first. ( audio )

[nothing]

[ The voice is hushed and small, but no less direct for it. ]

Reporting. Met with Ikari-kun and the pilot of Unit-02. [ Kaworu Nagisa, the Fifth Child - she omits him, as something unsettles her still. ] Housing was located, according to instructions. No status problems. I will wait.

[ Silence, as if she forgot to end the recording, until: ]

Requesting information on where to buy clothes. My plugsuit is not useful here.

Comments

[salvagedsoul]

[She's clinging to them? He can't help but smile.]

For what reason do you want to report to them?

I'm sure they'll display their incompetence to you sooner rather than later.

[nothing]

[ In all honesty, she has no particular wish to. Only a fleeting resemblance to the one past she knows is what holds her, for what she sees as lack of any other alternative. And so: ]

Uncertain.

[salvagedsoul]

Normalcy, familiarity, sameness.

And yet, sameness is why you feel uneasy at the sight of me. Right?

[nothing]

There may be similarities. That is all.

[salvagedsoul]

But similarities in the truest sense of the word.

[he pauses, thinking. the last Rei had been from another time - a future loop. This one is the one he met, but from sometime before they met.]

How many angels had been defeated before you were brought here?

[nothing]

Sixteen.

[ Shinji, by his words and by his life in a time beyond hers, confirmed it. Her decision had worked, back then. ]

[salvagedsoul]

[So this Rei knows, then. About herself.]

I see.

Are you so ready to return to servitude after your last choice was undone for you?

[Kaworu knows about you too, Rei.]

[nothing]

[ She's unprepared to return to anything at all. But, if ever there were a time to filter, it would likely be now. ]

You remain familiar with us in spite of your nature. Why?

[salvagedsoul]

The Angels and the Lilim are 99.89% genetically identical.

[But always, always, that 0.11%. The gap between himself and those he had chosen not to destroy. Regardless, he doesn't want to talk about himself right now. If she has to know, he trusts that she'll press him for it, but it's not the conversation he's wanted to have with her.]

And regardless, I was a pawn. Not unlike yourself, not unlike the Second, not unlike Shinji-kun. I can see it, now.

[nothing]

[ For as much as they answer, his replies raise only more questions in their place. Ones on which she'd rather not dwell, if it can in any way be helped. She has no inclination to speak of herself, either. Never before, and certainly not now. Here lies the impasse.

For the moment, he'll receive simple silence. No confirmation or denial. ]

[salvagedsoul]

[His face remains neutral as he listens for a reaction, but when it's clear it won't come, he leans back and closes his eyes.]

What have you been told about me so far?

[nothing]

The Fifth Child is an Angel. All Angels will have been eliminated.

You are another who should not be alive.

[salvagedsoul]

Yes.

[What happened, happened. He opens his eyes and stares back into the tablet's lens. ]

I wrote my own ending and this place took it from me. An ending where I acted against those who had lied to me, where I didn't destroy the creatures I came to care for. If there's any reason I was brought back by this place, I can only guess it was to show me how futile my actions were.

[nothing]

To care for...

[ A bond, with all people? She knows this well, if so. ]

Then. For what do you continue to live?

[salvagedsoul]

When I died, I hurt Shinji-kun. It was something I hadn't anticipated.

[he gives her a strange smile at that.]

I'll stay if only to keep that from happening again.

[nothing]

Hurt him?

[ Yes. Hurt him. It's enough to send a heated sharpness behind her eyes and an almost imperceptible cold edge to her voice, things she wants gone as much as she now wants that smile gone. She made a promise then, and she's got every intention of keeping it here. (A purpose?) ]

I will see that he is protected from you. [ From anything. ]

[salvagedsoul]

[It's the exact same response. Kaworu looks away, his eyelids drooping with heavy thought. But his smile is broader, genuine.]

You and I, really, are the same.

[nothing]

You may think what you will.

[ What she thinks, she at least won't consider in present company, even to herself. ]

[salvagedsoul]

[Maybe he's coming off like he's enjoying this, and in a way, he is. But it's from a warm feeling in his chest - not malice.]

You didn't know you were going to be brought back when you self-destructed.

[The same, the same, the same.

Rei has his sympathies, - he's sure Seele would have done the same to him, had his death not been part of their plan from the beginning, or if they had some other use for him.]

[nothing]

No.


... I am aware that we can understand each other.

[salvagedsoul]

[he looks back again, still pleased.

Something about this feels good. Makes him feel more at ease.]

Regardless, if you'd like to protect Shinji-kun from me, I won't mind.

[nothing]

[ Rei doesn't have anything to compare this to. Though the unwanted memory of the Sixteenth Angel invading her heart in her own form is all that comes close, it hardly fits. She sees it plainly in him, something far more than base curiosity towards beings who stand on the other side. ]

It was my promise.

[salvagedsoul]

Well, I can't stand in the way of a promise made to Shinji-kun.

Do as you like.

[nothing]

I intend to.