Chapter Text
“I think, therefore I am.” - Rene Descartes (1637)
The first thing he hears is the sound of waves. A calm, gentle brush painting the sea of red LCL against the fine sand, receding in and out. The liquid laps at the line between ground and ocean, between sea and stone, between stagnation and change. A thin line, a wicked line, a-
The first thing he sees is the illuminated sky. Twinkling stars dazzle and shine by the hundreds, winking and blinking in the lack of pollution from a world gone dark. Crimson streaks ring throughout the heavens above, a remnant of what had been, what was, what would be.
The boy does not move yet. He cannot move. He cannot blink, nor speak, nor twitch or flinch. Frozen in place, forced to feel every grain of sand against his skin, every fiber of cloth pressed unto his form. He cannot even notice the girl with fiery hair beside him, mere inches away.
In the far background of the setting scene, the head of Lilith is still, gazing likewise into the space above. Unblinking, like the boy, unspeaking, like the boy, yet deceased, unlike the boy. Even then, it is beginning to sink into the tides of LCL, to decompose and disintegrate, to be no more. The last physical remnant left of Rei Ayanami, no more.
And yet the boy cannot see it. No matter how much he wishes to, no matter how much he tries, he cannot turn to see it, he cannot hear it, he cannot speak it, he cannot feel it, he cannot-
It is only when the last of *** is gone, Ikari Shinji is once more. Able to turn his head, the first thing he sees besides the stars and sand is her. He sees her, in her entirety, and he anguishes.
He cannot control himself, nor can he stop. His last act of defiance, his plea, his will, his ego is all that remains as he moves, painful inch by inch, a newborn babe crawled out the womb into an earth unkind and cruel, each motion like his first, each breath like his last.
He will not stop his hands from closing around her neck, thin and tense. His hands, boyish, frail, fragile, pulse and flex with the strength of a wicked man, squeezing, crushing. He wishes to speak, to scream, to cry out in exaltation, in despair, in anguish and in remorse, but he does not. Still weak, still begging, still Ikari Shinji, in name, in action, in life and what comes after.
So he does all he remembers to do anymore, all he can do. He fights, runs, pleads, begs, weeps, despairing-
And his hold grows ever tighter.
Now, what to say of the girl? Fiery hair, pale complexion, blue eye, thin nose, thin lips, thin frame, red suit, wracked and wretched breathing-
For she does breathe. When she awakes, she breathes. The stench of air, the putrid smell of life, it clings to her, refusing to let go. She, like the boy, stares upon the sky for a while, unmoving. She can, she could, she will, for she is Asuka Langley Soryu, and she wills. But her will has always been superseded by the other, by others, and so it is when she makes to move that she feels an impossible weight upon her body.
Hands close around her throat, as her eye focuses upon a boy. The boy. He is squeezing her, she can feel it, and yet she does not know what to do. For once, Asuka has lost her will, or perhaps she simply cannot find it. So she does not move. She lays there, and under the onslaught of his boyish hands, she does naught. Nothing. No more.
And her will grows even weaker.
Yet, what then was it all for? The Impact, the merging, Instrumentality… what was it all for, if it led to this? The first two, the last two, Second and Third, doomed to the same cycle? Was that to be fate? Is that all that there was, behind the stench of life and the smell of rot and the taste of blood and the sight of death and the feeling…
The feeling. She remembers the feeling. What she felt, what she knew, what she did not know, what she does not know she did not know, and what she is.
The girl remembers. Not only does she remember herself, she remembers Him. In a way that he himself had perhaps already forgotten, she remembers Him. His desire, His one, true wish and want and need. Asuka, always wishing to be useful, always proud, always willful, decides to find her will, and enact her force one more time. To be used, to be loved, to finally fulfill His wish.
She raises her hand, and the boy looks, flinches, expecting anger, expecting a fight, expecting-
Unexpectedly, the girl caresses his cheek. And in that caress is a world that only the two of them share, an understanding limited only to those two, the two who remain, who are, who were, who could be. Every feeling, every emotion, every complicated thought and reflection and memory is exchanged in those hands, in the grasp upon her body and the caress upon his face. She understands, finally, what he is, why he is.
He lets go, and he understands that he is understood.
A fleeting moment, and yet, after the understanding passes and what is left is the space inbetween, the boy cannot stop the tears from falling. They stream down his face, and unto hers. Tears on cheek, on bosom, on neck, on head. Tears of shame, of guilt, of denial, of acceptance, of understanding, of realization, of life.
He bows his head into her chest, pressing his face upon her stomach, as he sobs with… he sobs with… relief.
What does the girl say? How does she respond? How can she respond? The only way she remembers how.
“...Kimochi warui…” The phrase barely leaves her lips, and does nothing to stop the boy from crying. But the act is done, the moment passed, the realization formed, the foundation created.
Understanding is formed, and in her acceptance of Ikari, of all he is, of all he wants to be, she accepts that she will be his first. His first other, his first stranger, his first person. More than acceptance, she finds the role insulting, perhaps demeaning, yet she stays. Yet she remains.
And the boy, in his mind, finally accepts that he can change. He finds the piece of himself that he knew could exist, and the understanding is brought forth. Of who he was, of who he might be, of who she was, of who she might be.
Perhaps together, he thinks.
Perhaps together, she thinks.
Perhaps together, they might understand who they are.
And thus, by this final act, do we reach the End.
But all endings are merely new beginnings, and the story of Soryu and Ikari is just beginning, for they are new people. Never the same, always to change. Stagnation is death, fluidity, life. Like the blood of the world, like the fields around their hearts, they must find a place, a reason, a purpose.
Perhaps it shall be each other.
-The End of The End of Evangelion O/R/ The Beginning