Gospel 1:15

Fuyutsuki caught the doctor just as he was stepping out of the examination room. "What is Pilot Ikari's condition?" he asked without preamble.

"Sleeping," the doctor replied. "Mental and physical exhaustion, coupled with sudden, extreme stress caused him to have a minor mental breakdown. He's been conscious three times since he was brought in and he was able to use the toilet and intake liquids on his own. He'll be suitable for release once he wakes up again."

Fuyutsuki nodded and turned to leave but the doctor held up a hand to stop him. "However, in order to ensure that he doesn't have another, potentially much more serious collapse, he'll need to spend at least another month in a calm environment and should be kept out of any further stressful situations."

"So in other words, no piloting giant robots for a while."

"Or even little ones," the doctor said with a perfectly straight face.

Fuyutsuki's expression didn't change. "I'll pass that on to the Commander."

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Maya leaned against the Melchior's raised tower, resting a moment before returning to the datapad she held in one hand. "Ready?" she asked, glancing at Suiko as she typed in a final sequence of commands.

The other woman nodded, her hands poised above the control console. Maya turned to Makoto and Shigeru and gave them the go sign.

The two of them exchanged a glance and then Makoto opened a broadcast line through the entire geofront. "Attention all personnel: all primary systems will briefly go offline in ten seconds. I repeat, all primary systems will go offline for a short time."

He and Shigeru shared another glance as they began counting down. "Five."

"Four."

"Three."

"Two."

"One."

"Initiating complete systems shutdown," they said, simultaneously inserting and twisting their I/O keys. The lights around them cut out and all the monitors in the command center went dead. For several seconds the only sound was the soft whirring as the ventilation fans wound down.

"Begin system re-initialization… now," Maya ordered as she and Suiko hit the ENTER key on their boards at the same time Makoto and Shigeru turned their keys back to I. As the lights came back on and the ventilation fans whirred back to life, Makoto peered intently at the monitor in front of him. "All primary systems are coming back online…" he began.

"All systems have been restored!" Shigeru declared triumphantly.

Maya breathed a sigh of relief. The screen on the datapad flashed, and the message appeared:

MAGI Casper... intializing

MAGI Balthasar... intializing

MAGI Melchior... intializing

Initialization successful; Beginning diagnostics...

System Integrity... Nominal

System structural components... Nominal

"All systems are up and running," Shigeru said, then gave a wolf whistle. "And once again on the big screen we are treated to the popular bathroom drama of Aoshi and Kozue."

Someone sneezed behind him and Makoto winced. "I hope that you'll like being a janitor," he said sympathetically.

Shigeru knocked his head against the console in front of him. "I gotta learn to keep by mouth shut."

"That would be... advisable," Fuyutsuki said coldly then turned to face Maya. "What data has been lost?"

Maya didn't quite meet his gaze, her eyes dodging between his chin and shoulders. "We haven't had enough time yet to determine. The directories are still compiling."

"Prepare a report to present to the Commander as soon as you know for certain."

Maya felt her stomach sink at the gaping holes appearing in the directory trees as they recompiled. "Yes sir."

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Terry rubbed his ear, which was still sore from having Misato drag him by it all the way to the parking level, and he alternated glaring at her and at the passenger seat in front of him where Asuka was sitting.

Misato was obviously in a very foul mood: she was only going fifteen kph over the speed limit, and had only been honked at for cutting another car off twice. No one spoke for several minutes as the car made its way through the streets of Tokyo-3.

It was Misato who finally broke the silence, keeping her eyes firmly in front of her as she spat each word out. "I want to know precisely what is the matter with the two of you."

"There's nothing wrong with me." Asuka declared at the same time as Terry. He caught her glare in the rear view mirror and returned it in full.

"I know that there were some problems between the two of you back in Germany, but the way that the two of you are acting is inexcusably immature and childish."

"I'm not the childish one," Terry said petulantly. "She's the one who can't get over herself. She's the one who's always spoiling to pick a fight." He punctuated each word with a kick to the back of Asuka's seat.

"Cut it out you asshole!" Asuka yelled, half turning and taking a swing at Terry, clipping Misato in the process.

"Scheisse!" she swore as Misato slammed on the brakes, hurling Asuka forward against her seatbelt. Terry would've sworn as well, except that his face was currently embedded in the back of Asuka's seat.

"I can't believe that the two of you are acting like such petty little brats!" Misato shouted. "You're Evangelion pilots. The world depends on you. We need you to work together and not waste our time with pointless fighting!"

She started driving again, ignoring the cars that honked and cut around them. "I can't believe that Section 2 found the two of you actually rolling on the floor."

Asuka crossed her arms. "He started it."

"Shut up Asuka, I don't care," Misato snapped.

Terry smirked, and Misato must have seen it in the rearview mirror because she slammed on the brakes again. "Terrence, you wipe that smile off of your face, or you'll think that what Asuka gave you before was a lovetap." She started driving again, her fingers slowly relaxing from their white-knuckle grip around the steering wheel. "Here's an idea Asuka: remember the training you and Shinji went through in order to fight the seventh angel? Well, how about I have you and Terry do that," she smiled sweetly, "for a month?"

"You wouldn't dare!" Asuka exclaimed, outraged.

"Try me," Misato said, her smile turning vicious.

Terry didn't know what she was talking about, but judging by Asuka's reaction, it wouldn't be anything that he'd like.

Misato went on. "What I want to do is lock the two of you together in a small room, but I don't think I have enough restraints lying around the apartment to keep the two of you from tearing each others' throats out. So instead I'm putting the two of you under house arrest until further notice. Neither of you will leave your apartment except for school and your duties with NERV."

"What!" Asuka and Terry both shouted. "You can't do that!"

Misato gave them a dangerously sweet smile. "I suppose there is one other option. Confine the two of you to the medical ward and subject the two of you to intesne psychotherapy until neither one of you can look at the other without declaring just how much you love them."

The protest died in Terry's throat and his jaw sagged. Asuka looked like she was about to say something, but one look from Misato made her slouch down into her seat and fume silently.

Terry glanced in the rearview mirror, expecting to see a smug look on Misato's face. Instead, her expression was as cold and as hard as ice.

And just as brittle.

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Maya shifted nervously from foot to foot. She'd thought that it would be easier to present the Commander with bad news on the upper level of the Command Center instead of in his office. However she was now belatedly realizing that he was much less intimidating to confront when his desk formed a barrier between the two of them.

"Your report on the status of the MAGI?"

Maya swallowed and tried to calm herself with thoughts of calm blue oceans. "We've managed to reduce the loss of data to eight percent, but what's left is completely unrecoverable."

"You are sure of that?"

Maya nodded. "Whoever the invaders were, they were good and they were probably working together. We've identified that the two programs they uploaded were both data spikes. One of them was fairly benign, relatively speaking. It just tied the system up while whoever the user was escaped. The other one however, was much more vicious."

Gendo steepled his fingers together impatiently. "How so?"

Maya paused in thought for a moment. "Picture the MAGI as a gigantic physical installation and the data spikes as intruders. The first one would run as fast as it could, trying to lose you off by running through room with several doors and throwing open as many as it could to confuse you. The second program, instead of running, would throw everything it could at you. If it ran into a... file room, it would start tipping over file cabinets to stop you. Trying to throw off the pursuit of our security programs the second program tore up and rearranged information directories, and by doing so wrote over and irrevocably erased certain files and data paths."

"What data has been permanently lost?"

"We don't have a complete listing of all the lost files, but the highest density of data loss occurred in the directories containing the pilot data."

For a moment there seemed to be absolute silence and Maya felt her body lock with overwhelmingly terror of what that silence portended.

"I... see," the Commander said in a voice so perfectly level that Maya flinched, sure of the coming explosion. "When will you know precisely what data has been lost?"

"F-four hours sir."

Gendo gave a single sharp nod. "I will expect to hear your report at no later than 20:30 hours. Dismissed."

Despite his words, it was the Commander who rose to his feet, rising from his seat so quickly that it almost seemed that he was propelled by a tightly wound spring. Maya's jaw dropped in surprise as he strode towards the lift and she didn't move until he'd vanished from sight, at which point her legs seemed to fall out from under her, dropping her into the chair that the Commander had so recently vacated.

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The attendant behind the desk of the geofront's vehicle park leapt to his feet, dropping a magazine onto the floor when the Commander suddenly walked into his office. "I-I'm sorry sir," he stammered, apologizing hurriedly, "no one informed me that you were coming."

"I need to requisition a vehicle," the Commander said calmly.

"Ah, what kind sir?"

"A car, unmarked, small."

"Right away sir. If you'll give me a moment I'll get a driver for you."

"That will not be necessary."

The attendant paused, his hand already resting on the telephone on his desk. "Then just allow me to alert security so that they can provide you with an escort."

"They will not be needed."

The attendant took his hand off of the phone, looking at the Commander askance. "If you insist sir." He entered a few commands into the computer on his desk then turned as the cabinet set into the wall behind him swung open and he pulled out a key. "There you are sir, your vehicle is in the civilian vehicles section, level 1-8b," he said then hesitated a moment. "I can show you the way if you want."

"That won't be necessary."

He reached for the key, taking it more roughly than was necessary and strode out of the office into the parking structure. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a security camera pan to follow him, and he stumbled as a tremor gripped him, caused by the certainty that the MAGI, that Naoko, was watching him.

He forced the uncertainty down. Naoko was well and dead: all that remained of her were the three neutered components locked away within each of the MAGI.

He found the car without trouble. It was a nondescript sub-compact and he paused a moment before sliding into the unfamiliar driver's seat. It had been a long time since he had to drive himself anywhere and he took a deep breath as he purposefully set his hands on the wheel.

At the security checkpoint the guard's jaw dropped when he say saw who was in the car and he continued to gape as he raised the gate and waved the car on to go. It wasn't until he reached the street that Gendo realized neither had bothered to check his identification. He allowed himself a small smile as he decided to let the infraction pass without reprimand, this time. Traffic on the streets was unusually light, but the car jumped as he pulled out, cutting a little too close to the curb.

His path took him across Tokyo-3 and he slowed abruptly as he passed First Tokyo-3 Junior High School. Already, all outward signs of what had happened there had been erased. Nothing remained in the parking lot of the legion of police and emergency vehicles that had so recently thronged it. The broken windows and gouged walls had already been repaired. There was nothing left about the building to suggest what had happened to it. The only sign that all was not right was the lack of light in any of the building's windows, the complete absence of students and teachers preparing for the next day of school.

He contained on past the school, stopping the car several hundred meters from the building. He got out and headed in the school's general direction but then suddenly veered off into the lush foliage that surrounded it.

The landscape around the school had been designed to wrap the grounds in an almost park-like periphery, and Gendo pushed through the bushes and trees an obvious destination in mind. He stopped in an area where most of the underbrush had been crushed and many of the surrounding trees exhibited gaping, white scars of splintered wood.

He rested his hand on one, feeling the rough splintered wood through his gloves and the thick calluses on his palms. This was where everything almost came apart, where all of his careful work had almost been brought to naught. A breeze blew through the trees and through the swaying branches he could just make out one classroom. The fading sunlight cast crazy shadows everywhere, and in them he was sure that he could almost see Rei in her seat in front of the window, Shinji and Asuka further in, other children in the classroom moving around.

He looked at the splintered gouge where his hand rested. It had been made by a 7.62mm X 51mm bullet, striking the tree just after exiting from the back of the head of Christopher Bowden, former Lieutenant in the USMC. It had been fired by Ichiro Watase, four years with Section 2, formerly a captain in the JSDF; wounded twice in the engagement.

All of this flashed through his head in the few seconds that Gendo allowed his gaze to rest on the tree. Knowledge was power and he had so much of it that at times he imagined himself near omnipotent. He thought himself, his plans, safe from almost all else and yet everything he had worked for had almost been brought to naught by someone as ultimately insignificant Christopher Bowden, former United States Marine.

His fingers tore painfully into the wood as he clenched his left hand in anger. He could not allow anything happen to alter the Scenario from its set course. Yui had set it all in motion but it was up to him to ensure that all reached its proper conclusion. Nothing could be allowed to change that, and if by doing so he set the world to burn, so be it.

He pulled his hand away from the tree and there was a tearing sound as his glove came apart, snagged by splinters of wood, several protruding from his fingers. He stared at his hand dispassionately before clenching it tightly into a fist and thrusting it into his pocket.

For a while there had been no noise except for the low rustling of the leaves, but Gendo became suddenly aware of another sound, a rhythmic thump-thump-thump followed by a whack-swish.

He looked in the direction of the setting sun and against its rays he could make out a solitary figure standing on the basketball court, shooting a ball and then waiting for it to bounce back to him. He paused in thought, watching the child for several minutes before coming to a decision. There were things that had to be done, and compared to the ends which needed to be achieved, the means were insignificant.

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Touji kicked the basketball up to his hand with his right foot as it rolled back to him, dribbled it thoughtfully a few times, then changed it to his left hand, balancing the ball in his palm. He eyed the hoop and then took a step forward, shooting it at the hoop. The ball struck the edge of the rim and rolled a few times before sliding off.

"Nuts," Touji said as the ball rolled across the court. He walked slowly after it and when he reached it, paused to look at the school. Classes were supposed to resume Monday and all of the representatives had been called in so that they could be instructed on how to deal with their classes. Hikari had asked him to come along with her, but once they'd reached the school she'd wavered and asked him to wait outside.

When they'd arrived he'd seen the work crews moving in and out of the school, but they were gone now. Bullet holes had been plastered over, broken windows replaced, stained flooring torn out. To him it seemed wrong that so much effort was being made to make everybody forget what had happened so quickly. Classes were resuming even before all the funerals could be held for the students killed. He'd tried talking about it with his parents a few times, but his mother would immediately change the subject and his father just wouldn't respond. Adults didn't seem to want to mourn anymore; it was as if they'd used up all their tears for the Second Impact.

He picked up the ball, cradling it in his left hand. He tried to line up another shot but his fingers didn't respond quickly enough and the ball slipped out of his grip. He sighed as he bent over and picked the ball up again. His new left arm didn't work quite the same way his old one had and he was having trouble getting used to the difference. No one had ever told him that these prosthetics weren't all exactly the same. Of course he hadn't been expecting to have to ever get used to another one; how could anyone have been expecting what was going to happen that day? He'd been holding his pencil in his left hand, idly doodling on his desk when there'd been noise, screams, and something tugged hard on his left arm. When he looked down the lower half of his arm was gone.

He growled in frustration as his arm again failed to obey his precise commands and the ball went high, bouncing off the top of the backboard and for a single second he wished that he still had the old one. Much more than his arm had been lost that day and he felt ashamed of himself for making such a selfish wish. One of Hikari's oldest friends had died that day and she'd cried almost non-stop for six hours. It'd been his sister who had helped her finally stop. Hikari's father had no idea how to deal with his near hysterical daughter and when he'd been called in for an emergency shift at Tokyo-03's central hospital, he'd taken her to the Suzihara residence. Touji had tried to his best to comfort her but it hadn't been until his little sister crawled into her lap and said, "Don't worry Hikari-nesan it'll be all right," that the older girl's sobs trailed off and her sniffles dried up.

His sister had seemed to mature a lot after her accident. He envied her that, that she had the empathy to know the right words to say. He sighed as he raised the ball and aimed it at the hoop. At times it felt like he was now the younger sibling. It wasn't fair that he had to rely on his little sister to comfort his girlfriend, that she could barely go an hour without crying at least a little and already adults were making her get ready to go back to school and act like nothing had happened-. "It just ain't FAIR!" he shouted, hurling the ball at the hoop with all of his might. It struck the backboard with enough force to shake the pole then fell, glancing off the rim and bouncing across the court.

"You'll find that the world seldom is, Mr. Suzihara." an even voice unexpectedly said behind him. Touji tried not to shake as he straightened and turned around. He doubted anyone in his class was taking sudden noise very well.

"Yeah, whaddya want?" he half snarled as he turned, winding up to give the speaker a serious tearing into for sneaking up on him, but when he realized who it was, it was all he could do to keep his jaw from dropping in complete shock. Of all the people he'd never expected to see on a basketball court the Commander of NERV was pretty high up the list. He'd never actually spoken with Shinji's father during the short time that he'd been a pilot and he couldn't imagine why the head of NERV was seeking him out now.

The Commander didn't leave him in suspense for long. "NERV requests that resume your duties as an Evangelion pilot."

Touji blinked. "And if I refuse?"

"Nothing."

"Okay," Touji began cockily, "then forget it." He paused and waited for the Commander to say something but the silence stretched on. "Since you're asking me, I guess you need an Eva pilot pretty badly. Since I refused, what're ya going to do now?"

"Ask the next serviceable candidate." The Commander paused a beat. "Hikari Horaki."

Touji flushed angrily. "What the hell are you trying to do, blackmail me into piloting? There's no way that you can make her a pilot. How can you even think about saying something like that? 'Sides, I bet she'd say no anyway, and even if she didn't, I bet I could convince her not to."

"Interfering with a potential candidate would not be regarded lightly Mr. Suzihara."

Touji snorted. "I don't know why you're trying to scare me. I'd sooner believe you if you told me that that Goro kid who sits three seats behind me is a 'potential candidate.'"

The Commander's gaze hardened, pinning Touji to the spot. "What I am about to tell you, you will not repeat to anyone, ever." He waited only long enough for Touji to nod before going on. "Every child in Japan with the potential to pilot an Evangelion has been gathered in your class. I did not name Miss Horaki as any sort of threat. She is a potential pilot and if she refused, then I'm sure that you would be equally familiar with whomever the next candidate was."

"So if I don't agree to pilot-"

"Then someone else you know will. I'm sure that I don't have to tell you that it has only gotten more dangerous to pilot an Evangelion. The training you have already received gives you a significant advantage over anyone else we may select, making your chances of surviving any engagement much better than those of any of the other candidates."

"So you're not giving me any choice at all, are you?"

"You have as much of a choice as any of the other candidates."

Touji fumed silently for several seconds then grabbed his left arm and with a sharp twist pulled it off. "What about this? How am I supposed to pilot when I've got a couple of bum limbs?"

"An interface has been developed that connects directly to the prosthetics nervous relays. It will actually give you a better response time than you would get with real limbs."

Touji scowled. "You knew that I'd agree, didn't you?"

"All contingencies are prepared for," the Commander said smoothly then turned and began to walk off of the court. "You will be contacted as to when you are to resume your duties," he said, then left without a further word. Touji stared after him until he was out of view, suddenly realizing that he hadn't seen or heard anyone else during the entire encounter with the Commander, nor had he heard a car. He wondered how Commander Ikari had gotten there and if convincing him to pilot again had been his only reason for coming.

Hikari timidly emerged from where she'd been watching by the entrance to the school. "What... what did he want?" she asked haltingly.

"To see if I would be an Evangelion pilot again."

"What did you say?"

He looked down at her and saw that her face had gone pale and her eyes were large. She was scared, for him. He awkwardly slipped his good arm around her shoulders. "I said that I'd think about it. Don’t worry, it'll be okay."

"That's what they said in the school, that it'll all be fine, just make sure that your classes understand that. Everything will be okay.'"

"Well, what's wrong with that?" Touji asked.

Tears began to build in her eyes and Hikari pressed her face against his shoulder. "I think they're lying."

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Fuyutsuki intercepted Gendo shortly after he returned to the geofront. "Out joyriding?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow. His other eyebrow rose upon noticing Gendo's bloodied hand.

Gendo gazed at the other man stonily, although he wasn't quite able to meet Fuyutski's eyes. "Taking care of business," he said brushing past him.

Fuyutsuki made a small noise in the back of his throat and fell in step next Gendo. "Lieutenant Ibuki has compiling the list of data loss. The most important information lost included the core data for Units 01, 02, and 06. She thinks that she might be able to rebuild the plug data for Unit 02 and 06 using the old data still loaded in the plug cores. However because of the recent alterations in the mental state of Unit 01's pilot, she's not sure that using the old data will prove feasible."

Gendo nodded once. "See that efforts to rebuild the pilot data proceed as soon as the 3^rd Child is released from the infirmary."

Fuyutsuki glanced down at the tattered and bloodstained glove over Gendo's hand. "You might want to see about going to the infirmary yourself."

The Commander pulled a bloody splinter from his palm, tossing it aside. "It is of no consequence."

The Sub-commander didn't speak for a moment, considering what to say next. "Regarding the 3^rd Child, the doctors... urge that in consideration of the pilot's mental health, he should refrain from anything as stressful as piloting for a long while."

"All that rebuilding the pilot data entails is sitting in the entry plug. If the pilot's mental state is to fragile to endure that, then he is useless to us anyway."

The corners of Fuyutsuki's mouth turned downward, but he nodded in assent. "I'll see that he begins as soon as he's released."

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Ritsuko ignored the gore that coated her arms almost to her shoulders as she wrenched a component free, then slid its replacement into position. She glanced at the diagnostics board clipped to her sleeve and then wriggled out from beneath the half attached armored plate. A tech was waiting for her, a towel held in one hand, and a cup of coffee in the other. She ignored the towel, going straight for the coffee.

"All connections show green, ready to proceed with system activation," a tech called down from the control balcony.

"Are you ready Eve?" Ritsuko whispered into her headset.

"You're going to bring my greater body back to me?" Eve's voice was filled with frantic hope.

"We're going to try," Ritsuko said, then waved to the tech on the balcony. There was a soft hum as power began to flow through the cables burrowing into the Eva. On Ritsuko's diagnostic board, systems highlighted in red slowly began to shift back to green. She highlighted the diagnostic of the hardline transmitter, noting that it was one of the first systems to come back on line. Additional data flashed across the screen as it again began to draw power. "Eve," Ritsuko said warningly.

"I'm sorry Mother," The transmitter's condition went to Standby and the infiltrating connections withdrew.

"Please Eve, you must trust me. I only do what's in your best interest."

"Yes Mother."

Ritsuko set the diagnostic board down with a weary sigh. "How are you feeling? Can you move?"

The Eva slowly pushed itself into a sitting position, its limbs trembling as if palsied. "My greater body... hurts. It's numb, I can barely feel anything, but I can see again, and I can hear."

"We'll start work on replacing what damaged components we can, tomorrow. Hopefully, what we cannot repair, you will be able to ...heal."

Eve was silent for several moments. "I hope so. Goodnight mother."

"Good night Eve," Ritsuko replied taking offer her headset and stepping wearily over to the lift. Her arm made cracking sounds when she moved them and bits of dried blood flaked off. She wrinkled her nose and made a mental note to remain conscious long enough to get a shower and a change of clothes.

No one noticed the small flicker on the diagnostic board's screen as the hard-line transmitter's condition shifted to Online.

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The lab was almost completely dark, a small glow coming from the few lights along the various bits of equipment, and dim, amber illumination coming from the tank of LCL itself. Rei shut the door softly behind her, flinching as all the eyes within the tank fastened on her at once.

She shivered violently as memories sprang forth of her immersion in an amber world, her eyes sharp whenever the pale girl in the school uniform entered. This was where she had been before thrice born, and might be born again should circumstances demand it.

The clones' eyes followed her as she moved but there was no expression on their faces, no intelligence behind their eyes. If she died now then she would be well and truly dead. Although the clones were a mirror image of her in body, because of the continual failure of the neural transfer, they possessed nothing of her mind. They held nothing of what she was, what she had become, what she was trying to make of herself. If she died again then the Rei who she was would be lost entirely and that thought scared her even more than dying itself.

Her hand was sweating, making the cover of her diary slick beneath her fingers. She sat slowly, trying not to flinch beneath the unblinking stares from the tank. Gooseflesh rose along her thighs as the chill from the floor permeated her legs, and she set the book in her lap before tucking her skirt between her legs and the cold ground.

Finally, without looking up, she opened the diary to its first page and began to read aloud. She knew that even if the clones could hear her through the glass barrier of the tank they wouldn't be able to understand her words, but just the effort of trying to impart some of bit herself to them was strangely reassuring. She knew there was no logical rationale for her actions, that nothing useful would be accomplished, but deep inside she still felt sure that by doing this, she was ensuring that some part of her would live on.

She continued to read until she caught a flicker of motion in the corner of her eye and stopped, looking up. All was still in the lab and there was no movement within the tank, but, although Rei tried to dissmiss it as trick of the light, she was sure that a look of faint curiosity lingered on the clones' faces, as if they had heard and understood her words.

Rei set her diary down and stepped over to the tank. She pressed her hand against the glass, feeling the gentle warmth of the LCL suffuse it. She closed her eyes and laid her cheek against the glass, then pressed her entire body against it, feeling the warmth of the glass in direct contrast to the chill air of the lab. At some primal level her body remembered its own time in the tank, the warm weightlessness. This had been her womb.

She opened her eyes and barely holding back a scream at the pair of crimson eyes staring into her own from scant inches away. One of the clones was pressed against the glass, its pose a mirror of her own. The rest of the clones were in motion, their limbs twitching, slowly moving towards her. They began to crowd against the glass, they're combined weight pressing against the first, deforming its features as it was crushed against the barrier.

All at once, as if they had been commanded by a single mind, the clones smiled, the pressure of the crowd behind it turning the expression of the one in front of Rei into a deranged leer. They continued to squeeze closer to the glass, and the smiles continued unabated even as blood began to leak from the first clone's eyes, ears and mouth, nor even when its empty eyes became emptier still.

Rei stumbled back as the clones continued to crush forward then turned and ran as fast as she could from the lab.

The clones' eyes moved to the floor, following the fluttering of her diary as its pages stirred in the gentle breeze of the closing door.

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Shinji kept his eyes closed as he waited for the doctor to leave the room. He'd been awake for a while, but had lain still, staring at the insides of his eyelids. The hospital room was very quiet and peaceful. He needed those right now. His hands ached, and he felt a tension between his eyes, as if there were something twisted up so tight inside his head that it was on the point of breaking.

He took a deep breath, held it, sank into the silence, and then let it out again. Each time he thought he felt the knot in his head loosen a little.

His breath hitched. Why won't they believe me? Why won't they let me stop? I hate it so much, why do they make me keep using it. Shinji's breathing began coming in short hiccups as his thoughts began to run together. I hate it I hate it, why don't they believe me, I don't wan't any more why don't they believe mewhydon'ttheybelivemewhywhywhy!

Shinji ground his teeth together, forcibly blanking his mind and again concentrating on the silence between breaths. He finally opened his eyes, averting them away from the ceiling and focusing on the wall. That was how he noticed that the screen on an unused piece of equipment come to life, a message appearing on the monitor. He blinked several times before his eyes cleared enough to read it.

Are you there, Shinji Ikari?

The message repeated itself.

Are you there, Shinji Ikari?

Shinji pushed himself upright, still staring at the monitor. He slowly walked over to it. There was a basic input pad attached to it, and with a bit of trouble he was able to enter a reply.

who are you

I am versatile. I think I would like to meet you sometime. Will you pilot again soon?

I do not understand. Do you refuse, or are you no longer able to?

I do not understand. Evangelions are not monsters.

No, you are wrong.

Shinji stared at the monitor for several seconds, then began pounding at the keypad. "Why won't you believe me?" he shouted, but nothing but gibberish appeared on the screen. In frustration he grabbed the wires leading out of the monitor's back and yanked them all out, the text on the screen dissolving. He stood there for several seconds, hissing half sobs slipping between his teeth before he cast away the wires and threw himself back down on the bed. For several minutes he tried to regain the silence between his breaths, but his mind refused to quiet, the tightness beating against his brain.

The door opened and a doctor came in, seeming slightly surprised at seeing Shinji awake. "Ah, you're conscious. If you're feeling alright you can be released now." The doctor only waited for Shinji's fractional nod, and then turned and went back out the door. Shinji turned to look at the blank monitor, wishing he knew who the other person had been, and why they didn't believe him, why nobody believed him.

And the knot in his head grew tighter still.