Life, Undeath, and Rebirth
A Neon Genesis Evangelion sketch
By Andrew Aelfwine
*****
All characters and situations of Neon Genesis Evangelion belong to
their creators and publishers.  They are merely borrowed for this
work of non-profit fanfiction.
**********
     The waves pounded gently at the shore.  He reached down,
still dazed, and laid his hand on Asuka's neck.  One squeeze... not
enough to kill her, just enough to _hurt_, make her realise
everything he'd felt...

     She opened her eyes.  "Shinji?  I don't feel so good."

     His heart melted.  "Asuka."

     "Shinji."  She raised herself up on one elbow, and he pulled
her into his arms.

     "Shinji!  Asuka!"  He wasn't sure how long had gone by. 
Perhaps he was hallucinating.  That voice was one he shouldn't
ever hear again, not until he was dead.  Perhaps he was?

     "Misato?"  He forgot the honorific in his hurry.  She was
suddenly there on the sand, clinging to both of them, crying. 
"You're dead.  I saw them shoot you."

     "No."

     "But I did."

     "Misato," Asuka whispered.  "What happened?"

     "It... it's a long story."

     "Did the Impact happen?"

     "Yes.  Humanity is gone, now."

     "But... what about us?"

     "We aren't human."

     "What?"

     "I'm sorry.  So very sorry."  He stroked her hair.  After a
moment, Asuka joined him, twining her fingers with his as they
combed the purple strands.  "I couldn't face the years alone.  I
should have been braver.  I'm so sorry."

     "Why?"

     "Didn't you ever wonder how I survived Second Impact?"

     "Your father put you in an escape capsule."

     "That shouldn't have been enough.  The energy of the blast
cooked every living thing within twenty kilometers.  I only survived
because I wasn't alive."

     She was talking nonsense.  "Are you all right?"  He reached
up and patted her forehead.  It was cool.

     "Let me tell you a little fairy tale.  I know you're too old for
them, but it's one you need to hear.

     "Once upon a time, there was a thirteen year old girl named
Katsuragi Misato.  Her parents weren't cruel, but they were
divorced, and very busy.  Her father was too wrapped up in his
work, and her mother was more interested in finding a new
husband.  She didn't have any uncles or aunts, and her grandparents
were all dead, so there wasn't anyone to keep an eye on her. 
Because she was on her own most of the time, she read a lot of
books and manga that she probably shouldn't have.

     "So, when her favourite teacher asked her to stay after
school, she had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen. 
Not that she minded; her teacher was beautiful, and _cool_, and
listened to music and read books that young people liked, and if she
thought Misato was pretty, well, that was really kind of nice.

     "Unfortunately, it wasn't anything like what she expected. 
When they met in the empty office, her teacher's eyes were funny,
and she had fangs all of a sudden, and while she was still beautiful it
was a scary kind of beautiful, like a typhoon or a wild animal.  And
the teacher stuck her fangs in her neck and drank her blood, and
when Misato was almost dead, near enough to dead to see her
grandmothers and grandfathers and a kind-looking man who was
probably the Amida Buddha or Jesus or someone like that, her
teacher started crying and saying over and over again that she was
sorry, that she was a beast and ought to be staked, and then she
opened her own vein and pressed Misato's lips to it.

     "Misato knew she shouldn't drink, that she should go to her
grandparents and the kind man, but she was... well, she wasn't sure
how she felt, and I still don't know.  But for some reason she
sucked at the blood, and it tasted good, and afterward she wasn't
Katsuragi Misato the nice little schoolgirl anymore.

     "She was Katsuragi Misato the scary monster who got so
hungry some nights that she went out her window and found
salarymen cruising for pretty little schoolgirls and drained them. 
The scary monster who couldn't go on sleepovers anymore because
she thought she might do the same to one of her friends.

     "The scary monster who became the only survivor of an
entire expedition because she was a scary monster."

     "A vampire," Asuka muttered.  "That's ridiculous. 
Vampires are only in horror movies and silly homoerotic novels."

     "I wish that were true."

     "I don't."

     "Shinji?"

     "I love you.  If you're telling the truth, you've been a
vampire as long as I've known you.  I love a vampire."

     "I'm so sorry."  She began to weep, forcing her words out
between bursts of tears.  "I was a coward, and... and I loved you
both.  I swore I'd never do it... but... I couldn't let you get old and
die and leave me.  I took your blood, and gave you mine."

     "I'd remember that," Asuka said.  "You're telling a silly
story, and this is all a bad dream, and when I pinch myself I'm
going to wake up in a nice, normal world."  She pinched herself.

     "I couldn't let you remember.  I'm sorry.  So sorry."

     "Don't be."  Shinji kissed her softly on the cheek.  "What
happened, happened."

     "All right.  You're a vampire, Shinji's a vampire, I'm a
vampire.  So why haven't we been burnt into blackened mummy-
things by the sun?"

     "It doesn't work that way."

     "Right.  I don't know why you're lying, but you must be."

     "If it were that easy to for us to commit suicide, Asuka-
chan, there wouldn't be any vampires."