This is our last hope… the first and last time I will be able to help mankind like this. Anyone who can reimagine the boundaries around their heart can return. I will return the world as it was, and those responsible will be made to pay for their transgressions against the divine messengers.

But this world cannot come about without consequence. Power has been unleashed, and that power will consume the world, or enhance it. It is up to mankind to determine how it will be…

… I have little hope they will make the right decision…

Archdruid Sephiroth Presents

A Neon Genesis Evangelion Fanfic

The Curse

I: Meltdown

Isuki Coffee House was a small establishment located on one of Tokyo-3's primary inlets into the city. Well within city limits, it was one of those places everyone saw but only a select group visited frequently; a close knit clientele that included one former half-angel.

It is January of the year 2016; about 5 months after an event few even realized took place. As Tokyo-3 continued to sweat though its endless summer, the people tried their best to survive it. The economy was bad and birthrates where down, but still the wheels of progress and time continue to turn.

NERV was once a major instigator of economic power within the city, as the city was designed as a safe haven for humans during the Angel Wars. With SEELE exposed for the lie they were, and Gendo dead and gone, the end of the war sounded the death kneel for NERV. For their services, the surviving pilots were given huge pensions, more than enough money that they would never have to work again. However given the personalities of the EVA pilots, they couldn't stay idle for long.

One of those pilots was currently a regular patron of Isuki Coffee House. Her name is Rei Ayanami. Once identified as the First Child of NERV, Rei was the key to Gendo's plot to override Third Impact for himself. Now faced with the prospect of having to live her life instead of being allowed to have it end, she decided she would make something of herself. Her return came with changes; her eyes were very dark brown, almost black now, and her hair was a normal black coloration instead of her unusual look, having returned as a normal human girl.

As she drank her morning cup of coffee she glanced over her Biochemistry project. High School ended up being far too trivial for someone of her intelligence so she graduated while she was still 14 years old. Now a college student at the tender age of 15, she was finally finding coursework that was challenging to her. She wondered if Asuka would have had a similar issue, as she already had college degrees. That musing was the first time she had even thought about the red-head since the angel wars.

As she continued to glance over her work and sip her coffee, she sensed she was being watched. Her eyes left her coursework briefly to gaze around, and was greeted with an unwelcome sight. Dressed sloppily in an office suit and tie, was a rather disheveled looking Japanese man. Rei guessed he was probably in his mid 30's and judging by his unhealthy stare was a bit of a lecher. This wasn't something she wanted to deal with, and hoped he would restrict his lechery to actions she could mostly ignore.

She wasn't that lucky; he stood up, taking his coffee with him , and approached the table. "Well hello, cutie," he greeted suggestively. "What brings a sweet little thing like you into a coffee shop?" She guessed he figured out she was younger than the average patron here and immediately decided she didn't like him.

"Please leave me alone," Rei requested. "I'm busy."

"But I got a proposition for ya," he whispered suggestively.

"I'm not interested," Rei deadpanned.

"Aw, come on, hear me out," he begged.

"I am far too young for you and have better things to do with my time." She tried to remain focused on her work but he wasn't having that. With a click he pushed down the screen of her computer the moment her fingers weren't in the way. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at the man.

"I'll make it worth your while," He promised. "Come on, what do you say?" His hand reached out to grab her by the shoulder. At that moment, Rei was treated with something she didn't want to remember…

"You are doing well, Rei," Gendo had told her. She could almost hear the word 'Yui' at the tip of his tongue. Exposed for all to see, she floated in a tube of LCL, uploading her memory engrams into the Dummy Plug system.

Minutes later, after Akagi had left the room Gendo watched the young Rei as she began to shower in the exposed stall in the room, rinsing away the LCL. Rei didn't even hear him approach, but when she turned around, there he was.

Rei didn't feel fear like a normal girl would at being naked in front of an older man… a result of the drugs she was force fed all the time. He reached out to her…

The man grabbed her shoulder causing Rei's eyes to widen like a rabbit sensing a predator.

Gendo pulled her gently forward by her shoulder...

Her heart began to beat harder in her chest…

His hand slid down her body, sliding to her hip to pull her closer, his face coming closer to her…

"Get away from me!" Rei yelled and pushed the man back hard, throwing his hand from her shoulder and rising to her feet away from the computer. The man's coffee spilled somewhere off to the left, but Rei didn't noctice. Her heart was pounding harder, something inside her twisted in revulsion. Drugs kept her from feeling the shame of being used by Gendo before, but now that someone else was trying and she was free of the drugs, she reacted instinctively.

At this point other patrons were becoming uneasy with the situation. Unbeknowst to Rei, the guy she just pushed was a well-known close friend of the mayor of Tokyo-3 so he pretty much got away with whatever he wanted to. And with the JSSDF so prevalent lately…

"You dare take that tone with me?" he countered in anger. "You have no idea who you're dealing with." He tried to grab her again. Rei circled left getting out of his reach placing the man between her and the nearest wall to prevent getting cornered. He lunged forward to grab her again.

"Get back!" Rei yelled in her panic and threw her left hand forward with the intention of pushing him away again. This time her hand never physically reached him. As if some unseen force took hold, the man flew back, slamming into the wall behind him with a respectable amount of force. The coffee cup now mostly empty flew from his hand to shatter against the nearby wall. Rei raised her hand slightly and the man slid up the wall, held in place by what appeared to be nothing at all.

Patrons quickly jumped from their seats and moved away from her. They stayed and watched in abject terror as the event unfolded, whispering all the while. Rei's hand started to close unconsciously, a desire to hurt the man took over in her mind as her eyes returned to their unusual red color and her hair seemed to shift back to pure azure causing gasps of fear to escape the bystanders. Immediately the man began to gasp for breath, unable to even bring his hands up to try to relieve the pressure. His neck visibly shrunk as if he were being throttled by an invisible attacker. As he tried to stammer out a cry for help, choked gasp was all that came out; his voice was already weakened and his vocal cords were unable to make any sound beyond that.

Finally, reality snapped back into Rei's mind and she realized she was causing real harm to a person in a way that should be impossible for her. She wasn't half-angel anymore as far as she knew, Shinji took care of that. So how was she doing this? Her hand opened and her arm dropped. The man dropped with the motion suddenly able to get air again, but already so robbed of oxygen that he passed out on the floor.

Rei stared at her hands. They were normal in her view but suddenly seemed different to her. She turned them palm down and stared at their contours as if looking for a solution as she turned towards the front of the storefront where a dozen people watched. She didn't pay attention to them, only puzzling over how she was able to assault the man without physical contact. She deiced she would test to see if that was just a fluke or if she was imagining things. Rei made an outwards motion with her hands.

Move.

All of the tables and chairs in the area she moved her hands suddenly were pushed back as if an invisible dome of force grew at Rei's location. They slid across the floor with a grating sound as some of these tables were actually quite heavy. Their weight was meaningless as they moved at Rei's will. The sudden display caused the crowd to make some frightened sounds and nearly spooked them out of the shop, though the remained for the moment.

Now somewhat frightened and confused, Rei continued to stare at her hands. 'Could my angelic side be reawakening? How is that possible? My core should be gone. I am human.' But as much as she tried to deny what was happening to her, a scratching at her mind told her that it wasn't true. Her angelic side was never gone, just sleeping… until now, in a moment of stress the power reawakened in her… just like…

Rei began to then notice a whisper at the edge of her mind. She tried to concentrate on it and that proved to be her undoing. The voices got louder as her mind and body filled with the terror and fear of the patrons nearby. She gasped as she heard the voices were beginning to overlap due to the sheer number of them. She tried to quiet them by focusing on a single voice, and realized the voice was from a police officer three blocks away. Her eyes widened and she clenched her hands as more voices ended up in her head, many much further away now and caused her brain to ache. Her lack of control only made the cacophony all the louder.

'This can't be happening to me…'

Her mind was being flooded with thousands upon thousands of voices, pools of emotion she still didn't have a grasp on assaulted her from every angle. Her head shook back and forth as if trying to deny the sounds but they continued to grow in intensity, as did the pain. She slowly sunk to her knees as her hands pressed into her temples. Veins popped up near her temples as the stress on her mind grew beyond her level of pain tollerance. Finally, she screamed out as the voices broke the walls of her sanity… and it was at that point that all hell broke loose around her.

Pictures flew from the walls as if thrown by invisible vandals. Chairs were thrown into the air with outstanding force, overhead lights exploded, and books flew from nearby shelves. Debris in the room floated of the ground and began to move as if swept up in a tornado with Rei at the center. Finally having enough of the insanity of it all, the crowd ran screaming in terror as they went, and Rei kept on screaming too. The walls of her ego borders were weakening as she suddenly began to imagine she was everyone around her. It was like Third Impact only a nightmare version to her. Terror she never knew seeped into every part of her as her mind was being torn in a million directions. The minds of everyone in the city and beyond were shouting in her head.

Then, without any indication it was happening, there was a glimmer of order amidst the swirling chaos. A singular voice, soothing and soft was singing a gentle lullaby. Rei stopped screaming as she heard it; it wasn't louder than the other voices, but it was the only voice that was specifically directed at her. As her focus upon the tune sharpened, the other voices began to slowly recede into the background. Her eyes finally opened and she saw someone, moving calmly and confidently though the swirling chaos created by her ravaged mind. Tables and chairs were flying around the room now, caught in the swirling tempest created by her mind, but somehow none of them were hitting this singular form.

Hikari stopped in front of her and gently knelt down, now vocalizing the song she was projecting to Rei. Though Hikari had no psychic abilities of her own, she knew from watching Rei that her powers had exploded suddenly. She knew if she focused her thoughts directly at her, she could reach her without needing to be psychic, and this was the best hope to calm the azure headed girl's mind.

Rei couldn't vocalize, only gasp as she was finally able to breath normally again. Slowly, objects stopped floating and came crashing down to the floor. As if all sound except Hikari's voice had somehow been muted, the crashing down of all the objects made nary a sound. The girl focused on Hikari with her eyes and watched as the brown-haired girl leaned closer to her. Gently she took Rei by the shoulders, pulling her into her embrace. Despite Gendo doing it so long ago, Rei felt no danger from Hikari, and let go of her mind. She clung desperately to Hikari as she cried for what was only the third time in her life. The pain was fading, and the other voices were silenced; Hikari was suddenly all that existed in her mind.

The brown-haired girl gently rubbed Rei's back in a circular pattern as the girl cried, whispering soothing words and providing comfort only contact with another person could provide. Rei shook in her Hikari's grasp, as the tension was beginning to leave her.

With the immediate concern taken care of, Hikari knew it was only a matter of time before the JSSDF arrived. She shook Rei gently, trying to snap her out of the trance she was putting herself in.

"We can't stay here," she whispered to Rei, but it was too late. Rei was already beyond reason as she desired nothing more than this singular moment. Within a few more such moments, she was unconscious, the stresses of the experience defeating her.

Hikari sighed, realizing her direct action was now inevitable. Her face took a serious look as she heard a crunch of glass from behind her. A small team armed in tactical gear was trying quietly to enter the building, thinking they were taking Hikari off guard. They were wrong…

Hikari's eyes flashed over crimson red for a moment as they entered. She gently laid Rei down on the floor and stood up.

"Down on the ground!" yelled one of the men as Hikari turned towards them. "Do it now!"

Hikari's jaw set on determination, she wasn't about to let them take Rei. Her dark Green skirt swished back as her right leg shifted backwards slightly.

"I don't want to do this, but I can't let you take her," Hikari said with determination. "I'll stop you." Her arms flicked out to her sides and her eyes flash red at the same moment. A pair of wicked looking knives made of polished and smoothed obsidian appeared in her hands in reverse grips. The shimmer over the blades was reminiscent of an AT-Field.

"Oh, fuck! She's a Nephilim! Waste her!"

In the split second between the order being given, and the first shot leaving the barrel of their submachine guns, Hikari threw her senses out and did not sense the energy she was looking for. She simply stepped forward in response as the first of the bullets slammed into her AT-Field and disintegrated on impact. This team was not equipped with weapons that could harm her, but she had to be quick. Now that they knew she was a Nephilim it was only a matter of time before a team that was equipped to deal with her would be there.

As she moved forward, she raised a hand up, still gripping her blade and made a wall of asphalt and metal rip out of the ground behind the targets. If she was ever to get out of this without being identified later, she had to make sure there were no witnesses. She had never had to kill before, but this time there would be no avoid it. The wall slammed forward, knocking down the team and blocking their escape. Hikari leapt upon the first target with both her blades and slammed them through the space between the collar bones. His cry of pain caused the rest of his team to panic as they tried to escape. The wall of asphalt and broken steel began to churn as if partially made of liquid casuing them to back away from it.

Another opened fire at point blank with his weapon only kill himself on the ricocheting rounds that cut though his head and face. Hikari began to systematically kill them, one by one, knowing full well any of them would kill her if they had the opportunity. She slashed the next nearest throat with one of her blades and spun to deliver a shot into the left side of the next man's chest with the next attack. Ripping out both she threw her blades into another of the men, both piercing though his head causing him to fall back, dropping his weapon as he went.

The massacre had ended as quickly as it began. The last man impaled upon a spike of rock and steel. She dismissed her weapons and gathered Rei as fast she could, making her escape out the back of the coffee shop and slipped into the old maintenance tunnels under the city. The Geofront was inaccessible, but the spaces between the armor layers made for an easy escape.

Later

Rei began to awaken groggily. At first, she didn't know what happened, but then she started to remember it all in horrifying detail. Her eyes open as the nearby cacophony started up again. She bolted upright pulling her knees into her chest and held her hands over her ears trying to block out the sound. She desperately began screaming for Hikari.

The brown haired girl quickly entered the room and knelt on the bed next to her. Rei clung to the girl's slight frame desperately as Hikari's mind soothed over her chaos again.

"It's okay," Hikari whispered. "You're safe now."

"W-What's happening to me?!" Rei cried.

"You've awakened… You are a Nephilim now," she tried to explain as she stroked the girl's hair.

"But I was one before," Rei whispered. "Before the Impact."

Hikari's look took a serious turn. "You witnessed the Impact?"

"I was…" Rei stopped, both realizing she had said too much and because she was unable to prevent herself from crying again. A nearby mirror started back at her from over her shoulder and she could see her glowing red eyes and azure hair had both returned. "I am supposed to be human!" she cried upon seeing that, "I am…"

"Easy," Hikari whispered as she gently rubbed her back again. "Rei, look at me."

Rei focused on her.

"Good… now imagine the voices you heard before… they're still there yes?"

She nodded.

"Imagine walls building up around you, blocking out the sounds and the emotions. Can you do that?"

"I'll try," Rei whispered between tears. She began to imagine walls like those created by her AT-Field, invisible but nearly impregnable. Slowly the voices began to fade in the background.

Hikari stopped thinking about anything, clearing her mind so Rei had nothing to focus on. Instantly the cacophony tried to reassert itself, but Rei's imagined walls were strengthening, blocking the noise until there was only a din, like whispers in the distance… an ambient psychic noise that was somehow soothing rather than horrifying.

Hikari looked towards the opened door as Rei finally started to calm without her help. In the doorway, she saw the person who helped her get over her own awakening. The white-haired, red-eyed boy nodded to Hikari at that moment, and stood away from the door, quietly closing it.

She turned her attention back to the blue haired girl. "Better?" she asked.

Rei nodded. "Thank you… Miss Horaki."

"Please call me Hikari," the thin girl requested. "Miss Horaki makes me sound like I'm back in Junior High."

Rei nodded. "How did you know to do that?"

"I figured it was the best way to get your mind focused on something other than everything at once," she explained. "Sometimes I have a hard enough time just being me, let alone everyone at once. I can't imagine that was at all comfortable."

Rei nodded in agreement. "It was not." She finally took stock of her situation. The room was kind of small, a little cold and messy. There were no visible windows anywhere. "Where are we?"

"Safe," Hikari replied immediately. "That's all you need to know for now."

Rei didn't feel comfortable with that. "What aren't you telling me?"

"A lot," Hikari immediately admitted. "Until you have a full handle on your powers, you're a liability. We have to keep you in the dark until we're certain the barriers in your mind will keep out the JSSDF's Lapdogs."

"I see," Rei replied realizing she was right. Nephilim had a bad reputation in this world now, and if she was going to truly be safe, she had to get a grip on herself. That meant for now, she couldn't know where she was, and a certain organization within the JSSDF, Section-9 as it was called, had a few Nephilim that they manged to blackmail into working for them with psychic abilities of their own. They could be watching through her eyes at that moment and she, in her inexperience, wouldn't know it. The only way to keep them from learning where she was, was to stay here in this non-descript room, and not know where that room was.

"Rei, you said you were a Nephilim before the Impact. How can that be?"

"I am sorry," Rei replied. "I am not supposed to discuss that."

"What harm is there now?" Hikari asked. "The JSSDF is already looking for you. I took care of the witnesses that saw me, but there were quite a few that saw you and could easily identify you. They likely already know who you are and have probably turned your apartment inside out."

Rei frowned. "I see. You know that I was an EVA Pilot correct?"

"Of course we knew that," Hikari replied.

"I was the key to controlling Third Impact."

"I see," Hikari replied not looking shocked at that realization at all. "We'll speak no more of this for now."

"You act as if you knew what I was going to say."

Hikari smiled slightly. "All in due time… rest now, you need your strength."

Rei was made to lie back down on the bed. Hikari took a moment to cover her up and tuck her in. "If you need me, I'll be in shouting distance."

"Hikari," Rei whispered getting the girl's attention. The blue haired girl blushed as she whispered, "Thank you."

Hikari smiled softly, and left her to sleep.

As Rei lay there, she remembered the feeling of being held by the thin girl. It was a feeling that was sorely missing from her life. When Hikari had touched her, it just felt right somehow, and she didn't understand why. Perhaps like her newfound powers, the truth will come to her in time…

The state of the nation – Violation!

A broken promise is as good as a lie

The hell is humongous, the devil's among us

And we will burn because we won't unite

We won't witness anymore freedom

Where is anybody? Do we need'em?

I would rather fight than let another die

We're the problem but we're also the solution

WHEN ALL HOPE IS GONE!

-Slipknot, All Hope is Gone