To begin, a minor lesson on the ancient symbol of a serpent eating its own tail: The ouroboros typically is used to refer to something creating itself, destroying itself or perhaps even both at once. But the image can mean so much more than that. As with all truly fascinating concepts and metaphors, the meaning can drop and change on a whim depending upon the context within which it is placed. It can represent a never-ending cycle. It can represent an alchemist’s opus. Or perhaps it could even represent something a great deal more complicated, such as the concept of primordial unity, of momentary separation from that unity and the eventual return to it.
Though this last may well seem like it is particularly relevant to the world of Evangelion, there is a different meaning at play. Ouroboros can also mean something a little more literal. “When an end meets its own beginning.” The serpent must be wary when this happens. It may well occur that its appetite is so great, it finds a way to consume itself whole.
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Let’s face it. She was lost. She was so very, very lost. That was the trouble, really. It was a very complicated facility with lots of staff and corridors and equipment and corridors and sections and corridors. Misato Katsuragi hadn’t been here nearly long enough to memorise it all. Wasn’t really her fault, was it? She was blameless! Nobody gave her a map or anything, citing security reasons! This seemed a trifle short sighted in her eyes. Couldn’t they have sent a guide along to lead them where they needed to go?
“I think we passed this way already,” the boy behind her said. Misato didn’t even stop to look back at him, but only to hide her own amusement. So unlike his father, with those stern eyes that said they knew your every secret so don’t you even try anything. Anything. At all. Just do as you’re told and it’ll be alright.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I’m sure everything here has its -” the air suddenly shifted all around them. It was a small thing, the sort of event you don’t really notice until it’s already gone. A distinct feeling that something has changed. That you’ve crossed some invisible boundary you were only aware of on a peripheral level. Misato’s instincts were screaming of danger at her even before she saw the dead bodies. “… Purpose,” she finished quietly, gaping at the corridor ahead of her.
There were scientists and staff lying motionless on the floor. “Shinji, please don’t look,” she absently said to nobody in particular. What? Who could have done this? Misato kneeled next to the body, looked back at Shinji and scowled. “I said please don’t look! You don’t need to see something like this.”
“Ah! S-Sorry!” Shinji said, suddenly turning to face the wall. Poor kid looked white as a sheet. Last thing he needed was something like this - No. Correction. The last thing he needed was to wind up like these poor - Hang on. They were shot? In which case, whoever was responsible could still be -
Misato dove backwards and tackled Shinji to the ground, pulling him under a hail of bullets. Right. She counted three soldiers and yanked Shinji around the nearest corner. “Cover your eyes and ears a moment,” she said to the poor boy she had inadvertantly been smothering with her cleavage. They looked like JSDF, but why would they -
“The pilot’s location has been identified,” she heard. “He is pinned down with Major Katsuragi in corridor delta five!”
Major? Where did they get the idea she was a Major? So many questions, so little time to deal with them. But she had the commander’s son to worry about. Scared out of his mind probably. Right. Only one thing for it. She’d have to take one alive for questioning. It would be a simple matter of popping around the corner, headshot two of them, kneecap the other. That kind of shooting was actually pretty trivial to her these days, given the hours she’d been putting in -
Three gunshots rang out just as she was turning the corner, and in the very next second she was quite literally run into by herself. If nothing else, she could be satisfied that her reflection seemed every bit as confused about what the hell was going on as everybody else.
<hr>
Gendo Ikari did not feel anxiety, for that would imply he was prone to panic. He was deliberate. Calm. Methodical. He planned. He took the rational course of action. In all things, save one. There was but a single thing that could make him behave in an irrational manner, and the peculiar thing was that it was also the single motivating factor he had to behave rationally in every aspect of his life.
Today was a big day. Significant beyond significance. He had been waiting for this day patiently for years. A decade of waiting, and planning meticulously behind the backs of people so ruthless cunning and connected that if they caught so much of a whiff of his true intentions he’d have been mailed to himself in several small pieces before he even knew they’d killed him.
So. Step one. Convince his son to pilot. This would not be difficult; in point of fact, it seemed as though fate had provided him with an opportunity even as it spat in his eye. The boy would refuse at first. Almost certainly. For this reason alone he had Rei on a hospital bed, ready to be wheeled into the room at a moment’s notice. The sight of the girl writhing in agony very nearly made <i>him</i> want to jump in the damned thing that took his wife and use it to knock the Angel around. He could but imagine how his son might feel.
Well, okay. It didn’t really make him feel that way at all. Guilty for putting her into that state? Yes. That was the end of it. Nothing more than that. But the guilt was useful as a motivator to prevent it from happening again.
All for the sake of the scenario.
All of a sudden his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. How strange. He was not expecting a communication at this time. The number calling belonged to the sub-commander, who had remained with the military officials to try and keep them from doing anything particularly foolish like forgetting just how thoroughly the Angel had stomped all over their best efforts like a tank rolling over an anthill.
“Commander, you are not going to believe this,” the sub-commander began. This particular statement gave Gendo a great deal of pause. Had anyone else said it, he’d have internally rolled his eyes in amusement at the presumption. He had seen things which would quite literally turn your shit white. He had experienced events so inexplicable and terrifying that a lesser man would have been driven mad (though perhaps he was not the best arbiter of sanity… then again, who would be in this mad world?) and come out rather unfazed. The sub-commander had been present for a great deal of that. His mentor and direct subordinate <i>knew exactly</i> just how much suspension of disbelief Gendo Ikari was willing to put up with.
Which meant that whatever Fuyutsuki had to say was about to hit the mother lode. A veritable atomic bomb of a revelation. This particular expectation was absolutely not disappointed.
<hr>
Gendo Ikari did not feel anxiety, for that would imply he was prone to panic. He was deliberate. Calm. Methodical. He planned. He took the rational course of action. In all things, save one. There was but a single thing that could make him behave in an irrational manner, and the peculiar thing was that it was also the single motivating factor he had to behave rationally in every aspect of his life.
Today was a big day. Significant beyond significance. He had been waiting for this day patiently for years. A decade of waiting, and planning meticulously behind the backs of people so ruthless cunning and connected that if they caught so much of a whiff of his true intentions he’d have been mailed to himself in several small pieces before he even knew they’d killed him.
Just ahead of him was the key, and down in this secret basement was the lock to the final door keeping him away. Keeping him from her. No more obstacles in his path. Not even the old men could stop him now. No matter their plans with the MAGI, no matter the assaults with the JSDF, no matter their little mass production units. (Oh, they thought he didn’t know about that, but he was well ahead of the game.) All he needed - all he ever needed - was Rei, what was in his hand, and what was down in this basement. Nothing more than -
Rei stopped walking.
“Something is wrong,” she said, moments before the call came through. Gendo did not have time for this, but what choice did he have? He flipped open the phone and listened to the absolutely impossible thing he just heard.
<hr>
So, you know how it goes. Girl goes into a depression-induced coma, wakes up when she finds herself nearly being killed, realises her mother was always there protecting her. Loving her. Looking out for her. Then she’d gotten right on up, kicked the ass of an army attacking her friends - <i>yes, friends, they were your friends and colleagues you have to open up and let these people be close to you, Asuka it’s not safe for my beloved daughter to close herself off from the world, and hey that Shinji kid seems kinda nice, isn’t he Ikari’s son? I never cared for her myself, but</i> - and generally been an effortless all-out badass.
If only they hadn’t clipped her damned power supply, she’d be doing just peachy.
And then, Asuka saw something. An impossible something that just sorta popped right into the corner of her vision. “No way,” she’d said, breaking out into a rather manic grin. “No. Freaking. Way.”
Well then! Looks like her day was going just great after all! A hulking beast with mostly black “skin” and a birdlike face. She’d seen pictures. She’d seen videos. She’d seen the clumsy fight where it decided to go all kamikaze, except suck at everything but the dying part. This was impossible. Flat out, like, impossible. Couldn’t happen. Could never, ever happen. But there it was. Larger than life and twice as ugly. Some might call it Sachiel. Some might call it the Third Angel. But to Asuka?
This was redemption.
No sign of the Third or Unit 01. No sign of Wondergirl, and Unit 00 was gone anyway. Just her and this brute. One on one. Sure, her time limit was a concern, but screw it. This was by far the least troublesome of all the Angels. The only thing that might kill steal was the Angel itself, which it might given past history.
“Oh, Sachiel?” she said in a singsong voice. “Time to play!”
Unit 02 pounced through the air in a way that put most big cats to shame. Sachiel put up a resistance, but she plowed through that AT-Field with a merry “go fuck yourself” in her step and used his own goddamn arm to impale him to the ground. It was almost too easy, given what she’d been through recently… But hell! The way she was feeling she could probably use an AT-Field to pull the moon from orbit! Probably best not to try that just in case; there are maybe some things ego isn’t worth.
God, listen to her. Was she growing up?
… No. No she wasn’t. Because she’d just thought of something. That thing on the ground was more than just redemption. It was something else.
“What was it you used to say?” Asuka asked her Unit, her protector her weapon her sword and her shield. All in one. All the time. All for her. “Here comes the airplane! OPEN WIDE!”
Within a minute Sachiel was torn wide open and Unit 02 began to have itself a feast. The only soldiers that didn’t throw up after witnessing this were the ones that were already dead, unconscious or able to completely deny what they were seeing as they were seeing it.
- Misato talks with herself about what the hell is going on
- The mass production EVAs show up.
- Both Gendos investigate Sachiel's disappearance.
- SEELE freaks out.
- Something else
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