It's not actually that difficult— all he has to do is pull just so and everything will be just as ephemeral as all the people have been in his life: the father who couldn't bother to be there, the mother whose soul was placed in a living machine, the drunk who couldn't take care of him, the secret agents, the wispy girl, endlessly cloned, a shadow of a shadow of a shadow.

And in the middle of all of it, radiating fire, fury, and pain (she just slapped him, how did he not notice), the one thing in the universe that steadfastly refused to abandon him, that demands he do more than slide into nonexistence and take everything with him.

"Shinji," she says, remembering the name he'd forgotten (and forgotten that he had forgotten), "destroy the world all you like, but not like this, not like the wimps and cowards who want you to give up, instead of going out in a blaze."