Title: Kokoro no Tenshi
Author: Peach Blossom Faerie
Series: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Pairing: Kaoru + Shinji
Rating: PG-15
Warning: Angst, deathfic, POV, OOC
Disclaimer: NGE is not mine ((if it was Kaoru would still be there)) and it will never be mine ((not even if I buy all the cels)). I make no money from this, and never will.
KOKORO NO TENSHI.
Angels, beautiful creatures that save the souls of the lilims.
Angels, the destroyers of the lilims and their world.
I am an angel. My destiny has always been the destruction of the lilims and their hateful society - until I met him.
Ikari Shinji, the Third Child. A being so gentle, drawn into this cruel war by an uncaring father, a being who suffered so much and still carried on.
He was unlike any of the lilims I met, so different from the brash Major Katsuragi, and the silent fake child Ayanami Rei. To them, the pain and suffering of others was no consequence, their own existence and Shinji's a means to an end - they held no value in their existence and I hated them for it.
When we finished the sync tests that day, I was surprised and touched to find Shinji waiting for me, sitting nervously listening to his walkman with a delightfully appealing flush to his face. I knew the customs of this place, yet I took pleasure in having him explain to me that we were to shower, I admit that I deliberately mistook him so that I could see that pleasing colour pink his cheeks again.
Yet despite his fear of closeness to others, he came and showered with me, even going so far as to sit next to me in the bath water. It took a courage that he did not know he possessed.
I really meant it when I told him that I loved him that I wanted to protect his fragile glass heart. Already I had started to forget the final stages of my mission - I didn't want to think that far ahead, all I wanted to do was take his hand in mine and stay their forever.
I had taken his hand in mine, and he blushed once more - but did not move away. He let me have that short first moment of intimacy with him.
That evening he came back to my small apartment with me, not wanting to return to Major Katsuragi and the memories that poisoned their home. He also shyly admitted in a voice barely above a whisper, that he wanted to spend time with me. In that moment he gave me his trust, a precious gift that no one else had ever received and one that as much as I wanted, I hated - it was only going to get him hurt.
There was barely enough room for the second mattress on the floor of my room, I wanted Shinji to take the bed, but he insisted that he had invited himself over and it was fine on the floor. We talked for hours, he told me about his father and his life. The more I heard the more I hated the lilims and their cruel selfish hearts.
I told him I was born to meet him, I was - I was born to meet him and destroy him; but now I was having second thoughts. I wanted so much to stay with him forever, but that would be impossible, and when he found out the truth he would hate me anyway.
Eventually he drifted off into sleep, and I lay their watching him. When he's awake, he looks fragile and scared - a small child lost in an adult world, but in repose he is innocent and at peace, all the evidence of hardship on his face disappear.
I had looked up at the alarm clock, the little red numbers flickered 6.00am. Soon I had thought, soon it would be time to awake, and I would not be able to put off my mission, one way or the other things would change today - and I doubted for the better.
Peeling back the cover, I had gently lowered myself to the floor beside him. He was still asleep then, his skin warm and soft. I wanted to hear his heart beating, the fragile glass heart that kept him alive and had suffered so much.
I laid my head against his chest, and listened to his life thumping away below my ear. He had awoken then, sleepily asking my name. I thought that he had only looked innocent in his sleep, but when I looked into his big sleep fogged eyes I fell deeper into this feeling that could only be love.
He then had enquired the time, as if it were normal for him to wake with another boy's head on his chest. When I told him, he had smiled and informed me that there was still an hour until we were due at head quarters.
His fingers, they made their way into my hair - petted me like a kitten. How much had it cost him to abandon his shields and let me in, to pet me, embrace me, sit up and tentatively kiss me? It was a sequence of gestures that I emulated, and we had spent that hour locked in each other's embrace, taking comfort from each other in the dark confines of my room, away from the harsh reality that would soon face us.
I am an angel, made for the destruction of the lilims, starting with their creation Eva unit 01 and its pilot. Had that pilot been any one other than Shinji, my beautiful fragile strong Shinji, I would not be in this position right now and the human race would be extinct.
Instead I find myself in an embrace once more, yet this is the tight embrace of death curled in the palm of Eva-01. I'm not sad, in fact I am happy that Shinji will live, I just hope that he has the courage to kill me, that this event won't destroy him.
I sense a presence above, and find myself looking into the cold red eyes of the fake child. I am sure of my fate now, if Shinji cannot kill me - she will. Smiling up at her, I acknowledge her presence and turn back to Shinji.
I tell him to kill me, I give him the reasons why he should and then I do feel sad, he is crying and screaming that I betrayed him and the trust he misplaced in me. Do it, I tell him, I need to die so that he can live, later when this grief and betrayal has past, he will see that I did not in fact betray him and he may even thank me.
"You gave my life meaning, and I thank you."
Inside Eva-01, Shinji stared in horror at his hand, the sickening crunch of bones and impact of his beloved's head hitting the water was all that he could hear, the blood trailing down the Eva's hand all he could see, linked to the Eva as he was, it was all he could feel too.
Silence for a moment, and then he started to scream.
