Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Understanding ❯ Solitude ( Chapter 2 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: AHGrayLensman 
Shinji's back from within Unit-01, but Kaji has disappeared and Asuka's confidence is failing. Side story to eps. 21 and 22.
Anime/Manga: Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction | Genre(s): / Psychological | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 09.14.2004 | Updated On: 11.15.2004 | Pages: 4 | Words: 3.1K | Visits: 791 | Status: Completed
Shinji's back from within Unit-01, but Kaji has disappeared and Asuka's confidence is failing. Side story to eps. 21 and 22.
Anime/Manga: Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction | Genre(s): / Psychological | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 09.14.2004 | Updated On: 11.15.2004 | Pages: 4 | Words: 3.1K | Visits: 791 | Status: Completed
"Solitude"
by AHGrayLensman
Disclaimers: Evangelion and associated characters are property of Gainax. The lyrics of "Solitude" (Evanescence/Ben Moody & Amy Lee) are similarly the property of their respective authors. I liked each of these works well enough to buy it, so please don't sue me from borrowing for them a little.
This is a sequel/continuation of "Understanding", which originally written as a one-shot. Several reviewers on http://www.fanfiction.net/ asked me if I would consider writing more, and so I have. This chapter will cover episode 22, as well as a little bit of aftermath from episode 21. My long-term plan is to have this series cover most of Eva TV episodes 20-26 and the film End of Evangelion , plus a little epilogue.
"Spoken" [Thought] <Image from 15th Angel>
Rated PG for some profanity. The rating will likely creep up to R in later chapters, as it's almost impossible to deal with some of EoE's themes in a PG or PG13 context.
Many thanks to bobbomp for pre-reading this.
------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------
Asuka knew something was wrong from the second she walked in the door of the apartment.
She'd gone over to Hikari's for dinner (and the obligatory gossip session) after school. That was partly to appease Misato, who'd insisted that she needed to cut Shinji some slack after his month-long ordeal in Eva Unit-01. Asuka had found that was often easiest to do that by simply absenting herself from the apartment, so that she wasn't around for Shinji to provoke. She knew Shinji didn't mean to make her angry, but something about the boy's meek demeanor pushed her buttons in all the wrong ways.
[Damn it, if the idiot would just grow a spine...]
Ordinarily, she'd have expected to find Shinji dutifully studying at the kitchen table, with Misato either at work or sitting around drinking and teasing Shinji. Instead, the first thing she noticed when the apartment door opened was the sound of Misato crying... no, weeping. She'd seen Misato crying once before, when Shinji and Eva-01 were recovered after escaping (and eviscerating) the Twelfth Angel, but this seemed much more profound and bitter.
[I haven't heard someone that upset since... since Mama died. Misato's pretty tough; who or what could've hurt her like that?]
The answer seemed pretty obvious: Ryoji Kaji.
[Maybe he broke things off with her...?]
Misato's bedroom door was closed, and based on the sounds emanating from behind it Misato was in no condition to explain what was going on. Shinji's door, on the other hand, was open. Asuka poked her head in and was about to call to him when she saw that he was curled up on his futon with his pillow over his head.
[What the hell happened?!?!?!?]
"Shinji... What's going on? Why is MIsato so upset?" Asuka asked quietly. Shinji didn't respond, which in and of itself came very close to setting Asuka off. If there was one thing the redhead hated more than anything, it was being ignored.
[Oh great, the idiot's lost in his SDAT again. And to think I encouraged this behavior by giving him another tape to listen to...]
"Shinji!" Asuka called, louder this time but still not as loud as she would've under normal circumstances. He appeared to notice this time, and rolled over and sat up.
"About time! What the hell is...?" Asuka's impending rant trailed off as she saw the look in Shinji's eyes. He looked like a puppy that had been spanked repeatedly for something it didn't do.
"Asuka, I... I think something bad may've happened to Kaji. Misato's really upset, and I don't know what to do."
"He probably just broke things off with her. She'll be OK in a couple days."
"This seems a lot more serious than that..." Shinji said sheepishly.
"Are you contradicting me?!?!" Asuka growled. With that, Shinji seemed to back down, and he laid back down on his futon and put his ear buds back in.
Asuka left his room and headed back to her own. While she was externally calm, her mind had started working through possible interpretations of Shinji's phrase something bad , and some of them were quite bad indeed given Kaji's line of work. She decided to ignore the worst of them until she had a better idea what was going on.
-------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------
Asuka decided to try calling Kaji again while she waited on the train home from the Geofront. The result was unfortunately the same as her previous four attempts that day: an automated voice saying, "I'm sorry, the telephone number you just dialed is not currently in use. Please try again."
"That's strange, I still can't get through. I wonder if he went somewhere again?" Shinji's 'something bad' theory was beginning to look more ominous and likely. Asuka looked across the train station to distract herself from that unpleasant thought and spied Shinji standing at the stop from another train line looking very serious... and talking to Wonder-girl. That was not exactly a sight Asuka had particularly wanted to see.
"Shinji was melted into his Eva for a whole month until just the other day... and he's totally back to his usual thing again. What's with him?"
Truth be told, Shinji had been seemingly unaffected by his month-long ordeal in Eva-01, at least physically. Emotionally he had seemed meeker and more withdrawn than he had been in months, all the progress he'd made after Asuka's arrival in Tokyo-3 seemingly blown away by the disaster with Toji and Eva-03. His regression had made Asuka furious almost beyond words.
Even worse from Asuka's viewpoint was that Shinji had not said anything to her about the new SDAT left for him by his "secret admirer". In fact, Shinji had not said a single word about it in Asuka's hearing and had barely said two words to Asuka at all since his return. (Asuka had of course made this harder by being around the apartment less than usual, but in her mind that was immaterial.) Shinji's presence with Wonder-girl at the train station, waiting for a train bound for Wonder-girl's apartment rather than his own, could only mean one thing...
Unbidden, the words of a song to which Asuka had recently listened came to mind:
Your secret admirer,
Who could it be?
Oh, can't you see?
All along it was me.
How can you be so blind
As to see right through me?
"Fine, so I've lost. You're just a..." Asuka's train of thought was suddenly derailed by a massive abdominal cramp that made her almost double over in pain.
[Damn it, why did that have to start now...?]
-----
On the other side of the train station, Shinji had not noticed Asuka at all. All his concentration was focused on trying to have a conversation with Rei, which was not exactly an easy thing to do under any circumstances.
"Rei, I'm kind of worried about Asuka. It seems like she's been avoiding me lately, and her sync scores have been dropping ever since I... got back."
"I agree. I will speak with her about this."
The prospect of Rei giving Asuka advice seemed like trying to put out a lit match with a gallon of gasoline to Shinji. "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"
"Do you have alternate suggestions?" Rei asked.
"Well, no..." Shinji replied. The only alternative was to talk to her himself, and that prospect scared him more than going into battle against an entire army of Angels.
---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
Asuka was having the mother of all bad days. Her period was in full swing
(complete with cramps), her last couple sync tests had been total disasters, she was pretty sure any hope she had with Shinji was completely shot to hell, and beneath all that was her nagging concern about not being able to reach Kaji. Then to top things off, Asuka found herself stuck in an elevator with Rei of all people. Asuka did her best to ignore the other girl.
Rei unexpectedly broke the uncomfortable silence. "The Eva won't move unless you open your mind."
"You're saying this is my fault?!?! I'm blocking myself?!?!"
"Yes. Eva has her own mind."
"That puppet?!?!?"
"You should know that."
Asuka didn't like where this was headed, so she decided to change the subject. "Fancy you starting a conversation! Maybe it'll snow tomorrow!"
Rei didn't respond, which caused Asuka's anger to grow exponentially.
"What, are you happy I'm having trouble with my Eva now? Well don't worry, when the next Angel shows up, our invincible Shinji will ride out and destroy it! They don't need us, just that idiot!"
Rei still gave no sign of response, which made Asuka both extremely pissed off and extremely confused -- pissed that Rei was seemingly ignoring her, and confused by the fact that Rei seemed genuinely (if clumsily) concerned about her. As she had with Shinji the previous night after accidently opening up to him about her step-mother, Asuka went on the offensive.
"First, I get Shinji's sympathy, and now from the Commander's doll. I must be doomed!"
Rei finally deigned to respond: "I am not a doll."
"You are! You do exactly what you're told! You'd kill yourself if the Commander told you to!"
"That's right." Rei replied flatly.
Asuka had finally had enough. She slapped Rei, hard.
"Then you are a doll! You're an unthinking, emotionless puppet! I hate you!" The elevator doors opened, and Asuka stormed off before Rei had a chance to say anything more.
[Mein Gott, I hate that little bitch! How dare she lecture me on how the Eva works?]
---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
Asuka had been giving Eva-02 something approximating a pep talk when the alarm sirens began sounding.
Knowing that Unit-01 was still under a freeze order, Asuka assumed that she would be sent out on point and quickly boarded Unit-02's entry tube to prepare for battle. However, to her surprise Misato ordered Rei to take point and Asuka to back her up.
"Back up Unit-00?!?!? Me? You can't be serious! Eva Unit-02, launch!" The catapult engaged and rocketed Asuka's Eva to ground level. She could hear some discussion among the command staff of what to do with their wayward pilot over the radio, but that didn't concern Asuka -- it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
Asuka took up her firing position and grabbed the positron rifle provided to her. She tried to clear her mind as she got herself set for a extreme long range shot at the Angel's position in orbit.
"If I screw this up, they'll never let me pilot again... No room for mistakes."
Asuka had almost lined up the Angel for a shot with the positron rifle when Eva Unit-02 was surrounded by a huge beam of light. Asuka could feel something -- almost certainly the Angel -- begin to gnaw away at her mind's defenses. Suddenly an image flashed before her mind's eye.
<loneliness>
Asuka screamed and began firing the positron rifle reflexively. The first two shots left the atmosphere but fell short of the Angel's position in orbit, while the next several shots slammed into the skyline of Tokyo-3. She quickly expended all the rifle's ammunition.
<mother>
"No! Don't! Don't come inside me! It hurts!"
<death>
"No! Don't look into my mind! Please!"
Misato tried to order Asuka to retreat, but Asuka refused. "No! Never! I'd rather die than retreat now!"
<double suicide>
Asuka started screaming almost continuously, as the Angel dug deeper into her psyche and showed her in graphic detail all the images and memories she had tried so hard to suppress from her conscious mind. There were many of them, and chief among them were her mother's suicide, her father's subsequent abandonment of her, and her secret fear that no one really cared about her.
Somehow, in the midst of it all was Shinji.
[Damn you, what are you doing here? You won't help me... You won't even hold me! You're nothing, NOTHING to me!]
<denial>
[No!]
The Angel seemingly lost its patience with her.
<father>
<mother>
<privation>
& lt;insecurity>
<separation>
<evasion>
<contac t>
<obsessive-compulsive>
<attachment behavior>
<dependence>
<emptiness>
<psycholog ical breakdown>
<sympathy>
<pity>
<I am not a doll>
<mental contamination>
<don't violate me!>
<stop it!>
<die with me>
<no!>
<it hurts!>
<I hate you so much!>
<presumption>
<dormant>
<masculine protest>
<don't be>
<clearly present>
<reactive formation>
<shadow>
<opposition>
<reparations >
<don't be>
<momentary assimilation>
<don't be>
<rationalization>
<oblivion>
<deception&g t;
<reason for existing>
<confidence>
<childhood experiences>
<sense of loss>
<reparations>
<coexistence>
<hostility& gt;
<oppression>
<death>
<death>
<I hate you so much!>
"My mind's being eaten away... Kaji, it's unraveling my mind... What can I do? It's defiling my mind..."
<Kaji is dead>
[NO!!!! ]
That was the last straw; Asuka simply couldn't take any more. Eva Unit-02 completely shut down, and she began screaming again as the Angel dug further into her psyche.
-----
Inside Central Dogma, debate raged over how to save Asuka. Rei had already tried a shot with a much more powerful positron rifle than Asuka's, to no avail. Shinji then had offered to retrieve her with Unit-01, only shouted down by Vice Commander Fuyutsuki. Finally, Commander Ikari ended the debate:
"It is unacceptable to lose Eva Unit-02 at this time. Rei, go to Terminal Dogma and get the Lance."
-----
After what seemed to Asuka to be an eternity of screaming, she saw the massive form of an Eva rising from a nearby exit shaft on the edge of her peripheral vision with a long, slender weapon that looked like some kind of gigantic spear. Because of the shaft of light surrounding her Eva, Asuka couldn't see the other Eva very well, but it had to be Unit-01. Shinji had finally come to rescue her.
The other Eva wound up and threw the huge spear in the direction of the shaft of light's source, the spear leaving the Eva's hand at such a great speed that it literally tore through the clouds. A few seconds later, Asuka felt the mental contact with the Angel slip away, and the shaft of light around Unit-02 disappeared. Whatever that spear the other Eva had used was, it must have obliterated the Angel.
Finally able to see clearly, Asuka looked over at the other Eva, expecting to see the massive purple-and-green frame of Unit-01. Instead, she was greeted by Unit-00's cyclopean blue form. Rei's even voice came over the radio. "Pilot Soryu, are you injured?"
[No. NO. NO! NOT HER! WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE HER? WHY DID THAT LITTLE BITCH HAVE TO BE THE ONE TO SAVE ME?!?!? WHY DIDN'T SHINJI SAVE ME LIKE HE ALWAYS DOES?!?!?]
-----
Shinji sheepishly walked up to the edge of the quarantine area around Asuka. He was still furious with his father for not being allowed to rescue Unit-02, but he was too concerned about Asuka's well-being to worry about that right now. He desperately hoped she was alright. From where he stood, it looked like she was fine physically.
"I'm glad you're OK, Asuka..."
"Shut up! There's nothing to be glad about! Of all the people, Rei had to be the one to save me?!?!? I had to be saved by HER ?!?!? I would've rather died than be saved by her! I hate this! I hate her! I hate you, Shinji! I HATE EVERYONE! "
Not sure what else to do, Shinji silently left Asuka to her misery.
---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This has got to be one of the hardest parts of the Eva story line to write for. There's always the temptation to let Asuka go off into uber-bitch mode, but I'm convinced that's not the person she is or wants to be, but rather the person she thinks she has to be. (As far as I can tell, that's the whole point of the "That isn't the real me!" sequence in the director's cut of episode 22.) The other thing that makes this hard to write from Asuka's PoV is that the episode already covers Asuka's PoV in a fair amount of detail, so there's not much space left to fill in. That's why much of the dialogue here comes straight from either the English dub script or the English subtitles. I'm not entirely pleased with how it's come out, but it's at least serviceable.
There are two or three more chapters coming, eventually. The next one, "Missing", will be set during episode 23 (with a couple bits from episode 24 as well).
by AHGrayLensman
Disclaimers: Evangelion and associated characters are property of Gainax. The lyrics of "Solitude" (Evanescence/Ben Moody & Amy Lee) are similarly the property of their respective authors. I liked each of these works well enough to buy it, so please don't sue me from borrowing for them a little.
This is a sequel/continuation of "Understanding", which originally written as a one-shot. Several reviewers on http://www.fanfiction.net/ asked me if I would consider writing more, and so I have. This chapter will cover episode 22, as well as a little bit of aftermath from episode 21. My long-term plan is to have this series cover most of Eva TV episodes 20-26 and the film End of Evangelion , plus a little epilogue.
"Spoken" [Thought] <Image from 15th Angel>
Rated PG for some profanity. The rating will likely creep up to R in later chapters, as it's almost impossible to deal with some of EoE's themes in a PG or PG13 context.
Many thanks to bobbomp for pre-reading this.
------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------
Asuka knew something was wrong from the second she walked in the door of the apartment.
She'd gone over to Hikari's for dinner (and the obligatory gossip session) after school. That was partly to appease Misato, who'd insisted that she needed to cut Shinji some slack after his month-long ordeal in Eva Unit-01. Asuka had found that was often easiest to do that by simply absenting herself from the apartment, so that she wasn't around for Shinji to provoke. She knew Shinji didn't mean to make her angry, but something about the boy's meek demeanor pushed her buttons in all the wrong ways.
[Damn it, if the idiot would just grow a spine...]
Ordinarily, she'd have expected to find Shinji dutifully studying at the kitchen table, with Misato either at work or sitting around drinking and teasing Shinji. Instead, the first thing she noticed when the apartment door opened was the sound of Misato crying... no, weeping. She'd seen Misato crying once before, when Shinji and Eva-01 were recovered after escaping (and eviscerating) the Twelfth Angel, but this seemed much more profound and bitter.
[I haven't heard someone that upset since... since Mama died. Misato's pretty tough; who or what could've hurt her like that?]
The answer seemed pretty obvious: Ryoji Kaji.
[Maybe he broke things off with her...?]
Misato's bedroom door was closed, and based on the sounds emanating from behind it Misato was in no condition to explain what was going on. Shinji's door, on the other hand, was open. Asuka poked her head in and was about to call to him when she saw that he was curled up on his futon with his pillow over his head.
[What the hell happened?!?!?!?]
"Shinji... What's going on? Why is MIsato so upset?" Asuka asked quietly. Shinji didn't respond, which in and of itself came very close to setting Asuka off. If there was one thing the redhead hated more than anything, it was being ignored.
[Oh great, the idiot's lost in his SDAT again. And to think I encouraged this behavior by giving him another tape to listen to...]
"Shinji!" Asuka called, louder this time but still not as loud as she would've under normal circumstances. He appeared to notice this time, and rolled over and sat up.
"About time! What the hell is...?" Asuka's impending rant trailed off as she saw the look in Shinji's eyes. He looked like a puppy that had been spanked repeatedly for something it didn't do.
"Asuka, I... I think something bad may've happened to Kaji. Misato's really upset, and I don't know what to do."
"He probably just broke things off with her. She'll be OK in a couple days."
"This seems a lot more serious than that..." Shinji said sheepishly.
"Are you contradicting me?!?!" Asuka growled. With that, Shinji seemed to back down, and he laid back down on his futon and put his ear buds back in.
Asuka left his room and headed back to her own. While she was externally calm, her mind had started working through possible interpretations of Shinji's phrase something bad , and some of them were quite bad indeed given Kaji's line of work. She decided to ignore the worst of them until she had a better idea what was going on.
-------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------
Asuka decided to try calling Kaji again while she waited on the train home from the Geofront. The result was unfortunately the same as her previous four attempts that day: an automated voice saying, "I'm sorry, the telephone number you just dialed is not currently in use. Please try again."
"That's strange, I still can't get through. I wonder if he went somewhere again?" Shinji's 'something bad' theory was beginning to look more ominous and likely. Asuka looked across the train station to distract herself from that unpleasant thought and spied Shinji standing at the stop from another train line looking very serious... and talking to Wonder-girl. That was not exactly a sight Asuka had particularly wanted to see.
"Shinji was melted into his Eva for a whole month until just the other day... and he's totally back to his usual thing again. What's with him?"
Truth be told, Shinji had been seemingly unaffected by his month-long ordeal in Eva-01, at least physically. Emotionally he had seemed meeker and more withdrawn than he had been in months, all the progress he'd made after Asuka's arrival in Tokyo-3 seemingly blown away by the disaster with Toji and Eva-03. His regression had made Asuka furious almost beyond words.
Even worse from Asuka's viewpoint was that Shinji had not said anything to her about the new SDAT left for him by his "secret admirer". In fact, Shinji had not said a single word about it in Asuka's hearing and had barely said two words to Asuka at all since his return. (Asuka had of course made this harder by being around the apartment less than usual, but in her mind that was immaterial.) Shinji's presence with Wonder-girl at the train station, waiting for a train bound for Wonder-girl's apartment rather than his own, could only mean one thing...
Unbidden, the words of a song to which Asuka had recently listened came to mind:
Your secret admirer,
Who could it be?
Oh, can't you see?
All along it was me.
How can you be so blind
As to see right through me?
"Fine, so I've lost. You're just a..." Asuka's train of thought was suddenly derailed by a massive abdominal cramp that made her almost double over in pain.
[Damn it, why did that have to start now...?]
-----
On the other side of the train station, Shinji had not noticed Asuka at all. All his concentration was focused on trying to have a conversation with Rei, which was not exactly an easy thing to do under any circumstances.
"Rei, I'm kind of worried about Asuka. It seems like she's been avoiding me lately, and her sync scores have been dropping ever since I... got back."
"I agree. I will speak with her about this."
The prospect of Rei giving Asuka advice seemed like trying to put out a lit match with a gallon of gasoline to Shinji. "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"
"Do you have alternate suggestions?" Rei asked.
"Well, no..." Shinji replied. The only alternative was to talk to her himself, and that prospect scared him more than going into battle against an entire army of Angels.
---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
Asuka was having the mother of all bad days. Her period was in full swing
(complete with cramps), her last couple sync tests had been total disasters, she was pretty sure any hope she had with Shinji was completely shot to hell, and beneath all that was her nagging concern about not being able to reach Kaji. Then to top things off, Asuka found herself stuck in an elevator with Rei of all people. Asuka did her best to ignore the other girl.
Rei unexpectedly broke the uncomfortable silence. "The Eva won't move unless you open your mind."
"You're saying this is my fault?!?! I'm blocking myself?!?!"
"Yes. Eva has her own mind."
"That puppet?!?!?"
"You should know that."
Asuka didn't like where this was headed, so she decided to change the subject. "Fancy you starting a conversation! Maybe it'll snow tomorrow!"
Rei didn't respond, which caused Asuka's anger to grow exponentially.
"What, are you happy I'm having trouble with my Eva now? Well don't worry, when the next Angel shows up, our invincible Shinji will ride out and destroy it! They don't need us, just that idiot!"
Rei still gave no sign of response, which made Asuka both extremely pissed off and extremely confused -- pissed that Rei was seemingly ignoring her, and confused by the fact that Rei seemed genuinely (if clumsily) concerned about her. As she had with Shinji the previous night after accidently opening up to him about her step-mother, Asuka went on the offensive.
"First, I get Shinji's sympathy, and now from the Commander's doll. I must be doomed!"
Rei finally deigned to respond: "I am not a doll."
"You are! You do exactly what you're told! You'd kill yourself if the Commander told you to!"
"That's right." Rei replied flatly.
Asuka had finally had enough. She slapped Rei, hard.
"Then you are a doll! You're an unthinking, emotionless puppet! I hate you!" The elevator doors opened, and Asuka stormed off before Rei had a chance to say anything more.
[Mein Gott, I hate that little bitch! How dare she lecture me on how the Eva works?]
---------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
Asuka had been giving Eva-02 something approximating a pep talk when the alarm sirens began sounding.
Knowing that Unit-01 was still under a freeze order, Asuka assumed that she would be sent out on point and quickly boarded Unit-02's entry tube to prepare for battle. However, to her surprise Misato ordered Rei to take point and Asuka to back her up.
"Back up Unit-00?!?!? Me? You can't be serious! Eva Unit-02, launch!" The catapult engaged and rocketed Asuka's Eva to ground level. She could hear some discussion among the command staff of what to do with their wayward pilot over the radio, but that didn't concern Asuka -- it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
Asuka took up her firing position and grabbed the positron rifle provided to her. She tried to clear her mind as she got herself set for a extreme long range shot at the Angel's position in orbit.
"If I screw this up, they'll never let me pilot again... No room for mistakes."
Asuka had almost lined up the Angel for a shot with the positron rifle when Eva Unit-02 was surrounded by a huge beam of light. Asuka could feel something -- almost certainly the Angel -- begin to gnaw away at her mind's defenses. Suddenly an image flashed before her mind's eye.
<loneliness>
Asuka screamed and began firing the positron rifle reflexively. The first two shots left the atmosphere but fell short of the Angel's position in orbit, while the next several shots slammed into the skyline of Tokyo-3. She quickly expended all the rifle's ammunition.
<mother>
"No! Don't! Don't come inside me! It hurts!"
<death>
"No! Don't look into my mind! Please!"
Misato tried to order Asuka to retreat, but Asuka refused. "No! Never! I'd rather die than retreat now!"
<double suicide>
Asuka started screaming almost continuously, as the Angel dug deeper into her psyche and showed her in graphic detail all the images and memories she had tried so hard to suppress from her conscious mind. There were many of them, and chief among them were her mother's suicide, her father's subsequent abandonment of her, and her secret fear that no one really cared about her.
Somehow, in the midst of it all was Shinji.
[Damn you, what are you doing here? You won't help me... You won't even hold me! You're nothing, NOTHING to me!]
<denial>
[No!]
The Angel seemingly lost its patience with her.
<father>
<mother>
<privation>
& lt;insecurity>
<separation>
<evasion>
<contac t>
<obsessive-compulsive>
<attachment behavior>
<dependence>
<emptiness>
<psycholog ical breakdown>
<sympathy>
<pity>
<I am not a doll>
<mental contamination>
<don't violate me!>
<stop it!>
<die with me>
<no!>
<it hurts!>
<I hate you so much!>
<presumption>
<dormant>
<masculine protest>
<don't be>
<clearly present>
<reactive formation>
<shadow>
<opposition>
<reparations >
<don't be>
<momentary assimilation>
<don't be>
<rationalization>
<oblivion>
<deception&g t;
<reason for existing>
<confidence>
<childhood experiences>
<sense of loss>
<reparations>
<coexistence>
<hostility& gt;
<oppression>
<death>
<death>
<I hate you so much!>
"My mind's being eaten away... Kaji, it's unraveling my mind... What can I do? It's defiling my mind..."
<Kaji is dead>
[NO!!!! ]
That was the last straw; Asuka simply couldn't take any more. Eva Unit-02 completely shut down, and she began screaming again as the Angel dug further into her psyche.
-----
Inside Central Dogma, debate raged over how to save Asuka. Rei had already tried a shot with a much more powerful positron rifle than Asuka's, to no avail. Shinji then had offered to retrieve her with Unit-01, only shouted down by Vice Commander Fuyutsuki. Finally, Commander Ikari ended the debate:
"It is unacceptable to lose Eva Unit-02 at this time. Rei, go to Terminal Dogma and get the Lance."
-----
After what seemed to Asuka to be an eternity of screaming, she saw the massive form of an Eva rising from a nearby exit shaft on the edge of her peripheral vision with a long, slender weapon that looked like some kind of gigantic spear. Because of the shaft of light surrounding her Eva, Asuka couldn't see the other Eva very well, but it had to be Unit-01. Shinji had finally come to rescue her.
The other Eva wound up and threw the huge spear in the direction of the shaft of light's source, the spear leaving the Eva's hand at such a great speed that it literally tore through the clouds. A few seconds later, Asuka felt the mental contact with the Angel slip away, and the shaft of light around Unit-02 disappeared. Whatever that spear the other Eva had used was, it must have obliterated the Angel.
Finally able to see clearly, Asuka looked over at the other Eva, expecting to see the massive purple-and-green frame of Unit-01. Instead, she was greeted by Unit-00's cyclopean blue form. Rei's even voice came over the radio. "Pilot Soryu, are you injured?"
[No. NO. NO! NOT HER! WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE HER? WHY DID THAT LITTLE BITCH HAVE TO BE THE ONE TO SAVE ME?!?!? WHY DIDN'T SHINJI SAVE ME LIKE HE ALWAYS DOES?!?!?]
-----
Shinji sheepishly walked up to the edge of the quarantine area around Asuka. He was still furious with his father for not being allowed to rescue Unit-02, but he was too concerned about Asuka's well-being to worry about that right now. He desperately hoped she was alright. From where he stood, it looked like she was fine physically.
"I'm glad you're OK, Asuka..."
"Shut up! There's nothing to be glad about! Of all the people, Rei had to be the one to save me?!?!? I had to be saved by HER ?!?!? I would've rather died than be saved by her! I hate this! I hate her! I hate you, Shinji! I HATE EVERYONE! "
Not sure what else to do, Shinji silently left Asuka to her misery.
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AUTHOR'S NOTES: This has got to be one of the hardest parts of the Eva story line to write for. There's always the temptation to let Asuka go off into uber-bitch mode, but I'm convinced that's not the person she is or wants to be, but rather the person she thinks she has to be. (As far as I can tell, that's the whole point of the "That isn't the real me!" sequence in the director's cut of episode 22.) The other thing that makes this hard to write from Asuka's PoV is that the episode already covers Asuka's PoV in a fair amount of detail, so there's not much space left to fill in. That's why much of the dialogue here comes straight from either the English dub script or the English subtitles. I'm not entirely pleased with how it's come out, but it's at least serviceable.
There are two or three more chapters coming, eventually. The next one, "Missing", will be set during episode 23 (with a couple bits from episode 24 as well).