failtactical | CONGRATULATIONS SHINJI

[whatever it is she thinks about that, she's not saying it right away]

How long have you been here, Shinji-kun? From the time that you remember?

Seventy days. About thirty memories.

Ahh, not bad at all. Sounds like you've been working hard.

. . . I've remembered a lot.

[oh boy]

Is that... why you called?

. . . sort of? . . . I knew Misato-san was here, but I'd been . . .

. . . I wasn't sure if you'd want to talk to me.

Eh? Why not?

Uh.

. . . Misato-san, do you know about—[waves his hands a little] . . . timelines?

. . . Timelines.

. . . I'll take that as a no . . .

Sort of like—the theory of parallel universes? Where . . . things might have happened one way, once . . . but there was maybe another "version" of events that went slightly differently? Some very different, and some so similar that maybe you remember a lot of the same things, but with a different ending . . .

[nods as she listens]

Souya—ah, an old knight once told me of memories he got sometimes, where things were very different from the way he remembered and I was part of his world, even.

... I thought that was just Aather or the Personae messing with him.

Maybe it is, for most people. But Kaworu . . . says he remembers a few different . . . cycles. Not just in Aather. Something like, he's . . . reborn, again and again. I don't really understand it, but—

[he takes a deep breath]

But anyway—Ayanami and I . . . have a different version of events. Than . . . the one Kaworu is "from." Though, he remembered the others, too, eventually. And—I think, different from yours?

"Cycles"? Wouldn't that imply they aren't different universes, then?

[shakes her head]

Sorry, go on.

[pauses, then just shakes his head]

I don't know. Like I said . . . I only know what Kaworu's told me, and that's sometimes . . . confusing, at best.

... What sort of things have you remembered, so far?

[he'd been brightening a little throughout the conversation, probably more lively than she can remember seeing him—but his eyes go utterly blank as soon as she says that]

. . . I'm not sure where to start?