Chapter Twenty-Four
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-one year earlier-
Shinji barely heard the soft knock at the door, occupied with the third hour of trying to convince his body that being sick and sleeping were not mutually exclusive concepts. He was so unused to having visitors - //never, you mean// - that he thought the first knock was only his ears playing tricks, until the rap came again, a quiet yet determined sound.
Opening the door, he nearly jerked the chain right out of the wall. That he’d locked it at all was less of a safety measure than the mark of his cold-fogged brain. Shinji knew he took so many little, lazy risks, keeping his doors unlocked, walking around the city intentionally ignoring any dangers. It was half a perverse sort of pride, or perhaps shame, as if surviving his time in the Eva had not been the way things should have gone. Or just his body acting out what the rest of him knew was true, familiar with the concept of his general worthlessness.
He stared at the face on the other side, recognizing it, though his brain was loathe to provide any sort of name. He decided to wait, sure it wouldn’t take more than a few moments – and by then it seemed just as dumb to break the silence as wait it out.
“Shinji? I thought I’d come by to see how you were feeling.”
“V-vara?” Her voice had broken through his daze, though it only made him more confused – what was she doing here? He didn’t know a soul in this city, and the thought that anyone would care about him, even the simple concern of a co-worker, would have left him feeling dull-witted even if he hadn’t been ill.
“May I come in?”
“Of course, of course...”
He shut the door just long enough to slide the chain free, glancing back in worry at his small apartment, even the small, quick turn enough to leave his head spinning. Not that he’d had anything to worry about - he actually needed to have possessions before he could worry about clutter.
“I... uh,” Shinji muttered, opening the door, not even sure what time it was. “I hope you weren’t,” he struggled hard for the English word, forcing his brain to relent, “inconvenienced?”
He was surprised when she laughed.
“You’re so nervous. I hope you don’t think I’m just making sure you’re actually ill.”
Vara stepped into his apartment, graceful despite her care, one hand outstretched while the other held a bright bouquet of bellflowers. Shinji swore he could taste the flowers better than he could smell them, his whole head stuffed up but a strange perfume curling on the back of his tongue anyway.
“You sound just as bad as you did over the phone,” she chided, and moved her free hand to brush against his arm, up to his shoulder, reaching out to press palm-first against his cheek and forehead. He hadn’t realized how hot he felt until he had something to compare it to.
“You have a fever.”
“I took some medicine.” It was supposed to – according to the drawings on the packaging – kick his cold down the stairs and then beat it into submission with a broken bottle. Shinji still felt like the one who had been punched around, and shivered a little, pushing the door closed as Vara carefully stepped into the room.
“So... uh...” It wasn’t all the fault of his illness, that he really didn’t know what to say to her. It wasn’t like he’d ever made small talk at NERV, or had spoken to anyone after, right up until he’d taken the job at the flower shop – and that hadn’t been so very long ago.
“If you’ll show me to your kitchen, I’ll make you some hot tea.” Shinji knew he should have politely declined, but his throat hurt and he hadn’t had the strength or focus needed to manage the kitchen by himself. Was it proper for one’s boss to do such a thing?
//Proper? You were absorbed by a gargantuan fighting machine who was also your mother. Sort of.// Shinji pushed the thought away, definitely not wanting to think about NERV, not now.
“Thank you.”
At least he could be that polite, and Shinji guided her to the kitchen, managing to find all the ingredients and utensils, setting them out in a careful row until Vara batted at his hands, demanding he go rest. A half-hour ago, Shinji would have thought that impossible, tossing and turning with no hope of sleep. The simple exertion of getting to the door, though, made just sitting on his couch now seem like a wonderful idea.
More than that, it was the simple comfort of not being alone. Shinji listened to the clink of glassware, the rattle of the teapot like fine music. Funny how something could be so comforting, when he’d never really heard it before – Asuka and Misato didn’t exactly ‘putter,’ more likely to be yelling at each other or at him. He’d lost them all, one by one, and though he knew the gradual losses weren’t supposed to hurt as badly, the silence they’d left in their wake had always been deafening. Kaworu’s final strike had...
//Stop it. Not when you’re sick, there’s no point.//
He could feel his chest and throat tightening painfully, emotions usually kept in some sort of check now taking advantage of his sickness.
“Here we are. I added some honey, it should help.”
Vara held the cup out in a general sort of spot, close to wherever he might be seated, and Shinji murmured his thanks, noticing she hadn’t made a cup for herself.
He couldn’t really taste the flavor of whatever she’d handed him, just the edge of sweetness, the hot liquid still quite nice on his raw throat. Vara sat down on the couch next to him, dark glasses hiding eyes that couldn’t see him anyway. He wondered if they were the reason he could never quite tell her age, Vara seeming strangely old though she didn’t look more than thirty, perhaps not even Misato’s age.
“So, where were you in Japan, before you moved here?”
“Uh...” Lie. /Lie./ “The city.”
“Did you like it?”
“No, not really.” Shinji took another sip of tea, breathing in the steam.
“Were you alone?”
Thank god she was blind, and that his voice was rough enough from the cold, that she couldn’t see how hard that question had hit him. It was just the damn cold pushing his emotions to the surface – he really did need to get out more often, maybe bring the cello...
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Lost in his own sorrow, Shinji realized he’d forgotten to answer her, and since she couldn’t see his expression she probably assumed she’d offended him.
“No, I just... don’t have many happy memories.” Along with the way thinking of the past led to thinking of the future, and realizing how little seemed likely to change. He nearly startled, when she reached out, clasping her hand gently on his arm.
“I think that will change. The wisteria was so beautiful, the day you came in. A good sign.”
Shinji was glad he didn’t have to fake his smile, or the way it changed his tone. “I’m sure it will be. I mean, that it was... I mean...” He stifled a sudden yawn, surprised when the ache in his throat didn’t immediately flare up. “I think the tea helped.”
Vara giggled, and he stared at her in confusion.
“You don’t expect the best from anyone, do you Shinji?”
“... what?” The question was startling, not on its own, but the way she asked, her tone and strange, sudden inquiry reminding him altogether too much of... Kaworu. God, how it hurt to just think his name.
“I was teasing you. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at it.” Vara sighed, and slowly stood up. “If you’d like me to stay for a while, I’m sure Brigid can handle the shop. It’s been a rather slow day.”
Shinji wasn’t so naive, to know /that/ was certainly not what a boss usually did, but his slight protests were met only by the sound of Vara moving away, carefully making her way back to the kitchen with the empty cup she’d somehow taken from his hand. He stared dumbly at his fingers for a moment, as if they’d betrayed him somehow, listening to the slow, soft shuffling of Vara moving around the kitchen. Shinji wondered muzzily how she would find her way around, and then realized it was perfectly possible to stand in the center of the room and touch both walls without even stretching. All his cabinets and cupboards were mostly bare, she could put anything anywhere and not have it be out of place.
He leaned back against the couch, and found it so comfortable it was quite easy to bring his legs up as well, tucking himself into a loose curl. Strangely, whenever he wasn’t feeling quite right, the couch was more comfortable than a bed. Perhaps the oddity of it, better than his usual, lonely routines. Or that even in sleep, he knew the difference, knew there was no chance he might wake up under familiar lights from the distant past, with an orderly as featureless as the white walls of the room. Bringing a report in from the Eva, telling him about all the glorious nothing he’d accomplished, or another order from his father, reminding him that survival was not all that much to be proud of.
//... but sometimes Misato was there. Or Rei.//
It hadn’t been all bad, not every time. Even in his considerably stupid life, there had been a few moments of hope. Kaworu. Kaworu, who he’d killed, but even in his fevered recollections, Shinji didn’t think the angel blamed him for it. Kaworu, always smiling, and he’d rather have known – yes, it was worth having to be his murderer, to bear the loss, to have known him.
//I just didn’t know... I didn’t know loneliness could go on and on. I thought...//
He’d thought he’d be dead by now, that SEELE or NERV or someone with a grudge or some /thing/ with a grudge would have finished it all. It seemed so impossible, that the whole world had just snapped back to normal, that all there was to move would be lurching toward Third Impact just to grind to a halt. Especially because of him, because of a choice that wasn’t really a choice – hell, when had he ever truly chosen...
A cool hand brushed at his cheek, and it was then that Shinji realized he was crying. Drifting, he’d been drifting away and couldn’t quite figure out who was there with him now. It ought to have been quite alarming, but there was something wonderfully familiar about the touch, the murmur that spoke to him, though he couldn’t make out the words. Calm and gentle, far beyond the reach of all the fears and doubts that plagued him. Shinji snuggled into that embrace, wondering when he’d come to lay with his head in the stranger’s lap, one hand gently stroking his hair. Half-certain it was dream, nothing so sweet had ever been true in his real life.
He was aware, vaguely, of another sound in the air, replacing the soft murmuring of words. Singing, or humming, a soft tune that was at once simple and breathtakingly well. Shinji knew he knew it, but for the moment the name of it and the meaning lay past his reach.
//The roar of the ocean, and he’d picked a melody out of the constant echo of the waves on the shore. He’d looked up...//
Shinji could play the melody well enough, and had spent a great deal of time once, looking up variations on the duet. He still had some of the sheet music, though there was no one left to play it with.
The hand continued its gentle caress, the song lulling him to sleep as his fever seemed to drain away. It made him think of Kaworu, though he wasn’t sure why.
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Shinji had forgotten about that day, sick as he’d been, and when he’d woken up Vara had been gone and he hadn’t been sure she’d ever been there at all, too nervous to mention it when he’d finally come back to work. Now he knew, though, that she had been there. Had sat with him, looked after him, with a thousand opportunities to take advantage of his vulnerability, just as Kaworu had – and she had done nothing.
//Why, Vara? Why you? Why do I always have to meet my enemies as friends first?//
Enemies as friends, while the people he was supposed to rely on couldn’t care less if he lived or died.
The wind was a solid force pushing back against him as he screamed through the skies, pushing Tiphereth for all it would give him. It had been a chaos at what remained of NERV headquarters, and Shinji had known there was no time to wait. No time to listen to them argue about what ought be done, when none of them really understood. As if he could even put it into words, the gut feeling, that he already knew what had to be done.
Kaworu had only looked at him, when he’d taken his first step to this, and smiled, and Shinji realized how often that smile had been in apology, for what the angel had known would come to pass. The regret wasn’t necessary, not anymore – even if Kaworu had known about Vara, Shinji had come to terms with the game being played around him, the rules he could not begin to divine. As long as Kaworu waited for him at the end of it, he would take the rest as it came.
He’d cut off communication with anyone who might try – this wasn’t their fight anymore, and he didn’t want them following him. Shinji knew exactly where he was going anyway, even when Toby’s trail blurred or faded in his sights. He accessed a few of the suit’s maps for help only when he reached the edge of the city, since he’d never actually flown to work before.
A cloudy dawn, the edge of the sun’s light unable to lift the thick blanket of clouds pressing down on the city. Still too early for anyone to be on the street, though Shinji knew the shop would just be starting to open, everyone inside preparing for the day ahead.
//You knew, Zadkiel.// If Kaworu knew, there was no reason to think she wouldn’t have. //You always knew it would come to this. Why pretend for so long?//
Shinji dropped down to the street in front of the flower shop, no time to care who saw, though there was no one else around, the whole area silent and still. The only sign that anything was wrong, that this would be a day – perhaps the last day – to remember, was the way the shop’s front door had been smashed, the glass splintered into opacity, and the handle ripped free, laying in a pile of crushed glass on the sidewalk, a few feet away.
Who was going to die today? How many?
Shinji swallowed hard, and pulled the door open by the edge of the frame, slowly stepping inside.
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The flash came as soon as he was able to see the room, nearly enough to knock his suit offline. Shinji stood his ground, muscles tensed as if he’d been shot – but it had not been an attack, simply the display trying to make sense, acclimate itself to the overwhelming power in front of him.
Toby, with both arms outstretched, though when she saw who it was, she quickly dropped the arm she’d raised toward him, powering down the auxiliary weapon.
“Shinji... what are you... how...?” Surprise quickly turned to something like pride. “Shinji, she’s the last. The last of them. I found her. I’m going to kill her, and it will be all right.”
Toby was barely on her feet, and Shinji knew what it must have felt like, the violent chill behind her trembling gasps for air, the distance between thought and action, as if she was being pulled further and further away from her body, pulled apart – and her eyes were glazed, barely focused, the expression on her face strained and cracking at the edges. The suit glowed and pulsed with a sickly light, her other hand trained on Vara, who stood motionless but calm at the other side of the room, glare of the light reflected in her dark glasses. The case behind her looking almost painted-on, a backdrop of laurel and white chrysanthemums.
“Blind, when you see so well?”
Shinji spoke softly, ignoring Toby’s confused look, as Vara smiled, and slowly removed her glasses. Of course her eyes were red, soft and pale as the underside of roses.
“Why? Why bother to be kind, Zadkiel?”
Shinji’s stomach dropped with a sickening thud, at the soft gasp that came before Vara could answer. He finally saw Ben and Brigid pressed against the far wall, his arm around her shoulders, the both of them wide-eyed and frozen. How long had Toby been here? What could the Dominion cores do to them, if they were exposed for too long?
“I’m going to save you, Shinji.” Toby tried to smile, but it twisted too awkwardly. “I’m going to destroy her, and everything will be all right.”
Of course, if she let loose with such a blast in this area, she was likely to kill all of them as well – and Shinji remembered too well how little his own attempt to harness the Dominions’ power had impressed them.
“It will kill you, Toby. The suit, it’s not...”
“I know.” Her voice cracked on the word, trembling with what he realized was pain, not chill. The suit was unfinished, a grotesque, flayed form when stretched over a human body, and Shinji could only imagine how little protection it provided from the Cores. He’d only held one, and even in that short time it had been a nightmare – and Kaworu had said his transformation was the result of his training, his time in the Eva. What must it be doing to her?
“It’s all right, Shinji. I chose this. I chose this when I let my brother die alone. When I would have let you-” She smiled, such pain in it. “I’ve always been a coward, you know.”
“Shinji...” Brigid finally whispered, staring at him in shock. He hoped his voice was familiar enough for them to believe it, looking to Ben.
“Get her out of here. Run. Go now!!!”
Shinji would never consider the man at all slow or dull again, as Ben all but took Brigid under his arm and lunged for the door, out of sight in moments and hopefully still running, though if Toby still went through with her plan, if he couldn’t convince her...
“I wanted to know.” Vara finally spoke, soft and gentle as ever, in that strange way angels had, threats nothing but a word with little meaning. “I wanted to know Tabris’ decision as my own, to see why he chose you.”
“By trying to kill us all?” Toby laughed bitterly, but Vara never took her eyes off him, and Shinji already knew it wasn’t so simple as that, even if he’d lived in the truth for years and still couldn’t make sense of it.
“There were easier ways of keeping your disguise, than hiding your eyes. Why pretend?” Strange, how Toby’s presence meant less and less to him, the very real danger of the weapon in her hands almost inconsequential against finding out more about the leader of the Dominions. He had spent far too much time among angels.
“Curiosity. I had so little time. I wanted to see how you treated the vulnerable among you. Just what kind of creation had usurped us in His eyes.”
“What have you learned?”
Vara only smiled. Shinji knew that smile all too well.
“You don’t have to do this, Vara. You don’t have to.”
“Enough.” Toby snarled, driven to the edge of stamina and sanity, clinging with all she had to her plan, what she believed was her last remaining chance at absolution.
Shinji took a step forward, unsure of what he could do to stop her but knowing he had to, realizing as Vara made her own move that it was too late for that. The Dominion had only been waiting for him to arrive. The glow in the room flared brilliantly once more, enough that his vision crackled static at the edges – and he realized that one small blast from her cannon was no longer his greatest problem. Toby had meant to fire, that much seemed obvious, but the cannon did not activate, the suit refusing to respond. She gasped, her voice tightened to a knife’s edge, the whimper of a terrified child.
Vara tipped her head slightly, still staring at him with the faintest hint of wistful sadness.
“Goodbye, Shinji. Tell Tabris I understand now, at least a little.”
Toby’s eyes rolled toward him, the rest of her body still posed, though he could see her straining against it. Increasingly panicked, fighting against the suit that was no longer under her control. “Shinji... I can’t... I can’t move. I can’t...”
“Vara!!!”
Shinji screamed, already knowing that it was too late, that when he’d first stepped into the shop, first seen the sign it had already been too late. Listened to the wet, sickening sound as Vara stepped forward, and impaled herself on Toby’s extended arm, forcing the suit to reach inside, twist and snap and pull the last Core from inside of her.
Still looking at him, still smiling, and though Shinji had seen death replace life, seen the light fall from Asuka’s eyes as she dropped into madness, nothing about Zadkiel seemed to fade. Nothing but contentment and an ease past all human understanding, even as her limbs went slack, head dropping as she slid off of the suit’s outstretched limb, and slumped to the floor.
Toby screamed, frozen now in a rictus of agony, and Shinji could see nothing in his display but was sure if he took the helmet off that his eyes would likely burn right out of his head. He lunged forward blindly to grab for her, the shock of touching her, the familiar burn of angelic power sucking all the breath from his body.
“I can’t stop it!” Terrified words, her voice high pitched and hysterical, gasping between cries of pain. “Shinji, I can’t... oh God, oh God, it’s overloading! It’s going to - the cores, they’re... I can’t stop... Shinji!!!”
He had both arms around her, using every bit of the suit’s power to drag them both backward, igniting his thrusters and ignoring the door in exchange for blasting right through it. Any remaining glass shattered in his wake as Shinji twisted his body hard into the sharp vertical – no time to slow down, or think - and shot straight up into the sky.
He could feel the cold power all through his body, numbing him, perhaps even eating away at him as it had before, the power of four Cores going into self-destruct on Vara’s order. A gift, her gift to him, that at the end of this there would be no future power left for anyone to seek, no Adam or Lilith and now no Cores – but Shinji remembered what the harnessed power of one Core had been capable of. If four of them self-destructed at once, was there even a safe enough distance he could reach?
Nothing to do but try, the city already a fading blur beneath him, disappearing entirely as they rose up into the clouds, a gray and white space of shadows that quickly broke into a perfect, bright blue sky, most likely the last day he was ever going to see.
//God, I’m tired.//
“Shinji...” Toby shuddered in his arms, hands twisting into claws, helpless to act as the Cores burned through her. She was looking up at him, tears in her eyes, terror and pain and despair. “I can’t, Shinji. I can’t...”
“Hold on, Toby. Hold on, it’s almost over.”
In a few more minutes, the air would be too thin, and at least her suffering would be over, she wouldn’t have to face the end. A mercy the scientist probably didn’t think she deserved, and Shinji’s heart twisted – even now, when he could barely feel it beating in his chest – at how much pain there was, how much suffering and sorrow in the world. The Third Impact had not been the right solution – far from it – but Shinji could understand why so many people had been so determined to try. How the pain of losing – the way his father had lost his mother – or of failing – the way Asuka had lost her ability to pilot – or shame, Toby’s shame, could make even the destruction of the world seem small.
“Sorry, Shinji. I failed. I didn’t... but I always - so sorry, I...”
He could hear each breath, more laborious than the last, and the suit screaming warnings in his ear as even his own breaths grew short, enough oxygen to keep him stable but the power of the cores still growing. Shinji dropped his head down, as close as he could get, thinking he understood just a little now, just as Vara had said, why Kaworu had made his choice. Toby was so bright in his arms it was difficult to see anything left of her, the rising power of the cores lighting her up like a star.
“You helped build the suit that saved the world. You’ve done enough... and I forgive you.”
It wasn’t more than a few moments later, that he felt her go limp against him, only his own body trembling, pushing against the atmosphere as Tiphereth continued its climb, the blue of the atmosphere fading, paler and paler, lifting into that hazy horizon between the sky and the darkness beyond. Bright pinpoints of light, the heavens dancing in front of him - or perhaps that was only in his vision, various systems sending up warnings upon warnings and his visor threatening to shut down altogether. It couldn’t be long now, he could feel nothing, not even the push of his thrusters, though Shinji knew he was pointed straight up, moving faster and faster as the atmosphere decreased, the curve of the world barely a blurred smear at the corner of his eye. Could he even survive in space? Shinji doubted it, but it might be far enough, might be enough...
He shut his eyes, or thought he did, the light so all-encompassing he could barely make sense of having a body.
//Kaworu... Kaworu, I’m sorry.//
The end itself came without warning, abrupt but surprisingly quiet. Shinji could feel it, the last second stretching into endless time, all that remained of his consciousness falling beneath the surface, slipping effortlessly into the impossible power of the Cores. The thrusters died, and he floated, weightless, suspended in pure silence. No alarms, suit gone, the world gone.
Shinji was startled then, to take another breath, feeling warm arms encircle him, and a contented voice murmured in his ear. He should have known.
“What are you sorry for?”
Shinji smiled. The Cores ruptured, and detonated, filling all there was in the universe with perfect light.