"My mom…?"

Shinji, Rei and everyone else had found themselves within Instrumentality for despite the children's best efforts, there was a factor no one had expected.

Rei nodded slowly as she sat on the white bench by the late. Shinji didn't sit beside her, too restless to, instead standing in front of her. She explained, "Yui Ikari, at that first end of the world, got what she desired: becoming a monument to humanity forever and always. But...even though she let her son go, as she drifted through the endless expanse, realized she was regretful. It's hard to say what exactly for. Regretful she didn't get to live a normal life with her son? Regretful her time with him was cut short? Regretful that maybe she could have done more?

Did she even want to become immortal if it came at this cost? What if it was her simply coping with not getting what she wanted? Maybe it was easier to believe this was all a forgone conclusion and she did the best with what she had. Whatever it was, she was so regretful, loved him so, that she willed the universe to loop in on itself, all for a few more months with him. She'd eventually get her fill, she told herself, and could move on without regrets."

"But she didn't."

Shinji turned to find his mother standing under a tree across from them. This time, he could see her face clearly; her mouth pulled into a tight frown and her eyes glossy with unshed tears. She was slack, like a child waiting for admonishment. A wave of emotions crashed against him and he shook, unable to pick out what he felt until finally, it landed on anger. Stalking towards her, he balled his hands into fists, "Mother, is all that true?"

Nodding slowly, she admitted, "Every bit of it. Shinji...I just couldn't let you go. You don't understand…"

"I don't understand?!" he pointed an accusatory finger at her, "You don't understand all the pain I went through! Over and over!"

Finally, her head snapped up and her blue eyes bore into his own matching ones, "You weren't supposed to remember! None of you were supposed to remember!"

She shook with barely restrained frustration, "When the Angel boy remembered, it was fine because he wanted to be dead. When Mari remembered, it was fine because she was looking out for you. But you...why would you make yourself go through that?"

"Because I wanted it to end!"

"That wasn't how it was supposed to go! None of this was how it was supposed to go!"

"If that's the case, Yui, then you've been a hypocrite towards me."

The world shifted into a dark, moody room with a wide window dominating one wall; his father's office. Yui and Shinji whirled around to find the newcomer. Standing some distance away, hands in his pockets and face neutral as always, was Gendo Ikari. Shinji could only gape at the sudden appearance of his father. Was he...actually defending him, in a way?

Yui's face twisted into something truly bestial, a primal display of rage and fury. She stomped up to him and slapped him as hard as she could. Even though his head snapped to the side, his expression didn't change. Frustrated at how he didn't flinch, she grabbed his collar and began shaking him like a ragdoll, "Don't act like you're not at fault!"

"I never said I'm innocent. I'm not the one claiming it, my beloved," Gendo told her coolly.

"Don't you call me that. You're the one who abandoned Shinji," she hissed, eyes and voice brimming with venom.

"That is true," he conceded, "I don't deny my faults nor my wrong actions. I believed it would be all worth it in the end...not that all my actions were pure. I abandoned Shinji and you refused to let him go, far beyond when you should have. We are both at fault."

Yui hissed again and shoved him away, his image crumbling like sand as it fell away from her. The world around them shifted again into a familiar baby's room. She grabbed the edge of the crib, to keep herself from sinking to her knees. She screamed, "It just isn't fair!"

She shook and let herself sink to the floor, "It just isn't fair," she repeated, "Why did the world have to end? Why did people outside my power, my family among them, decide that?"

"But it didn't have to end," a new voice murmured.

They were transported to a new location, one Shinji didn't recognize. They were in a small, nearly cramped office. The desk was covered in papers and in the window, a window AC unit whined, making a valiant effort to cool the stuffy space. Outside, Shinji could tell they were on a college campus. Sitting at the desk was a younger Vice Commander Fuyutski—though he supposed he wasn't Vice Commander yet.

"Professor Fuyutski!" Yui cried.

He smiled fondly at her, "Yui...as beautiful as the day you left us."

She blushed and grumbled, "That's hardly appropriate...considering," she jerked her head at Shinji.

"You're correct," he admitted, "We've got bigger things at hand. As I said, Yui; the world didn't have to end."

She scowled, the fire relighting in her eyes, "Of course it did! Humanity...we were so violent, such a lost cause...the only way forward was through Instrumentality! We are a good race, but stained...corrupted. We had to learn peace."

Shinji's eyes widened, astounding by the statement his mother was making. It sounded so...unlike her—or maybe unlike what he thought she was. Fuyutski, on the other hand, was unaffected. He placed his chin on his fist and asked, "Did you plan to keep us in Instrumentality?"

She frowned and looked down at her feet. Time stretched long, or maybe it was only a few moments, before she admitted, "I hadn't decided that. I thought it might be nice to pull everyone out and we would achieve world peace after looking into everyone's hearts. But...there was no guarantee it would work like that. Maybe we'd be better off living a dream as long as we were safe. After all, it's not like we could have stopped it anyway."

Shinji opened his mouth to protest but Fuyutski held up a finger to him, indicating for him to wait. Continuing his line of questioning, he asked, "So you planned to leave humanity in this state behind as you journeyed through the heavens within Unit 01?"

"Most likely," she admitted.

Her eyes lit up, "But it'd be wonderful! Humanity could stagnate or perish or truly leave this world and I would still be here! The last remnant of our kind! No one could say we didn't exist."

Fuyutski nodded, "That seems hardly fair but that is what you think. One more question, Yui. How is any of that much different than what SEELE wanted for us?"

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, caught off guard by his assertion. Then her face practically turned crimson, "They would have lorded over humanity as gods!"

"And becoming some distant, wandering god is much better?"

The door creaked open and the trio turned to find Mari, as an adult and, most shockingly, bleeding from a bullet hole in her face. Shinji recoiled, nearly knocking the papers off the desk in his revulsion. Despite her injury, she was all smiles.

Yui took a few steps towards her then stopped, as if she couldn't come any closer. She murmured, "Mari...I never wanted you to be hurt."

"That's your shtick, isn't it, Yui?" she asked, "You never want anyone to be hurt but you make up excuses as to why it's fine if it happens, right?"

"I thought you'd understand…"

"I really didn't. And I still don't."

This time, the scene transitioned to a memory. It was after dark in an office Shinji didn't recognize but, thanks to Instrumentality, knew as Yui's old office from back in her days at GEHIRN. Once more, he was being treated to a memory between his mother and Mari. His mother looked bright and joyful yet Mari's face was sketched with suspicion. Once more, her voice came through static, "Yui, you can't be serious. This is a joke, right?"

"I'm completely serious!" Yui protested, reaching out a hand to take hers.

Mari slapped the offending hand away, "That's insane! You're insane! Do you even hear yourself?! You want to let a Third Impact happen!"

"I thought you'd understand, Mari! That's why I got you this position here," she explained, "There's no way to reverse what we know now...no way to shove all those horrors back into Pandora's Box. We can't undo Second Impact, we can't put all the knowledge back. Even if everyone responsible dropped dead tomorrow, someone else would just pick up where they started. It's best this way."

"You won't even fight it?" Mari murmured, stepping back, her face pulled back in a mixture of disgust and shock.

"There's no fighting it," Yui shook her head, "I know these people. I grew up around them. You fight against them too aggressively, you die. This is the only way."

"I think deep down, you don't want to,"

"Excuse me?!" Yui flinched back, aghast.

Serious, Mari nodded, "Yes. I think, deep down, you internalized those beliefs. But it's fine right? You're going about it a different way. A better way. Your subjugation of humanity is totally different from their's, right?"

"It is!"

"Save it," Mari pushed past her, "I'm not hearing anymore. I didn't believe one of the people I was going to have to defend Shinji from was his own mother."

That landed like an atom bomb to Yui's heart and she stumbled back into her desk, unable to say anything to stop Mari from leaving.

"I only had a week left to live after that," Mari said as the memory faded and the quartet were back in the stuff college office, "I was gathering files, had plans to send them off to as many governments as I could. I don't know where but I got sloppy. I was running on adrenaline, not getting sleep so it really should have been expected."

"You really should have just laid low," Yui said, her tone sour.

"Nah, I don't regret dyin'," Mari shook her head, "I just regret not being there for Shinji that first time around. Of course, after that I woke up…"

"...like this," in the blink of an eye, she changed to her 14 year old self, clad in a white-and-pink plugsuit, "Things changed significantly. It was like the universe knew I was going to have trouble as an adult so it tailor-made me a new identity. Really weird but hey, in this business you learn to roll with the punches!"

She leaned against the door and added, "You really duped me though. When I didn't hear anything about you being actually conscious in there the first few go-arounds, I figured maybe you got too cocky and you really lost yourself in Unit 01," rubbing her bloody temple, she amended, "Though I guess you did, in a way."

"None of you really understand," Yui murmured bitterly.

"There's only so many times you can say "you don't understand" before it becomes clear that you're the one who actually doesn't understand."

Like smoke in the wind, Mari, Fuyutski and the entire office blew away, leaving Shinji and Yui in the dark. Then, with a heavy ker-chunk, an overhead light came on, revealing them on a familiar-but-not-quite catwalk, in front of the hulking figure of Unit 02. Coming down the catwalk was a woman with long blonde hair, wearing a lab coat. Yui flinched, "Even you, Kyoko?"

"I think you mean especially me," she spat.

She looked past her, at Shinji and smiled, "Hello Shinji. It's quite nice to meet you finally."

He stammered, "Y-you too? Uh, Mrs. Langley Soryu?"

She chuckled, "Actually just Miss Zeppelin Soryu, thank you very much."

Yui cut in, "So you've come to dress me down too?"

"If you weren't so stubborn, it wouldn't need to happen!" Kyoko chided.

She cast a pensive look at Unit 02 before she launched into her own spiel, "When we lost you, we thought it was an accident. Akagi figured it was the lack of safe guards so of course, that's where I decided to start before I did my own contact experiment. I really believed in the science. Not like just about everyone else and their ulterior motives."

"It's not like I wanted what happened to you to happen! But you must understand it had to happen!" Yui protested.

Tipping her head back, Kyoko nodded, "Of course, we really did need to find a way to make the Evangelions to move. Plans of Third Impact aside, the Angels would come and we would have to defend ourselves. If you had told me what had to happen, I might have even considered going ahead with it."

"But I didn't know," a nearly identical voice came from behind them; another Kyoko, her long hair disheveled, dressed in hospital scrubs and clutching a doll.

Shinji gasped in surprise; was there any reason he was being subjected to his mother's intervention too if it was going to continually throw horrors at her?

The sane Kyoko continued, "I got in Unit 02 to do the Contact Experiment and when she began to pull, I freaked out. I pulled back."

"It ripped us in half," the ill Kyoko murmured, eying her doll with an undeniable look of sadness.

"You would have never done it," Yui said.

"Maybe, maybe not," the sane Kyoko said, banishing her doppelganger with a wave of her hand, "If you told me it's what had to be done, I really would have considered it. However I felt about you, I did—and still do—believe you're a competent scientist and know what you're doing."

"Flattering me isn't making this feel like less of an attack," Yui warned, "What do...what do you all even want me to do!"

At her cry, the world around them shattered, like a broken window, leaving the trio in the void. Kyoko stared back, defiantly, not concerned for her anger. She said, "I want you to take some damn accountability in how everyone around you gets hurt!"

"I want you to admit that some part of you never outgrew SEELE's beliefs," said Fuyutski from her right.

"I want you to stop acting like you're any better than me," murmured Gendo from her left.

Finally lost his patience, Shinji cried from beside her, "And I just want all this to be over with!"

This stunned Yui into silence. The other figures disappeared, leaving only them in the void. Shinji inhaled sharply, closed his eyes and willed a new location into being. Around them, the train materialized, sitting idly in the train station. He opened his eyes and said, "Let's just talk."

Yui's face scrunched up, as if offended, "Like you did your father?"

He shrugged, sitting down on one of the seat, "Worked with him," he patted the spot next to him.

She held the face for a few moments before she slumped and sat beside him, "Alright, Shinji. Let's talk."

She cast a look around the train and added, "When you got through to your father back then...and then something stopped you...that was me. I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking."

Shinji frowned, turned the idea over and over in his head then sighed, "That...makes sense."

"If I had known you would have chosen to go through that pain over and over…"

She couldn't feel anything but the agony of her loss yet she had to continue putting one foot in front of the other.

Being restrained in the cockpit of Unit 01 as the LCL around her heated up growing hotter and hotter until blissful oblivion came.

The feeling of each limb turning dead, agonizing pain as Eva and pilot were systematically dismembered.

Acid racing through her veins which bulged uncomfortably as the Angel sought for them to become one and the same.

"...I think that might have stopped me."

"I don't think I'm upset about that...not anymore. I think after I left Unit 01 I knew, deep down I knew you had done it. I'm just hung up on...you knew what was going to happen but you didn't even try to stop it?" Shinji frowned.

Yui didn't answer immediately, only bowing her head and hooding her eyes. In the silence, Shinji was shown an array of visions:

He was very young, standing in a lavish foyer, being talked to by an older man. The older man was telling him very sternly that there were things he could never talk about lest his whole family be killed. And it would all be his fault.

He was older now, a teenager, being introduced to a group of people at dinner. The older man from before, Father, was telling them how he "had potential", "was going places", "would be a boon for the cause".

Older yet, now a young adult, Father was seeing him off to college. He expected good things from him and urged him to not disappoint him. To disappoint him, his friends and the wider organization would be a disrespect like no other.

"Do you see now Shinji what it was like?" she asked in a hushed tone.

"You didn't even try?" he protested, "Even when you knew you could afford to?"

"What could one woman do?" she countered.

Countering back, he asked, "What did a bunch of teenagers do?"

She had no answer for that. So Shinji continued, "I didn't know your past was anything like that."

"I never wanted you to know. If I had my way in the matter, you would have stayed far away from all this. But then again, even when I thought I escaped them, I still wore their beliefs as shackles," tears began to well up in her eyes then stream down her cheeks, "Oh Shinji...I'm no better than your father, am I?"

He didn't want to answer that so he instead laid his hand on hers, "It's okay, Mom. There's still time to be better now."

"I don't know what to do," she murmured, "I can't bear to leave you. What am I going to do without you? What are you going to do without me?"

"I don't know about the first but the second…"

The train around them swirled and blurred until it reformed to a new location; the dining table in Misato's apartment. Shinji smiled sadly, "I already had to figure out how to live without you."

Yui cast a long, lingering look around the apartment, as if absorbing each detail. Slowly, she returned his smile, "I'm glad there were people out there who wanted to help you...to love you...when I wasn't here. I truly never meant to hurt you."

"It's alright, Mom," once more he laid a hand on hers, "We hurt each other without even trying. What counts is what you do after."

She gave him a long, lingering look then laughed, "You shouldn't have to be talking to me like this...it ought to be the other way around!"

He laughed along, "I guess in a perfect world…"

Getting up from her chair, she approached him. Seeing her approach, he stood. Anxious, she rubbed her arms anxiously then slowly, carefully opened her arms to him. He smiled freely and accepted the embrace, settling his face into her shoulder. They stood there for what might have been mere moments or centuries before his mother pulled away.

She gave him another appraising look before she murmured, "You got so mature when I wasn't looking...that's hardly fair. It's pretty brave to stand up to your parents. Not even I could do that. I'm so very proud of you, my baby boy."

He returned the smile, "I had hoped so."

She sighed, "I suppose I've got little other choice but to let you go."

Something akin to hope began to flutter in Shinji's chest, like a bird desperate to escape. He asked, hushed, "You're really going to?"

She nodded, "I've got little other choice. If I don't, we either have this standoff for all eternity or, if the cycle continues, you'd never trust me again. You'd never open your heart to Unit 01 again."

He couldn't help but hug her again, as tight as he could. Tears springing to his eyes, he murmured, "Thank you, mom."

Returning the embrace, she patted his back, "It's the least I could do. And it's the right thing to do."

Breaking away, she added, "I suppose it'll be like the first time this happened; you'll let everyone choose to come back on their own terms."

He smiled, sorely relieved. He had feared he'd have to really fight her on this, like he had his father so long ago. He told her, "That's exactly it. We all get to come back if we want, live the life we want, and none of this will ever happen again."

She couldn't help but chuckle, "How fitting you'd once more choose to let everyone choose. Ouroboros...it all repeats."

Reaching down to take his hands and squeeze them, she assured him, "I told you this once to a you who won't remember and it's advice I really should have remembered so I'll tell you again now. Anywhere can be paradise, as long as you have the will to live."

"After all, you are alive so you will always have the chance to be happy. As long as the Sun, the Moon and the Earth exist, everything will be alright," a new voice finished for her.

Stepping from behind him, Rei took Shinji's hand, smiling gently at him. Yui took in the pair and asked, "So you are Rei Ayanami."

"I am," she murmured slowly, looking up at her through her eyelashes, "Does seeing me...upset you?"

"No," she shook her head, gently placing her hands on her shoulder and giving them a squeeze, "It's not as if you had a choice in what you're made up of or being made at all. I'm quite glad you helped Shinji, even when I was against him. You have my deepest gratitude."

Rei relaxed under her touch, "How could I turn my back on him? He's my dearest friend...the brother to my heart."

"If you want to call yourself his sister, you may...if that's what you're worried about," she teased, a playful glint to her eyes.

Rei blushed and looked away, "Maybe," she murmured.

Behind them, the door to the apartment opened and a familiar, gruff voice called, "Come along, Yui. I'm sure Shinji wants to get along."

The trio turned to find Gendo had once more appeared, as if from thin air, this time standing outside the apartment. He was, notably, without his tinted glasses. Yui turned, facing her husband in the doorway. She eyed him with an unreadable expression, "Yes. Me and you are going to have a serious conversation."

"...I'm aware, darling. I think we both have things we want to say to the other about how we behaved," the elder Ikari hung his head, his eyes gone uncharacteristically foggy.

The trio went to the threshold, Yui first, then Shinji and Rei trailing after. Yui crossed over the threshold, leaving her two children still inside the apartment. Gendo regarded the pair and cleared his throat. He began, "If I had known about all this, I like to say I would have helped you two to a better future. I'd like to say that."

Shinji sighed, "But you cannot guarantee you would have."

"No. I can't say what I truly would have done."

Despite this, Shinji smiled, "Thanks for not lying to me, Father."

"All things considered, it's the least I could do for you," he murmured, "For both of you, actually. There's much I could say but frankly, not enough time to say it all."

Pausing, he regarded them both with his complete unhidden face. "Shinji," he began, "There's no reason for me to have left you behind. In my desperate attempt to keep you from harm, I only invited you towards it. I feared I would ruin you...and I fear it's what ended up happening anyway."

"I'm not ruined," he murmured, "But I would have liked the chance for a life with you in it. The real you, the one Mom knew."

He smiled once more before turning his attention to Rei, "And Rei...maybe I shouldn't have created you at all but that matters little because you exist now. You are a human being and you deserved to be treated as one, not as as tool or a doll. I will never be able to say sorry enough for what I've done to you. To you and your brother."

"I understand...Father," she said slowly, as if testing the word.

His smile widened; he couldn't help himself, "Whatever happens now, I think I can face it with peace."

Shinji spoke once more, "Will I see you two again? Are you two leaving forever or...will you come back?" his voice grew small, as if he was a child once more.

The pair shared a glance then looked at him. They said in near-unison, "I don't know."

Gendo bowed his head and nervously rubbed his neck as he admitted, "I could hardly blame you if you never wanted to see me again. I don't know if I could live in this world."

"And I don't know if there's even a place for me there anymore," Yui murmured.

Shinji smiled weakly, "If either of you decide you can or if there's a place there...I wouldn't mind sharing that world with you."

He took his mother's hand in his left and his father's in his right. Squeezing them, he said, "Goodbye mother, goodbye father."

"Goodbye, Shinji," they chorused.

They both stepped away and the door closed with a final, definitive click.

It was with a fuzzy warm feeling of melancholy found himself in the now-dark music room with Rei. Unlike at first, where it had been pitch black, it was now merely dim. The last light of sunset was peeking through the window, giving a dream-like quality to the place.

Shinji wiped his tears away with his sleeve and sniffled, letting the feeling course through and out of him. Rei approached him, asking gently, "Are you going to be okay?"

He nodded, "I think so."

She smiled then took his hand, "Alright. Are you ready now?"

He nodded, "Yes. I think I know what I want now."

"I'm glad," she looked him in the eyes, ocean-red meeting ocean-blue, "What is it you desire, Shinji Ikari?"