Vignette
By
Joshua Trujillo

2.1

She didn't need to die. It was only to prove a point that the bastard 
was trying to make to his bosses, the old men at SEELE. She didn't 
*have* to die. Why did she go? She wasn't even the first choice to 
try...But that was Yui. With her husband and son watching on, she 
was the one that decided to go. It was one thing that Shinji didn't 
know. He was there. He knew it had been her decision, but then his 
own psyche erased the memory forever. Well, perhaps erased is 
too harsh a word. Glossed over? No. Hidden.

Yes, that was a much better choice, wasn't it Yui?

Lightening flashed beyond the huge field as the rains beat down 
around him. It flashed again, revealing the name on the stone in 
front of him. Yui Ikari. He had walked from the entrance of 
graveyard to her grave; all the while the rains beat down on him 
like tiny fists. Each one punctuating his own sorrow. He knew that 
Gendo only came out once a year. Shinji only once then as well. 
Fuyutski shrugged to the dead. Like father, like son, he supposed. 
The two could never get along because they were so alike and yet 
so different. Shinji, he thought, ended up more like her. Like his 
mother. Yui. Kozou felt another sob grab him and he closed his 
eyes against it. No one else was around. No one else would have 
seen. He almost let slip his tight grasp on his emotions, but then he 
remembered...Yui would have seen. She had been so strong. And 
Kozou had loved her for that strength. At times, it was something 
he failed to have. Only Major Katsuragi came close to the same 
kind of strength. He supposed that only the Major would have 
dared stand up to Gendo about anything. But, if she knew she was 
right, she would. Yui had been the same way.

Kozou knelt in the mud before the tombstone. It was so sterile out 
here, nothing would grow. That was sad because it made the dead 
seem that much more harsh against the invasion of the living. 
Humans were a dying breed. Second Impact had been the final 
knife wound to the gut that only sped along the decline. What Yui 
had wanted to do would have given us...What? Perhaps a new 
humanity? Perhaps more of the same...He said a prayer for her and 
placed a small bouquet of violets at the front of the tomb. Purple 
had always been her favorite color. Green too because green, she 
had told Kozou many years ago, was the color of life. Even the 
dead decay to some shade of green, thus bringing back life again.

Green was the springtime back then. A springtime that would 
never come again, at least to this part of the world. A spring that 
found Kozou loving his Yui. But her heart found Gendo. And, 
much to her credit, his accidentally stumbled onto hers in the 
process. Green was the color when they'd been married, Kozou as 
father of the bride. He'd wept then. Freely. For Yui.

But you didn't decay to rise again, did you? Another sob shook him 
and he placed a hand to his eyes. She was in a place where shades 
of green have no meaning. Trapped in the belly of the beast, Kozou 
wished desperately that he could free her from her prison, either to 
come out in some form and be among the living, or, at least, have 
her soul set free so she could be at peace among the dead. He hated 
the idea of his precious Yui trapped in Limbo. She wasn't a lab rat! 
He pounded his fists into the wet earth. She was human! She was a 
mother! A splash of mud against his face made him stop, his sobs 
coming stronger now. And he had loved her...

"Yui..." he choked above the pound of the rain, "Please forgive 
me...Forgive me for not stopping you when I could..."

He steadied himself.

"Please forgive me for allowing him to bring Shinji back to this," 
Kozou raised his voice slowly to a shout, "I know I'm damned, but 
please forgive me for the sake of Shinji!"

Kozou sat on his knees and sobbed as the lightening flashed once 
more before the rains began to die down. He thought that, perhaps 
the soothing of the rains could wash away some of the taint on his 
soul, but he knew he was wrong. Yui had her own strange ideas 
about humanity and the future, certainly, but she was a good 
woman, and a good mother. And she was loved. He was ultimately 
sorry for not being able to talk her out of going. He was sorry that 
she'd ever met Gendo. He was sorry at how he'd let Gendo and his 
influence corrupt Yui's work. He was sorry...

Something soft brushed against his hand and he looked up. The 
storm had taken the petals of the violets and strewn them about. 
One had landed back on his hand. As soft as her lips. He closed his 
eyes as he still remembered when she'd, one time, kissed him on 
the cheek. He remembered that softness in the feel of the delicate 
purple petal in the palm of his hand. Kozou clutched at the sign 
and nodded fiercely. He *would* help Shinji in any way he could. 
THAT would be the measure of his forgiveness. Kozou rose to his 
feet, a fire alight in his eyes, a righteous purpose in his heart. He 
would *do* what was right...

For Yui...