Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Shin Seiki Evangelion: War of the Apocalypse ❯ The Rise of the Fallen ( Chapter 1 )

Shin Seiki Evangelion: War of the Apocalypse

Fanfic written by otakufan

STORY SUMMERY: The Third Impact has come and gone and mankind still remains. NERV has reformed under the leadership of the Ikaris. But the death of Lilith is not the end, for the Angels were reborn as well, bearing the form of the Lilim. And through it all, SEELE plots its revenge. SEELE wages a war of attrition upon NERV, but, even if NERV wins, can the Fourth Impact, the Apocalypse that even SEELE fears, truly be avoided?

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Shin Seiki (Neon Genesis) Evangelion or any of the characters originally from it v_v. But if I write this well enough, maybe GAINAX will be willing to sell ^_^ . . . probably not v_v. And God have mercy if I ever get an Evangelion of my own ~_^.

WARNING: Contains SPOILERS. Do NOT read this fanfic unless you have seen The End of Evangelion.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The first two or three chapters (I'm not sure how many yet) take place just after the Third Impact. After that, the story will skip ahead about a year and go on from there. I would also like to point out that this is my first fanfic ever, so I would love to get lots of reviews to see how I'm doing.

CHAPTER I: The Rise of the Fallen.

Ikari Shinji sat on the earth, kneeling over the still form of Sohryu Asuka Langley, his hands clasped firmly around her neck. His thumbs pressed deep into her throat, just above the collar of her scarlet plug suit. He did not want to kill her, but nonetheless he could not release his grip. Shinji had to be sure that this was real, for he had seen the hellish heaven that would have been created had Lilith's will gone unchecked. Maybe it had been created, he could not tell. That was why he couldn't let go. In the wonderful nightmare Shinji had seen, no one could feel pain of any kind, so inwardly he begged Asuka to respond, to make him feel the full weight of the guilt that would result from nearly killing her. It was the worst kind of pain he could suffer, the Third Impact having driven him beyond experiencing physical pain, at least temporarily. Shinji's grip tightened. It was the only way to be sure. He had to kill the girl he had both loved and hated since their first meeting.

Please Asuka, Shinji said to himself one last time, show me that I'm not still living in a dream.

Then, without changing the empty expression on her face, Asuka raised her right hand and touched the face of the only person to be offered the chance to become God. For a brief moment, as his hands fell limp to his sides, Shinji wondered why he had refused and then, with a faint grin on his face, he rose away from Asuka, wrapped his arms around his knees, and began to cry.

"Disgusting," said Asuka, her voice barely audible, and, through his tears, Shinji smiled.

Tears flowing freely from his eyes, Shinji looked out into the enormous crater that was once home to the city of Tokyo-3. The crater was filled with a pale yellow liquid . . . LCL, Shinji reminded himself. While a large portion of the city had been destroyed by the self-destruction of Eva Unit-00, more than half of what had remained was destroyed when Lilith's Egg, the Geofront that held NERV Headquarters, had ripped itself from the ground beneath the city only an hour or so before. A few buildings still stood upon the outer rim of the crater, but the most striking landmarks were the newest.

Rising from the center of the lake of LCL were nine gargantuan lances, each as long as an aircraft carrier, and impaled upon each was the massive form of an Evangelion. Shinji could not help but feel happy at the gruesome fate of the Eva Series, for the only reason that they had existed was to act as a catalyst for the Third Impact. But Shinji hated them even more for what they had done to Asuka. Although he had not been there to see it, Shinji knew of the pain she had suffered, as Eva Unit-02 was torn apart by the nine demons, with Asuka still inside and fully linked to the dying beast.

Tearing his eyes from the devilish Evas, Shinji caught sight of the colossal body of Lilith and felt grief swell within his chest. The rapidly decaying Angel glowed with a pale light, making its body even more beautiful, but Shinji's eyes were drawn to the Angel's face. He swallowed hard as her stared at the likeness of the First Child, recalling the events that occurred as Ayanami Rei, the former pilot of Eva Unit-00, merged with the embryonic Angel Adam and then with Lilith herself. Shinji cried more heavily as he watched Lilith take Rei's form in his mind and he silently wondered if he would ever see Rei again.

Through his tears, Shinji gave a small laugh as he realized just how strange it felt to remember events at which he had not been present. It wasn't too surprising though. During his brief contact with Lilith's mind, Shinji had seen, quite clearly, into the minds of every living creature that had ever walked the Earth. The clarity and most of the memories had disappeared when he had broken the contact, killing Lilith, but Shinji had managed to retain some fragmented memories from those who were important to him. Not that they made any sense, out of context.

Finally, the day's events catching up to him at last, Shinji closed his eyes and began to slip into a deep, dreamless sleep. His last thought before the welcome darkness took him was directed at a faint light in the sky.

Goodbye, Mother.

* * *

Many kilometers above the surface of the Earth, Shinji's last wakeful thought entered the mind of Eva Unit-01. Had the creature been able to cry, it would have done so.

Goodbye, Shinji-kun, it said to itself.

Unexpectedly, a slight wave of pressure hit the Eva and, without warning, its vision began to blur. The Eva felt an odd ripping sensation and, when her vision cleared, she looked down to examine her body, only to gasp aloud as she did so. Instead of the purple armor plated on top of hard black muscle that she was used to seeing, she found her body to be made of soft, pale flesh. Looking around she found herself seating in a cockpit-style pilot's seat, which in turn was floating in the long metal tube she recognized as an entry plug. And then, she remembered who she was.

With a scream, she forced Unit-01's hand to take hold of the two-pronged lance that had been floating in front of it, not an easy thing to do without a neural interface headset. Twisting the Eva's body around, she activated the jets on its shoulder armor, causing the beast to begin falling back towards the Earth. Then, suddenly, she felt her consciousness begin to slip away from her.

Damn it, this isn't good, she said to herself. If I lose consciousness, there's no way I'll survive impact. She groaned, fighting the weariness, and screamed her son's name.

"SHINJI!!!"

As she fell out of conscious thought, she vaguely felt something familiar come alive around her. She closed her eyes and smiled.

"I'll leave it to you, Eva," she said as she fell asleep. And, unbeknownst to her, Eva Unit-01's eyes began to glow white.

* * *

Asuka lay silently for several minutes listening to Shinji snoring. She remembered perfectly how painful it had been when Shinji was strangling her, but oddly couldn't bring herself to be angry with him over it. At the time, she had wanted to die again; her death at the hands of the Eva Series had left her numb of body and soul. Strangely, the more Shinji's hands squeezed her throat, the more Asuka recovered her will to live. In the end, as she felt his grip tighten for a final effort, she lifted her hand to his face, though it took all the strength she could muster. It was all she could do to thank him for saving her life.

Looking back on it now, Asuka realized how close Shinji had come to killing her. But he had stopped at her touch and that told her that the boy hadn't wanted to harm her, but had to for some reason. Asuka smiled. It was true that Shinji had saved her life, but maybe, in doing so, she had also saved his.

Groaning, Asuka sat up to take in the view of the crater that was once her home. It was a strangely beautiful sight, the sky crimson in color, though it was beginning to fade back to blue upon the horizon. She glanced at the Eva Series, shuddering as she remembered the pain they had inflicted on her. Of course, she had done a lot of damage to them beforehand, but Asuka severely doubted that the demons could feel pain, so sympathy was absent.

Asuka looked away, her eyes involuntarily moving to the enormous face of Ayanami Rei.

At least Wondergirl is finally gone, she said to herself, suddenly unsure of whether or not she was happy at Rei's death. She had truly hated what the First Child was, but she wasn't sure that she hated Rei herself. It was just that Rei's attitude had always reminded Asuka of a doll, and dolls reminded her of her mother. Asuka winced as the memories came flooding back.

~ ~ ~

A young woman sat in a hospital bed, holding a rag doll in her arms as lovingly as if it were her own child. A three-year-old Asuka stood at the window outside in the corridor, wincing as she was pointed to and referred to as "That girl over there" by her own mother, who was deep in a motherly conversation with the doll.

The memory shifted to a seven-year-old Asuka running down that same corridor, with an excited look on her face. She wanted so badly to tell her mother that she would be the pilot of Eva Unit-02, which her mother had worked on until the accident that had taken her sanity.

The young Asuka flung open the door, a wide smile on her face. But the smile quickly faded as she took in the sight. Hanging from the ceiling by a rope made of bed sheets was the limp body of Sohryu Kyoko Zeppelin. Lying on the floor, next to an overturned chair, was the rag doll, its head torn from its body.

~ ~ ~

Asuka forced herself to suppress the tears she felt coming to her eyes. The last time those memories had come to her, she had been laying naked in a bathtub somewhere in Tokyo-2, covered in filth, hungry, and all but ready to kill herself, the eventual result of a brutal mind-rape by the fifteenth Angel. NERV personnel had arrived a moment later and returned her to the hospital in NERV Headquarters, where she had remained barely conscious for the past three days.

Forcing the unpleasant memories aside, Asuka turned back to the lake of yellow liquid. It smells like LCL, she said to herself. Suddenly, her eyes caught a glimpse of movement and, looking over, Asuka caught sight of her classmate, and best friend, Horaki Hikari. The girl was pulling herself out of the lake of LCL, a familiar penguin held tightly in her arms.

"Hey, Hikari-chan!" Asuka yelled, trying to get her attention.

Hikari looked up, gave a wave of her hand, and started in Asuka's direction. It took her a few minutes; Pen-Pen had begun to struggle as soon as he saw Asuka and, when Hikari set him down, he followed cautiously behind her. Asuka smiled as her friend, still wearing her school seifuku, sat down next to her and pulled Pen-Pen into her lap. Asuka shot the bird an evil look and grinned as it began to squirm. For a moment, Hikari glared angrily at her, but began to giggle as Pen-Pen jumped out of her arms and waddled away to hide behind a rock. Before they knew it, both girls were laughing aloud.

As their laughter died away, Asuka and Hikari began to talk as only two teenage girls can. At some point, the conversation turned to their families and, before long, Asuka found herself confiding in Hikari the horrors of her past, things that only Katsuragi Misato, Asuka's father, her step-mother, and Asuka herself knew. When she had finished, and after Hikari promised to never tell anyone, Asuka found herself feeling better than she had in a week.

After a few more minutes, their conversation turned to boys.

"So, Hikari-kun, have you gotten over that baka Suzuhara yet?" asked Asuka. From the amount of blushing that came to Hikari's face, Asuka concluded that, if anything, the girl's love for Suzuhara Toji had grown. She sighed and said, "God. Hikari-kun, why do you waste your time with him?"

Hikari blushed a deeper red, but managed to catch Asuka off guard.

"Well, who do you like, Asuka?!"

"Huh?!"

"And don't say Kaji-sama."

Asuka flinched slightly as Hikari mentioned the name of her long-time crush, despite the fact that he had been more than twice her age. Again, Asuka forced her tears from her eyes. Hikari couldn't have known, but Kaji Ryoji had been killed over a week before. Asuka hadn't received anything to confirm his murder, but he had left a message on Misato's answering machine that all but said that he knew he was going to his death.

In an effort to keep Hikari from noticing her inner grief, Asuka forced her thoughts of Kaji from her mind by actually considering Hikari's question. Asuka's face quickly grew warm as she made a mental list and started crossing off names. And then, she found she was done.

"Mein Gott."

"Who is it, Asuka?"

Asuka ignored Hikari, running through her list again. She came to the same conclusion, which caused her to blush redder than Hikari had earlier.

"Who is it, Asuka?!"

"Mein Gott, nein!! Not him!!"

"Asuka, I told you that I like Toji-kun, so it's only fair that you tell me!"

"Well, . . ."

"Come on, Asuka."

"I guess . . ."

"You can tell me!"

"It'd have . . . to be . . ."

"Say it!!"

"HEY, SHINJI!!!" a familiar voice yelled out, just as Asuka opened her mouth again.

Hikari and Asuka looked up and tried to find the source of the voice, their conversation forgotten, much to Asuka's relief.

"ASUKA-KUN! HIKARI-CHAN!" a second voice yelled, as Asuka spotted the flailing figures about fifty meters out in the lake.

"TOJI-KUN?!" Hikari yelled, recognizing the voice of her unofficial boyfriend.

"WOULD YOU THREE MIND GIVING US A HAND?! WE'RE HAVING SOME DIFFICULTIES HERE!!" yelled the first voice, that of Aida Kensuke.

"Alright then," said Asuka, as she walked over to the still asleep Shinji, "time to wake up, baka." Asuka tapped him on the shoulder, but he did not respond.

"Shinji-kun," she said loudly, giving his shoulder a much harder tap. He didn't move.

"SHINJI!?" she yelled, giving the boy a sharp whack on the back of the head. Nothing.

"Okay, Shinji, just remember that you asked for it," Asuka said, her right hand balling into a fist. Then, with a wide grin that would have scared Pen-Pen out of the country, Asuka drove her sharp knuckles into the small of Shinji's back.

* * *

"AAGH, SHIT!!" Shinji yelled as he awoke, a sharp pain jetting up his spine. As his vision cleared, he saw two girls walking away from him, one a dark green blur, the other bright red.

"Come on, Hikari," said the girl in red, her voice identifying her as Asuka, "let's go reunite the Three Stooges. Are you coming or not, baka?!"

This last question was aimed at Shinji, so he stood up and began to follow.

"Damn it, Asuka," Shinji said, his back aching, "that hurt."

"It was meant to," Asuka replied. "Besides, I'd already tried three times to wake you up."

"That doesn't mean you should hit me in the back."

"Would you rather I'd left you there while the other two Stooges drown themselves."

"It's LCL, they can't drown," said Shinji as the trio reached the shore.

"Yeah, but I don't think Aida knows that," said Asuka, pointing to the distant figures.

In spite of himself, Shinji laughed as he looked at Kensuke. The brown-haired boy was flailing about in the LCL, supporting a young girl who was draped over Toji's shoulder, trying to keep his glasses on, and recording everything on his camcorder, all the while trying to keep everyone's head above the surface of the LCL, which could be breathed as easily as air once your lungs were saturated with it.

"HEY, KENSUKE!" yelled Shinji. "IT'S LCL! IT'S THE STUFF WE USE IN THE ENTRY PLUGS, REMEMBER?" Even though distant, Shinji couldn't miss the confused look on Kensuke's face. "YOU CAN BREATHE IT!!"

"Oh, yeah," Kensuke said faintly, then he ducked under the surface and came up looking slightly refreshed.

"That's what I've been telling him!" said Toji.

"Baka," said Asuka, slapping her forehead.

Shinji was surprised to see how well Toji was swimming, considering he had lost both his right arm and leg during the catastrophic attack of the thirteenth Angel. A fresh wave of guilt caused Shinji to wince as he remembered the screams of the dying Eva Unit-03, with Toji inside, though he hadn't known it at the time. Although powerless to stop it, Shinji felt that he was to blame, watching as Unit-01, under control of the Dummy System, had broken the Angel-infested Unit-03's neck, thrown it to the ground, and begun to rip the Evangelion apart.

Forcing the terrifying images away, Shinji looked off to his left, just as Asuka and Hikari waded into the lake, and spotted a white-coated figure floating in the lake about a half-kilometer away.

"Hey, Asuka," Shinji said, quietly enough so that only she could hear. Pointing towards the still figure, he said, "I saw someone over there. You and Hikari can handle those two right?"

"Yeah." she replied with a sigh. "Sure, go play the hero or whatever. It's not like I woke you up to see your friends or anything."

Shinji smiled, ignoring her sarcasm.

"Thanks, Asuka."

"Baka," said Asuka to herself as Shinji turned away.

* * *

The girl rose slowly from the LCL, moaning slightly as she tested the muscles of her unfamiliar body. Raven black hair cascaded down her shoulders to the middle of her back, a sharp contrast to her pale skin, but most striking of all were her eyes, which were so green that they almost glowed.

Once she had learned how to work her new body, the girl climbed out onto the shore, giving no notice to the blonde-haired woman floating facedown next to her. Fragmented memories flooded back to her as she considered her existence.

I guess this is how Lilith feels, she said to herself. It feels strange referring to myself as a female, or having a sentience for that matter. I guess I'm the first to revive. I wonder what the others will say when they come back as Lilim, with sexes and everything. Do ALL the Lilim have a sex? Probably. Damn, it feels weird thinking like this. I can feel my instincts, but they're all buried beneath my consciousness.

Although lost in her thoughts, the girl's eyes caught sight of a boy of her own age. Well, the age I look. He looked familiar to her somehow, though she couldn't quite place him. Then, without warning, it hit her. She hadn't seen him before, but what he had been inside. The memory of a beast covered in purple armor dashing towards her flashed through her mind.

Smiling the girl hid behind a nearby rock, wanting to see if the boy remembered her.

* * *

Shinji was about halfway to the white-coated figure when the girl ambushed him. It had happened so fast that the girl was pinning Shinji to a boulder with her right arm, her slight frame stronger than he would have imagined, before he even noticed that she wasn't clothed. Shinji felt something burst in the area around his sinuses and a moment later felt a warm trickle of blood run from his nostrils. Shifting his gaze from where his hormones were telling him to stare, Shinji found himself looking deep into the girl's emerald-green eyes. The girl raised her left hand behind her head, her first two fingers held together like a point. Then, her hand launched forward towards Shinji's head, his eyes widening as a memory flashed through his mind.

~ ~ ~

An invisible force held Shinji's head tightly. He saw the enormous three-clawed hand wrapped around the head of Eva Unit-01 covering the view screens that were built into the entry plug's walls. In the center of what could have been the hand's palm glowed a bright pink light. Through two of the fingers, Shinji could see the massive black body of the Angel, its bone-white face giving no hint to what the creature was thinking, if it was thinking at all.

The pink light began to glow brighter and then exploded outward, jamming into Eva Unit-01's right eye, cracking the armor that protected its head. Inside the plug, Shinji screamed, the pain of the Eva sent to him through the neural interface headset he wore. Again and again, the light jammed into the already wounded eye of Eva Unit-01. After a few more blows, the light grew so intense that Shinji was nearly blinded. Then it exploded outward again, this time piercing the armor, burning a hole through the Evangelion's skull and out the other side.

Shinji's pain was so great that he could not even scream. It felt as though a white-hot steel spike had been driven through his head. Surely he would die from it. Shinji felt Unit-01 slam into a nearby building. The light receded back into the Angel's arm and Eva Unit-01 slid down the side of the building, to the ground. The muscles in his own neck no longer responding, Shinji felt both the Eva's head and his own fall to their chests. Through his left eye, Shinji could see blood from the Eva's wound coating the purple armor of its body, but strangely his own shirt wasn't growing red.

Shinji felt his consciousness fading and, just before he passed out, he forced his right hand to his face. It felt as though his arm hadn't moved from his side, yet there in front of his open left eye was his hand. As the world around him blackened he allowed his hand to fell onto his face, causing a fresh shot of pain, but allowing him to feel his right eye beneath the eyelid, proving to himself that it was still there. Just as he lost consciousness, he felt the creature around him come to life.

When he opened his eyes again, the city around him was aflame. Still seated in Eva Unit-01's entry plug, Shinji noticed the pain in his head receding. Through his now open right eye Shinji glanced off to the side as the armor covering Unit-01's face fell to the ground. Reflected on the mirrored windows of a nearby building, Shinji saw the wounded face of the creature begin to boil and swell. When the skin had grown smooth again, the Eva opened its hideous green eye and stared directly into the building, as though looking directly at Shinji himself.

His consciousness slipping again, Shinji screamed, and then all was silent.

~ ~ ~

The girl's pointed fingers stopped less than a centimeter from Shinji's right eye, causing him to blink as the memory of his first battle with Eva Unit-01 faded from his mind. The girl smiled widely, and then turned to walk away.

"Wait a second!" Shinji said quickly. "W . . . Who are you?"

The girl laughed for a moment, and then fell silent, considering his question. Finally, in a voice that could only be described as heavenly, she replied.

"Call me . . . Sakura. I'll see you around Ikari Shinji."

With that, the girl turned and walked away, leaving Shinji to stare and wipe the blood from his nose.

* * *

After nearly ten minutes of hard swimming, Asuka and Hikari finally reached the two boys. Asuka would have made it sooner, but, unlike her, Hikari did not have experience moving through LCL and Asuka did not want to leave her behind. When they were only five meters or so away, Hikari ducked under the surface and passed Asuka, surfacing a few seconds later in front of Toji. Hikari wrapped her arms around the boy so quickly that he lost his grip on the younger girl over his shoulder. She slid into the LCL, not moving, but both Kensuke and Asuka reached an instant later.

With a smile, Toji embraced Hikari as well. Hikari was the first to gasp, but Asuka was only a moment behind her, for Toji had placed his left arm around the girl first, and then his right.

"Mein Gott," said Asuka, voicing what both her and Hikari were thinking, "what the hell happened to your arm, Suzuhara?"

"What?" asked a confused Toji. "S'there something wrong with it?"

"You mean, like the fact that it was amputated about ten days ago?"

"Oh . . . yeah," Toji said, his grin fading slightly. "I guess I was so glad to have it back that I forgot I'd lost it in the first place. My leg's back, too."

When Toji said this, Hikari immediately twisted, looking down to see this miracle for her self. Her loud gasp and renewed embrace of Toji told Asuka that the boy spoke the truth. She smiled at Hikari. The smile was gone half an instant before Kensuke looked in her direction. She rolled her eyes as, inwardly, her smile widened.

"Baka," Asuka said as she turned around and lead the way back to shore.

* * *

It took Shinji nearly five minutes to remember what he was doing. After that, it only took about two to find the still form of Doctor Akagi Ritsuko floating in a shallow pool of LCL. The first thing Shinji noticed was a dark stain of blood on the back of her lab coat. Before he'd realized it, Shinji's subconscious had dragged one of Ritsuko's memories to his mind.

~ ~ ~

She stood in a dimly lit room, her eyes to the floor. Her left hand, shaking slightly, held a handgun. It was pointed at the head of a man in a black business suit. Her right hand held a small remote control device, her thumb pressing and releasing the switch of its own accord, with no effect. She looked up at the man. She knew who it was, even though all she could see of his face was the orange light reflecting from his sunglasses.

Like her, he also held a handgun, but his hand was cold and steady, the weapon aimed at her heart. Her eyes shifted to the pale white figure beside him, whose blood-red eyes gave her a stare far more piercing than anything the man could have. She heard him say something to her, but didn't listen. Her eyes closed and a smile spread across her face.

"You liar," she said. Then she screamed as the white-hot bullet ripped through her chest.

~ ~ ~

Shinji dragged Ritsuko out of the LCL and flipped her over on dry land. Her lab coat and the blue uniform shirt underneath were covered in Ritsuko's blood. Shinji placed his fingers to Doctor Akagi's neck and, after a moment, found a pulse. Amazed that she was still alive, Shinji found the bullet-hole in her shirt and inserted his fingers to clean the wound.

The problem was, he couldn't find it. Despite the blood, Shinji couldn't find the bullet's entry point. Her skin felt perfectly smooth. As he withdrew his fingers, Shinji realized, embarrassingly, that he had been drawing on Ritsuko's own medical expertise while examining her. Looking now, Shinji could see that she was breathing smoothly, and looked merely asleep. With a sigh of relief, Shinji began trying to wake the woman. It wasn't easy, taking nearly ten minutes of shaking her shoulders before she opened her eyes. It was then that Shinji knew his efforts were wasted.

Ritsuko's eyes, once a beautiful hazel, now had a dead look to them, only the faintest glimmer showing that she was alive at all, as though she had long abandoned her will to live. Her face twisted into a mask of hatred and betrayal, not looking at Shinji, but through him as though he did not exist.

"Gendo," she said quietly, the silent hatred behind his father's name making Shinji flinch. Closing his eyes, Shinji stood up and turned to walk away.

* * *

Eva Unit-01 fell quickly through the thickening atmosphere. Had it been a lesser creature, the friction would have long ago torn it apart. Flames began to lick the outer edges of the AT Field it had projected to lessen the heat of reentry. Held protectively in the creature's hands was the Lance of Longinus, the artifact amplifying the Evangelion's already strong AT Field to make it nearly impenetrable.

As the Eva hit the cloud layer, it widened its AT Field while firing its shoulder jets, slowing its fall. Just before entering an enormous storm system, the creature spotted its target and aimed its fall towards the crater that was once Tokyo-3.

* * *

Shinji was only a few steps away when he heard the rustle of Ritsuko's coat. Turning his head, he watched as Doctor Akagi rose to her feet, staring at the sky.

"Mother," she said, her hatred growing with each word. "Rei."

Ritsuko reached for something in her coat and pulled out a handgun.

"Yui," she said, her silent hatred far greater than she had expressed for the others. Shinji heard the handgun click and an empty shell ring softly as it fell to the ground. Shinji turned away not wanting to watch what he knew was to follow.

Suddenly, an enormous flaming object punched its way through a mass of clouds. Shinji felt his jaw drop as he recognized the humanoid figure amidst the flames.

No way, Shinji said to himself. It was supposed to stay up forever.

"He's all yours now, Yui," said Ritsuko with a laugh and, as the flaming mass slowed to land softly on the edge of the lake a kilometer away, Shinji heard the distinct explosion of a gunshot. An instant later, Ritsuko's body fell to the ground.

Shinji stared in disbelief as the massive form of Eva Unit-01 walked slowly from the flames, its eyes glowing white, and its hands gripping the twisted form of the Lance of Longinus. The creature continued forward until it was only half of a kilometer away, then its gaze shifted and it looked directly into Shinji's eyes. The Eva's hands flashed as it spun the Lance around and drove its twin points deep into the ground.

Then, the Evangelion kneeled down on one knee, gripped the lance like the hilt of a katana, and bowed its head at Shinji, like a samurai kneeling before his lord. And finally, as the flames died in its wake, the Eva went still and its eyes faded to black.