddenly
interrupts them. The train car is bathed in gloomy red luminiscent
fog, and the train walls, floor, and ceiling shimmer and disappear.

(To be continued...)

****
Writer's Notes:
This chapter is dominated by a mad moving kaleidoscope of dream scenes
and flashbacks, where settings and context shift and change violently,
mirroring the Intrumentality experience of Shinji as depicted in
the EoE movie. In order to understand the narrative here, it
is necessary for the reader to be familiar with EoE and certain
events in the TV series, including some "Director's Cut" scenes
in the enhanced Japanese home-video version of Episode 22; in
particular, the additional footage of Asuka's encounter with Arael
is referred to several times in this story, especially in light of
the resemblance to Shinji's Instrumentality experience in EoE.

Part of Asuka's dialogue regarding vulnerability and armor is
adapted from similar words spoken by Rose Walker to Desire of
the Endless in Neil Gaiman's "Sandman: The Kindly Ones".

From: James Lee <aninosakanto@yahoo.com>
Subject: [Eva][FanFic] The Second Child/Promises To Keep, Part III


Neo Genesis Evangelion: Apocrypha
The Second Child - Promises To Keep
-------

Part 3 - Anomie, The Fall/ Rage Against the Dying of the Light

(continued from Part II)

A voice in the void. Rei Ayanami speaks.

"This the climax of the new Akedah. In an age long ago forgotten,
Abraham sacrificed his only son Isaac for the God of the Hebrews.
In the Age of Evangelion, the evolution of humanity would be
heralded by the sacrifice of the only child of Yui Ikari and the
only child of Kyoko Langley, and completed through the sacrifice by
Lillith of her own children, in expiation for the sins of the
Lillim."

"What Lorenz did not consider in his schemes was the love of the
mothers Yui and Kyoko for their children, even in death. And the
recorded fact that Yahweh did not let Isaac die."

A voice in the void. Yui Ikari speaks.

"It was on the edge of the abyss that Kyoko was able to help her
daughter rebirth her Self. It was within that abyss that Rei - who
was mother, self, and daughter to me - tried to do the same for
my son. And offer him the hope of a second chance with
Kyoko's daughter."

"He was the son of humanity's striving for its self. Faced with the
choice of growing up, or retrogressing to the cosmic womb. Between
pain and desire on one hand, and submission and a kind of
death on the other."

"To understand why the center of his collapsing universe shifted
from his father to the Second Child, it is necessary to remember that
he was, in fact, no longer a child, yet not yet a man."

"His alienation from his father had destroyed his sense of Self, yet
he was at the age where his desire for the Other was manifesting itself.

It was this desire that Asuka had unleashed, and matched with her own
flowering. For Shinji, Asuka was the personification of the Other,
someone he both desired and feared from a most primal level. Yet it is
said that the cosmos demands balance, between man and woman, yin
and yang, fire and ice, Self and Other. Without a sense of Self, Shinji
was in no position to offer the Other his love, nor to accept love in
return; only a tragic meeting of phantom selves would have ensued.
SEELE's forced Instrumentality, this violent imposition of will,
would have made easy union with her possible with the cessation of
Self and Other, but he knew deep inside that he would have lost her,
and himself, this way. In order to survive, he had to be willing to
accept
his Self. Only then would he be able to start to reach out for the
Other,
and by extension reach out for the world. "

"The Third Impact made it necessary for Shinji and Asuka to understand
something of the nature of love, in a considerably compressed amount of
time. I was not sure they could possibly survive the trauma."

The voice fades, unheard, back into the void.

-----

The Second Child walks cautiously through the red fog,
lost and bewildered.

"Shinji? ... Rei?" she calls out. "... Mrs. Ikari... What...
What did you mean, we don't have much time?" she whispers.
She strains her ears, pauses, wondering if she's hearing the
wind or an echo of his voice calling out. Hoping to hear the
latter.

Instead she hears Rei's whimper.

The Second Child stares down, in wide-eyed shock, at the figure
crouched down in front of her. Rei in her plugsuit, one hand and
one arm wrapped in bandages, groaning in pain, forlorn eyes blinking
away tears at the edges. Asuka reaches out to her uncertainly,
kneels on one knee, hesitantly wraps one arm around her fellow
pilot.

"No. We don't have time. What's done is done...
Now we wait," murmurs the First Child, as she lays her head onto
Asuka's arm.

The Second Child stares down at her, eyes flashing in
tired irritation for a brief second, before she hangs her head
down and whispers back.

"You are full of surprises, Rei."

"It's calm here, Asuka. This place is a crossroad. It's sometimes
at great personal cost that we come to places like this. If only
for a moment."

"Rei... Why are we waiting here? He should be here... Is he still
fighting the Eva series? I... I don't know, but I think I can still
sense him screaming..."

"I couldn't save his father, and I couldn't save him. This... this
is why I cry... The Instrumentality process has already begun."

"... We lost, didn't we?"

"Perhaps."

"No... that's crazy... why? I want to know why..."

"He's losing the will to fight it. An insane child
cannot save the world."

"I have to help him..."

"It wasn't your fault, Asuka. You were SEELE's blood sacrifice,
as Ikari's anointed precursor. It couldn't be helped. It's all
in Ikari's hands now."

"I want to know what happened to him."

"You don't have to know. You've been through so much already.
You don't have to relive the pain, seeing him go through it
too. We can just wait."

"Rei. I want to know. Please."

The First Child turns to look up at her fellow pilot's eyes. Her
image reflected in determined blue eyes rimmed with accumulating
tears. The eyes of the First Child blink.

Rei takes Asuka's arm off her shoulder and slowly stands. She
scowls, and hesitates, as if deliberating something. A measure
of purpose returning to her own eyes.

Kyoko's voice rings out from the void, startling Asuka.

"... She's strong enough now. Do it, Yui!"

Suddenly with a grunt and a swing of her good arm, Rei hits the
misty air beside her, where a train window used to be.

Sounds of a glass barrier breaking, wind blowing. Rei
turns back to look, blue hair windblown, scarlet eyes pleading,
at the Second Child.

Blinding light.

"As you wish. Listen to him, Asuka..."

Silence. Abrupt darkness. A faint hint of an introspective cello tune
is playing, almost imperceptibly, in the far distant background,
until it shies away, and fades, followed closely by Rei's
trailing voice.

"Listen to him..."

Light.

Asuka is back in the kitchen of Misato's apartment. Their home.
She spots Penpen huddling confused in a corner. As she stands by
the door, she sees herself, or rather, a replica of herself,
cradling Kaji's arm. But the image of Kaji fades away, and the
image of Asuka stares out into nothing, her eyes hollow, and she
sits down on a chair, her arms slumped on the table.

("Who... Who is this, Rei?")

("This is you as you exist in the Third Child's mind.")

("You mean he's imagining this?")

("Listen!")

"But I like Asuka..."

("Huh-")

Shinji comes rushing, frantic and frightened, into the room.

"I want to help you, Asuka, and be with you forever."

("...What? I... I...") She feels her knees shaking, heart rapidly
pulsating, blood draining.

"Then don't come near me. All you ever do is hurt me."

She is startled at hearing her own voice, sharp... and cold.
She tries to move, but cannot.

("But, but that's not me! Wait!")

"Asuka, help me! You're the only one who can! Asuka!"

"Liar! To you, anybody will do. You're afraid of Katsuragi and
Ayanami. You're afraid of your father and mother. So you're only
using me to escape. You can't be happy this way."

("Wait, shut up! Why do you have to be like this!?")

"Please, help me!"

"You never think of other people! You only think of your own
existence! You only think of yourself! You're pathetic!"

("Shinji!")

"Asuka... who... who can save me? Please help me... please help
me... me... please help me! Don't ignore me! Don't ignore me!
Don't kill me!"

"No."

("That's not me!")

Unseen, she witnesses the entire scene, with the mirage-Asuka pushing
the Third Child relentlessly away, and Shinji falling on the floor.
Asuka screams at him to fight back, but when he lunges in manic
rage for the mirage-Asuka and strangles it, she recoils in shock. She
angrily reaches out to stop him, but stops, in the blink of an eye,
when she abruptly realizes he is strangling... a limp
red-haired doll.

She hears his thoughts, his mind finally breaking, his
sanity unraveling, his self disintegrating, eyes hollow and vacant,
unaware of the consequences of his surrender.

She can feel him falling as she shrieks out to him.

("That's... no! Shinji! Don't go there!")

She staggers back, bent over, covering her ears, yelling above the
Third Child's hysterical thoughts in her head, her voice
desperately trying to get through to him.

"Betrayed! You betrayed my feelings..."

("No! That's not me!")

She feels herself briefly back in her entry plug. Explosions
reverberate around her Eva as depth charges shower down on the
lake bottom, drowning out her pleas.

"Nobody wants me, I should just disappear... so everyone
just go..."

"Wimp! I would never want to be with you! I hate you!
I hate you!"

("That's not me! Listen to me! Look at me!")

"But I like Asuka..."

"But if I were to be with you, I would rather die!"

("That's not me! Come back! Come back!")

"Everyone, just go..."

("No!!")

Darkness.

An image assaults her mind; Lillith-Rei sadly cups the black moon
in her hands, as pinpricks of light shoot up from all over a red
planet. A terrible realization dawns on her.

("Mein Gott! Shinji, what are you doing... you infinitely stupid
moron... stop it...")

Lillith turns to her, her face emotionless but speaking in
Ayanami's voice, dripping with regret.

"I am truly sorry, child..."

("NO!!!")

The Apocalypse.

Silence.

And it is over.

She is alone. Crying in the void. Catching her breath. Thoughts in
disarray, disbelief. Fists clenched in confused frustration.

"Stupid... How... He would end the world because of this?"

Rei speaks, a voice in the void. "If he continues to lose his mind,
yes. We will know shortly... He is like his father, in a way."

"He's not his father!"

"And you're not your mother."

"... I'm not... Momma..."

In the dark, she senses someone take a sharp nervous intake of
breath just inches in front of her face. Rustling sounds of someone
rushing to move away from her, footsteps moving around her,
followed by a soft muffled thud behind her. She wakes up, lying
on a futon, in their room in Misato's apartment, on the night
before the battle with Israfel. She half-opens her eyes and
turns around, espies Shinji lying on the floor away from the futon,
hidden under his blankets. She wipes the wetness from her eyes,
and watches him fall asleep. She touches her fingers to her lips.
She lays still, watching him... as the night grows longer...

She doesn't know how long she's been staring.

"... Rei?"

"Yes. I'm here."

"Is... is it all true, what she said about him, about his feelings,
in the kitchen?"

"About as true as what he said to you in the train."

"It all came down to nothing then, all we did was let each
other down."

"But what he said to you in the kitchen, that was also real. What
you wanted to ask him, back in the train, and even what you
said to yourself about him, was also real."

"So which ones among all our selves are real?"

"All of them are, it really depends on you."

"But neither of us was listening. We didn't have to be as bad
as what we believed we were..."

"You see it now. The secret to the Eva was in harnessing the
power of your heart to touch it. Neither you nor the Third Child
could endure when you thought your hearts barren. Your hearts
did not have to be so desolate."

"So this is the end, is it? We lose to them, we lose the will to
fight them, because of our inner weaknesses... what fabulous,
pathetic Eva pilots we turned out to be ... But why tell
me all this, when it's all over, what's the use now?"

"So you can understand why this all happened. The Third Child wants
to feel accepted. He most needs to be accepted by she who is also
the one he fears the most, and the one who rejects him most
vehemently. So he rejects himself in turn, so he's lost the ability
to exist and the will to live."

"I didn't know. But... no... I couldn't risk it... they would all just
turn crazy on me, or die on me... they would all just hurt me!"

"You simply assumed what others thought."

"I don't even know what my real feelings are..."

"Again, it's always been up to you."

"But I don't know if I can forgive him... or if I can even forgive
myself, for that matter..."

"You were given a human heart and hands so you can change
that which you can change."

"But I can't change the past... and if I could change the past,
knowing what I know now, it wouldn't be real..."

"I know. We can only go forward."

A ghostly figure of Rei appears over Shinji. The boy and the room
slowly disappear from sight. Asuka sits up, wiping away the wetness
from her eyes.

"But... what happens now?"

"If this Instrumentality succeeds, humanity will be one Collective.
There will be no individuals, no barriers, no rejection."

"Is this what we want?"

"There will be no Other to know what one wants, therefore there
will be no wants, and no hurts. Isn't this your heart's desire?"

"But is that still living? Not if it means losing our freedom,
our consciousness, our free will... It's a coward's way out! Is this
what you want, Rei?"

"... I can't decide for him... before returning to Lillith, I
learned from him that I didn't want to be a doll. I don't wish
it on anyone; existence is such a precious thing ..."

"He has to bring everyone back!"

The First Child turns, fades and disappears, leaving behind a sad
whisper.

"It is not too late yet for the Third Child. We wait. But time is
running out, even for him."

"Shinji...? Wait, Rei, what do you mean!? Rei!"

The Second Child runs. Slides open what was once the door to their
room. Rushes through a dimly lit doorway. Fear and premonition
rising like bile in her throat. And abruptly she stops,
horror-stricken, in front of an insubstantial shadow, a silhouette
of what could be a woman... or a doll... or a certain young man.
Hanging limply by the neck, from a rope tied to the ceiling.
She hears herself release an outraged shriek, dissolving into
a wail.

"No!! Not you, too..."

She is engulfed in darkness. There is complete silence, save for
a quivering, sobbing voice whispering into the void left in her
heart.

"... you moron! I didn't leave you! I didn't leave you!"

Darkness.

"... I did care for you..."

Silence.

"... Everyone leaves me..."

It is twilight under a blood-red sky. She stands in the middle of a
barren, muddy field littered with graveposts. Heartbeat racing, she
runs from grave to grave, and scans the names on the nearest
graveposts. Her heart falls with each name. Ritsuko. Maya. Makoto.
Shigeru. Gendo. Fuyutsuki. Hikari. Touji. Aida. Kaji. Misato. Her
hands tremble at the next two graveposts. Shinji. She is crying. She
turns to the gravepost next to Shinji's. Asuka. She almost
loses control. She kicks down her gravepost, and faces Shinji's.
Shivering, tears stinging her eyes, she staggers to her knees in
front of it, fighting desperately to keep from wailing, and failing.

"Stupid Shinji, how can I ever forgive you for this!?"

She stares up at the luminous white grains congregating in the red
night sky. Fists clench. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she
glares at the heavens, daring them to fall down on her.

"We didn't have to end like this..."

Lights like an Eva's eyes seem to her to shimmer in the red sky.

A memory moves in her mind, and she grabs it, holds on desperately
to it. The memory of her fall into the abyss after her battle with
Sandalphon. The memory of a reckless, insubordinate purple Eva
rushing down through red-hot magma to grab her broken cable,
risking painful death to rescue her. The memory of a smile and a
soft whisper shared in private between two young pilots. Rivals.
Comrades. Friends... Partners.

"But I'm not giving up on you, Shinji... I'm not giving up
on you..."

It is a soft whisper, but her grief-stricken challenge
reverberates through the heavens.

"Please come back to me..."

Darkness.

(To be continued...)


*********
Writer's Notes:
The train station scene in Part 2, where Asuka sees Shinji and Rei
talking,
is partly a flashback to one of the "Director's Cut" scenes added to the

Japanese home video release of Episode 22.
The "fog scene" that starts Part 3, after Yui's monologue, is adapted
from
the "fog scene" in one of the last TV episodes, in which a lost Shinji
calls
out for his friends.
The reference to the Akedah was inspired by the reference in the TV
series
to Soren Kierkegaard's work "Sickness Unto Death". The Akedah is
discussed
in his work "Fear and Trembling".
The graveyard scene during Instrumentality in Part 3 is adapted from one

of the rumored alternate endings to the EoE movie, in which Asuka kicks
down her gravepost.
Dialogue from End of Evangelion was taken from various fansubs and
script
translations posted on the Internet.
"Rage Against the Dying of the Light" is the title of a poem on
death by Dylan Thomas.

From: James Lee <aninosakanto@yahoo.com>
Subject: [Eva][FanFic] The Second Child/Promises To Keep, Part IV


Neo Genesis Evangelion - Apocryphia
The Second Child - Promises To Keep

Part IV - Thesis, Antithesis/Please Forgive Me

(continued from Part III)

A voice in the void. Rei Ayanami speaks.

"It is said that in the beginning of the world, the first
Adam was accompanied by Lillith, who left him to give birth
to the Lillim, children of the Angels. Adam reborn in sin then
took tempestuous Eve as his Wife, mother of his children,
the woman who gave him pain and gave him love, and thus
saved him from death."

"The Beginning is the End, and the End is the Beginning.
A man shall leave his father and take a wife, that
together they should create their own world. So it is
written. So it has been commanded. So shall it be. For
as the circle turns, the Children of the Lillim are the
Children of the Eva."

A voice in the void. The voice of Kaworu Nagisa speaks.

"Only an Angel incarnated as a Lillim could send the message
without destroying the life or sanity of the Lillim concerned.
There is so much about them one can only understand firsthand.
Take poetry, for instance."

"A sensei once had me read poetry about the end of things. I
don't remember them all anymore. How did some of it go? I
remember only fragments. Let me see, if I can paraphrase...

'Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice...
I say it will end with the hollow men...
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whisper.'

and I remember wondering, 'but weren't fire and ice used once
for creating the same world, as in a synthesis... and in the
end, what words will the last of the Lillim whisper? And why
would those words have to come out only at the end?'"

Unheard by the world, Nagisa's voice returns to the void.

------

The voice of the Second Child, a lonely figure huddled in front
of a gravepost. Crying, trying not to fade away. Whispers.

"... Shinji... I need you..."

>From the darkness, a ray of light illuminates the corner of the
void occupied by the Second Child.

"Is this your dream then?" asks the First Child. "To be one with
Ikari?"

She feels the muddy soil harden like solid wooden planks beneath
her feet. Some light returns, barely enough for her to look around.
She is alone now in the semi-dark, on a vacant stage with a solitary
folding chair thrown down on the stagefloor. Two figures,
bathed in ghostly light, appear in front of her. One is Rei, the
other a young boy, about their age, with gray hair and eyes as red
as Rei's. His eyes grab Asuka's, and he smiles at her in genuine
affection. And as she stares back at him the boy's smile takes on
the appearance, almost, of Kaji's roguish grin, the one he used
to throw at Misato.

"Who are you? What are you in this dream?" she asks.

Rei answers for both of them.

"We are a sign and symbol of hope. That people might someday
understand each other."

The boy speaks.

"And understand the meaning of a word called 'love.'"

"... What's the use? If this is something I'm only dreaming?"

The boy replies, "Reality is immense and unfamiliar, but in
it your dream is real. The truth, and your self, are in your
heart, for you to create."

Asuka feels a presence near her, something at the edge of her
mind's boundary, a very familiar shadow, and most of all, alive.
Her heart jumps and she instinctively turns to take a closer look
around her, her lips about to form Shinji's name, when the stage
she stands on begins to fade and disappear...

She wraps her arms around herself as a cold breeze sends her
shivering. She sees, on the horizon, a wintry landscape of trees,
an inviting childhood memory of what could be Old Bavaria, or the
woods outside her father's apartment in Vermont, all places long
gone.

She hears footsteps, feels a different, less familiar presence
approach slowly, and sit beside her. Ritsuko's voice.

"Is this the dream in your heart? Your dream has new passions you
yet know nothing about, primal feelings that will eat you out and
leave you crying and bloodied in the darkness, lonelier than ever.
A simple word like 'No', a single touch or kiss refused, can turn
your dream into a glass splinter lodged in your heart. You can
still leave this dream, drift away, and save yourself from the
hurt."

"No. These dreams are the only piece of my self I have left."

"But you can't dream this dream alone. Look at you now, look
what's it brought you. He runs away like his father does. And
even if you get him back, what if you hurt him again? What if
he betrays you again?"

"I won't give it up. I know how good his heart has been, and could
have been. That is enough. He lives on in my self while I exist,
just like my Momma, and I won't let him die..."

The presence disappears, replaced by another.

She kneels down in the snow, and her eyes catch something red
lying in the ground. A small, glimmering white, bloodstained
crucifix drifts into Asuka's outstretched palm. She hears a warm
whisper of Misato's playful voice riding faintly on the wind...

"Will you ever forgive him? Will you let him come back to you?"

"When you let Kaji back into your life, wasn't it worth it?"

"It's a journey not without pain. Do you want to risk it?"

"Yes... I'm no longer a child after all..."

"Then perhaps you can keep this for him. It's a promise..."

Asuka's hand tighten around the cross, clenching it to her
chest, as the wind carries away her late guardian's voice.

Darkness. In the distance, the faint sound of waves crashing on a
beach somewhere.

Rei Ayanami's voice reaches out now to touch her mind,
whispering. "It's your turn, Asuka. Are you ready?"

And when the light returns, Asuka finds herself back in the
cavernous train station. She walks in the dark across the tracks,
towards a distant light at the other end of the station.
She suddenly frowns, determination in her eyes as she waits for
something to appear. A grey-hooded figure runs past her,
followed by another, then another, and soon a huge horde of cowled
figures is running through the station, filling it beyond capacity
with the muffled sound of a million fleeing footsteps. And
Asuka stands her ground, pushing and struggling to avoid being
swept away and overrun by the crowd.

She grabs one of the hooded figures and forces it to show its face.

She gasps in horror to see it is nothing but the face of bloody red
LCL. She pushes the figure away from her and it rejoins the
gray-cowled masses evacuating the station. But the mob avoids her
now, leaving the small space around her clear as they run past.

"Rei!? Rei, where are you?"

The station lights go out, save for one on the ceiling
a few feet above and in front of her.

"I am here."

The First Child walks serenely through the onrushing mass,
her face still impassive, her blue hair and school uniform
standing out in stark contrast against the onrush of gray that
clears her path like water across a small ship's bow. She stops
a few feet in front of the red-clad Second Child, and they stand
facing each other, red to blue, the First Child and the Second
Child, like fire and ice facing off across a placid empty space
at the end of the world, in positions equidistant from the
solitary light above them.

"What's going on, Rei!?"

"Shinji has rejected Instrumentality, Asuka. It is leaving him,
as he now wishes."

"He's done it then!? He's brought everyone back?"

"Yes, and no. As pilot of the Eva, he makes the first decision
to reject Instrumentality. He has thus paved the way for others,
but each soul's path is its own to decide."

"What do you mean!? We can all come back, can't we?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you yet... Each soul has a world to
create, and so the world we knew might indeed return, perhaps
in a moment, perhaps in a few millenia while the world
regenerates; but Ikari enabled the greatest blasphemy since
Eden, so right now he has penance to pay, of what kind I do
not know. I can't see that far ahead. I'm sorry."

"Damn it, where is he!?"

"He's already back in the world. In the meantime, he will
remain there as a sign that humanity once existed."

"But... hold on... you mean everyone's leaving him? You're
leaving him all alone out there!?"

"He has chosen to accept himself. His spirit is broken, but he
has accepted his freedom. He has accepted his own worth enough that
he has accepted the risk of being alone, and of being responsible
for his actions."

"No! No... I can't leave him!"

"... Asuka, you are free now; it is completely up to you now
if you want to stay here with the rest of humanity, or join
him since he called for you... "

"Then why are we still here? Where are all these people going?"

"You were alive in the Eva at the time of Instrumentality, and
he chose you to be part of his dream. These two facts together
put you in a special situation. It is not without risk to you,
but you can join his world now if you so wish."

"And what about you? What about the rest of them?"

"Lillith's body is gone, but as Lillith I have to stay, for
their sake. I feel I owe as much to my children. I have to await
the rest of the prophecy, and see where it takes us... perhaps
it will be to a world separate from Ikari's world, but as I said,
that is the risk he freely took..."

"This is crazy! You can't do this to him!"

"This upsets you, Asuka?"

"Rei!"

"You can wait here with me... you might not
want to go back to his world if no one else is able to, at
least for some time more... it is peaceful here, after all,
whereas the world now is a lonely wasteland where you would
only share his pain... you're not required to share his
penance..."

The Second Child, eyes wild and frantic, one hand clutched to
her chest, starts crossing the gap between them.

"Look! I'm not leaving him! I won't let him! Not again!!"

Shaking hands vehemently clutch Rei's forearms. Blue eyes
pleading. The women stand there for a while, shaking,
immovable like primeval forces from creation, staring at
each other, seeking revelation. And Rei finally averts
her gaze, looks down, eyes blinking.

"I can see why he needs you. Then... I guess this
is goodbye, Asuka."

The Second Child clutches Rei in a sudden tight embrace. Rei's
arms remain stiffly at her sides, and only her eyes
betray the emotion of her surprise. And with her chin resting
on her fellow pilot's soft shoulder, Asuka whispers in a
trembling voice.

"Thank you, Rei... Wondergirl... please take care of
yourself..."

And in one quick movement she disengages from the First Child,
turns around, wiping away wetness from her eyes, and runs for the
nearest train platform. As the station lights come back on,
illuminating an onrushing sea of gray-cowled figures.

She pushes ahead desperately as she runs for the train's doors,
and she grabs them, violently pushing to force them open.

As she rushes into the train and the doors close behind her, she
does not hear Rei's parting words.

"Godspeed, Asuka. Take care of him for me."

She senses a familiar presence come calmly to her side.

"I see the boy has done his part. Will the girl do hers?" asks
the voice.

"She holds the keys now. She has that which you and I could not
give him. She also has that which his father refused until the boy
was no longer a child and it was too late."

"He loses her and so abandons the world. He gives the world
another chance and she reclaims him. So, it turns out that
the end of the world is their greatest dance together," chuckles
Kaworu as he appears beside Rei. "I'm quite sure they'll do well.
She's special, I see. How I wish I had known her better."

Rei turns to Kaworu, her face still impassive, but with no reply
from her he continues speaking.

"But tell me, why didn't you just tell her straight out from the
beginning, that she was the only one in a position to save him,
and his dream?"

Rei, looking back towards the train, replies, "Because she has
to decide with her own free will, her own volition, to accept him.
Not to save herself, but to save him. Hope is a conscious choice
after all. This is the whole point of all this, that the true
essence of instrumentality is for two hearts to choose to go
beyond themselves and start to know each other, separate but
together, with no conditions."

"Aaah, yes," he nods, "the freedom of the Lillim. Their curse,
and their blessing. I understand."

He turns to leave, "They have a long, interesting journey
ahead, but I wouldn't worry too much about your children,
Lillith... Ayanami."

"I'm not worried..."

The last of the sea of gray leaves the station, behind Rei,
away from the departing train.

The cavernous train station is empty and silent now, save for the
lone, pensive figure of the First Child. Her eyes still staring
in the direction of the departed train. But reflected in her
scarlet eyes is a figure of a boy by a phone booth on a deserted
city street, and of a boy lying on an empty beach by a blood-red
sea, next to an unconscious girl. The boy turns his head and sees
Rei. The First Child blinks, as her image fades from the station,
from the street, and from the sea, with a parting whisper.

"Be true to your heart. You deserve to be loved, dear Ikari..."

The train doors close behind Asuka. She looks around, trying
to see in the dark through the red luminiscent fog. A shadow comes
out of the mist, becoming a figure of a grown-up human Rei in a
white lab coat. Yui Ikari smiles at the Second Child.

"Thank you, child... I'm sorry though that you and my son were
forced to grow up so quickly. My own journey doesn't end here,
but perhaps you have made it easier... but, is there a stop you
wish to make first?"

She replies with a speechless nod, suddenly shy.

As the red fog disperses and disappears, Yui nods and smiles one
final time as her image fades. "Of course. You know what to do.
Go in peace, child..."

Asuka looks around her and finds she is seated, back inside the
entry plug of Eva-02. She can feel the water around her entry plug,

at the bottom of the lake. The waters are placid. The warships
above have disappeared, and the depth charge explosions have
ceased, leaving her in peace.

In front of her, a spotlight falls on a small redheaded girl
hugging her mother.

"But I don't want to leave you again, Momma..."

"I will always love you my dear, but you won't be a child forever."

"But what if he leaves me someday too?"

"As long as there is a possibility of happiness, life is worth
holding on to. As long as there is life, there is a chance to be
happy. Be strong. Live, Asuka."

The figure of an adolescent redhead in a red
plugsuit watches from a distance, clutching a small white cross.
She watches calmly, a single tear falls down her cheek.
She closes her eyes, and smiles slightly to herself.

"Danke schoen. Goodbye, Momma."

And she hears the sound of a solitary cello playing. She
doesn't hesitate. She reaches out to a lever on her panel, and
with a single move and an audible mechanical shudder ejects
the entry plug. The Second Child closes her eyes, gathering her
thoughts for a few more moments of peace, listening to the
cello finish its piece and fade. In her mind she remembers
lying on a futon in her room, enjoying the rays of the sun,
as the echoing of the boy's music caresses her soul.

"Hi," she murmurs, standing up, opening her eyes and adjusting
her yellow dress and her hair. "I'm back."

She reaches out in the semi-dark, finds a light switch and flips
it, as she continues speaking. "You have an insanely weird way
of confessing your affection, Third Child. Giving me Armaggedon
instead of roses. Really stupid. And I should whack you on the
head for... that thing you did to me, but considering I mangled
you on the train already, I guess we're even again. You're so
lucky I'm being nice to you by giving you another chance..." She
turns around to face him.

She is back to the scene in Misato's kitchen, their home, to a
scene frozen in time, Shinji's hands tight around the doll's neck,
his eyes frozen and horror-stricken in a distant, wide-open trance,
pained and distressed. Asuka calmly walks over, but she can feel
her hands shiver, and her knees waver slightly. But she pushes on,
frowns, raising her chin, facing him until their faces are inches
apart. The familiar steely fire returns to her own narrowed eyes.

"Stupid Shinji, my fallen super-pilot... I won't let you do this."

The limp doll fades away, and the boy's arms fall limply to his
sides, though the expression on his face remains frozen. The
girl moves to his front, and stares into his eyes.

"But I am sorry for hurting you, for pushing you over the edge.
I really am... What did you ever see in me, anyway? ... Will you
still see it after all that's happened here?"

She reaches out a hand to his hand, her eyes visibly softening. She
sighs, speaks in a barely audible, tender whisper.

"The Evangelions have gone. It's just you and me now. But even
without them, we still dance well together, don't we? ...
Don't we? ... We can start over... Please be real...
So, look at me..."

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath.

"Rei? I'm ready."

She shrieks as a force like a raised barrier throws her down on
the floor, away from him. The room around them is blasted away, walls
crashing down, this temporary world disappearing. With the walls
gone, the storm winds come screeching in, into the darkness of the
void around them, and stabbing her mind like a hacksaw with the
ferocity of its ethereal howling.

The boy screams, raising his hands to ears, his mouth open in pain.
As he buckles and falls to his knees, the girl rushes forward to
catch him, but she crashes, blocked by the invisible barrier. She
bangs her fists furiously on the glass barrier and desperately
screams his name. He opens his eyes, but upon seeing her, he
immediately recoils, eyes flashing in remembered pain and anger.
His own scream is drowned out by the intensifying wind. She reaches
out her arm, trying desperately to break through the barrier.

"Isn't there a way through this hurt!?" she screams. "I told you
already, I won't give up!"

She has a brief vision of her arm reaching out to the sun, in a
sky swarming with vulture-winged Evas.

She blacks out from the onslaught of the dream.

The sound of the cello music, soothing, saunters slowly, discreetly
into the background, and into the shadows of her mind...

She wakes up struggling to breath around the pain in her throat.
And she sees him, his face contorted in grim agony. She raises
up her hand... past pain, uncertainty, relief... and touches him,
affectionately brushing his hair, carressing his cheek. Her
hand lingers on him, unwilling to let him go, and she gazes
longingly at him, afraid to blink, or to let go, lest he
disappear again.

He is real. She is real. The avalanche of emotions overwhelming
her.

He opens his eyes wide, stunned to his core as he falls into her
eyes, and his grip loosens. His voice chokes, a shuddering croak.
Like fragments of a shattered looking glass barrier, warm copious
tears rain down from his eyes to her cheek. And the boy slowly
collapses in a convulsive heap, broken at last by the immensity
of his self-inflicted sin, terrified by the enormity of her
gesture and the gratuitous endearment in her eyes, and he falls,
shaking and sobbing piteously, over her still and wounded form.

She gazes up at a moon framed by a blood-red twilight sky.

They're on the beach, she realizes; the only sound other than the
boy's sobbing is the languoruous crashing, sighing and murmur of
the primeval surf against the shore. The sea breeze is cold, the
air crisp and clean, like something bought new.

She breathes it in, and ponders her condition. Her left eye is
covered in bandages, along with her entire right arm. Her battle
injuries from the white Evas. She feels the burning pain from her
wounds return, sharp and throbbing like a slow-burning fire in a
body now far too tired to move.

Is this reality, she ponders. A despairing thought forms in her
mind: "And if it is? Are we the only ones who survived? No..."

She looks back at the frail Third Child, still shaking with tears,
awash in his guilt, and afraid to face her. "What if his guilt
costs him his sanity again," she wonders anxiously to herself.

"...I feel sick..."

Silence. Darkness. She tries to say more, to reach out past
her pain, but falls asleep, her mind and body exhausted
beyond words.

(To be continued...)

From: James Lee <aninosakanto@yahoo.com>
Subject: [Eva][FanFic] The Second Child/Promises To Keep, Epilogue



Neo Genesis Evangelion: Apocrypha
The Second Child / Promises To Keep

Part V Epilogue - Redemption/Take Me To Your Dream, I Will Walk With You



A light in the void. Kyoko Langley Soryu speaks.

"It is peaceful here, where the earth meets the sea. The fluid
line where the one defines itself in relation to the other. A
constant mutual creation..."

"Asuka met me here, under the trees, close to the shore, before the
Impact. Only the trees then were elms and oaks, not sakuras. She's
asked him now, the Third Child, to meet her here. She wants an
understanding with him."

"Dream, my children..."

The voice merges into the voice of the surf on the shore.

----

That night, as they sleep, Rei Ayanami comes to them again inside
their dream.

"This dream smells like Soryu," whispers Rei in the void. "And
Ikari too... He's followed her into the same dream." Inside the
dream, Rei opens her eyes with an inaudible gasp. She looks around,
wonderment in her eyes, orienting herself to this new world.

In the dream Rei has blossomed into a mature young woman, in
jeans and a sweatshirt... and this somehow pleases her. She is
standing on a grassy rolling hill filled with trees, cherry
blossoms in full bloom, under a cloudless evening sky. She
hears the sounds of the shore and heads toward a promontory
overlooking it.

The First Child stands there alone, gazing out on the clear
water that reflects the light of the full moon on her serene face.

She is Waiting.

The Second Child walks out of the shadows and faces her, asking,
"Am I still dreaming?"

The Third Child walks out of the shadows and faces her, asking,
"Am I still dreaming?"

"Yes," she replies simply. "This is not hell. This is not
purgatory. You're not dead. This is merely a world you create."

"Then... then is the world still dead after all?", asks the
boy in a breaking voice.

A reflected image of each of the two Children appears in Rei's eyes.
She blinks. "You create the world everytime you ask these questions.
Why do you live? Why do you die? What do you live for? What are you
here for? Who are you here for? ... Who is it you fear? Who do you
wish for? ... Who do you love? How do you love?"

"Misato told me to look for my own answers... but I've lost her
cross..."

"Misato has found her own path, though her path lights yours. As I
have found mine. But Asuka shares your cross now, as you both wished."

"I... I understand," replies Asuka, and she turns around and walks
toward the shore. She pauses to glance over her shoulder, and her eyes
meet Shinji's. The boy looks away, shaking with fear, and hurt
flashes in the girl's eyes. Repressing a quiver in her voice,
Asuka locks glances with Rei for a second, then glances back in
his direction. "Shinji?" whispers Asuka, "Don't be too long. The
shore isn't so far that you can't reach it... I'll see you in the
morning." And she resumes her walk down to the shore.

"Asuka..." the boy whispers out. Takes a half-step towards the girl,
one arm outstretched, but he hesitates.

"This is your wish, Shinji?" Rei whispers to him.

"Yes, it is... but..."

"Yet you think yourself unworthy of this dream?" she asks with a trace
of puzzlement.

"But... but I betrayed her! I don't deserve her! ... How can I face
her...
what can I be to her... knowing I destroyed the world?"

"She knows what you did. Yet she chose this dream. Think about it."

"She chose to...? But what if she hates me again..."

"You still fear her?"

"I... I do, on some level..."

"It's all right, Shinji. This is normal. This is the price of keeping
the
barriers that you chose to bring back in order to bring her back.
And I believe she feels the same fears as you." She smiles. "If you
wish to know her, you have to talk to her yourself..."

"M... Mom? Wait..."

"Yes, Shinji?"

"Well... don't you think... a dead world is a strange place to
still... feel what I feel for her?"

"As strange as seeing rain in the desert perhaps. But it's not wrong
to wish for rain in the desert, and the rain is not always a mirage.
And where there's rain, there has to be life."

"Is there? I look around and see a dead world. And yet... But I
believe my feelings are real..."

"Look at these sakura blossoms, Shinji. Back in the old days,
they reminded people of how things only stay with us for a
fleeting moment before they are gone, and how, after the cold, they
always come back. Even though the sakuras are just a dream now,
they still exist because they were real to me. Remember this, son.
Life will find a way, if you let it."

Rei, and the Yui within her, closes her eyes, leaving the two Children
to their Dream.

"Go. She awaits you..."

Shinji wakes up with a start, squinting his eyes against the light
of the sun rising from behind the hill. He's lying down in the sand, his

back to the sea, by the shore where he had collapsed crying the
previous night.

He looks around him, and not finding her beside him he rises in panic,
his heart racing with fear at the thought of losing her again.

"Asuka?... Asuka!!..."

He sees her further down the shore, sitting down on the sand. The light
of the rising sun slowly reaching out to her pensive form. She is gazing

out, deep in thought it seems, at something across the sea.

He approaches her... diffidently, from behind, catching his breath,
and stands to her right behind her, his hands in his pockets. He
follows her gaze and holds his tongue. The object of their silent
thoughts lie far out on the horizon, an awesome question mark on their
present existence. The pale white head of Lillith-Rei, staring out
into the sky and the receding sunset stars with what could be a small
enigmatic smile on her lips.

The two surviving Children are not quite sure if the image
even exists. It seems to fade in and out of physical reality,
like a morphing dream at the edge of waking up, like a ghostly mirage
flickering on red desert sand dunes. Until its white visage melds with
the light of the ever-rising sun sweeping away the remnants of evening,
and disappears from the naked eye.

Gone like a dream, gone like the world he knew.

But to the Third Child's relief, the Second Child is still there
with him.

"Asuka... I'm... I'm glad you're okay."

"You can come closer, Shinji. I promise not to yell at you
this time around."

He silently moves closer, then hesitates, wondering how much
closer he should get, whether he should sit down, or remain
standing, whether he should keep his hands in his pockets,
whether he should speak up, and about what, or...

"You know, Shinji..." Her soft whisper interrupts his indecision.

>From the corners of their eyes they lock glances, as she favors
him with a soft, diffident smile, and she herself is relieved
to still find him there.

"You should have seen me fight off the army and the EVA Series," she
says to him, life returning to her voice. "I was in top form, you'd
have been proud of me. We could have saved the world together, you
and I." At this he suddenly turns away in shame, and she sighs.
"But... you were late when I needed you, Shinji, you were such...
such a..."

"I know, I was such a moron," he whispers, staring down guiltily
at his feet, but wondering at the conspicuous absence of the old
derogatory whip in her voice. "You were right. I was only thinking
of myself."

He calmly takes off his shoes and wades a bit further out, letting
the red water lap at his bare ankles, and soak the edges of his pant
legs. Trying to wash away the weariness from his feet. "Everyone
around me was braver than I was, but your bravery came to nothing
because I was a self-absorbed fool..."

"No..." she says.

He turns around to see her staring at him. Not angrily, he notes,
as he gazes into the same eyes that held him the previous night...

"No? What do you mean...?"

"That's not all of it. I was late too, late getting to my senses.
I shouldn't have pushed you away in the first place... I
shouldn't have left you, alone to hold the fort. I was selfish.
We were team mates, partners, and I destroyed our team. I'm sorry.
I don't blame you for what happened. You tried your best."

"How did...? Was... was Ayanami with you during all this too?"

"Yes... I know what you went through. Not all the bloody details,
but I saw enough of it to understand," she shudders. "Poor Rei.
I think she tried her best to make up for our foolishness," she
continues, staring pensively again at the spot of the departed
apparition on the horizon. "I'm impressed... I never thought
our Wondergirl had it in her."

"She was still in my dream last night," he confesses, relaxing
a little, still facing her.

"She looked older, a grown woman exactly like your mother,
except for the color of her hair and those eyes. She was
standing on a hill, under some extinct sakura trees, only
those trees were alive and in full bloom. She was... so
pretty... looking out on a lake, in the moonlight, like
she was waiting for something. We asked her if we were
still dreaming, and she said yes..."

"So you had the same dream then..."

"I guess so. Though I don't remember waking up."

"And I don't remember falling asleep. This is all so strange..."

"How so like Rei... Was she the last Angel all this time?"

"No... I'm not sure. There was another one, the Fifth Child,
the pilot who replaced you... he turned out to be Tabris. He
betrayed us, so I killed him, or rather, he let me do so.
He was supposed to have been the last Angel."

"A Fifth Child replaced me? Hmph, no wonder you got into
trouble... Did he happen to have red eyes like Rei's?"

"Er, yeah... how did you know?"

"I saw them together during the Impact... they
were speaking to me about something... maybe they're
one and the same Angel somehow, like Israfel? But
they were people too, just like us..."

"... Misato did mention that Kaworu and Rei were both
partly cloned from Angel DNA... that my father and SEELE were
the puppet masters, that they exploited us as long as they
could use us... but Misato also mentioned that Humanity was
the last Angel, that we brought this on ourselves, that only
we could save ourselves..."

"More riddles, Third Child?"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. This is all so overwhelming, that's all.
Maybe there'll never be any complete answers..."

"I guess."

"Shinji... I'm sorry about your father..."

"No... it's okay. He was right, you know. I had to grow up,
get over him. But he was wrong too. He was the one running away,
and I refuse to be like him in that way... I just hope,
wherever he is, he finds what he's really looking for."

"I see..."

"So... how about me? What do you... think of me? Do you think
this place I've run away to is any better than what he wanted?
Is this any more real?"

"I think so, even if this may still be a dream. Maybe that part
of the dreaming where you've discovered something about yourself,
and you have a blank slate of a world from which you can move on.
A place with no secrets... just faith that you can move on...
You know what I'm talking about?"

"I guess. Maybe we're both here because it takes more than
one person to make things real again... but you must be mad at
me for the fact that we're alone... that everyone's gone..."

"I think they'll come back here, or we'll come back to them.
Stranger things have happened to us. It'll work out somehow.
We'll go insane, again, if we believe otherwise..."

"No, I don't want you to suffer for this. It's all my fault if
they don't-"

"Don't you start that again, Third Child!"

"Uhm...sorr-... uhrm..."

He stares in confusion as she giggles.

"What!?"

"At least you're behaving normally now. I guess that
really is the Ikari I know standing there!"

"Thanks, I guess... Well... How about you? Are you really
back? Are you real?"

"Funny you should ask, Third Child. I had been itching to ask
you that exact same question all morning."

"I... I thought they had killed you..." He turns around, his
back to her, to blink back the tears suddenly forming in his
eyes.

"I did so too... but Rei got into the picture somehow. I told
her I wouldn't give up living...and, well... you... well,
you were bloody late!"

He hears her rise, hears her feet splashing in the waves.
He turns around worriedly.

She's suddenly standing in front of him now, facing him
with a questioning, almost mischievous look in her eyes. Her
hands clasped behind her back, her face leaning forward
towards him, making him gulp.

"You were screaming your lungs out, you know," she whispers
to his face.

"Uhm... I... did... did you..."

"Loud enough to wake up the dead. Hm?"

"Uhm... you..." he stammers, thinking to himself, she heard
that? How much more does she know of what went on...?

"Shinji... if this is really you, we have to talk," she
says with a frown, suddenly serious and hesitant.

"Uhm...." Blurt it out, he thinks to himself. Don't be
afraid. Not again. There should be no secrets in this
place...

"Rei and I weren't on good terms. There was a reason why
she went out of her way to bring me back. Do you know
what it was?"

"We were both in our Evas when the Impact happened..."

"No, that's not it. Rei was Gendo's doll. Whatever it was
he was planning, she told me she refused to go along with
it. Instead it seems she went to you. That I can understand,
Shinji, seeing how much better you treated her, and how much
she likes you."

"Uuhh..."

"Besides, I was dead! Or dying. I should have disappeared
into the LCL along with everyone else, even if my Eva
absorbed me like your Eva absorbed you once. Why did she
bring me back?"

"You... you didn't choose to come back?"

"I did! Even after all the hell I lived through, yes,
I wanted to come back! But she gave me an early choice.
She made it very clear she was intervening to give me that
choice. She let me join you in this... this empty world
of yours. Why!?"

"... She knew..."

"What? Shinji, I want to know!"

"She knew I wanted you back..."

"... Wh-... Didn't you want everyone back?"

"Yes! I did! I do! But... there's something more...
Deep down, I especially wanted you back. Maybe that made
all the difference, what I feel for you... when I thought
I'd lost you forever, I had nothing left to live for..."

"Shinji..."

"I... I don't know why... I desperately wanted you around,
even if you called me a moron all the time... I needed you
to like me, even though you were unattainable, it
had to be you, out of all the women in the world...
I wanted us to be together, I wanted to
understand you... I wanted you, but... but..."

"But... what, you thought I hated you, didn't you?"

"Yes. What else could I think!? Didn't you? You said so
yourself! You threw me out of your life!"

"I know what I said, what I did. It wasn't what I really
meant, believe me. But I would have understood if you learned
to hate me because of it. I was afraid of needing you. Didn't
you learn to hate me, when I kept pushing you away?"

"No! ...I couldn't hate you... I just blamed myself... for
hurting everyone I touch, for letting you down so much...
I didn't deserve you..."

"Look, it wasn't your fault. I was so messed up. We both
were. We both gave up on ourselves."

"Why... did it have to be like that?"

"Shinji... at least you tried."

"I tried to understand you, I really did...
when I thought I lost you, I thought I might finally find
you in the Instrumentality, but I only made things worse,
becaused I couldn't find myself there, and I couldn't
find the real you there either... "

"Well, I'm here now..."

"Asuka?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you regret coming back?"

"No."

"Even though there's nothing left? Even if I have nothing to offer
you except this?" He gestures plaintively at the desolateness
surrounding them. "...Did you know this might happen?"

"Yes, Rei mentioned that possibility. She said I could wait for
the world to re-form, that I didn't have to join this world of
yours if I didn't want to..."

"But... but you still came back..."

"I didn't want you to be alone, okay?"

"Asuka... you really mean that?"

"Don't think I don't appreciate your reaching out, Shinji."

"Uhm... You... don't hate me?"

"No, of course I don't! I don't hate you. Don't be stupid...
oh, come here, moron... sit with me..." She sits down, with a
sigh, on the sand and leans her tired frame on a boulder...

He kneels in front of her, bowing his head. "... Do you... think
you can forgive me for all this?" he asks through the lump in
his throat.

"Closer. Over here. I won't bite, you know."

He moves closer, cautiously sitting off to her side. The girl grunts
impatiently and sidles up next to him, closing the remaining
distance. And the boy barely suppresses a heart-palpitating gasp as
the girl suddenly lays her head on his shoulder. He gulps
as she sighs and nuzzles her cheek against his chest.

"Uhm... Asuka?" he manages through the racing of his heart.

"Shh. Don't shake so much. This is... comfortable."

And bracing himself to be pushed away, he slowly,
hesitantly drapes his arm over her shoulder, and presses his cheek
against her hair.

Eliciting another giggle from the girl.

"What?"

"You're shaking like crazy, idiot."

"Am not." He chuckles nervously, feeling his face blush a deep
red, as he scratches his head with his other hand. And thinking,
he's shaking all right, but he can't help it...

"If you say so... moron..."

And he tries to force himself to relax, reflecting on the
intoxication of smelling her hair, feeling the softness of her
body leaning on him.

He must really be dreaming this. This spot of comfort in a
desolate world. Rain in the desert.

"... You, uhm... you look beautiful, you know..."

"With these bandages, huh? Right."

"But it's true."

"Well. Thank you."

But he dearly wants some of this to be real.

If only he could heal everything that went wrong.

"How are your injuries? Still hurt?"

"No, I don't feel them anymore. Dull throbbing ache now and
then, nothing more. Still a bit tired. But I bet you I can beat
you in the gym pretty soon."

"The gym?"

"Well, yeah, somewhere down there the Geofront and NERV facilities
might still be intact. You should try to be more optimistic
for me, you know."

"Maybe you're right... we can hole up there until we find other
survivors, over the radio or the net. The MAGI might still be running,
so power and life support might still be on. There might be enough
food there to keep us alive a little longer. We can start looking once
you're rested, or I can look while you rest. There should be tunnels
down to the Geofront all over-"

"Uhm, Shinji?"

"Huh?"

"Let's just stay here a bit longer, okay?"

"Oh... sure."

They rest, letting the sun rise higher up its path through
the clear sky, bathing them in its warming glow.

"Hey," she finally whispers.

"Uh-huh?"

"You're pretty quiet. What're you thinking?"

"I'm... I'm wishing we were doing this somewhere else."

"Somewhere else?"

"I mean, beside a real lake, real water, green trees, white
clouds in a sunny blue sky, birds flying... back when the world
was still alive..."

"We should have done this sooner."

"Asuka..."

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for coming back."

"You're welcome, Shinji..."

....

"Shinji?"

"Yeah?"

"You know... we might as well discuss it... what if
we're the last ones left alive?"

"We still have each other... like you said, we can still
save the world, you and I..."

"Shinji?"

"Don't you dare get any premature ideas about my giving you
children, okay?"

"Wha!? No!! I mean, no, I didn't mean it to be anything like
that, really, please don't be mad-"

"Sshh," she stops his panicking stammering with a hand on his
mouth and an amused smile. "Sorry, I just wanted to make sure
we were clear on that. Give us some time, okay?"

He nods. And with that she lays her head on his bosom, allowing
the two of them a closer embrace.

He sighs and relaxes. And allows himself a small relieved smile
as he concentrates on her again.

A minute later she speaks up again, still lying on his chest.

"Tell me though, what will happen when we hurt each other
again? And again after that?"

"I'll keep trying... if that's fine with you... I meant it
when I said I wanted to understand, that I wanted you... uh...
that I, well..." he stammers as he tries to form the nervous
words.

She smiles.

"It's a start. If you can promise me that, I'll promise to
allow you to be stupid every now and then."

"Oh. That's nice of you... I guess. But it's a deal."

She raises her head and locks her eyes to his, and whispers,
"You're not hopeless, you know. We might actually get this
to work... but be patient with me, okay?"

"I will... I'm sorry I had messed it all up so badly..."

"Shh. You've saved my life, in more ways than one, Shinji...
I was yours before either of us knew it, and I still am."

"Asuka... I... I, uhm..."

Favoring him with a smile, she takes hold of his
hand. "I like you too..."

--------

One night Rei Ayanami watches them again inside their dream.

In the dream she has blossomed into a mature young woman in
jeans and a university sweatshirt, and she is standing unnoticed
on a grassy rolling hill filled with trees, cherry blossons in
full bloom, under a clear blue early morning sky. She lets her
face bask in the warm glow of the sun.

The Three Children dream this together, of a place that exists
in the minds of dreamers, of a place some would claim does not
exist.

And in the dream there is a gravel pathway by the crystal clear
lake, and there walks a tall, slender young man, with black hair
and haunted, timid blue eyes, a necklace with a white crucifix
visible over his blue sweater. The young man is walking and
holding hands with a lithe, energetic young woman, a tall
long-haired redhead with intense blue eyes and wearing a bright
red dress. She frowns up at him, and leans over to whisper something
in his ear, eliciting a sparkle in his eyes as they smile together,
and then she playfully pinches his nose, and they both laugh.
And under the sakura blossoms the couple lingers, and he gently
pulls her in closer in a protective embrace; they face each other,
smiling, she laughs, tenderness in her eyes, and they slowly kiss.

And Rei stands watching them in the distance, and for the first
time since merging with Lillith, smiles happily, knowing this
is a dream the two are sharing tonight. And she keeps this
precious dream in her heart, in a corner where things are meant
to exist forever.

No matter what happens after this, she says to herself, they will
always have this moment, this young dream, together, an embodiment
of their promise, and the promise will always be real.

"God is in His heaven, all is right with the world, and this
dream is our eternal offering to Him, for the renewal of the
Covenant with Adam. For That which is dreamed can never be lost,
and can never be undreamed. Thank you, Shinji, Asuka."

And under the cherry blossoms, the First Child turns around and
starts to walk down the hill, back among the growing holiday
crowds enjoying the weekend, their family picnics and their
dates, and the arrival of spring in a new world.

"It is done Yui; what will we do now?" she whispers in
her mind. And Yui of the Evangelion answers.

"This is the mission of the Evangelion. You and I are faith, hope,
the sentry to the Eden in their heart, to bear witness to their
promise to each other. As long as we remember, their dream
will not die, and humanity will continue to exist, even when
the sun, moon and stars are gone. For reality is at the end
of a dream, and dreams are at the end of a reality.
In the meantime, the world we knew is ready to renew. These
Children, the representatives of humanity, are free. They
have affirmed themselves and their world."

She is met on the hill shortly thereafter by Nagisa, smiling,
hands in his pockets. He takes in a deep breath, closing his
eyes, head thrown back, relishing the fresh air. "I guess
we're all back home now," he says to her with a satisfied grin.

The soft breeze brings with it a faint echo of far-away voices.

"Can you find them, Maya?" asks an old man's anxious voice.

"..."

"Sir, I may have radio contact... Shinji? Shinji, where are
you? Asuka..."

Silence. Darkness. A light in the void, expanding. A coalescing
of memories, a consciousness awakening, igniting others around it.
And warmth, that grows with a newborn memory carrying Shinji's
voice, awe-struck and excited, replying to a question.

"She's fine. She's alive... we both are."

Warmth.

"Asuka...?"

Asuka hears her name whispered. A gentle, nervous kiss on her
lips, a breath of warm air on her cheek. A breath of Life.

"... Shinji...?"

The Second Child wakes up, drifting into consciousness.

She hears the empty static buzz of a NERV military radio being
shut off.

Consciousness.

This is real.

She feels fingers stroke a lock of her hair on her forehead,
and she opens her eyes, slowly, letting the world shift into
focus. The warmth from a campfire crackles outside, an old
ricepot nestled beside it, the fire light reaching in against
the dark and illuminating the inside of a small tent, where
she lies on some blankets. She turns and gazes up at a smiling
boy sitting on the ground next to her, haunted yet grateful
blue eyes looking down on her.

Real.

"You're awake." He smiles, affection clearly showing on his face.
He rubs his eyes, not sure how long he's been awake, sitting
and watching her and secretly reveling in his dream of kissing her.

He turns aside briefly to pick up a small coffee pot filled with
clear water, which he offers to her with shaking hands.

She doesn't reply, at first. She sits up slowly, taking the pot.
She drinks the water in a few short gulps, quenching the thirst
in her dry throat. She notes, in passing, the early gray light of
sunrise outside the tent.

And what sounds, in the distance, like birds and seagulls. And
the smell of fresh rain on the earth from the previous evening's
drizzle.

She looks back to him, and returns the pot. Their fingertips brush
briefly against each other. He seems about to say something,
swallows hard instead, and just gazes at her.

"Thank you." She smiles at him nervously. And leaning forward,
steals a short kiss from him.

They both blush.

His hand shyly reaches out, fingers meeting hers, and clasps
her hand longingly. He kisses her back and smiles at her. She
leans in closer as they embrace, tightly, cradled in each other's
existence.

"Asuka. I'm here. You came back. I'm... I'm so glad."


THE END
THE BEGINNING


------
Writer's Notes:
Well, that's it for now. The first four chapters of
this story can stand on their own, and I had originally
intended to stop with the final scene of EoE. But this
epilogue tries to create a more optimistic ending beyond
that famous final scene, softening Eva's nihilistic tones,
while retaining the existentialist tint of the TV and
movie endings.

In particular, Asuka's awakening and co-redemption with
Shinji in this Epilogue completes the circle started in
Chapter 1 and in the opening scene of "Air", and rounds out
the rebirth and redemption theme of this story and, I like
to think, of EoE as well.

C&C is welcome, you can email me at
aninosakanto@yahoo.com.

Thanks for reading!

---------

James Lee, April 2001
aninosakanto@yahoo.com

From: James Lee <aninosakanto@yahoo.com>
Subject: [Eva][FanFic] The Second Child/Promises To Keep, Writer's Notes



Neo Genesis Evangelion: Apocrypha
The Second Child / Promises To Keep

--------
Writer's Rambling Miscellaneous Notes
--------

No, sorry, this is *not* a new chapter nor a new epilogue of
"The Second Child / Promises To Keep". I merely decided, while updating
these Writer's Notes, to write them out to a separate file.

So if you haven't posted or emailed a review, you can do so now before
you read these notes, since my expository writing might just bore you
:-)

First, the disclaimers.

Neon Genesis Evangelion and its characters are the property of Gainax,
Inc.
of Japan, and the U.S. English releases are licensed by ADV (for the TV
series) and Manga (for the movies). No pecuniary or malicious intent
should be attributed to this writer, and he in fact encourages you to
buy the aforementioned companies' products. This writer respects the
owners' copyrights, and seeks no profit from this story.

This story you have just read is "fan fiction" and is not connected to
nor authorized by Gainax. While this fic adds elements to the EoE movie,

it does, however, try to remain true in all other respects to Eva canon.

Or at least those aspects of Eva canon that I'm aware of.

Dialogue for the flashbacks are taken from the English subs and dubs
released by ADV. Since the movies and the "Director's Cut" Episode 22
scenes have not as of this writing been released to the U.S. market,
dialogue for flashbacks of these scenes are taken from the script
translations found on various fans' sites on the Internet.

Manga will release the U.S. English version of EoE in the latter half
of 2001. The Director's Cut versions of the last TV episodes, including
Episode 22, will probably never be released in English-dubbed form. The
LD's, VHS tapes, and Region 2 DVD's are available, however, from various

anime shops and Internet sites if you know where to look.

And now for some explanations for the story.

This fic is based on the movie End of Evangelion, especially the
"My True Heart For You" episode and the epilogue episode "One More
Final/
I Need You". The latter is probably among the most
heart-wrenching movie scenes I have ever watched, something I both
loved and hated. Considering the sheer simplicity and brevity of the
scene, its dark portrayal of cosmic hope, despair, and anger, and
the moving force of its pathos and ambiguity, the scene left me stunned,

frozen in my seat, muttering "What the hell...?"

The strong ambiguity in the ending to EoE is probably amply
described by the director himself when he was interviewed about
NGE in general and he descibed the whole series as an act of burning
his angst into film: "I tried. I don't know what the result will
be. That is because within me, the story is not yet finished."
Indeed, the act of finding life's meaning doesn't end, never gives
full closure, even in his movie.

Whether or not the NGE characters Shinji and Asuka can overcome the
barriers between them is left up to the viewer to speculate on. There is

reason to hope, and reason to doubt, and enough uncertainty to make
one feel sick. NGE could not have had a more apt "ending."

But for some of us who were touched by the story of NGE and recognize
its director's message of angst, there is enough faith to go around, to
believe that a happier continuation is possible, even if the gist of the

story continues only in our minds.

Of course, sometimes we don't like things to be *too* ambiguous, and
we're tempted to write our own myths.

This fic was written partly to flesh out parts of the Eva story
(especially
the fate of one of the major characters) in such a way as to leave a
more
optimistic ending, a "light at the end of the tunnel", while at the same

time trying to retain at least some of the moody flavor of the original
story as a plaintive grasping and groping for meaning against the
awesome
darkness and mystery of existence.

As for various odds and ends within the story...

Rei's apocalpytic monologues (i.e., the Dead Sea Scroll prophecies and
the modified myth of Lillith) are fictional additions to the Eva myths
and are not to be mistaken as real-life theology, of course :)

Rei's apocalyptic line regarding "a man with no faith, a woman who would

scorn love" points to the Children as an inverted image of the Biblical
character of Job. Whereas the elderly Job survives his tribulations
through
his existing albeit shaken faith, the Children have to discover faith
from scratch in order to survive their tribulation.

"By the waters of Babylon" is a reference both to the scene in "One
More Final" in which Shinji weeps over Asuka by the red LCL sea,
as well as to these words in Psalm 137: "By the waters of Babylon
we lay down and wept, and wept for thee Zion. We remember thee, we
remember thee Zion." It is also the title of a well-known short story,
by Stephen Vincent Benet, which shares some themes with this fic.

Rei's participation in the Children's post-Instrumentality dream is
partly
an allusion to the dialogue between Rei and Asuka outside Shinji's
hospital room, when Asuka asks Rei, "Don't tell me you don't dream?"

The confrontation in the elevator between Rei and Asuka in Part 1 is
intentionally reminiscent of their infamous, if less dramatic, encounter

in Episode 22.

The theory that Asuka did not die, either in her Eva in "Air" or in the
Instrumentality death sequence backdropped by "Komm Susser Todd" in
"My True Heart For You", is based on the observation that she was the
only
character aside from Rei and Shinji whose remains weren't seen dissolved

into LCL, even though characters who were earlier killed off that day,
including Misato, Ritsuko, and various NERV personnel, were seen
dissolved
in Rei's presence. For purposes of this fic, I've accepted the theory
proposed in various message boards that the splitting of Asuka's
upraised
arm in "Air" was a vivid illusion generated by her neural link with her
dying Eva.

Asuka's pseudo-flashback to her conversation with Hikari had its context

shifted on purpose, so that in Asuka's mind they speak of Shinji rather
than Touji. The context shift is an allusion to the Hikari-Touji
relationship's apparent role as a foreshadowing device to illustrate the

depth of the multi-layered tension between the Second and Third
Children,
whose own confused affections for each other were only implied in the TV

series but have been the subject of so many fan fics even before EoE.
The
scene also brings up Rei's seemingly ambiguous role in both triangles.

Asuka's bitter line "You don't know what I want" is a restatement of
Hikari's aside "You don't know anything" at Touji's bedside. These and
other references to the so-called Hedgehog's Dillema and the inability
of
people to completely know one another are sprinkled throughout the fic,
as
in the TV series and movies.

Shinji finding Asuka on the seashore, and her earlier comment that "the
shore isn't so far that you can't reach it" is an allusion to the
bedtime
conversation between Kaji and Shinji in Episode 18 regarding the gap
between
a man and a woman's heart "on a distant shore", following the enigmatic
scene
in which Asuka clams up after cryptically saying she can't enjoy herself
that
particular night.

The part of Yui's monologue explaining the shift in the focus of
Shinji's
angst from his father to Asuka also serves as an implicit explanation
for
the fact that Rei asks Shinji "Did you really try to understand him/her"

twice, once in regard to Gendo after the incident with Touji, the second

time in regard to Asuka during Instrumentality. Both questions occur
inside
a dream sequence involving riding a train, and this fic portrays Asuka's

finally coming face to face with his pain by bringing her into the train

with him during Instrumentality.

Asuka's confrontation with the gray-cowled mob in the train station
directly
alludes to a scene from one her dream sequences inside Arael (from the
Japanese Director's Cut video version), and again points out that her
fall
in Episode 22 was a foreshadowing of Shinji's Instrumentality. The
different
outcome of her second encounter with the gray-cowled LCL mob proves her
newfound inner strength, and allows for her decisive last confrontation
and
conciliation with Rei.

Rei's farewell appearance in the empty train station accounts for
Shinji's
seeing apparitions of her in Episode 1 and in "One More Final/I Need
You".

Kyoko's monologue by the seashore describes Asuka's redemptive dream
inside
her Eva in "Air" as a foreshadowing of Shinji's reconciliation with his
mother and his reappearance/rebirth by the seashore in "One More Final/
I Need You". Kyoko's line regarding mutual creation is a restatement in
visual imagery of the existentialist view of subjective reality, that we

define each other's selves through our interactions with each other.

Various influences, both Eva and non-Eva, helped in the writing of this
fic,
the principal ones of which are listed below, in addition to the ones
listed
in the Writer's Notes for the previous chapters:

The line "That which is dreamed can never be lost, and can never be
undreamed" is a quotation from Neil Gaiman's "Sandman: The Wake"
specifically
from the "Exile" story. Whereas the character in Sandman uses the line
in
recollection of the past, Rei inverts the context and uses the line in a

more forward-looking, hopeful message.

Note also the allusion to Gaiman's "Exiles" story, the allusion
to the Jewish exiles in "By the waters of Babylon", and the allusion
in "One More Final" to Adam and Eve (who are, after all, exiles from
Eden). All point to the idea of being lost, of being alienated; in
the end, all the two human pilots have left, after having alienated
themselves from the world, is each other.

The "Day After" scene on the beach is derived from a Gainax LD cover
artwork, showing a scene from after "One More Final/I Need You".

Kaworu's monologue uses modified snippets from T.S. Eliot's "Hollow Men"

and from Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice" in reference to the destructive
effect of emptiness in a human heart, while also pointing out the
reverse
side of destruction, which is the construction of something new; i.e.,
the
Hegelian concept of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. The title "Thesis,
Antithesis" is therefore an intended play of words on the English title
of
the TV theme song, "Cruel Angel's Thesis". Out of Third Impact would
arise
something new, the "Neo Genesis."

I had thought of quoting a haiku instead of using these Western poems,
but
didn't have anything appropriate available at the time I wrote this fic.

"Promises to keep" comes from the Robert Frost poem "Stopping By Woods
on a
Snowy Evening". The poem, like Dylan's "Rage Against the Dying of the
Light"
has sometimes been interpreted as expressing rejection of early or
meaningless death, and as an affirmation of life's promise.

"Take me to your dream, I will walk with you" is, I think, the title of
a
J-Pop song which I haven't actually heard; I just thought the phrasing
went
well with this Epilogue. The "theme song" I sorta had in mind for this
fic
was actually the instrumental version of "Thanatos, If I Can't Be Yours"
from
the End of Evangelion OST; the music is played in the movie right after
Shinji sees the mangled remains of Eva-02. (Portions of the lyrics from
the
vocal version are in fact alluded to in some of the dialogue with Asuka
and
Rei, as you may have noticed anyway.) If you listen to the music, you'll

notice that a sad, mournful mood permeates the song until we near the
end of
the song. I like to believe that the epilogue of this fic ties in nicely
with
the more upbeat tempo and and hopeful mood with which the music ends. A
leap
of faith into the darkness, towards the possibility of light at the of
the
tunnel.

****
James Lee, April 2001
aninosakanto@yahoo.com
Somewhere in the USA