Chapter Twenty-Three
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Life was short, often pathetically so. One of the first things Misato had promised herself, the first time her world had ended, was that she would never lie again, especially not to herself. Not when life was so damned short.
It was stupidly ironic, that she’d spent every moment after, every moment as Shinji and Asuka’s guardian doing exactly that.
With all the chaos and alarm surrounding the Dominion attack, very little seemed to change as a new alarm began to blare. A few screens lit up with new images, as armed men appeared, charging the perimeter of the base, preparing to blow the outer doors. SEELE was using the possible destruction of the base, the threat of Third Impact as a perfect opportunity to strike.
Hadn’t it always been like this, though? Misato forever without a guide as the world went to hell around her. Holding back. Following orders. Always choosing the pathways in her life that allowed her to do both while sacrificing everything else. Measuring out the attention she could give Asuka and Shinji - especially Shinji - as if she were hoarding the rest for some greater purpose. Listening to Asuka scream and rage because she’d been ordered – no, because Misato had /willingly/ sent her out to fight knowing exactly what would come of it.
Letting stupid men in stupid uniforms tell her where to go and what to do and where her loyalties should lie, when she’d always known the truth.
Cate had left the room, and Misato was sure she was the only one who had noticed, everyone else shouting frantic reports to each other over the sudden SEELE attack, or attempting to speak to Asuka, who was no longer listening. Trying to determine if she’d killed Shinji – Shinji, who was alive and fighting for the other side, though Misato had long lost the naiveté to believe in sides.
The Dominion was a sparking dynamo in the sky, Asuka invisible within the central, glowing mass, though Misato held little doubt she was behind all of the trauma it appeared to be experiencing. Somehow, despite all the chances at disaster, they’d managed to resurrect the Asuka she’d met so many years ago, fresh and full of fire – with scars more embraced than denied.
Shinji wasn’t dead, she was certain of that, because Kaworu wasn’t here, sending flaming death raining down upon them. He was alive, and Asuka didn’t need her – but Cate... Cate had lied. Cate had lied, and he’d hurt Shinji and he was using this all as a wonderful distraction for his own ends. Misato hated him, hated what he stood for just enough that even if she wasn’t right about his motives, even if there was no immediate sin to hold against the leader of a NERV that should have died long ago, it still might be enough to justify putting a bullet in him.
Somewhere along the way, someone had been stupid enough to make sure she was properly armed.
“Where are you going? Misato!?”
Misato heard Lae call to her across the crowded room, though there was more than enough background noise to pretend she hadn’t and keep walking. Unfortunately, there was also enough to hide the sound of his footsteps, as he frowned, gazing back once at the computer screens, at the battle, but finally turned to follow her.
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Much of the ability to do anything lay in the desire to do it, the determination. Toby had helped construct weapons of unimaginable power because she’d wanted to – and because doing so had helped her ignore the guilt of pushing her brother away while he died.
Re-entering NERV in the midst of a battle was not impossible, not when there was so much to think about, when very little mattered besides facing up to what she had done – what she /was/. Especially when SEELE had engaged most of NERV’s forces in battle far from the rarely-used service entrance, when her keycard had ever been deactivated.
Everything here was locked down tight, even though Toby knew that much of what she passed was only simple storage – Cate must have known this was coming, had planned for the moment that SEELE would try to regain control. He hadn’t told them, but that was only a small violation compared to the rest, not even worth note.
More than once, she heard the report of machine gun fire echo from a distant corridor, or one of the other service areas, and her ears were buzzing with the adrenaline rush of knowing she could be killed at any time, by nearly anyone, and wasn’t doing all that much to protect herself.
A soldier was slumped at the end of the hall, and Toby took his gun just because it was the sort of thing she ought to do, though if she ran into anyone who actually knew how to use a weapon, there was no real chance she would survive. She moved carefully, tried to keep out of the main halls, slipping back along side passages, listening for the sound of footsteps, vaguely unsure of where exactly she was going, or what she meant to do when she got there. Until she had the opportunity to glance over a catwalk, watching Cate walk out of a set of rooms that, as far as she knew, hadn’t been meant for anything.
The elevator at the end of the hall opened, two soldiers stepping out, and Cate killed them both without hesitation, bodies toppling to the floor as he stepped past them, calmly pushed a button. He was going down, a few other elevators and possibly a few more murders and he would be where Adam and Lilith would be stored. Cate probably wouldn’t need more than a sample of each, if he planned to start this all again, elsewhere.
By the time Toby realized that it might be a good idea to shoot him, Cate was gone, disappeared into the elevator – but why had he been up here in the first place, and with such a crucial battle going on outside? Storage, all of this was storage –
//Sure it is.//
Toby crept along the catwalk and down the stairs, unsure why she was creeping when the two corpses Cate had left seemed to be the only sign of movement in the large room. The NERV leader wasn’t nearly paranoid enough for the job, not when he expected only an angel attack and a SEELE strike to provide cover for his mission, when he’d left all the doors wide open and unprotected, preferring to move quickly and take the risk of being discovered.
Or perhaps he’d known exactly what he was doing, all along, if she’d worked every day – practically lived in this building, and never thought to question that storage might be something else. Surely, she and Lae had told each other, no one at NERV had any reason to tell the whole truth, and this never should have come as a surprise.
It felt like a dream, heart in her throat and pulse thrumming in her ears – and Toby stepped through the doorway, and realized it wasn’t her pulse at all, but the soft hum of a suit powering up. It would explain why he’d come here first, and Toby stared, wondering who had designed this, how hard they’d worked to put it together, and where their bodies had been stowed, when everything had fallen apart.
A sudden explosion jolted the ground beneath her feet, though not enough for her to lose her balance. Toby nearly screamed, unfamiliar with blasts or their effects but absolutely sure as the rumbling ceased, that she could not go back the way she had come. Cate was not stupid, no doubt he had two or three secret passages to this place, and had taken a moment to block all other access points. In all likelihood, he’d been planning this from the moment they’d put together a working prototype for the cannon on Shinji’s suit, the weapon that could harness the power of an angel.
It was a grotesque, a mockery of the sleek and streamlined beauty of Tiphereth or Geburah, a series of disjointed plates linked by cabling. No mask, and only partial armor - a skeleton, the way the suits had looked at the very beginning – except that this one terminated to be a prototype at the left shoulder, the entire arm delicately assembled – a cannon, better constructed and more expansive than the one that had been on Tiphereth, with four slots awaiting use, one for each core. As if any human could possibly carry that sort of power, especially after what had happened with Shinji.
//He’s completely insane.//
Toby was moving closer before she even realized it, entranced by her own horror. Who would have worked on this suit, when she thought /they/ were the secret projects division? How much money had he funneled into it, what was its purpose?
//Don’t be stupid. You know its purpose. You know now, this wasn’t ever about saving humanity.//
It still could be, though, if she wanted to redeem it. Donning a suit with no name – fitting, somehow, for the power it contained. Toby ran her hand along the cannon, the tingling so violent from the cores that she could barely feel her hand, numb to the wrist. Poison, a soul poison, and unlike Shinji there was no divine presence to undo what damage she would take, if she chose to wield it.
//Do you really want to live beyond this?//
It was easy enough to see what Cate had intended, the changes that had been made in the design since Shinji had wielded it. No core held the same frequency as its brethren, and though the Dominions could likely block one of their fellows, it was unlikely they could adjust enough to counter two at once, or varying, and the cannon would be able to shift between three, once Asuka had succeeded in taking down Muriel.
She wondered what Cate had planned, how he intended to survive the effects of three cores – and then four, the attack on Zacharael certainly his next mission. Maybe he’d intended for the German girl to do it all along, to collect the cores once she had taken them and wasted away. To use them for his own, in another weapon, where he could harness their power all he wanted without risking himself.
//He knows who the last one is, then.//
He knew, and the answer was certainly within this room. It didn’t take much looking – Cate had been moving fast, the computers in the room left as unprotected as the doors. Only a few files, to reveal the information she sought, but Toby still froze when her eyes lighted on the name, reading the information twice before she could believe it, with no idea what the hell it could mean.
The angels played such a strange, painful game.
//Oh, Shinji.//
The realization made her decision easy, though she knew now there had been no turning back, not from the moment she’d entered the room. It was her salvation, this suit, a chance to absolve herself of all that she’d done so terribly wrong. It would hurt. It would hurt, and it would kill her, but she could find a way to take the cores with her, so that no one would ever find them. Kill the final Dominion, save the world, and Shinji and her brother would forgive her for what she’d done.
Dead, but redeemed, which was the way it usually had to be. She knew the sound of a suit coming fully online, the soft shift into silence, and Toby reached up with shaking fingers to pull the suit free.
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It was difficult to find anything worth missing in the stark, grim interiors of the NERV facility, the sharp tang of metal in the air, accentuated now by the very real smell of blood. Kaworu was glad that Shinji wasn’t down here – too many ghosts, too much that didn’t belong with his new life of warm, summer afternoons, lemonade and tangling on couches until they were too sweaty to move.
How the Lillim had ever decided that world domination was a worthier goal than that was simply beyond his angelic reasoning, a goal that seemed ever more irrational each time Shinji smiled.
He glanced up, as the regular lights suddenly snapped off, bathing the room in an eerie, pulsing red glow, much the same as his eyes. Further ahead, he could hear the sound of screaming, and gunfire.
What would Shinji want for dinner? True, he wasn’t usually hungry after he’d been fighting – more inclined to just passing out on the nearest horizontal surface – noodle bowl? With baby corn? Always fun to eat that sort of thing, when they ended up passing more food to each other than eating from their own bowls.
Kaworu wondered if they were out of shrimp.
“Stop! Freeze!”
Rather silly to shout a warning, he thought, when the soldier was already pulling the trigger, but Kaworu didn’t need to argue the point, stepping through the wall as the bullets deflected off his AT-field.
//~you’ve come~//
The third Dominion had come closest by far to achieving its goal, and even if Kaworu hadn’t remembered the way to this place, Adam and Lilith were both wide awake and aware, calling out – not really for the Dominion, but for him. Eager for change, for Third Impact.
As the Lillim said, apparently they hadn’t gotten the memo.
//~you are late~//
“Actually, I’m not.”
It was true, that these were the building blocks of life, the signal to noise of all consciousness, but Lilith and Adam did not have such a keen grasp on concepts like time - or change. One had to explain things slowly to them, as one would to a child.
//~come, then~//
Kaworu smiled.
“No. You have to know already, that I won’t.”
//~you cannot~//
It never ceased to amaze him, the protest. Certainly, Kaworu thought, there wasn’t so much that was /that/ special about him, the way he’d been constructed. No explanation why he saw possibilities, where the rest of the universe only saw rules.
“I was only arbitrator, to allow Shinji to choose as he would. It was never commanded of me to do more.”
//~you cheated. deceived. you will face His judgment, fallen angel~//
“The Lillim call it... a flexible selection of truths? You should know as well as I do, He rarely has mutually exclusive goals, if you can call them goals at all. He has won, He is winning, He will continue to do so irregardless of our actions.”
//~you speak blasphemy. we are not meaningless~//
“No, you’re not.” Kaworu smiled gently, and crossed the distance, slipping his hand through the protective glass. Feeling the moment of excitement quickly slip to confusion, and then anger, as they realized he hadn’t been lying, that he wasn’t afraid, or even very interested. “You’re not, but there is a time for everything, and also an end to that time. Even for you.”
//~what are you doing? stop. we command you. sinner. wingless. stop. Tabris? STOP.~//
He ignored them, as the commands took on a definite pleading tone, calling him by both his human and angelic names, threatening him and everything he loved with horrible fates, the destruction of the world. Adam and Lilith were so, so powerful – but only in the hands and minds of the humans they so longed to change, to improve by undoing – and humanity had made their choice. Shinji had made his choice, and it was time for them to respect that.
It didn’t take much, just a slight shift of a few molecules, for the same solution that had protected them to eat away at them instead. Dissolving Lilith and Adam, erasing any future echoes of the Impact, any more need for NERV or SEELE. It wouldn’t be enough, on its own, to completely destroy them – but Kaworu knew how Gendo Ikari had exploited SEELE’s self-destruct defenses, how the same systems were set up for the US branch of NERV, and that they could be activated from the very same room that Lilith and Adam were stored in, one final attempt to stop Third Impact.
“I will never in my life understand why SEELE thought to bring you into this world.”
The sharp voice made him smile. One judgment right into another, though it was easier to deal with scorn from the leader of SEELE than it was from the heavenly host. No, Kaworu reflected - both were fairly easy.
“So,” she lifted her chin a bit toward the scene still playing out behind him, “destroying the evidence, are we?”
“You would be insulted, I think, to realize how little this has to do with you.”
It gained him a smile in return, but no laugh, nothing but determined violence burning in her eyes. He could see a touch of blood on her hands, slight splashes here and there on her clothing – how many had she killed to get here? How important was it that she’d come alone?
“It would be obvious, to tell you that Lilith and Adam have some value to us. I cannot allow you to destroy them, at least not completely.” She took a step forward. “You may think you are invulnerable, but SEELE can do things to that human body of yours, angel, and an AT field is only so much protection.”
Of course, since the field had been enough to protect him from all harm for two lifetimes, he knew very well SEELE had no idea if he had any other protections, or what they could be.
Not that she had a chance to show him what she’d come up with, as Cate chose that moment to stride through the open doorway and shoot her in the back.
The first bullet only clipped her arm – and he quickly amended that with another shot through her thigh. The SEELE woman did not even cry out as she fell, pale as death and clutching at her leg with both hands, staring up at him, daring him to take the third shot he seemed disinterested in firing. He’d incapacitated her – humiliated her - and that was enough. Cate only bothered to take the gun in the holster at her side, before turning his attention to Kaworu with a bitter, self-depreciating smile, keeping his own weapon between them.
“Everything’s going to hell. I thought I might find you at the center of it, angel. You can tell your God I’m rather unimpressed.”
Cate glanced up, as the lights in the room flickered, and yes, it hadn’t seemed important with everything else that had happened, to remember that there was still a Dominion hovering overhead, quite determined to destroy them all.
“You humans can have trouble, bearing power with grace. It’s difficult for the Dominions not to take that as an insult.” Kaworu lifted a shoulder. “At times, omniscience can lead to taking things a little too personally.”
“No grace?” Cate smirked.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” the SEELE woman hissed back at him, shifting a little, trying to kill him from the floor with only one working limb and no weapon. “SEELE won’t let you get away with this. We know your plan, what you intend to do with the Dominion cores. You think a little gun is going to stop them?”
“It stopped you, now didn’t it?”
Cate smirked, and kept the weapon raised, taking another step toward the angel, and Adam and Lilith behind him. Kaworu watched, hands in his pockets, as the NERV head moved toward the controls, the mechanical arms, ready to scrape and pluck a few cells, sharpen the double-edged sword of enlightenment and destruction and start it all over again.
“Are you so certain this is what you want to do?”
“I’m certain, Kaworu Nagisa, that you can’t do a damn thing to stop me. I think, in the end, all you can do is be a good little angel, and watch us humans play this one through to the finish.”
“Indeed.” Kaworu said, lifting his eyes over Cate’s shoulder as Misato followed his lead, stepped into the doorway and fired.
The first bullet should have had him, but Cate was fast and she was years out of practice. It missed him by less than an inch anyway, pinging harmlessly off of Kaworu’s AT field, and the NERV leader scrambled for cover as Misato kept firing, before she had to duck for cover, switching to a gun with a full clip as Cate shot back. The fight was fast and ugly, no room for strategy or maneuvering in such a small room, the sort of fight that should have never happened because one of them should have been dead already.
Cate stood up as Misato came to the end of another clip, risking a hit for the chance to take her down. A shout at the door distracted him, and he shot automatically at the figure in the doorway – Lae going down with a startled cry, his whole shoulder stained red. It gave Misato the second she needed to aim, firing again as Cate dove for cover – smirking over Kaworu’s shoulder, as Misato’s shot pinged once more against the angel’s AT field.
The moment of smug pride was his undoing, enough time for Kaworu and Misato to exchange a glance, and for her to raise her gun and shoot again, the bullet unimpeded this time by any sort of field, flying over the angel’s shoulder, hitting Cate right between the eyes. Blood spattered across the glass, obscuring what was left of Adam and Lilith, and Cate’s body slumped to the floor, an death so simple it almost seemed an insult. The only sound left was Misato’s panting, the empty gun falling from her hand, clattering against the metal tiles. After a moment, she looked up at the angel, and what was taking place behind him.
“You’re destroying them.”
Kaworu nodded, though it wasn’t really a question. “Yes.”
Misato glanced down, to Cate’s body, to where the SEELE commander had squeezed herself beneath the table, blood still pouring from between her fingers, and looked back up at the angel.
“Good.”
She moved quickly after that, without even a second glance, dropping down to grab Lae, roughly enough that he cried out – though he understood her hurry, could see Kaworu at the computer’s controls, entering in commands that would blast the entire facility apart.
“You didn’t save my life.” Misato growled, waiting until he was steady enough to walk to start moving forward. No reason at all she couldn’t have simply left him there.
“I know,” he said, shoulder alternately throbbing and stabbing, hurting worse than any injury he’d had in his entire life – and he was smiling despite it all. In a few moments, only the slight shuffle of their footsteps could be heard, and then nothing at all.
Kaworu glanced down at the SEELE leader, and raised an eyebrow, turning back to his work as she let out a sigh, pulling a small communicator from her pocket.
“Attention, all SEELE forces – the NERV’s Terminal Dogma has been breached, and the self-destruct sequence has been activated. Evacuate immediately with all collected materials, and escort all non-hostile NERV personnel to the surface. I repeat, evacuate /immediately/.”
She sighed, weary and rueful and disgusted, tossing the small device on the floor hard enough to crack the casing, as alarm klaxons began to sound throughout the floors, alerting anyone who didn’t already know what was going on. Kaworu finished his work, looking down at her again with those fathomless, pale red eyes. It was rare in her life, that she thought she’d been well met, but if she’d had a hat she would have tipped it to the angel.
“You would have killed Shinji, when this was over.”
She conceded the point with a slight nod. “It was always an option.”
“More than that, I think.”
The angel did not seem too upset over her admission, mostly because he was standing while the SEELE leader bled her life out on the ground. The inexorable countdown proceeding around them, Lilith and Adam crumbling down to nothingness. All her life, this was the great mystery, the pieces of the puzzle she’d been too young to see as a whole. Trying to put them back together – and now it seemed there was no whole, never had been.
“You knew. You knew all of this, didn’t you.” She gestured to Cate’s corpse and then the immersion tank, before glaring back up at him. “You planned all of this from the goddamned start.”
“The struggle is not what it once was, not with Gendo Ikari dead and so few pieces remaining from what was once a great game. SEELE does not have the power it once had, and many are certain that power could be used to much greater effect, on other projects. Once you are gone, the obsession with Third Impact will cease to be. The world will move on.”
Her eyes widened slightly, and she gasped her way through a bitter laugh.
“You’re just leaving me here to die?”
In the distance, she could hear a growing, growling, rumbling sound – the explosions, ripping through the base, and it seemed a damn shame that within moments, none of this would matter anymore. Kaworu looked at her for a moment, with same smile as ever, but there was nothing particularly cruel in it.
“No. I’m just leaving.”
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Shinji coughed, wincing as he managed to swallow past whatever knife had been stuck in his throat. He could hear yelling, though it was too difficult to make the sounds form words, more thinking than he wanted to do at the moment.
The sky above him was bright, he couldn’t see the stars and it was surprising. Sunrise? It didn’t make sense, and Shinji tried to think for why it wouldn’t, that there was a sensible answer for all of this and – Asuka.
If he listened carefully, fading out in between bursts of static and the still clamoring voices, he could hear screaming. Asuka’s screaming, and he recognized it – no cry of pain or panic, but utter rage.
It was a debate then, whether to open his eyes or just count on her to finish the battle for him. Still, if he was conscious he probably ought to do what he could. A good thing he opened his eyes, watching a very large section of the Dominion detach from the rest of the structure, realizing a moment later that it was going to fall right where he was sitting.
Without the thrusters on the bottom of his boots, Shinji never would have kept from being crushed. It was still much too close a call, Shinji caught by the spray as the tail end of the massive rock splashed into the water, twisting his head up to see if there would be another only to realize that yes, there was, and he was now in the midst of a strange, reverse minefield. Dodging and weaving as more of the blocks dropped from the sky, glow of power fading as they slammed into the ground, and the techs were still shouting at him and now he could clearly hear Asuka screaming in German, launching volley after volley against an angel clearly paying for the sins of its brethren.
The internal core glowed more and more brightly, as the outer layers were kicked or hit or otherwise blown apart – probably well past repair, though it was clear Asuka wasn’t going to stop, even when it was obvious the damned thing was well beaten and falling apart around her, and if he didn’t get her out before the core cracked – Shinji knew there would be an explosion, could see the tiny flickers of building energy, little arcs sparking out against his suit, but even that protection wouldn’t be enough to shield him from the blast.
“Asuka!”
Shinji wove around the shifting, tumbling blocks, some seeming to make one last desperate shift for him, others merely plunging down to the sea. It was difficult to see anything in the midst of all the light, sensors blaring warnings as they fought to correct against the blaze, to give him any visual. He caught a glimpse of her and twisted his legs to the side, pushing for power. Diving between two blocks just before they could crash together, not bothering to slow down and slamming into her at full speed, knocking them both out of the way as another block rushed past where they had been.
She was fighting him from the moment he wrapped his arms around her, screaming and kicking as best she could, though he could see a few sparks, where one of her whips had been broken off, stress fractures along much of the rest of her suit. She’d won this fight, but it had not come without an impressive cost, and he realized that she had every intention of fighting to the death, that trying to save her had merely sent her into hysterics, as she thought she’d been pulled from the battle only to lose it.
“You’ve won, Asuka! You’ve /won/!” He shook her, hard, aware it probably wasn’t the best thing to do to the already unstable, but out of other options. “Dammit, why bother falling apart now? Look at what we’ve been through – how much worse can it get?!”
He didn’t expect the words to get through, but they did, and she turned slowly. He could hear her voice, weak and hesitant.
“... Shinji?”
If he had to say what finally exploded, Shinji would have claimed it was the creature’s own will to exist, the knowledge that it could not complete its task roaring so furiously around him. Asuka let out a scream as the shockwave hit, and Shinji bit back a curse as her full weight dropped into his arms. He managed to keep steady, to keep from jostling her, watching a plume of energy rise from the very center of the blast, twisting and spinning – the Dominion’s core glistening like a jewel as it flew up into the air.
He was staring at it, trying to think of a way to grab it without dropping Geburah, and still nearly missed the interception, the orb in the air one moment and gone the next, taken by a suit that did not pause or slow, a blur of a shape speeding away toward the city. Cate? Had to be. He’d kept a third suit, not for fighting, but just in case he needed to plunder. Shinji could track the energy trail, bright enough that the suit could pick it up, only one power source so bright – he had the other two cores with him.
//It’ll kill him, whatever he’s thinking.// The important part, though, was how many others he might hurt before that happened.
Shinji grimaced, helpless to go after him, still holding on to Asuka’s limp body. He hoped she wasn’t dead.
“... ji?! Shinji, can you hear me?” Misato’s voice, and he turned his gaze toward the ground, the monitor automatically zooming in as he squinted, finally picking out the familiar, dark-haired figure looking up at him.
Misato /was/ standing there, the screen shifting to heat-sensor as they were obscured by a few clouds of smoke – and Shinji realized that somewhere in the middle of all the fighting he’d been doing, the Dominion had managed to destroy the NERV base anyway. The building had half-collapsed, the remaining scientists and the SEELE soldiers clustered together like a flock of distressed birds along the edge of the coast. It was a near miracle that any of them had survived this – including himself.
“You have to come down, now, Shinji. The self-destruct was tripped, and a lot of the SEELE are dead, but there are some who need to talk to you.”
He heard a bit of static, and a more steady, colder voice, though not the one he had been expecting. Had the leader of SEELE died when the building went down? A self-destruct mechanism? Who had activated it?
“We have a situation, Mr. Ikari.”
He was descending as fast as he could, Asuka in his arms, and it wasn’t like he could just drop her, turn around and chase after the other suit. Did these so-called geniuses have /nothing/ in the way of a backup plan?
“I know, I know. I saw the other suit. Cate has the cores.”
Maybe they’d kill him, poison his body they way they’d tried to kill Shinji, but there would be no Kaworu to save the NERV head. The thought twisted his mouth in a very cruel smile, though all humor was lost at the man’s next words.
“Cate is dead. Misato shot and killed him in the building’s lower levels. The person in that suit is Tobias Kent.”
Shinji’s heart sank as his feet touched the ground, figures rushing up to take Asuka from him. He held on more tightly, refusing to give her up to the unknown, but suddenly Misato was there, and he let go of Asuka, reaching up to undo his own helmet, hair soaked with sweat and finger shaking and, for that moment, only able to focus on the physical. The fight had taken more out of him than he’d thought.
//What are you doing, Toby? Was this really your design, all along?//
Funny, after dealing with his father, one would think he’d have known all the facets of the quiet Machiavelli, there should have been no way to surprise him. She didn’t /seem/ like the type, how very odd...
Misato was talking to him, but Shinji hadn’t been paying attention, not until she had his face in her hands, forcing their eyes to meet.
“Shinji, are you listening? We’ve found out about the final Dominion. Cate knew who it was all along, but he knew he wouldn’t have the power to destroy it without the other three.”
He jerked away from her touch, irrational panic seizing him, sinking agonizingly familiar claws into his body. The circle of people around him moved away as he staggered back, aware of what the suit could do, though it was likely the only person he would want to destroy was himself. Misato was still talking, maybe shouting, but the sea had come up, the roar in his ears, all of this much too familiar. It was in her eyes, the terrible realization.
He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t need to because he already knew Misato was going to tell him that Kaworu was the last Dominion.
Shinji looked up, wondering just what it was about his thoughts that could summon gods and angels, that he could do anything in the world, it seemed, but find a way to be happy. The crowd had parted, his angel was standing there, Kaworu unruffled as he always was, crimson eyes smiling. Shinji remembered the words he hadn’t heard, Kaworu’s voice hovering just past the edge of his sleepy consciousness, regret and remorse and knowing secrets he couldn’t share. Had it been then, back when Shinji had killed him, or now, or both?
He wasn’t angry, at being asked to make the impossible decision twice, because now he knew enough to let the whole world hang itself. He felt a vague sense of shame and apology, cut his eyes toward Misato though her face blurred in and out as his vision dimmed. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t sacrifice for everyone else again, already knowing how much nothing he would get in return.
//Take it, Kaworu. Take it all, better destroyed by you than leaving me to endure it, and I don’t care what anyone thinks.//
Any punishment, anything was better than killing him again. Shinji kept his eyes open, limping forward before he fell, dropping into Kaworu’s smile and Kaworu’s arms and not giving a damn that it was the end of the world.
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He didn’t really faint, the world graying out and his legs crumpling underneath him, but Shinji could still hear the voices clamoring for attention – it seemed like they always had been, and might never stop – but after a moment even they faded. Utter silence, but Shinji knew he wasn’t alone, and so it was all okay. He was being held, cradled in familiar, strong arms, and Shinji tipped his head against Kaworu’s chest and breathed in. If this was the Third Impact, it was fine. It was all over, and it hadn’t even hurt much. Shinji squeezed his eyes together tight, fisting a hand in the sleeve of the angel’s shirt.
“I won’t kill you. You can’t make me.”
Childish, but true. Long fingers tangled in his hair, stroking gently, and a soft voice murmured in his ear.
“I am not the last Dominion, Shinji.”
No? Well, that probably meant he wasn’t dead and this wasn’t the Third Impact, which was sort of a shame because he still didn’t feel much like moving. Very slowly, Shinji blinked, though it was still another long moment before he felt like opening his eyes, gazing at the folds in Kaworu’s shirt as if they were holy writ, before lifting his eyes to the sweet, crimson gaze.
“I’m sorry, Shinji.” Kaworu murmured, stroking his cheek with the backs of his fingertips, “I’m afraid there is one more battle you must fight.”
He didn’t know how he knew. Some small remnant of the Dominion’s power, flaring up again with the time he’d spent exposed to Muriel. Or perhaps that connection between him and Kaworu, more intimate than any that should have been, would have been under any other circumstances. The angel wanted him to know, and so Shinji knew, and felt the worry there, the gentle anxiety - as all of Kaworu was so gentle – and he smiled, even though his heart shivered.
“Shinji?”
Misato, the only one not cowed by heaven or earth, had pushed through the crowd to kneel at his side, a hand against his cheek before she was sure he wanted to see her – she couldn’t stop herself, and there were so many emotions swirling in her eyes. Pain and anger and hate and jealousy – all those extra darknesses Kaworu did not have, but there was love there too, and worry and kindness, and none of them were diminished for her being human.
“Shinji, the scientist – Kent, Tobias Kent – she’s gone after the last Dominion, and they say you know...”
“Yes.” Shinji lifted his eyes to the sky, resolve settling down over him, quiet and sure. “Yes, I know her. It’s Vara.”