Author's complaining corner: I'm gonna be honest, I feel like I've really been rushing out the chapters, I haven't been taking the time to really know what I'm doing with the story. Which I think shows the most with the last chapter. I think it was garbage. Sure it pointed the story in the direction I want, but...not in the way I wanted. The tone overall felt very different to me than the rest of the story, being overall pretty different. I have been considering doing a complete rewrite of the last chapter but I want to know if you guys even want that or if I should just press on.

R and R if you will it. Sorry for the short chapter but as I stated I have obstacles in the way.

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Chapter Eight: Upside Down, Inside Out

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Ritsuko stared at the things in front of her. She always made sure to refer to them as things, as them, not as people. That way she didn't have to pity them. That way, everything was logical.

They looked like the world's most disturbed puzzle, drifting around in the 'aquarium' of LCL they called a home. They all smiled; big, wide smiles. Like they had no awareness of themselves or their situation. Ritsuko supposed that they didn't. Couldn't.

She watched without emotion as their limbs detached from their bodies. They made no reaction to this, they never did to anything, always so blissfully unaware. The extremities drifted around the sunny orange tank, occasionally clenching their toes or hands. Eventually the wandering extremities found new hosts, fused to their bodies at random spots. Arms attached to stomachs and legs found their way to the tops of heads.

Ritsuko wondered about saying goodbye. Goodbye to the years and years she had spent every waking moment creating and sustaining them. And now poof, gone. One of her life's greatest achievements was gone. All at the whim of a man she wished she could despise. But she could never hate him, only fear...or was it respect? Ritsuko wasn't sure it mattered anymore. She wasn't even told why it had to be done, just a simple 'do it' and here she was, beckoning to his call.

She circled her finger around the button that would end it all. It was a small, blue button encased by multiple layers of thick, bullet proof glass that only she and a few 'trusted' individuals had the clearance to override.

She closed her eyes, and letting her face show only one single emotion to the things, she pressed the button.

Almost instantly the floor panels inside the tank disappeared into the wall, making large fans manifest from the newly made holes. They began spinning, faster and faster as they sucked in the LCL and the bodies with it.

They made no resistance as they were sucked into their end. They never lost those smiles, so ignorant to the fact that they were being disposed of. Of their own worthlessness.

Ritsuko didn't watch the procedure, instead turning around and walking to the landline that was attached to the wall opposite of the newly vacant tank.

The phone had no feature that would allow her to call who she pleased. It was a one-way connection. She picked the phone off its base and pressed a small button that was on the back. It worked like a walkie-talkie, things could only be said as long as the button was pressed down.

"Is it done." Ritsuko's mouth tightened at the sound of the commander's steely question - no, it wasn't a question now that Ritsuko thought about. It was a demand.

"Yes, Commander," she tried her best to say it with no falter; she couldn't show her weakness, not to him.

"Very well." Gendo was going to hang up on the good doctor and resume his overseeing of Nerv's facilities when a thought crossed his mind, a concern, so to speak. And he wanted to squash it. "Come see me in my office, now."

Ritsuko didn't respond, and Gendo hung up. She placed the phone back onto its home base. She noticed the shaking in her extended arm and placed her other hand over it, rubbing it.

She didn't care what that man did to her body. She didn't care...she didn't care.

With that one line steering her thoughts, she walked out of the room that had held her experiments and took the elevator to commander Gendo Ikari's office.

She didn't care.

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Shinji looked up at the red, murky sky above him, more for a lack of ability to do anything else than any desire to actually look at it. Air fresheners were dangling from the sky; they danced and twirled. They looked like a silhouette of a pine tree. 267 was ingrained on both sides of all the air fresheners in golden lettering. The air smelt like ashes.

How long had he been laying here? Looking at the gored sky? It felt like days. His fingernails felt so long, as did his hair. He felt his intestines pressing against his ribs. How long had it been since he had eaten?

The...ground? He wasn't sure what it was, but it felt like gravel. He was naked, from his mind to his body he couldn't hide anything. He could think, but the thoughts weren't his own.

They ran through his head like a motorcycle on a highway.

Someones-watching-us! The-gods-have-given-us-a-gift! Through-giving-we-have-been-given! Let's-take-him-now! No-he-has-not-used-it-yet! Yes-he-does-not-understand-it's-power-yet! How-do-we-know-if-he-ever-will?! He-will. Are-you-sure-father? Yes.

They talked about things Shinji couldn't make sense of. He couldn't tell how many there were, whether they were real, or - the question that he was thinking about the most - if they were talking about him or not. The thoughts made his head ache and creak. He couldn't move, he couldn't do anything. He wanted to cry, to shout out to be let free, but he couldn't. He was stuck.

He stared up at the sky for so long, so...so long. He didn't know how much time had passed since the rotting started. It was an itchy sensation, like thousands of ants were crawling over his body. Pieces of his legs, cheeks and arms fell from his body with no sound.

It was an agony like no other. For hours he rotted. All the way down to the bone, without being unable to do anything. By now the voices had started screaming. Not at each other. But at him. They yelled and yelled about things he didn't understand as his body fell apart.

When it finally ended there was no dramatic boom of freedom. No, instead he simply flicked awake. And he found himself on a gurney. He was strapped down and being rushed down the halls to the unknown.

He heard voices from either side of him; they were muffled and he couldn't turn his head to see who it might be. He couldn't make out anything through his blurry eyes. Bright neon red signs passed over above him, leaving a feeling of nausea.

He wasn't even fully willing to believe he was out of the dream. The one thing that he was sure of, the one thing his mind could grasp onto at this moment, was his phone. More specifically, he thought about Blinker, and he thought about it with a fear that was beyond his comprehension.

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Gendo looked at the crumpled up form of Ritsuko Akagi. Sweat fell from his forehead to the bottom of his lip. Then to his chin, then to Ritsuko's back.

He looked at her sweat-covered back, and watched as the path of the droplets changed as they ran into the bruises on her back. They avoided the navy blue spots with all their might, like they were scared to touch them, that they may just suck them up into their own world of regret and misery.

The woman in question was sweating so much from her face that she didn't know if she was crying or not. She believed she wasn't. Hoped. Every part of her worn and torn body ached, but her back had a special feeling of pain in it.

Gendo knew of course that this wasn't the case. He wasn't a fool, he knew that science held the answer to this, as it did with all things. Ritsuko tried to get up but he grabbed her hair and shoved her back into the pillow. She grunted but didn't resist beyond that.

"I'm not done." He looked at her stretched out and stressed back. Not at the bruises or the sweat, but at her skin, the way her spine rose as she breathed; at the strands of hair that danced on her back before finding their grave in the folds of the bedding.

This was not Yui's back, this was some hag's. Yui's back was soft and beautiful, delicate. This one was rough and ragged, ugly.

Gendo was still inside Ritsuko, sperm swimming inside her; some in her rectum, some on her legs, and some found their way deep into the uterus. He raised his hand, clenched it with all the emotion he had stored, and let it down on Ritsuko's back. Her grunts and pleas were muffled by the pillow, though Gendo wouldn't have cared even if he had heard her.

It was in these moments, the moments that Ritsuko would later recall as the worst in her life, that she couldn't pretend she didn't care. That she couldn't pretend to not notice the tears that stained the pillow her face was planted in. That she couldn't pretend.

The beatings didn't usually didn't last long, only around five to ten seconds. But Kaji losing Adam and all the other setbacks that kept him from Yui made him lose control. And Ritsuko was the perfect target for his frustrations.

For an agonizing 30 seconds, Ritsuko was forced to take it. She clawed at the sheets with her nails. She had gotten them done the week before. She didn't usually didn't do such frivolous things but Misato had convinced her to treat herself. She had gotten them painted a mustard yellow. Misato had plenty of complaints to make about it, but she liked them.

A few of those nails were bent and broken, shoved into the folds of the newly red-splotched sheets.

When he was done he didn't say anything. He simply got off of the bed and headed to the shower. He had a room hidden in his office where he and Ritsuko had their encounters. It was a simple, small room with nothing but a bed and a shower. The only special thing about the room was that it was sound-proofed.

Gendo wasn't weak by any means but Ritsuko had managed to avoid breaking a bone so far. By moving her arms into a certain position she was able to withstand his beatings after every time she was bent over and used.

Ritsuko tried to get up so she could make her way to the showers as well. She hissed in pain the moment she put pressure on her right shoulder. It was disjointed, a bump shoving its way to where it shouldn't be.

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Misato was having very mixed feelings On one hand she was worried about Shinji. He had been all but officially quarantined, inside the room that she was currently waiting outside of on a dinky little folding chair.

They can make a lung into a makeshift car engine but they can't afford a decent chair? The sound of the chair waddling in place as she tried to get rid of the itch on her ass was answer enough.

On the other hand, she was thinking about just how brash the nurses' visit had been. They had immediately rushed over and checked Shinji's vitals and then rolled him out of the room, leaving her perplexed in the dust. They could've at least told me where he was taken, I'm his guardian for shit's sake, Misato thought with a hint of bitter resentment. The idea of Shinji being so easily taken out of her supervision peeved her. Who were they to think they could take her ward out of her supervision so easily? It had taken her thirty full minutes of asking around like a kid lost at the grocery store to find the room they had taken her own god damn ward to. Her relief battled with her worry and the guilt of not knowing what happened to Shinji. Causing knots to tie in her stomach —if it wasn't a bullet or missing limb she was at a loss most of the time.

She always ended up like this, battling her own emotions and thoughts. Liquor was supposed to be the peace treaty. Liquor was supposed to drown the things she didn't want to deal with.

"Mrs..." Misato jumped as the same nurse that took Shinji away from...took him to the E.R. came out of the room. "Katsuragi, right?"

"Just Misato." Misato stood, happy to have a reason to not sit in the chair anymore. "Is he okay?" never one to beat around the bush. The alcohol burned the ones she didn't want to answer, at least for a while.

"Well, he's stabilized..." She watched as Misato's eyes remained alert, clearly not satisfied with the answer. "But we have a few questions, if you're okay with that?"

Misato was peeved with the nurse's vagueness; the thought I'm his guardian crossed her mind again, but it remained unsaid. She wasn't that petty. Probably.

"Okay, Mrs..." Misato leaned over slightly to read the woman's name tag—an unnecessary move,but she was used to talking to people shorter than her. "Kodama."

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End Of Chapter Eight: Inside Out, Upside Down

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Author Note: I've heard of people attacking authors for including rape and other such things in their stories so I just want to say, I don't care.

Otherwise, either ripping me apart or praising me, a review is always nice.

Peace~ a tired ass mofo.