Hours ter, Shinji groggily woke to the familiar sound of a paper door sliding open. He could hear the booze-den breathing of Misato close to him, and he could even tell Pen-Pen was nearby. The only other person it could be was Soruyu Asuka Langley. The second child. He didn't have the energy to deal with her now of all times so he didn't react. After a long minute of near silence, he heard, so quietly, a single word.

  "Gross."

  And the door closed. Shinji, almost immediately, drifted yet again back to sleep.

  The next morning, Shinji prepared for school long before Misato woke up. Her bored snoring was frankly endearing as she groped around for something to cuddle. He gently slid the door closed as to avoid waking her.

  As he passed Asuka's door, she threw it open and gred. Her open hostility was almost physically painful after the month he spent inside the LCL.

  "Well aren't you a real HERO, huh? The great, invincible Shinji."

  Hero? What do I say? Nothing to say. Don’t say anything.

  “…”

  She snorted before smming the door shut in his face.

  As he walked to school, his rage was so intense that it surprised even himself.

  Fucking bitch. Doesn't she realize what I just went through?

  “…”

  No. No, idiot, of course she doesn't. How could I expect anyone to?

  He mentally face-palmed as he reconsidered his reaction.

  “…”

  I guess… it was even harder on them than me… I was scared, sure. But I also had limited mental capacity… I was basically in a spa bath without hunger, thirst, exhaustion, or any other discomfort for an entire month. They were waiting that whole time just to see whether or not I was dead.

  …

  “I don't need to deal with this shit. I have too much on my mind as it is.”

  He thought back to all that the entity within the LCL said to him. The forbidden knowledge it passed to him. About EVA, about Seele, about the coming third impact. About the first and second impact. About the first and second children.

  *The first wants to see your strength.

  The second envies it.*

  *To make the first happy will anger the second. To make the second happy will sadden the first. To stop the third impact, you must make both happy. Together, the first and final angel is the strongest of us all*

  Why did this… thing… care so much anyway?

  What could it be… What could it want?

  Was it… Lilith? That would make some kind of sense… It knew so much, but not everything. What it told me coincides with what Lilith would know. At least assuming it was telling the truth. Well, and assuming what I think I know about Lilith is correct...

  His mind raced through the timeline of events and secrets told to him by Lilith. He would simply have to assume his theory was right in that regard. It… felt right.

  “The first impact… Adam, then Lilith. Adam was supposed to birth the angels, Lilith births all life on Earth. The first and final angel; LCL.”

  Elciel. Humanity is the final angel.

  And we will destroy ourselves…

  …maybe we should just let Kaworu live…

  "The second impact. Seele in Antarctica. The contact experiment. Dr. Katsuragi…"

  Misato…

  The near extinction of half the pnet…

  …maybe we should just stop fighting…

  "The third impact. Kaworu is murdered, Seele attacks. Humanity betrays itself."

  Human instrumentality…

  Misato dies…

  Rei dies…

  Asuka dies…

  The world commits suicide…

  …maybe we should never have been born…

  …

  …

  "Goddamn it. If you start thinking like that now, we may as well already be dead…"