When Shinji came to, he was sitting in a folding chair in darkness, illuminated by a single light which seemed to have no clear source.

His last memories filtered though; Unit 02—Asuka and her mother—plummeting towards the ground, the surviving Eva series swarming him and his own mother, a grating feeling against the edges of their AT Field as all others unwound, the Lance coming screaming back and then...nothing.

He had never been to this place before but it didn't take a metaphysical scientist to realize Third Impact was underway.

In other words, his mother had dragged the entire world, kicking and screaming, into Instrumentality.

"No, no!" he yelled, beating on his legs and choking back a sob, "How?! Why?!"

When no one in the dark responded, he pressed his head into his hands and shuddered, valiantly fighting his tears. But he wasn't left alone for long before a pair of hands settled on his shoulders and a soft voice spoke, "I'm so sorry, Shinji."

He looked up through his tears to find Rei standing over him, whole and intact, dressed in her school uniform. Instinctually, he knew this was the Rei he had met so long ago, back on the train. He sniffled, "Rei? Why are you apologizing to me? You gave me this chance and I messed it up, right at the end. Again."

"Why do you think this is your fault?" she countered.

Shrugging, he murmured, "I should have been able to stop her. Somehow."

"You can't plan for a variable that chose to keep herself hidden," she countered once more.

She turned and sighed, "I'm just so sorry that, despite all your best efforts, we once more find ourselves in this place. Within the red sea."

As she said that, the edges of reality filtered in and, where the light didn't reach, he could see red waves lapping at their corner of safety. As if they hungered to consume them both.

Wiping his tears, he murmured, "You've been here before, Rei? I don't remember…"

"It's not for this version of you to remember. That one has long been left behind. But I remember. I remember it all," she responded, eyes fixed on the red waves.

"How do you know these things? Did you...get stuck in a loop too?"

She shook her head, "Unlike you and Asuka, even Kaworu, I was always me, since the beginning. There's only ever been one Rei Ayanami; there may be new bodies but my soul remains the same. I couldn't known this fact until I was reunited with my full, no, true soul. My human vessel could not have contained all that is me."

Seeing Shinji's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, she laughed lightly, "I see it's not an easy idea to grasp, even here, but what's important is I've always watched over you."

Shinji thought back as far as he could remember, to that apparition of Rei in the heat haze when he first arrived in Tokyo-3. He smiled, tears once more springing to his eyes, "Rei...you've always meant a lot to me...I didn't know how much I meant to you."

She smiled brightly at him, "Very long ago, before we met for the first time, I was empty inside. I couldn't be called human; only a doll, a vessel, a tool. Then you came along and held your hand and heart out to me. Suddenly, I was full of experiences, being, love. I became human because you, my oldest, dearest friend and the brother of my heart."

He flushed, unsure how to respond to such open kindness from her. Then he slumped, murmuring, "But none of that is going to matter very soon right? Soon, everything will start again and you'll forget who you are again."

"That may not be the case this time."

He jolted back up, "Huh? But Mom...she did this, didn't she? Its her decision, what happens now?"

She took a deep inhale and looked past him, into the darkness, where the red sea lay, "She put the process into motion but that doesn't make what happens after her choice. Whether I wanted it or not, I was reunited with Lilith. Her great power is now mine...I believe it's always been mine. So the choice of what will happen is also mine...has always been mine."

She lay out her hands to him, "Which means I will always lay the final decision into your hands."

Mystified, he laid his own into hers. They felt warmer than he had ever recalled and he thought she had a point. This felt right. She smiled once more, eyes crinkling as she did.

"...wait!" he tore his hands from hers, not missing the momentary sadness in her eyes.

Wringing his hands, he explained, "There's still a lot I don't understand and I don't want to make a wish again without thinking. It can't be this easy!"

"You're right," she folded her hands, "So ask away and let us get to the bottom of this. The end of the world can be delayed, if it's for you."

---

When Asuka came to, she jolted up in bed, hyperventilating. Distantly, outside of her body, she felt a warm hand take hers and squeeze. When she finally caught her bearings, her panic morphed into confusion.

She wasn't sure where she expected to end up when she woke up again—if she woke up again, but it wasn't here.

She was sitting on a bed with a strawberry patterned bedding set. It matched the curtains hanging at the window beside the bed which were thrown open to reveal the outside where it was sunny and bright. She could spy a lush and thriving garden outside.

This was her childhood bedroom. She hadn't been here in ten years!

She turned to her right to find she wasn't alone. A beautiful woman with long, flowing blonde locks and striking blue eyes sat there, regarding her affectionately. Her mother, as she had been in life, before she lost her mind.

Gasping, Asuka threw her arms around her, "Momma! You're here!"

"Of course I am," Kyoko murmured, patting her on the back.

Asuka's happiness was short-lived as she then began to cry, "Oh, Momma! I tried my best, I really did, but it wasn't enough! Why wasn't it enough?!"

She wrapped her arms around her, rubbing her back, "Oh, liebchen, it's not your fault. You should have never had that weight placed on you."

She sighed and added, an unexpected heat to her tone, "Evidently, no one guessed Ikari would go rogue like that. Maybe I should have...she's always been like that. What she wants, she gets."

Asuka pulled away from her, blinking away tears and, feeling very silly considering the circumstances, asked, "How well did you know Shinji's mom?"

Kyoko chuckled, "Well, not as well as I thought apparently! We went to college together and then later worked together on the Evas, along with Makinami. Us three, probably some of the people who knew out ways around them the best. Of course, I spent most of my time in Germany with Unit 02."

After a small pause, she changed course, "Yui...like I said, whatever she wanted, she got. It was like things just worked out for her. I didn't entirely get it at the time, figured it had to do with her family. I wasn't too far off the mark there. She was related to powerful people, the kind of people who made things happen. It's how she got her husband in with them. Otherwise, they wouldn't have given him the time of day!"

Following her line of thought, Asuka asked, "Is she with those SEELE people?"

"Very intuitive, as I expected from my daughter!" Kyoko praised, earning a blush from her daughter.

She continued, "That's not quite it though. Her father and his family was in the ranks though she must have rejected them at some point. I can't say why exactly she decided to start Third Impact but I'm sure that upbringing had its own hand to play. Whatever the case, you shouldn't blame yourself, liebchen. No one expected her to rebel."

That didn't entirely make Asuka feel better. She still felt like there was something she could have done, though what exactly that something might have been, she didn't know. Instead she asked, "How much of what I know...do you know? Do you...remember too?"

Kyoko smiled at her, her eyes crinkling, though there was only pain behind them, "Yes. When you and the Angel boy synced together, you synced with me too. I suddenly knew it all. It took me...some time to process it all. But when I did, I knew I had to help you by any means I could, even though I had to play it safe."

She added, with a sly smile, "Did you believe Unit 02 ate that Angel for no reason?"

"That was really you? I mean...me and Kaworu thought so but…" she trailed off.

Kyoko chuckled, "I admit it was a gambit...I had no guarantee it would work like I thought it would. But I knew my Unit 02 was Adamite, rather than Lilithian. In theory, she would integrate the S2 Organ with no issues or danger to you. Infinite power so the Eva series couldn't best you again."

Asuka smiled and, once more, threw her arms around her. Her mother knew everything she knew, knew the pain she had gone through and knowing all that, took the steps she could to spare her that pain.

As if reading her mind, Kyoko murmured, "I know my actions back then hurt you terribly. There might be no way I can fix that...but I wanted to make it up to you. By protecting you as well I could."

Burying her face in her shoulder, Asuka grumbled, "Shinji's mom got what she wanted in the end. It's going to be all for nothing."

Kyoko chuckled and her daughter pulled away to look at her with confusion. With a proud grin, she told her, "Now, I don't think that's going to be the case. She either missed it or hoped one little detail would be missed."

"A little detail?"

"The detail that it's Lilith's girl who holds the power now."

"Rei…" Asuka murmured, her confused look turning to hope.

---

Finally, Shinji decided where to start, "The loops. Whose fault is those? Surely it can't be all on Kaworu…"

"That's a loaded question you ask," Rei told him, "How about we explore it?"

With a click, a light came on, illuminating their surroundings. The pair found themselves in a pristine white room with nothing but a piano in the center. Shinji stood and approached it, "Where is this?"

"It's a place from Kaworu's memories," Rei said as she followed, "It appears he was afforded few creature comforts from his handlers, this piano being one."

"That must be why music is so special to him," Shinji murmured, "We never did find a piano to play together on. I really wanted to play with him again."

Rei took a seat and gestured for him to join her. When they were seated together, she lifted her hands to the keys and played a familiar tune, one that made his heart clench. She said, "Kaworu Nagisa really did come to love humanity and he really did come to love you."

Their surroundings changed to the iron platform at the bottom of Terminal Dogma. Looming over them was the purple beast of Unit 01, holding its hand into a fist. When Shinji craned his head back to peer at it, his heart dropped to find her holding a person.

Beside him, Rei's tone grew somber, "In fact, he loved you so much, in that first iteration, he asked you to kill him. He couldn't bear the thought of bringing about your end so he decided you should get to live instead. This is the act Asuka took the burden from you in this iteration and the act her mother took the burden of from her."

"Rei, can we please see something else?" Shinji asked, voice wavering and eyes still fixed on the tiny figure inside Unit 01's hand.

"Of course."

This time, it changed to a derelict and somewhat familiar courtyard to Shinji. But unlike the one inside the ruined NERV base, this one was surrounded by a wide field of grass. At the edges of the courtyard, nature encroached in the form of grass and sprawling ivy. Shinji relaxed then asked his next question, "So Kaworu...willingly let me kill him and this somehow let him come back?"

"His soul is that of the First Angel," Rei explained, "Though how much of that actually helped him is unclear to me. His free will, his love, it was so great that he was able to intertwine your fates together. And so, the universe bent to him, giving him infinite chances to make you happy."

---

When Kaworu came to, he was somewhat surprised to have woke up at all. The last thing he remember was the falling red comet of Unit 02. He had, probably foolishly, launched himself into the air, in some vain hope he could catch her. He caught her alright—but the Eva series was so much lighter than the Production Model, as they were built for flight. In other words, there was nothing he could do to stop Unit 02 from crushing him once they both hit the ground.

He vaguely remembered Rei, or perhaps just an apparition, cradling his broken body within the Dummy Plug, assuring him it was going to be alright. And then all had gone black.

Now he was in a frighteningly familiar space; the Moon overlooking Earth in the throes of Third Impact. He chanced a glance to his left, expecting to find his series of coffins—only to find it barren. He then chanced a glance to his right to find Rei—at least, if she had grown to adulthood, had alabaster skin and wore a purple mask bearing SEELE's seven-eyed mark.

"Lilith," he breathed.

She smiled at him, "We find ourselves here in this space again, Adam."

She paused, tilting her head, then added, "Or is it Tabris? Or Kaworu Nagisa?"

"I'm Kaworu Nagisa," he declared, eyes narrowing at her.

"A bold declaration," she noted, her warm, almost-mocking smile not wavering, "Is that also a declaration of your surrender of the Earth?"

He cast another glance at the Impact-stricken Earth before looking back at her. "If I surrender it to anyone, and you know that's no longer within my right, it would be to the Lilin. Don't you think they've suffered enough?"

After a lingering pause, he added, "They deserve to live. Incomplete, as painful as that may be."

"I see you haven't forgiven me."

"It's Adam who would have to forgive you for coveting the Fruit of Life and I believe I've made it clear that I don't desire to be Adam any longer."

Lilith hummed, unperturbed by his cold attitude towards her, "Incomplete...well, if your fear is that I may try to wrest the Fruit of Life from my daughter's hands, know that has long become impossible. She made her choice a long time ago and she's never wavered from it since. I've had to...accept my lot in life, much as you had."

A sense of relief rushed through Kaworu and he exhaled into the empty air. Good. "If that's the case then, why do you remain here?" he asked, "I cannot give you what you want. Not anymore."

"That's true," she conceded, "But this space demands introspection and so that's the task that's fallen to me."

Seeing him furrow his eyebrow, she clarified, "I see you've come to love my children, even to die for them over and over. You desire to become one though this desire remains out of your grasp."

His eyes widened. Of course, Instrumentality was the staging ground for one to face their flaws and greatest hurdles. You typically didn't leave until you had done that and became able to will yourself back into shape.

He swallowed thickly before giving his explanation, "As Adam, my only purpose was to the Angels, first to propagate them and then to be what they strove to return to. As Tabris, I'm SEELE's pawn, who might assist them to this place under their own means. As Kaworu Nagisa...it's the closest I've gotten to living for a purpose I wanted to."

"Yet you still live for others rather than yourself."

Lilith flicked her wrist and the ghostly apparition of Shinji Ikari appeared beside her, frozen in a bashful smile. He frowned deeply at her unspoken counter, "I choose to live for him."

"That is indeed your choice but what may happen if you lost him," with a clenching of her fist, the apparition shattered, "Without the one known as Shinji Ikari, whose to say you wouldn't just lay down and wait to die?"

Kaworu struggled to refute her. Losing Shinji was his worst nightmare, one that had come true before. And she wasn't incorrect; the few times Shinji went first, what will to live he had crumbled.

Seeing him struggle to refute her, Lilith fixed her brilliant red eyes to his own and delivered him an ultimatum, "So tell me, Kaworu Nagisa. Would you be able to truly live for yourself in a new world?"

---

Rei rose from the piano and beckoned Shinji to the other end of the courtyard, where a door to seemingly nowhere sat, surrounded by a crumbling wall. She explained as they crossed over to it, "Mari Makinami Illustrious was the next one to discover the secret of this world; of its cycles. Her role in that original world was minimal and she disappeared without so much of a footnote."

They crossed the door into a familiar barren wasteland, dotted by obelisks; a graveyard much like the one outside Tokyo-3. Before them was one reading simply Mari's name; no mention of achievements or family. "Oh," Shinji murmured.

"Then, in one of the next cycles, Mari came to meet someone she would come to love."

The pair turned around, now in a classroom, after hours. An adult Mari was sitting in a chair, hands half-risen to touch a pair of red-rimmed glasses on her face, and a familiar woman stood over her, beaming at her. "Mom?" Shinji breathed, taking in the frozen image of the pair of women.

Rei nodded, "Your mother seems to have had a...pull on people. Your father...and then Mari. She loved your mother so terribly, she made a vow, a vow so powerful, it etched itself into the cycles, right alongside Kaworu's declaration of love."

She guided Shinji out of the classroom through the door and into a new room; a baby's bedroom. The walls were painted sky blue and white with the image of clouds against a sunny sky. The crib had similar white-and-blue bedding. Shinji could see an array of toys on the floor: a pyramid block, a doll in a red dress and a plush of a silver bird. There was a radio somewhere playing soft classical music.

Like last time, they weren't alone. Mari and Yui stood by the crib; Mari older with her hair pulled back and Yui, heavily pregnant with a hand resting on her stomach. As they watched, Mari leaned in to kiss her, frantically grabbing onto her like this was her last chance. Yui tolerated this for only a few moments before gently placing her hands on her shoulders to push her away. Mari took a few steps back, her face guilty and her voice coming through like a song fading into static, "There. I knew I never would have forgiven myself if we never kissed once."

"I'm flattered, Mari...I truly am, but what if Gendo was to walk in on that?" Yui looked away bashfully.

Crossing her arms, she scowled, "I really don't know what you see in him...but I would have taken the blame, don't worry about that."

"No one really understands him, y'know…"

"And I'm guessing you're gonna tell me you're the only one who does?"

"I genuinely think so!" Yui looked back at her, eyes bright, "Isn't that special?"

Mari hummed, her scowl saying everything she didn't voice about how she thought about that. Her eyes landed on her pregnant belly, "You must see something special in him, if you're having a baby with him. At least tell me he chose a halfway decent name for them."

Yui beamed, "Gendo got to choose the girl's name and he went with Rei! I decided on Shinji, if it turns out to be a little boy."

Beside Rei, Shinji's breath caught but he didn't dare say anything.

"Those are good names," Mari nodded in satisfaction, "Good names for a good kid. Because I know you won't raise a bad kid."

Yui smiled softly—then her expression fell as she looked to the ground. She murmured, "Something bad is going to happen, Mari."

"Bad?" her expression fell too, Yui's sudden disposition change catching her off guard, "I mean...Second Impact was pretty bad. They say it's going to take us decades to bounce back from that...and you're telling me something else bad is going to happen?!"

"I can't quite say what," Yui said cryptically, "But...something worse. I know Gendo wouldn't approve me making you officially their godmother but...can you promise me something anyway?"

"Anything," Mari breathed.

"If something was to happen to me, will you try your best to watch over my baby?"

Mari blinked rapidly at the question. She stumbled over her words in her shock, "I'd do anything for you...anything for your baby but...why me? I mean, you chose Gendo over me...why not entrust this information to him? This promise?"

"The family I grew up in made me learn the value of having a backup plan," she paused and added with a laugh for levity, "And a backup plan for the backup plan. Contingencies upon contingencies, my father would say."

"So I'm a contingency?" Mari's expression wavered, "A 'just in case'?"

"No!" Yui's tone became forceful and she grabbed her hands in her own, "I didn't mean it like that. It's just that…"

Averting her eyes, she continued, "I love Gendo, I really do, but I fear I might not be able to guarantee he will be around to protect my baby. I have a feeling if something happens to me...he'll fall apart. But not you...I know you can do it. I know you can protect my little angel."

Mari cast an anxious look at her swollen belly, where within her baby rested, oblivious to the horrors of the world. She cast her eyes back to meet with Yui's and found they were pleading. So she took one of her hands from her own, laid a hand to her chest and promised, "I promise, on the love I still feel for you, I will protect your little angel, whatever it takes."

It seemed as she said this, reality began to waver at the edges, the vision shredding itself until the pair were back in the dark place, from before. Shinji remarked bitterly, "Not even Mom could protect me from herself."

"Time and the loss of self can erode good sense," Rei said, "But that will come at its own time. Let us continue our journey?"

Once more reality shifted, the space underneath them turning to the steel deck of a boat and the red sea fading to purple then blue until the pair found themselves on the Over the Rainbow. Above them, seagulls careened and squawked with abandon. The ocean around them crashed into the boat and above them, the sun shone, pleasantly warm and not sweltering like the post-Impact summers of Japan. Shinji smiled at Rei, "Don't have to tell me who's on your mind now."

Rei blushed, "Asuka Langley Soryu...once she hated me. I tried to help her once, told her to open her heart to the Eva...but at that point, she had been far too gone."

Casting another look around the boat, she added, "Far too gone...yet she clawed her way back from the abyss. It seems a theme in her life; dealing with the lot in life she's been given. Kaworu's AT Field touched hers and did something he had never seen before when he had thought he had seen it all. He caught her in the trap, is what he had thought. But Asuka saw it as a second chance to be better."

She turned back to him, her expression gone fond, "She continued with the lot, the fate she had been dealt, she had been dealt. It might have been perfectly reasonable if she bowed to despair but she refused to do so."

Shinji's smiled widened, "You really love her, huh?"

Rei averted her face as a blush spread across her pale complexion, a rare reaction from her, "Yes...I really have. I envied Kaworu for not allowing his coming fate to stop him from pursuing you...I wonder if maybe I should have followed his example."

"I'm sure Asuka knows how you feel and I'm sure she'd understand your reasoning," he comforted.

Rei didn't respond verbally but did offer him a smile in turn, her eyes crinkling softly as she did.

---

"Do you think I've changed, Mom?"

Back in Asuka's childhood home, her mother teased, "Well, I think you've become more beautiful."

"Mom," Asuka scowled, blushing bashfully despite it.

Kyoko reached over to ruffle her hair affectionately. She added, "Forgive an old woman her jokes. But Asuka, you can't see how you have?"

"I dunno," Asuka adverted her eyes, "I still feel like...that little girl, so angry and hurt and…"

"I'm afraid those emotions will stay with you forever," her mother's expression fell, "But changing isn't about forgetting how we felt. It's about what we do now, rather than what we might have once before. And considering you've stood tall where you fell before...well, you tell me what that means!"

The small CRT on the dresser across from them and began to play a silent reel of memories:

Her, Shinji and Rei coordinating to take out the tri-fold Angel Israfel. Her and Shinji tag teaming Zeruel and—eventually killing it. Her attacking Unit 01 without hesitation to stop the end of the world. And her with Shinji, shortly after Kaworu's death.

Her train of thought disrupted, Asuka frowned, "You're the one who killed Kaworu."

Kyoko recoiled and looked away, not able to even look her in the eyes, "I saw how it pained you to even consider having to do it. And I feared it would destroy you. So I took the burden from you."

She raised her hands to look at them, "It didn't...please me to kill him."

"I…" Asuka trailed off then swallowed thickly, "Thank you."

She looked back at the memories playing on the TV. She countered, "Anyway, I had to keep going. What choice did I even have?"

"You always have a choice, darling. Even if that choice is to collapse."

"But if I did, then I would have failed everyone!" Asuka protested, "So what choice is that!"

"It is, Asuka. Don't you understand?" Kyoko smiled, "There's a choice in continuing to move on when it's hard and that choice is strength!"

She opened her mouth to protest but, unable to summon one, she closed it again. The CRT's channel changed to static, the harsh noise ripping through the air.

Gently, her mother placed a hand on her shoulder and asked, "How about you tell me what's really on your mind?"

Asuka bowed her head and went silent for a time. Her mother waited patiently for her to feel comfortable to verbally share.

"I really think I might have been able to do better…" she murmured, her tone barely above a whisper.

"Asuka," Kyoko's tone went melancholic, "You shouldn't beat yourself up like this."

"But if I was the best, maybe we could have stopped this!" Asuka protested.

Kyoko went silent, regarding her for a few, long moments before she murmured, "I suppose this is my fault."

"Huh?" that caught Asuka off guard.

"I always put so much pressure on you even before the accident," she explained, "And then, of course, the accident changed everything."

"You shouldn't blame yourself...you weren't yourself…" Asuka trailed off.

To her surprise, Kyoko raised a hand to her shoulder, "Then maybe, we should just extend the same grace we give each other to ourselves?"

Her daughter opened and closed her mouth a few times, looking awfully like a fish, before she asked incredulously, "Are you trying to trick me?"

"Your mother is right."

Asuka jolted to attention, finding Rei had appeared at her other side, sitting on the bed with them. She sputtered, "R-Rei?! It's really you!"

"In the flesh. Whatever counts for flesh here, that is," she replied, a playful spark in her eyes.

Asuka's mouth quirked up into a tiny smile, "Is that a joke, I hear? From the normally stoic Rei Ayanami?"

"These are strange times, indeed," she laughed softly.

Taking her hand, she murmured, "Now Asuka, why won't you extend the same grace you gave me to yourself?"

---

Within another space within Instrumentality, Lilith remained waiting for Kaworu's answer. He shuffled anxiously under the Progenitor's piercing gaze. It held no true emotion, not anger or curiosity or anything at all, but it demanded his answer all the same. "It's not just Shinji," he told her.

"I've made lots of friends this time. Asuka, Rei...even Shinji's friends Toji and Kensuke," though he wilted at the mention of Kensuke's name.

The visage beside Lilith cycled between them before disappearing altogether. "A child of Adam—no, Adam himself changing," Lilith mused, "What a curious thing."

Kaworu decided against once more reminding her he wasn't Adam. More than likely, she was saying that for dramatics. He remembered her having a flair for such things. He certainly remembered her not caring about what he wanted.

"So you truly love Shinji Ikari?" she continued.

"Yes."

"And also Asuka Langley Soryu?"

"Yes."

"Even my daughter, Rei Ayanami?"

"Yes," he closed his eyes, "All of your children, all of the Lilin. I said before: they deserve to live."

"They deserve to live...which means you deserve to die?"

"I...don't want to die but if that's what it takes."

"What an easy way to live," she drawled, crossing her arms, "No need to worry about the future when it's easier to know there is none."

"I just said I don't want to die!"

"But do you even want to live?"

"I'M JUST TIRED!" he screamed.

He panted, the lunar air going silent in the wake of his outburst. Lilith merely smirked at him, nodding slowly to urge him to continue. Still breathless, he murmured, "I'm so tired of trying over and over and nothing happening. It's just so hard to live when it feels like it's going to be all for nothing, in the end."

"Who's to say that? There's still a fair few pages left in this story," Lilith told him, "What happens from here on out is out of my control. My daughter holds all the power and once her and her chosen get to the bottom of this, I very much doubt they'll allow the wheel to keep turning."

Kaworu blinked in surprise, the gears in his head turning slowly once more, "Are you saying...they can actually stop the cycle?"

Casting a thoughtful look at the Earth, she said, "I can tell that's their intent. So, in other words, now that Pandora's Box is just about empty, are you going to have it in you to take what's at the bottom? Can you let yourself hope, Kaworu Nagisa?"

The idea of the cycle ending, his whole life up to now, ending...he felt like he was staring off the precipice of a cliff with no way to tell what was actually at the bottom. And once more, he found himself at a loss for words.

---

"And now, that leaves you," the vista of the Over the Rainbow blinked out as Rei and Shinji returned to the dark space; then the light switched back on, this time the world around them becoming a music room.

He could see in the corner a discarded life-size costume of Unit 01 and cardboard effigies of Tokyo-3, all sized down as if for a tokusatsu flick. On the far wall was an array of instruments slotted into a wooden shelf; among them, cellos, violins and violas. Sunlight streamed through the windows though he couldn't discern anything outside but a blue sky. They were at the center of the room with a pair of fold-out chairs. Shinji sat down, "What of me?"

Sitting beside him, she said lightly, "I don't suppose we have to go over the whole spiel?"

"I definitely haven't forgotten any of it," Shinji returned her light tone.

She beamed, "Oh, Shinji. Even though you don't know the true scope of it, you've come so very far. Was it worth it, even with all the pain?"

His pain having grown so great, his grief so deep and his hopelessness reached it's peak he had to be dragged to salvation, all that time ago, across a barren red wasteland of his own making.

Ramiel's second shot blasting into Eva Unit 01, heating up the LCL around him, boiling him alive until he blissfully slipped into the dark.

Zeruel, very meticulously, dismembering his Eva so even if his mother woke it back up, it would bleed out before anything could be done.

Armisael, worming its way into every part of him, his entire being, racing through his veins like serpent's venom, wearing away the barriers between them.

"Yes," he affirmed, "Rei, you gave me a wonderful gift. I couldn't have squandered it, even with how much pain it brought me."

He sighed, bending over to rest his arms on his legs, "But I still failed."

"Perhaps in failure, there's victory," Rei told him, "After all, now I hold immense amounts of power. My only limit before was I didn't know what we were actually struggling against. Now I know it's the cycle and its perpetrator."

"The perpetrator?" Shinji's eyebrows furrowed, "It just...hasn't been happening for no reason? Or it isn't Kaworu's fault?"

"Kaworu merely hooked into an existing phenomena," she answered, "Perhaps, if it wasn't there before, he might have started all this."

"Who else is there?" Shinji's eyes widened, "Wait...you're not saying…"

The world changed once more to a beautiful scene, one that was vaguely familiar to Shinji. They stood under a tree beside a bench on the edge of a beautiful lake. The world was almost too bright to make sense and Shinji had to squint for a few moments before his eyesight adjusted. Rei waited for him to catch his bearings before she answered, "I see you've figured it out. Just as she ended the world this time, she's been allowing it to happen over and over again.

Yui Ikari, the first one within the cycle."