Rei Ayanami's heart was beating too fast, fluttering against her chest as if it was trying to escape. She closed her eyes and tried to do as Dr Akagi had instructed, breathing in, breathing out, but her racing heart would not slow, nor did the nausea in her stomach or the tightness in her chest subside. Her plug suit itched against her skin, the LCL in her lungs made her want to gag, and her entry plug felt like a sort of trap she had gotten herself caught in.

"Rei, your vital signs are fluctuating. Pull yourself together or we'll have to abort the experiment again". Dr Akagi's voice was hoarse, she could hear that even over the radio. She knew Dr Akagi was right, they had run through this many times before. She would sit in the entry plug, Unit-00 would fail to move, and there she would sit for hours while the ground crew fiddled with various system parameters in vain. Today should be no different. "We don't have time for this."

I don't want to be here anymore.

"Yes, Dr Akagi", she said. Her limbs felt unbearably heavy. She was not tired. She simply did not want to move. Or to breathe. Or to do anything at all. She let out the breath she had been holding, the bubbles rising up to the entry hatch, trapped there. There was nothing left for her to do.

"We made it to the second stage last time, could you at least try to cooperate? Just think of something comforting if the breathing exercises aren't working". Rei could hear Commander Ikari say something she did not catch. "Yes, as many times as it takes. Of course, Commander."

Rei took a deep breath and held it. The LCL would not drown her, but for a moment she allowed herself to fantasise that there had been a mistake, that her lungs were filled not with LCL but with water. The seconds trickled by, and she began to feel the urge to breathe burning in her chest. With her eyes closed, she could almost imagine her skin turning blue, her heart stopping, her skin growing cold as her short life reached a satisfying end at last. She let her breath out at last, and reluctantly took another one.

"Rei, whatever you're doing in there, keep doing it. Your pulse is dropping. Good work." Another pause. The Commander, speaking again in his rough voice. "Yes, Commander. Rei, we're going to start the experiment. Another few minutes, and you can go home. Are you ready?"

Home. I want to go home.

"Yes, Dr Akagi". There was no point in saying no. Another activation test would come along soon enough. She heard Dr Akagi sigh, then call out further orders. "Connect all main power circuits". The voice of someone Rei did not know replied. "Main power supply connected. Starting the activation system."

But you won't be able to get home by yourself, right, said the Commander's woman in that sickly sweet tone she always reserved for her. Come with me, Rei.

A low-pitched rumbling sound began to reverberate through the walls of the plug, the vibrations shuddering up through her feet into her teeth. Then, the humming of unseen electronics from Unit-00's power socket above her. A chill ran up her spine, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up, and the LCL began to feel lighter, almost but not quite like air.

I can go home by myself, so leave me alone, you old hag. She hadn't been able to keep herself from smiling as Naoko Akagi's composure slipped. It wouldn't be long now.

The voices of people Rei did not know, over the radio. Transmitting pulses, connecting circuits, meaningless words from meaningless people. Power to brachial muscles. Third stage connection. Absolute borderline. Before her eyes, her entry plug was lit up with a swirling of rainbow colours, before giving way to Unit-00's enormous field of vision.

Rei, it's not nice to call someone an old hag. You'll need a scolding from Director Ikari. Naoko san's voice was tense now, a harsh edge to it. Rei's smile had grown a little wider. Too easy.

Before her lay a vast empty chamber of bone-white, punctuated by an oasis of glass on the far wall where she could see the tiny figures of Dr Akagi and the Commander. She lifted her head, and she felt Unit-00's head lift with her. There she was, Dr Ritsuko Akagi, the woman who had killed her. The woman who had…

No, that's not right. Dr Akagi has never hurt me. These aren't my thoughts. Rei was starting to feel sick. Her head was beginning to throb, her heart racing again. They're…someone else's thoughts? Who is it? Is there someone else in here, besides me?

Who are you?

Then she felt it, a phantom sensation running all over her body, the feel of cold metal pressing against her skin. Her body suddenly felt too small. Rei felt her fists clench, felt her eyes dart around without any input from her, felt her face twisting into an expression she had never felt on it before, felt a second heart hammering in her chest alongside her own.

That's what the director says. We don't need that old hag any more.

Eyes wide. Mouth open. Fear. No, horror. Good. So very easy. So quick to break. Just one more push. So close. Free at last. Hands on her neck, squeezing until the vertebrae cracked under the pressure. The world going dark. Rei could see her now, the white giant on the cross. So close. The void in her heart singing to her, the call to answer unbearable.

Welcome home

I'm home

Rei groaned, and deep within Unit-00, an answering cry of pain, as loud as a thunderclap. She retched and vomited into the LCL, distantly hearing voices shouting and alarms going off. Her heart crashed into her ribcage over and over again, as if trying to escape, and her whole body began to shudder uncontrollably. The LCL was hot, much too hot, scalding her skin like liquid fire.

But I did not die.

Wet feet on a cold, hard floor. She stumbles across it as if she'd never walked before, but the commander is there to catch her, the LCL dripping off her, staining his gloves. He's holding her. It's the first time anyone has ever held her.

No. That's wrong. It's the second time, isn't it?

She repeats his instructions. Her name is Rei Ayanami. She is fourteen years old. The commander nods, satisfied. Without his glasses, his face seems softer, somehow, a sorrowful expression etched in the lines around his eyes and mouth.

No! The white giant, the call. I was so close. Why…?

Naoko Akagi. No, not her. Someone who looked like her. Her daughter…? Hundreds of other Reis floating in the tanks, vacant smiles, motionless. "She's usable", said the woman. "We can bring her back, over and over again."

You! Why won't you let me die?

A hot, prickling, sickening feeling, one she had never felt before, filling up the whole of her body, something she had no words for. She screamed, and Unit-00 screamed with her and staggered forwards towards the observation window, towards that disgusting woman, and they smashed their fists against it, willing it to break, willing that woman to break, willing herself to break. She began to sob, retching, shaking as her heart burst with feelings that were not hers and which she could not name, and then she heard the firing of rockets, a sudden lurch of movement, and everything went dark.

Her head struck the side of the entry plug, then she was slammed face-down into the floor of the plug, then thrown to the side, her arm cracking under the impact, glassy, razor-sharp pain like nothing she had ever known. Then hot, agonising stillness. She lay there, unable to move, the sight of the orange glass splintering burned into her memory, Commander Ikari tiny and fragile right behind it, so close she could have crushed him with her Eva's little finger.

I tried to kill Dr Akagi. I tried to kill the Commander.

The thought made her want to run, to limp away as fast as she could and find some quiet corner to die in. This is what I am for. This is why I was made. And I tried to hurt them. She was in pain, so much pain, and her breath came deep and fast, faster and faster, and Rei's skin began to prickle. If only I had died instead.

A sound from outside. Someone was forcing the hatch. Rei flinched, feeling utterly exposed, the light itself seeming to judge her. The silhouette of a man leaning over, a man she knew well. He was shouting at her, no, shouting for her.

"Rei! Are you all right? Rei!"

Commander Ikari…?

He wasn't wearing his glasses. He was not calm, composed or in control, his face twisted into an expression of pure panic. Rei raised her head to look him in the eyes, and nodded, unable to speak. His features softened, and to her astonishment, the corners of his mouth lifted in a small smile.

"Good," he said. He reached for her, gently lifting her from the pilot's seat, holding her firm against his chest, and brought her back out into the light, setting her down by the entry plug. She heard him shout for a medic, heard the sounds of doors opening and people's footsteps running towards her.

Rei felt her racing heart begin to slow at last, settling into a warm and steady beat, along with another strange sensation, a warm and ticklish feeling in her stomach. She let her head fall to one side, and her gaze fell on his glasses. They had fallen in the LCL, cracked in the heat. She reached for them, held them loosely in her grip, held them in the careful way he'd held her, and then she felt herself being lifted onto a stretcher as the last of her consciousness faded away.

“The spare is useless. We need you again, Rei.”

She had expected this might happen. “Yes, sir”.

There was no time, not for the nurses to handle her properly as they hauled her off the hospital bed, ignoring her gasps of pain, not enough time to get what was left of her plug suit on over her broken arm, not enough time for an activation test with Unit-01. Rei forced herself to keep her good eye open as the nurses rushed the gurney down the corridor, her gaze darting to and fro between the pinched, frightened faces of the men and women who were handling her.

The world is full of people who are in pain, just as I am. Her pain was not greater than theirs, these ordinary people who were placing their whole trust in her. The Commander’s words rang true. It is for them I must endure. She cried out despite herself as the gurney caught on the door to the Evangelion’s hangar bay, wishing away her trivial pain, willing herself to hold on.

But the pain would not be bargained with, seizing her entire body as she tried to sit up, and all the mantras that she had been telling herself vanished in the face of the burning aches that ran all up her body. She held still for a moment, her quivering voice betraying her, and just as she found the will to stand, the facility shook with the sound of a thunderclap, and she shrieked as she was thrown from her gurney onto the ground.

She gasped for air as if she was drowning, unable to even scream, hearing the sound of hurried feet approaching, then she felt warm hands on her back, easing her up off the ground, the pain clenching her body in its grasp once again. Whispering. Someone whispering to himself?

Her eyes opened. The boy who was holding her was whispering something to himself under his breath, over and over again, shaking slightly, his blue eyes widening in surprise as they met hers. A boy with soft, delicate features. A familiar face.

I know you, she thought, and could not explain how.

The boy lifted his head, a determined look on his face as he addressed the room. “I’ll do it! I’ll pilot the EVA!”, he cried. She saw Captain Katsuragi spring to her feet, Dr Akagi dial someone on her phone and speaking in a businesslike manner, and the boy’s newfound confidence quickly evaporating as the room adjusted to the new reality.

Almost as if they’d been expecting this very outcome.

The nurses took her away from the boy, loading her back on her gurney, and one of them handed her a cell phone as she was taken away. It was the Commander.

“Good work, Rei. My son will take things from here.”

Rei blinked. But I didn’t do anything. She wondered what to say, but he hung up before she could think of a reply. All that was left was the jarring sense of having prepared for a battle of endurance that had now mercifully been passed to someone else. And she had no idea why.

The nurses moved her slower now, lights blurring overhead, smaller tremors shaking the building now, and suddenly she realised why the boy had seemed so familiar.

Commander Ikari has a son?


* * *


It was evening, as far as Shinji could tell. The landscape beyond the hospital window was bathed in twilight, disturbed by the relentless chattering of cicadas. His arms and legs felt disconnected somehow, as if his limbs didn’t quite belong to him, and whenever he closed his eyes, he saw a green one looking back, the eye of his EVA, as it if had only then realised he was inside of it and decided it no longer needed him.

The EVA is alive, he thought with faint horror. It doesn’t even need me to move. His thoughts raced around in circles, like little ants whose nest had just been kicked over. He squeezed his fists shut, opened them again, his skin cold and clammy in the humid remnants of the day’s heat. He had stumbled, fallen, frozen like the useless, frightened child that he was.

Did Misato know that it wasn’t me? He didn’t know which was worse, the thought that they didn’t know it was the EVA that had moved that way, that they somehow believed he could repeat the performance, or that they did know, that they had in fact counted on this happening. What if the EVA didn’t move by itself next time?

This is insane, he decided. There’s no way I can… He wrapped his arms around his sides, not knowing what to do with his hands, unable to shake the sense that he’d ended up in a trap of his own making. I can’t do this again. I have to tell them they’ve made a mistake, that I can’t actually…I’m not going to be able to pilot it again! And…

A door opened at the other end of the corridor, as loud as a gunshot in the silence. Then he saw her, out of the corner of his eye, and his breath caught in his throat. It was that girl, the one his father had threatened to send out in his place, lying on the gurney being wheeled along.

She was looking at him, a ghost in the evening light, blood-red eyes focused unmistakably on him. Then she disappeared into the darkness at the end of the corridor. Shinji closed his eyes, and let out his breath in one long shaky sigh.

And if I don’t pilot again, Father will put her in danger instead of me. Her expression had been impossible to read. Is she happy that she didn’t have to pilot? Sad? Angry? There was no way to tell.

Does she even care that I saved her? He shuffled back to his hospital room and collapsed on the bed, remembering how warm she had felt to the touch, the sticky feel of her blood on his hands, her sharp cries of pain as she shook in his arms.

Do I care? Why am I still here?


* * *


“The Third Child is leaving Tokyo-3 tomorrow. You do realise that’s going to leave Unit-01 as a giant paperweight, right?”

Dr Akagi’s words were muffled by the LCL, but Rei could just about hear her voice from within the dummy plug test tube. The LCL plant above them was a mess of pipes and cables, its knots and tangles reminding her of the wrinkled surface of a brain. She could hear the sound of the pumps whooshing over and over again, like the sighs of a giant as it breathed in its sleep.

If the commander was bothered by Dr Akagi’s words in any way, Rei could not tell. His face was not visible, but from behind, his posture had not changed, his hands clasped behind his back, his voice inaudible. Dr Akagi tapped away at her tablet as she listened, her expression growing more and more concerned.

“I know, but I can’t guarantee we’ll have a viable dummy plug in time for the next angel attack”. She folded her arms and waited again, listening to more unheard words from the Commander, then her eyes widened in surprise.

“You want her in Unit-01? Don’t you think that’s risky?” Akagi glanced at Rei, then back to the Commander again, opened her mouth as if to argue, then hesitated as if thinking the better of it.

“Fine. We’ll need to begin the trials right away then. Starting with today’s test data, we can have a simulation body up and running by the end of the week…”

Rei closed her eyes and felt a heavy sense of unease settling in. So this was why they’d brought her down here. Something about Akagi’s questioning glance made Rei wonder about how this new development had come about.

Ikari, you fought bravely against the enemy. You left and you returned. Why did you leave? The thumping sound of the LCL pumps beat in time to her thoughts. Why return only to leave again?

Privately she wondered if she could really fill his role. Even if she synchronised with it somehow, Unit-01 would never move for her as it had for him. Something about Ikari had brought out a feral side to it that she had never seen before. That he was leaving now did not bode well.

“We’re going to run some preliminary tests. Rei, are you listening?” She opened her eyes, and waited for Dr Akagi’s instructions. The Commander was facing her too, now, the dim light making it impossible to see his eyes through his tinted glasses, but he smiled at her now, a small, half-hearted smile that she could not help but return, even as her skin prickled from the scanning.

She had endured many tests like this one in the run-up to the last activation experiment. Many, many times she had dreamed of disappearing, that she would survive the test of endurance that was her whole life by simply ceasing to live at all. Perhaps this was why Ikari had run away. He too must be finding this battle of endurance exceeded his capacity to cope.

But I cannot leave. Because there will always be another Rei Ayanami. Even if she died, some future her would live on to serve the scenario no matter what happened. But Ikari was free to walk away, since there was only one of him. He was not like her, he was irreplaceable. It didn’t really matter, she supposed, because on the promised day he would merge with them anyway.

He is free to go as he pleases. But she still had the Commander, still knew with certainty that his plan would bring happiness to everyone. Ikari, evidently, did not.

If I did not have the Commander, would I have chosen to live?

She did not know the answer.


* * *


There was no mistaking it. Father was smiling. With Ayanami, of all people.

He wasn’t supposed to be using the Evangelion’s cameras this way, he knew. Zoomed in this far, with the rest of the facility at normal magnification gave him the dizzying sense that he was falling into them, falling towards Father and Ayanami, but unable to reach them. Father really was the kind of man who could smile. But only she had brought out that side to him.

It was incredible how much of a difference it made. Shinji had come to think of Father’s face as being like the top of a cliff; hard, cold and rough. But now his features bore none of the rigid tension that suggested a seething contempt below the surface. He looked like a different man, one who might have said how was school, Shinji or we can’t do this without you, Shinji or whatever else he was saying to Ayanami instead of him.

Did Ayanami just…giggle? She did. And she was smiling too, a small, eager smile. She, too, looked almost like a normal girl of his age from here, not the cold, distant machine who looked right through him rather than at him when she spoke. It seemed neither Father nor Ayanami cared about anything he did for their sake, only about each other.

Shinji slumped back in the throne of his entry plug, unable to look any more as he turned off the magnification. But that made it worse, somehow, because now his mind rushed to supply the looks on the faces of the two tiny figures across the chamber from him.

The bitterness he felt inside swirled around with no place to go. Did he even have any right to be angry? Was quiet, apathetic Ayanami the kind of child that Father found pleasing? No, that couldn’t be it. She wasn’t her usual distant self around him. Each of them had a hidden side that only the other could bring out.

Was it because I didn’t want to pilot Unit-01? Suddenly, his act of defiance back then seemed unbearably childish. Ayanami had volunteered even while too injured to fight. Is that it? Is that what Father always wanted? His resentment now blossomed into shame. What must Father have thought of me?

Far below, the two tiny figures parted ways. Ayanami was alone now, her head bowed.

Then, a small movement on the monitor caught his eye. Down on the walkway, Father was looking up at him.


* * *


“I’m sorry about earlier….”

Rei turned her head. She couldn’t quite see him from where she was standing on the escalator. Ikari had been following her all day, and even after handing her the new key card he still seemed to want something from her. She cast her mind back, trying to figure out what it was he wanted forgiveness for.

“I knocked, and there was no answer, and the buzzer was broken, and I thought…I’m not the sort of person who’d…ever do such a thing…” he rambled from behind her.

Now she understood. He was referring to his theft of the Commander’s glasses from earlier. Seeing them on his face had bothered her, and she still felt bothered by it. The feeling had not gone away, living on as a kind of prickly heat in her chest, not like the warmth she had felt before, but something very uncomfortable.

“They are all I have of him. Why did you take them?”

Ikari did not reply right away. They were about halfway down the escalator. Rei’s mind had already begun to drift back to the activation test when he finally spoke again.

“Are you saying they belonged to my father? Why do you have them?”

Rei opened her mouth to speak, and then found herself saying nothing. Why did she have them? It wasn’t easy to put into words. She thought about it for a bit.

“They make me feel warm inside. Like he does. Isn’t that why you wanted them too?”

She heard a sharp intake of breath from behind her.

“Of course not! How could I feel that way about a father like him!”

It was as though some invisible force had caught her by the heart and squeezed. She turned around and looked Ikari square in the eye, her teeth clenched, her face growing hot as the defiant expression on his face melted away in the face of her gaze. She could see him clearly now, his hands balled into fists, now loosening, and his shoulders hunched in on themselves.

“Wh…what…?”, he muttered.

Before she knew it, she had struck him hard across the cheek. He yelped and shrank away from her, one hand gingerly holding his face, his eyes wide and darting around. She stared at him for a moment, then looked down at her hand, which stung a little.

Why did I do that, she wondered. All those odd things she was feeling in her body had suddenly added up to…what, exactly? Striking Ikari had been foolish. What if Unit-00 responds to me and punches the wall again? What if I disappoint the Commander?

They passed the rest of the escalator ride in silence. She did not look back as she made for the changing rooms, the world blurring by her in streaks of concrete and fluorescent light. Inside, she popped open the glasses case, just looking at them, not daring to touch them to avoid smudging the lenses.

She sighed, took another deep breath, felt all the frustrating things she had felt around Ikari…the other Ikari…fade away. There it was, that gentle warm flutter she had felt back then. The Commander’s smiling face filled her mind.

Twenty minutes later, the activation test itself proved unremarkable. She was tense, alert for any signs of whispered voices or mysterious violent urges, but none came, and when the familiar swirl of rainbow colours light up the entry plug, all she saw was what was actually in front of her.

“Borderline cleared,” came Liutenant Ibuki’s voice over the radio. “Unit-00 activated”. Rei awaited further instructions, sure that she would have to learn to move Unit-00 itself now, but none came. Instead, an alarm sounded all over the Geofront, one she could hear even from within her EVA.

It was a sound Rei knew well by now. Angel alert.


* * *


The last thing he could remember was the LCL boiling around him as he screamed for Father, for Misato, for anyone at all to get him out of there. Now, aside from the phantom pain in his chest, he was alone, in the same hospital as before, or so he thought, with the same pale evening light shining in through the windows. Then a rustle of movement to his left caught his eye, and he turned to look, seeing an unexpected but familiar figure there.

Ayanami…?

It was her. She turned her head, her expression opaque as always, the twilight giving her an otherworldly look. Shinji sat up, then regretted it immediately as he realised he was naked, grabbing the sheets in a panic and pulling them up over his body, but she didn’t seem bothered. Instead, her gaze fell on his bare chest for a few moments, and he felt his face growing hot with embarrassment.

“Ayanami, I’m glad you’re here, but please don’t stare”, he mumbled. She looked at him for a moment longer, seemingly without any real interest, and then took out a pamphlet from her dress pocket, and began to read as if he hadn’t said anything.

“Tomorrow, at 0000 hours, Operation Yashima will begin. Pilots Ikari and Ayanami will assemble at the cage at 1730 today…”

Shinji’s heart sank as she carried on. Well, now I know why she’s here. She clearly hadn’t been waiting because she was worried about him. No one was particularly concerned when he got hurt, when he ran away from home, when he returned, when he went out to fight again. No matter what I do, it doesn’t seem to make a difference to anyone.

Ayanami had finished speaking. She grabbed the food tray and shoved it at him, looking at him and waiting. He stared at the tray. The last thing he felt like doing was eating. He could see the beam heading right for him again, feel the blistering agony of being boiled alive. “Do I really have to fight it again?”, he asked, knowing already what the answer would be.

“Yes. You do”. Her blood-red gaze regarded him without a hint of expression. Shinji suppressed a shudder. There was something off about her. Something wrong, beyond mere shyness or social awkwardness.

“Ayanami, you don’t know what it’s like! You’ve never been in combat before! You don’t know how it feels to nearly die!” The words were tumbling out of him now, reckless.

“You won’t die.” She was so matter of fact about it that Shinji immediately knew who she reminded him of. Father. “Because I’ll protect you”.

He could only shake his head in disbelief. Ayanami was a thin, pale girl who looked like a stiff breeze would knock her over. That she was the one who had been assigned to protect him and not the other way around seemed utterly backwards. And she’s just accepting her fate like it’s nothing?

To his shame, he felt tears burning behind his eyes. “You could die! I could die! You’ll never be able to see Father again!” He was shaking again. How pathetic he must look right now. “Doesn’t that matter to you at all?”

Ayanami’s expression shifted ever so slightly. “It does not matter.”

“Is that the kind of person father loves?” He felt ridiculous arguing in this state, half-dressed, but now that he had started, he could hardly stop. “Someone who will throw their life away as if it’s nothing? Why would you fight for someone like that?”

It was hard to tell, but there something about the way she stood now that made him wonder if his words had finally reached her. She had slumped a little, her head bowed.

“What do you mean, the kind of person he loves?”, she asked.

Shinji blinked. Of all the answers she could have given, that one he hadn’t expected. “You said earlier you feel warm around him. I bet Father feels that way about you, too”. She was paying him her full attention now, and he was starting to feel uncomfortable. “I don’t think there’s anyone who feels that way about me.”

Rei was very quiet and very still, and did not answer him for a long time. When she spoke again, it was in a quiet, heavy voice.

“Is that why you are afraid to fight?”

He didn’t know why, but her words felt like an accusation. “If father felt like that about me, he’d want to keep me safe. And I don’t think anyone cares if I get hurt or not”.

She regarded him with a distant expression on her face. It wasn’t quite the blankness of before. “Then stay. I will fight in Unit-01 on your behalf”.

He stared dumbly at her, the significance of her words taking a moment to sink in. “Wait…Ayanami, I didn’t mean that you had to - “

She wasn’t listening, already halfway out of the door of his room, which hissed shut behind her. His anger now felt absurd, ungrateful. A shiver ran up his bare back. Why had he said all that? Because he thought she’d care? Someone was going to have to fight the angel, no matter what. Of course, if he he didn’t do it, the burden would naturally fall on her shoulders.

The clock on the wall was ticking. It was nearly five. He took one last reluctant look down at the meal tray on his lap, then forced himself to eat the dry beans and greasy egg. A strange sense of claustrophobia had set in, deep in his chest. He could see Ayanami in his mind’s eye, hauling herself off that stretcher on his very first day, shaking, coughing up blood.

I’ll protect you, she had said. But who’s going to protect her?