Chapter 70

The silence seemed to last forever, stretching out of the blackness and wrapping around them like a cloak. It was everywhere, utterly pervasive, as if nothing else existed in the entire universe. Then came a voice, hard and dull like stone.

"Man is essentially a single soul," Gendo Ikari said. "But man defines himself as an individual and thus lives isolated from other souls. This isolation forms our identities—who we are, what we want. The AT Field keeps the individuals whole. Without it we cannot exist as separate entities. If the AT Field is removed, man's body ceases to be and the souls become one with each other."

The girl they called Rei Ayanami stood next to him on the platform, somewhere deep inside Terminal Dogma. She had been here before, when she had retrieved the Lance to use against an Angel. And yet, she hadn't. Not her. The other one had been here. A different person. A different her.

Naked, her pale flesh gleamed white. Her face appeared emotionless, blank. The only sign that she was alive and not a statue in human form were her eyes—red, glowing, but alive.

In front of her, beyond the dark concrete edge, she could see the white outline of a huge, fat creature. It was oddly shaped but humanoid, with arms outstretched, its palms nailed to large red cross. Two thick legs dangled from a long, nearly formless body as white as Rei's, and where its face should have been there was a shimmering metal mask with seven eyes. And they were looking at her.

Rei did not know how she knew, but she knew. She could feel the creature's energy, like a heated mist on her bare skin, slowly rising to envelope her. It seemed to want her to approach it, and be one with it. Rei wanted it too. She was tired of being alone.

Then she understood. She looked down at her hands, spreading her fingers. Her voice when she spoke was emotionless. "I have an AT Field?"

Ikari let the question hang in the air, as if expecting that she would find the answer on her own.

"Yes," he finally said. "But your AT Field has begun to collapse. Your sense of individuality will soon be lost. You will die soon. And that is the way it's supposed to be."

"Why?" the albino girl whispered. She looked at him for the first time in what felt like hours.

"Because that is your purpose," Ikari answered. His face was frozen solid, his glasses round white plates shielding his eyes. His hands were in his pockets, but his posture was rigid. He was a man made of granite. "You were created to bring Man together in a final act of complementation. I made you to be the tool for Man's ascent by giving you a soul for safekeeping. It does not belong to you."

I am not myself, Rei thought. Then again, she had never been herself, only the ghost of another. A living corpse. "Whose soul do I carry?"

"You are not meant to know," Ikari said. "We are only the purpose that is given to us. I have confessed your purpose because I see no harm in it. But it is simply yours because I have given it to you. The second Rei made the mistake of thinking that purpose could be changed, and so decided to chose. And she died for her choice."

Rei remembered. "She loved him. She chose to protect him."

"Tools are meant to protect, but not to love."

"That does not change what she felt," Rei said.

"No." Ikari walked closer to her and removed his right hand from his pocket. As he did, Rei saw that he was holding something in his palm. "I do not begrudge her the affection for my son. But she threw away her purpose. It was a mistake."

It did not feel like a mistake. In a life full of loneliness and hurt, the sacrifice she had made felt like the only thing that mattered. She chose to protect who she loved because she could choose, and she could love.

Rei envied that girl.

Ikari came to stand only inches away from her, so close that Rei had to look up in order to see his face. He was much bigger than her. Much taller.

This is my purpose, Rei told herself, but she did not want it.

Slowly, methodically, Ikari turned over his right hand. Rei shifted her gaze to see what he was holding. There was something in his palm, a large bulge grafted to the skin. It looked almost like an human embryo, with a large head and small black dots for eyes. But it was not human. She had seen pictures in anatomy books. The size and shape were wrong. And she could feel it was wrong as well.

"This is Adam," Ikari said. "This is what the Angels were looking for."

Rei focused intently on the thing. She tried to show no emotion, but something inside of her recoiled. "Adam?"

Ikari nodded. "Yes. He is the first. But he is not the only first. There is another. Not the missing rib subjugated to Adam but free in her own right. She is Adam's equal, cast aside and wed by demons." He turned his gaze towards the crucified monster behind them. "She is the genetic source of our biology, and, more importantly, of our soul. The Mother of humanity and the Evangelion. Lilith."

Rei followed him with just her eyes, not turning her head or body. "Is that what I feel inside Unit-00?"

"No. Every Eva has a soul that has been salvaged from a human being. Adam cannot command these. But Lilith can to an extent. Humanity's soul is her creation, much like the Angels are Adam's. However, Lilith's control ends with the will—to be an individual, to exert control over our surroundings, to simply exist. The AT Field. Therefore, for Lilith to bring humanity to her, the AT Field must be removed."

"Remove the AT Field?"

"You do not need to know any more." Ikari reached down with his hand, the one holding the embryo, towards Rei's flat stomach.

The albino girl felt a strange sensation and a soft light flashed before her eyes as a translucent hexagon formed in front of her like a barrier. The edges of the hexagon were a distinct red, arranged in a concentric pattern so that they grew smaller as they approached the center.

Ikari gazed into her eyes. "This is your AT Field."

"My…AT Field?" Rei did not know what was happening. It was awkward, alien, but not painful or uncomfortable.

Ikari slowly inched his hand forward, causing the AT Field to bend towards her. The perfectly geometrical outlines became distorted, warped like a wall of heated glass. Rei stood still, but across this barrier that separated her from everyone else she noticed a strained look on Ikari's face. He hunched over slightly, putting as much force as he could on her AT Field.

Rei still did not understand. How could she manifest an AT Field? Only Angels and Evas were supposed to do so. Not humans. But then, she was not really human, was she?

Doubt flared up inside of her, as it always did when she considered the nature of her existence. She flinched.

The light was gone. The AT Field vanished. Ikari came forward, the embryo outstretched in his hand reaching for her. Rei fought the urge to step back.

"No," she said weakly, raising a hand between the advancing abomination and her pale flesh. "Stop."

It was the first time that she had refused him, and she did not know what made her think that he would take heed. Somehow, a part of her wanted to believe that he saw her as more than just an object. If his son could, why not him?

He kept coming. Closer.

Rei recoiled in disgust, but even as she did she realized the futility of her resistance. He was going to do with her as he wanted, and she could not stop him. He grabbed her wrist forcefully with his other hand, moving it out of the way as he pressed the embryo flat against her lower abdomen. It was warm.

"Stop."

Ikari pushed in, and the embryo seemed to sink into her through her skin. Rei felt her muscles clench, but her flesh gave in as though it were made out of jelly. There was no pain, only a strange awareness that what he was doing was wrong because it was happening against her will. In a moment Ikari's hand was in her womb, or where her womb should have been.

She closed her eyes and there was only darkness... and the feeling of the thing wriggling inside her. A scream rose in her throat.

Her eyes shot open, and the darkness was replaced by a flat gray ceiling.

The pain that raked her body was so overwhelming that all she could do was turn on her side and wretch. Almost nothing came out, but the taste in her mouth was bitter. She heaved again.

When the pain reseeded and the heaving finally stopped, Rei lifted her head and looked around. She realized that she was lying naked on her own bed, in her apartment. The sheets under her were warm and soaked with sweat. A puddle of her vomit had formed on her pillow where she had wretched, and it started to smell.

Rolling onto her back, Rei stared blankly at the ceiling.

Several things were immediately apparent. First, she had obviously survived her fight with the Angel, though she did not remember how. Second, she must have been released from the hospital. She did not remember that either. There was only the image of Gendo Ikari standing with her, penetrating her.

"Was it a dream?" Rei whispered to herself as she sat up, kicking the sheets away to reveal her completely nude body.

She reached down with a hand and pressed it against the skin where Ikari had placed the embryo. Her hands were cold, but other than that there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Another moment passed as her body adjusted to being awake. She rubbed a hand gingerly against her right temple. No pain assaulted her and she found this strange. There had been a lot of pain in her head before.

She climbed cumbersomely from the bed, struggling with her balance as she got to her feet. Her body was heavy, sluggish. The only light came from the window behind her, slipping fuzzily through the curtains which she could not recall drawing shut. The floor was cold—it always was. She looked at the nightstand, where Gendo Ikari's broken eyeglasses lay next to a cup of water, then at the soiled pillow. She stripped the cover and tossed into the nearby garbage can.

Shuffling her feet, Rei made her way into the bathroom. It was a tiny, unkempt space; towels and old garments lay discarded everywhere. Water still pooled in the tub that she had neglected to empty. The shower curtain was ripped out of its place and crumpled in a corner. The porcelain, once a shiny white, was covered in streaks of yellow, and the floor tiles were dirty.

She rinsed the bitter from her mouth with water from the faucet and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the sink. Her eyes were half-shut and dull, her short hair a disheveled mop, her expression even more slack than usual.

To her weary mind it seemed a rather odd way for a person to look. As a general rule of human behavior, body language gave clues to someone's mood. And the face, being the most characteristic trait of a person, gave many of those clues. But Rei thought it strange that her face said nothing. Absolutely nothing.

She had no opinion on how she ought to feel about that.

Her nudity was also clearly reflected back at her. Although she seldom habit of going to bed naked, Rei had such disregard for modesty that it wasn't unusual. If she was particularly tired or freshly showered, she simply would not bother dressing. Propriety dictated her attire in public; in her own private space she was free to not care.

She was aware of it, of course, but it was not the sort of thing to pay attention to. It was a natural state, unencumbered by the pretense of clothing that defined social classes. But some, like the Second Child, seemed to openly abhor it. Rei didn't understand—did she wear a swimsuit every time she stepped into the shower?

Again Rei looked down at her stomach, and again she failed to find any indication that her nightmare had been anything but that. Her experience with dreams was limited. Maybe she would have to find a book about it.

It was inside me, she thought. He put it inside me.

The face that stared back at her had no answers. On a whim, Rei spread her legs and let her hand wander down to her labia.

He put it inside me, she thought again. This time she felt dirty.

The face in the mirror could hardly have cared less. Rei decided that for now it was best to follow its example.

After a quick stint sitting on the toilet, she stepped into the shower. The apartment had grown darker by the time she left the bathroom. The sun was going down, casting a red hue and shadows as black as ink.

Dripping wet, a towel draped around her shoulders, Rei padded into the small kitchen. The space was crowded with plastic bags and smelled of old food, and the scuffed tiles felt rough under her bare feet. She opened the refrigerator and looked for food. Ramen noodles would do. She peeled back the lid on one of the plastic cups and filled it with water, then found a pair of clean chopsticks while the cup heated in the microwave.

Hot food was a superfluous luxury, but one she enjoyed.

Rei returned to her bed with the ramen and sat at the edge of the mattress. The springs creaked and sank underneath her buttocks. The cloth was old and worn but soft. To her that made it comfortable. Her whole body seemed to slump forward as she dipped the chopsticks into the cup and brought a thin string of noodles to her lips. The taste of broth filled her mouth, and she slurped greedily, not realizing how hungry she had been.

And as she ate the paltry supper her gaze wandered to the glasses sitting on the nightstand. His glasses. For no particular reason that she could think of, Rei tossed them in the garbage too.