Fanfic / The Death of One

Death has that way of ripping your mental barriers to shreds, leaving you to rebuild them from ground up.

The Death Of One is a Neon Genesis Evangelion Alternate Universe Dark Fic by Godsend 777.

After the battle against Zeruel Shinji gets absorbed into Unit-01. Nerv’s operation to rescue him fails and he gets declared dead. His demise sends ripples through the whole Evangelion universe, dramatically affecting all characters: Asuka falls apart utterly and bonds with a severely grief-stricken Misato while she tries to get over her pain, Rei begins to spend more time with Asuka and Ritsuko to try to understand her feelings of mourning and loss… and Gendo schemes new ways to carry his plans forward and get his family back, not matter how many lives he has to destroy to achieve it. But is Shinji really gone forever?

The Death Of One has the next premise: "Since Shinji is the core character of Evangelion, what happens if he disappears? How his passing changes the setting and the other characters?" The answer is a tale of pain, loss, mourning… and maybe hope and a light at the end of the tunnel.

This fanfic was stored in Godsend777' webpage with all of his stories -"Is Nothing Sacred?", "Strangely Darkfic", "Dead Children"...- and in several other archives. Unfortunately the Geocities crash killed the site, and the other archives are defunct. It may be found using the Wayback machine: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05.1, 05.2, 05.3, 06, 06 April Fool's Chapter 6

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Tropes:

A-C

• Aborted Arc: Gendo had put in motion an unrevealed scheme to fulfil his plans using Asuka. Meanwhile Shinji was scheming against his father and SEELE, and although his plan was never revealed, Ikari said Asuka would meet Shinji soon in one way or another. Kaji was scheming to prevent Third Impact. Kaworu was befriending Ikari…
• Alternate Universe: The point of divergence happens after the battle against Zeruel. Ritsuko’s plan to rescue Shinji fails and he gets stuck in the Eva.
• And This Is for...: Variant. In chapter 3 Asuka decided that she will tame Unit-01 for her and for Shinji:
  She would tame this beast, and do something Shinji had never done. For herself. For Shinji.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: In chapter 3 between Shinji and Asuka. Shinji shouted that he loved her and she confessed her feelings between tears.
• Assimilation Plot: Shinji alludes to Gendo and Seele's plan to turn the whole humanity into a single being.
• Author Appeal: Besides of being fond of Asuka and being a Shinjix Asuka shipper, the writer was obsessed with getting Shinji absorbed into Unit-01. It happened in all of his multi-chapter stories.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • In episode 3, when Shinji and Asuka meet in Unit-01:
    Shinji:"GODAMMIT, I LOVED YOU AND YOU DIDN'T CARE!!"
    Asuka:"I NEVER KNEW!! [...] What about you?"
    Shinji:"What?"
    Asuka:"You never told me how you felt. We both did the same thing."
    Shinji:"..."
  • In episode 5.3, Armisael asks Rei whom she loves:
    'Who are you to Shinji Ikari?'
    'I... do not know. Shinji is gone. I may never know.'
    'I was not referring to the dead one. I was referring to the live one.'
    'I am his mate. His lover. We are equals, both in body in mind.'
    'Oh? And you have found love so quick? How long have you known him?'
    '...'
    'Can you say you've understood him completely in that time?'
    '...'
• Batman Gambit: Gendo manipulated people to get his family back. His scheme depended on his employees doing exactly what he wanted. When something unexpected happened and they stopped behaving according his previsions, his plans became a mess.
• Battle Couple: Shinji and Asuka. Asuka remembers their battles together in chapter 3.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Between Shinji and Asuka, due to their mutual attraction and their very different ways to cope with their neuroses (Asuka driving people away because they frighten her; Shinji running away because people frightens him).
• Break the Cutie: Watching his mother dying, being abandoned by his father, being forced to fight alien monsters despite of being just a kid… Shinji got so broken that, when his body dissolved, he thought he had no reason to return to the physical world.
• Break the Haughty: Since she was four Asuka had created a mask of an arrogant, brass girl to push people away because she was afraid of getting betrayed and hurt again. Then she lost the only person she had ever loved since her mother’s death, and she thought maybe he would be alive if she had not been so prideful. It breaks her completely.
• Broken Bird: After her mother's madness and death and her father's Asuka tried to become tough and self-reliant. After Shinji's death she also tries to be stronger to get over her pain.
• Broken Tears: After Shinji’s death Asuka bawls her eyes out constantly.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Deconstructed. Shinji and Asuka were unable to express their feelings openly, and it brought them plenty heartache. They were unable to confess until one of them was dead.
• Cool Big Sis: Misato tries to be this for Asuka. Unfortunately she has a hard time helping and supporting Asuka due to her own multiple issues.
• Crapsack World: You know the setting is dark and the characters are screwed up when Third Impact sounds as the only way to fix the whole mess.

D-F

• Dead Fic: The fic was supposed to be seven-chapters-long (the fifth being a multi-part chapter). After chapter four the writer's schedule began to slip. Every chapter included a promise to finish the fic soon. The last update was a chunk of the sixth chapter in 2001, and shortly after the writer announced a hiatus. The Geocities’ demise killed his site and he has not been heard of since.
  • Ironically the writer claimed that he started chapter 7 –supposedly the final chapter- before starting to write the sixth chapter… and he never released it. It's heart-breaking thinking that the April Fools chapter is the closest thing to a conclusion that fans are going to get.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • After Shinji’s death Asuka was falling completely apart but she tried to keep herself together desperately. However, after meeting him in the Unit-01 she just wanted to die to be with him.
  • Some characters think Shinji’s retrieval operation failed because he believed he had no reason to return.
• Didn't See That Coming: When Gendo climbs into Unit-01 entry plug in chapter 2 and meets Shinji, he gets utterly and genuinely surprised. Gendo being Gendo, though, he rapidly thinks of ways to exploit the situation.
• Dream Sequence: Asuka dreams several times of Shinji making love to her in the night. Then she wakes up and bursts into tears.
• Driven to Suicide: In chapter 3, after learning that Shinji is stuck inside Unit-01 Asuka does not want to leave. He warns her that she will die if she stays, and she replies that she does not care, and if he tries to send her back she will kill herself. He managed to talk her out of it, though. It is revealed that she had slit their wrists a while ago.
• Drives Like Crazy: In chapter 3 Misato again shows she thinks the limit speed is only a suggestion:
  Misato sped down the road at speeds normally unsafe within city limits.
• Drowning My Sorrows:
  • Misato drunk copiously the days after Shinji’s death to try cope with his loss.
  • Gendo had drunk himself into a stupor in his office shortly after Rei’s death, thinking all his hopes of getting his family back were dashed.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The story seemed being aiming for a happy ending after many trials and angst. Unfortunately, we'll never know.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Angels, their progenitor Adam, and Lilith (mother of humanity).
• Fiery Redhead: Asuka is a hot-blooded and hot-tempered redhead. Nonetheless, due to the events of the fic, she spends most of time sad and grieving.
• First Kiss: In a chapter Asuka and Misato talk about their first kisses.
• Freudian Slip: In chapter 5.3, Armisael asks Rei what she is to Shinji Ikari. When she answers that maybe she will never know because he is dead, Armisael retorts that he was talking about Shinji’s clone.

G-I

• Grew a Spine: Ironically, Shinji grows one after dying since he has nothing left to lose now.
  Gendo:"You've suddenly become brave."
  Shinji:"Dying does that to a person."
• Heroic Sacrifice: Rei blew herself up to save Asuka from Armisael.
• Heel Realization: Asuka got one in chapter 1 after Shinji’s funeral when she admitted that she loved him but she had never opened up to him.
• Humongous Mecha: The Evas.
• I Gave My Word: Ritsuko promised Rei that she would not be replaced. So that Ritsuko destroyed the clones because "a promise is a promise, not matter what".
• Inner Monologue: At the end of chapter 5.2 Asuka calls herself an idiot.

J-L

• Like an Old Married Couple: Asuka remembers when Touji called them that.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Asuka falls nearly completely apart after Shinji's death.
• Love Interest: Shinji and Asuka are each other's love interest. Shinji is Rei's.
• Lovely Angels: Asuka and Rei.
• Loving a Shadow:
  • Deconstructed with Asuka. She considers sleeping with Ikari to have at least the memory of making love to shinji, but Ikari angrily rejects her on grounds of him being his own person.
  • Double subversion with Rei. When Ikari asks her if she sees him like a replacement she declares that he is not, and she loves him for himself. However later she admits that she loves Shinji and she got together with Ikari because she felt alone.

M-O

• Manipulative Bastard: Gendo, but Ikari thinks that Shinji is just so bad, since he is using him to further his own goals.
• Meaningful Name: One of the many possible meanings of "Ikari" is wrath. Shinji's clon prefers being called so because he wants Gendo and Seele pay for their actions.
• Mind Rape: Asuka suffered one at the "hands" of Arael, and later another from Armisael.
• Missing Mom: Shinji and Asuka’s mothers got absorbed into their Evangelion Units. Shinji discovered that fact when he got stuck into Unit 01 and he mentioned it in passing to Asuka when she tried to synch with Unit 01. Later Asuka recalls her mother’s accident and realizes he is right.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Asuka remarks that Shinji complained about her never revealing her feelings, but he never told her how he felt, either.
  • Rei remarks that Ritsuko is right like her mother (making bad things for Gendo’s love) before stating that Ritsuko and herself are not so different (since they cared for and are used by Gendo)
  • Ikari thinks that Shinji is as bad as Gendo because all he has done has been using him to tie up his loose ends.
• Oblivious to Love: Shinji never realized Asuka's feelings until it was too late. If he had noticed, maybe things would have been very different.
• Official Couple: Shinji and Asuka.

P-R

• Parental Substitute: Misato and Asuka get closer after Shinji's death. Unexpectedly, Rei and Ritsuko also bond, and the latter becomes like a mother to Rei.
• Parting-Words Regret: When Shinji was leaving, Asuka was so furious that she told him that he was a coward, she hated him and never wanted to see him again. That was the last time that she saw him alive, and she regretted every word that came out of her mouth.
  And then he walked out the door and out of her life forever. The only thing she could do was scream at him, call him stupid, and tell him how much she hated him. She regretted every word that came out of her mouth.
• Posthumous Character: Shinji dies in the first chapter, and the characters spend the rest of the history seeking ways to cope with his loss.
• Red Is Heroic: Asuka wears red and pilots a red mecha.
• Robeast: The Angels.

S-U

• Ship Sinking: Chapter 5 teased several possible pairings for Shinji’s clone and then sank them mercilessly.
• Shipper on Deck: Played with. Shinji made sure that nothing would happen between his clone and Asuka, but he had no comment on the short-lived relationship between Ikari and Rei.
• The Stations of the Canon: Although the events between battles differ significantly, the order of the Angels is unchanged, and the outcome of the battles is pretty much the same.
• Survivor Guilt: In the sixth chapter Asuka wonders why she is still alive while all people she cares about (her mother, Shinji and now Rei) die.
• Talking Down the Suicidal: When they met in Unit-01 and Shinji said to Asuka that he would send her back she threatened with killing herself in order to be with him. Shinji managed to talk her out of it.
• Teen Pregnancy: Discussed. Asuka regrets she has nothing to remember Shinji and she is willing to have a baby of his, even if she is only fourteen.
• Test Kiss: Asuka talked Shinji into practicing kissing as a surreptitious way to find out whether Shinji liked her or not. Unfortunately Shinji was clueless and when she said she was bored he thought she meant it, so he remained motionless, giving Asuka the wrong idea.
• Together in Death: Asuka was willing to die if it would mean that Shinji and she would be together again.
  • A line of a preview wondered if death would be the only thing capable of reuniting Asuka and Shinji.
• Tsundere: Asuka. Due to Shinji’s death, though, her emotions become more extreme, and she is more prone to cry and show her feelings openly than before.
• Unresolved Sexualtension: Between Shinji and Asuka. They never even held hands when he was alive, a fact that haunts Asuka. She has recurring dreams where she and Shinji make love.
• Unstoppable Rage: Subverted in chapter 6, when Rei blews up herself and Ikari goes berserker. He thought that nobody could stop him. It turns out that someone did. Likewise Unit-01 went berserker because Shinji wanted to protect or avenge Asuka. As soon as he heard that she was alive, the robot went silent.

V-Z

• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • When Misato is drinking to try to forget Shinji is gone, Asuka berates her for using alcohol to run away from reality.
  • And then Misato retorts she is always running from everyone and maybe if she had not pushed Shinji away he would have come back.
  • Ikari tells Shinji he is as bad as his father, since he is using him to further his own goals.
  • In the latest published chapter Asuka calls Gendo out on everything he has done to Shinji and Rei.

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'Fine! I love you, okay! I love you! But you're gone!' A whimper. 'But you're gone...'

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