World End’s Messiah - NGE/SKU Chapter 4

World End’s Messiah - NGE/SKU, post series both series

All NGE and SKU characters belong to their respective owners.

Summary: He felt like he had to strangle her then, because no way should her pale skin be growing dark from right underneath his fingertips.


http://archiveofourown.org/works/548356
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8650175/1/World-End-s-Messiah
http://forums.ohtori.nu/viewtopic.php?id=3248
http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/13327/World-Ends-Messiah-NGE-SKU-post-series-both-series/


Chapter 4 (please C&C ~)

She was a part of the world, and the world a part of her.  Their room was a part of the world, and she a part of the room.  She was happy in their room, and all was right with her world.  He was with her in their room, and all was right with her world.  They were copulating in their room, and all was right—

“No.”
   
The cutting word he voiced shattered the illusion of contentment, of ecstasy, leaving her cold and in fear.  They were no longer conjoined; he had since pulled away.

“We cannot stay,” he said, looking, dressed, determined, and sad-eyed; it was an expression she feared seeing upon him – as it always meant they were about to part.

“W-Why?” she asked/demanded/pleaded.  “Haven’t you had enough of what’s out there?”  Standing legs apart, she flaunted her nakedness at him in artless desperation. “This . . . isn’t this enough to make you stay?”

“She told me, that the world is at risk of dying again; our will to return is being stolen away as we speak, but she can help us while she still can.”  Even as he spoke, the room had begun to dim, he had begun to leave; her world had begun to crumble.   “We must go back, and be the ones to help the boy – and through him, everyone.  That’s she said.”

“The boy . . .” her heart welled with guilt at remembering the broken child she had made bear the world’s cross, before suspicion was to overtake her thoughts.  “Who is this ‘she’?”

“A calyx to god’s flower,” now completely obscured by darkness, his increasingly distant voice came soft with revere, “a prince to our world.”

“A . . . prince?”

“Katsuragi . . . Katsuragi . . .”

The young-girlish voice, defused as if coming through a different medium, seeped into this darkened space that suddenly seemed a whole lot smaller; already she could feel the edges of its confines – cold, flat, wooden . . .

“What’s going on?”  she asked, confused and frightened.  “Who are you?”

“Katsuragi, I’m here to save you.”

“Save me?  But you can’t save me . . . you’re not Ka-”

“I’m here to bring you back.”

“ . . . back?”

“Back where you came from, where they’re all now waiting.  Himemiya is also there, ready to guide you all along through the things to come.”

“Hime . . . miya?”

“My friend; I used to think of her as the flower to my calyx, someone I need to protect . . . but now I understand – she was the one who had been protecting me all along.”

With a creaking sound, the lid of her current container – which she only now realized to have been a coffin – started to open, revealing a light so brilliant, it seemed to engulf the beholder in life; amidst this light was a pale hand donning a shiny a rose motif ring, and a pink-haired teenage girl visibly straining to keep the lid open.

“You . . .” She knew the girl was a stranger to her; yet, she knew her all the same.  “You’re . . .”

“Katsuragi-san . . .” gasped the pink-haired girl in apparent exertion, “Hurry . . . take my hand!”  Numerous of chalk-white, albino hands appeared from beyond the trembling coffin lid then, helping to keep it open as the girl then hurriedly reached a free hand into the coffin towards her; yet she recoiled in uncertainty.

“Wait . . . what about him?   Where--”

“The outside,” the strange girl, fighting to keep the coffin lid open with help of the albino hands, raised her voice in strained urgency, “is the only place where we can truly meet others.  So, don’t be afraid of this world where you’ll meet everyone for real; take my hand, Katsuragi Misato!”

Compelled by the call, the woman reached up to take the offered hand; the girl smiled, she wept.

Crack!

Immediately upon contact with the girl, the woman found her world her coffin her shell all exploding outwards, releasing her surrounds her confines her very being into the vast unknown existing beyond the immediate her.  An amber-colored medium (so much like spilled glair) was splashing against her skin her mouth her eyes her nose, and she found herself submerged within its breathable taste and scent-

“. . .tsurgai-san, it’s okay!  This is just LCL!”

“Yes!  Even the Major’s managed to come back!”

“Then, that leaves only Sempai, the Commander, and the Voice Commander still missing . . .”

At hearing those very familiar, very real voices, Katsuragi Misato’s haze-covered mind snapped back into razor-sharp clarity, as the Nerv Major practically dived out of the LCL medium and onto the solid bank, where she was then encased by the group hug consisting of the trio of main computer technicians - Hyuga Matoko, Aoba Shigeru,and Ibuki Maya – who had been her allies against the Angels (the "18th" included) unto the very end.

“You guys . . . !”  Misato hugged them back with fervent vigor, embracing their sticky clothes and skin as she savored their solid forms (all the while relieved by her own gratuitously clothed state).  While they had briefly interacted as parts of the collective whole during Instrumentality, they all were but fragmented ghosts back then.  This, this physical interaction with all of them existing as individual wholes; this was real.  Looking around, she saw a number of familiar faces: all from Nerv, all showing wide-eyed wonder at being re-materialized underneath this dark world shored in by LCL . . .

. . . wait.

“The Terminal . . . Dogma?”  exclaimed the Nerv Major in disbelief, noting the massive, honeycomb structures making up the massive interior space’s confines.  “But . . . during Instrumentality . . . I thought that Nerv HQ . . . no, I know – the entire Egg making up the GeoFront got elevated into space; everything got destroyed in the end!”  Disengaging herself from the group hug, she now studied the vast “room” in disbelief.  “This shouldn’t be possible . . .”

“Major, this is . . . ” Hyuga then trailed off, seemingly at a loss for words.  “That’s . . .”

“Power in sufficient quantities can make possible the impossible.”

The cultured female voice drew Misato’s frantic gaze towards a modestly dark-featured teenage girl, one whose immaculate appearance made her stand out from among the LCL-drenched Nerv Crew gathered about; that, and she had both Rei and that Nagisa boy franking her on either sides. 

“Rei,” Misato observed that unfamiliar sense of “gravity” now apparent behind the girl’s red eyes. “are you . . .?”

“I am now the first, the second, and the third, all within one,” replied the albino girl, knowing the Major would know what she was talking about.  “that, and I’ve inherited the might of Lilith.”

“And I, the might of Adam,” the Nagisa boy – now holding a large visor in his pale hand – piped up with his broad grin, “with Instrumentality having passed, I no longer pose any threat to the Lilin Race’s continual survival.  And this,” the boy gestured at the poised, dark-skinned girl beside him,  “is the last survivor of the First Ancestral Race, who was the one with power enough to reassemble Lilith’s smashed Egg.  She is here to seek alliance with the Lilin Race.” 

“First Ancestral . . . Race?” asked Misato, feeling somewhat unnerved under the “girl’s” benign yet penetrating gaze; Maya leaned in from the side to whisper quickly in her ear.

“Nagisa Kaworu-kun told us they were the first extraterrestrial intelligence who created both Adam and Lilith, along with the many Seeds of Life planted throughout the many planets of the Milky Way Galaxy.”

“By their accounts, the Lilin Elites of Seele believed the First Ancestral Race had been wiped out since ancient times,” supplied Kaworu, clearly having heard Maya, as he used the visor like it was a tablet.  “To think Seele never even suspected that we have one right here on Earth all along . . .” he glanced up and at the “First Ancestral Entity”, “your scope of power is truly godlike, Himemiya-san.”

“Hime . . . miya?”  Misato jolted at the name.  “You’re Himemiya?!”

Smiling primly, the dark-skinned girl said to be an alien stepped daintily up towards the Major.

“Himemiya Anthy,” she offered her hand to the woman, “pleased to meet you.” 

“Himemiya . . . san,”  Misato took the delicate, silken hand in a shaky handshake,  “You, you’re the flower to that girl’s calyx.”

“Utena had made contact with you from within the collective consciousness, just like she had done for everyone brought back into existence by Ayanami Rei.”  Deep-set green eyes welling with unshed tears, Himemiya’s smile wavered as she started getting choked up.  “Did you see her as the noble child she was fifteen years ago?  Wasn’t she radiant beyond words?”

“Utena . . .” Misato licked her dried-lips while gingerly disengaging herself from the handshake.  “Is she also a member of your . . . race?”  Himemiya’s expression dimmed up at the question.

“The Calyx was born a human by the name of Tenjou Utena,” supplied Rei in her quiet voice,  “she went through a change around the time of the Second Impact, and has since existed as something I cannot properly describe with words.”  Her words incited a mildly exasperated sigh from Kaworu.

“That ‘something’ has been the most valuable, most revolutionary existence to this planet for the past fifteen years, and is the only hope for the planet’s revival,” said the Angel, catching the Major’s gaze as he gestured at behind her. 

Turning around, Misato finally got her first look at the other side of this massive interior space, and found herself stunned beyond words. 

The giant crucifix where Lilith was nailed against was no more, replaced by a vast, stark marble strip taped against the tall, cell-covered wall, where many of the gigantic hexagonal structures now were displaying glowing rose motifs.   Against this marble backdrop bloomed a colossal white rose – one adorned with white petals so fluorescent, it appeared to be crafted from light itself - sprouting out from the LCL lake.  Beneath the rose's radiant corolla was the emerald green calyx, and--

“Oh my god . . .” Misato gasped as she finally got a good look at the giant rose’s calyx, where a lanky, feminine figure could be seen encased within the semi-lucent articulation like an insect inside amber.  “That’s . . .”

“That is Utena, as she is now,” said Himemiya, her voice wistfully soft. “Since the Absolute Destiny Apocalypse, which fatefully coincided with Adam’s explosion, Utena has been offering up her very self to sustain this most sacred flower - the Rose of Light.  This is the physical manifestation of the Light of the World – an accumulation of the various First Ancestral powers left behind by my long-perished race; By Utena’s will, this power has been used to sustain the many souls deceased throughout the past fifteen years, up until Seele’s Lilith-based Impact took control of humanity.  The Rose of Light has now taken physical form to bear for this planet its fruit of rebirth; it can only grow here in the glair of Lilith’s Egg, thus why I’ve reversed this entire area back into its former state, with modifications where necessary.  Katsuragi-san,” voice firming up, she turned solemnly towards Misato, “in the immediate future, the last surviving First Ancestral Entity will start attacking this place trying to seize the Rose for his own selfish use.  The Seeds have since agreed to lend me their powers to defend the Rose against the threat; I ask that you, as the highest-ranking remaining officer of Nerv, lead this organization to fight the enemy along our side, so you all may truly save the world this time.”

“But we . . .”  glancing quickly around, Misato saw her colleagues all looking just as uncertain as she herself felt right now, “okay; a lot of us had died terribly fighting for a cause that we thought was noble, but instead ended up screwing the world over.  And here you show up telling us to fight again . . . wait,” something occurred to her then.  “Did you say the enemy is . . .?  I thought you are the last survivor of the First Ancestral Race?”

Himemiya’s mouth tensed into a flat, taunt line.  “Unlike humans, individual units of our race come in pairs of opposite-gender siblings, each sharing half of the single whole.  It is my brother – my other half – who now exists as mankind’s final adversary, and it is he who I now must destroy,” her eyes upon Utena – encased within the Rose’s Calyx – were narrowed with determination, “at any cost.”

To Be Continued . . . ?