Kind Angel's Thesis - 1Teineina Tenshi No Teze
Kind Angel's Thesis
A Ranma 1/2, Neon Genesis Evangelion Crossover.
(The theme song to the NGE series is "Zankokuna Tenshi No Teze" or "Cruel
Angel's Thesis")
Neon Genesis Evangelion and all character belongs to Gainax
Ranma 1/2 and all characters belong to Takahashi Rumiko
No copyright infringement is intended.
Thanks go to my pre-reader:
Kevin D. Hammel http://www.anime.sobhrach.com/~khammel/
Please distribute this work free, unaltered and crediting the author.
dzillman@ozemail.com.au
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~dzillman/fire
(Story 1)
Ranma looked out at the driving snow for the hundredth time and cursed Happosai.
He knew that it was not productive, and he knew that it would not accomplish
anything, but it did make him feel better, and it made the soft voice that only
he heard fade into the background.
No-one doubted that Happosai had bitten off more than he could chew this time.
Not only had he set himself against every Martial Artist in Nerima, he had also
summoned a demon. Happosai's problem was fundamentally the same as every other
time that he tried to get revenge: he failed to read the instructions properly
on his instrument of vengeance.
It was a dark and stormy night when the demon arrived. Do not misunderstand, the
weather was in no way responsible for the demon, in fact, the reverse was true.
As soon as Happosai had held aloft the magic crucible, and began to chant the
words of summoning, the weather had closed in. It took almost an hour for the
summoning to be completed, but the caster was protected from the outside world
by an impenetrable barrier.
Given the stunning and completely unsubtle effects associated with the
summoning, Ranma, the Tendos, Cologne, everyone - even lost boy Ryoga - found
their way to the Tendo dojo and watched the summoning in action. In the middle
of the dojo the small man stood, an expression of fear on his face.
Even as he spoke, one of his hands clawed at his lips, attempting to stop the
words of evil. No matter how he tried, he was as much a victim of his spell now.
No-one could penetrate the barrier. Ranma's Ki- blasts, Ryoga's bakusai tenketsu
or Cologne's myriad special attacks she had never even revealed before. No
matter what they tried, the barrier remained unaffected: looking like a
millimetre thick wall of green glass.
It almost seemed as though some anthropologist had decided to create a new
exhibit: Homo Erectus Happosai. Place of origin: Nerima, Japan. Favourite item:
women's underwear. Often found clinging to women's breasts (or the breasts of
people cursed by the Nyanniichuan: you only had to look and feel right).
No-one present could doubt the terror that Happosai was now feeling. The old
pervert's eyes stood out on his head as though he had not touched a woman in a
week, and sweat poured down his withered body as he fought to protect himself
from his own actions.
Ranma shook himself and tore his mind away from the images in his mind's eye.
There was nothing to be gained by thinking about the horrid, messy, painful and
undignified way that Happosai had died. Lifting his head from the window, Ranma
stared around the small cabin and realised what had caught his attention: they
were no longer moving.
Standing up, Ranma grabbed his extra thick jacket, pulled on his over- pants,
pulled down his head gear and stepped from the motorised caravan. Outside, the
air was frigid and clear, his breaths puffing out in white clouds as he looked
around.
White. Everything was white. Over in the west, the sun hung slightly above the
horizon, gently laying its light on the land, but none of its warmth. Only
another two or three months and the days of constant darkness would set in,
turning Antarctica from a white wasteland to a grey wasteland. Shuffling through
the heavy snow, Ranma walked up to the second vehicle in the convoy and stood in
the glare of the floodlights.
"Why have we stopped?"
"Fuel pump's clogged. Looks like a couple of hours work."
Ranma just went 'humph' and walked away. He knew he was not wanted there. Hell,
he knew he was not really wanted on the whole mission, but he was here. Here
because he needed to be, and here because Nabiki's influence was enough to get
him on the trip he needed.
Turning his back on the stalled convoy, Ranma headed into the whiteness. Just a
short walk in the snow, that was all he needed. He was going stir crazy sitting
in the van all day; not only that, but he felt he was getting soft. Fighting
with Akane, or any of the other martial artists he knew, kept him at an
unbelievable level of fitness, and unless he jogged besides the snow tractors
for several hours each day, he could feel his edge eroding.
Even as he walked he could hear the faint voice in his mind. The voice that
assured him that this was the right thing to do, the he was here for all the
right reasons. The voice did not actually say that; it only begged him to come
closer, and offered him power to defeat his foes. The reason he knew he was
doing the right thing was this was what Cologne had suggested with her last
breaths.
The demon had shattered the barrier with a light tap of its... its claw, or
tentacle, or whatever it was. Still with bits of Happosai dripping off it, it
had stepped into the dojo proper. Immediately the fighters had taken their
stances, and Kasumi and Nabiki had run for the house. Both girls - actually
everyone - were a pasty white colour. What had happened to Happosai was not
something that you would wish on your worst enemy. Ranma knew that visions of
his death, and the sounds of his screams would haunt his dreams for the rest of
his life.
The wood underneath where the demon stood hissed slightly, and small tendrils of
smoke curled up. Even something as inanimate as the dojo floor rebelled at the
pure evil that the demon represented. Lifting its two arms, it smashed a hole in
the roof and spread its wings.
"Free! Free at last. Two thousand years of torment are over. I shall never be
defeated again!"
Before any of the people could try and stop it, the demon leapt straight up, and
smashed it's way through the remainder of the roof. As the rain poured in,
lightning flashed and the martial artists ventured forward. This was a new turn
of events; usually whatever hideous monster that Happosai consorted with wanted
to torture Ranma or teach him a lesson or something.
Those willing to stand in the rain were close enough to see the demon's curling
flight that took it up into the sky and away from the mortal fighters. Only when
it was high enough, it suddenly stopped, spun in place and dived back to the
ground.
When the demon crashed into the dojo, wood and bodies flew everywhere. Lifting
himself off Akane, Ranma looked at the demon. This was more like the behaviour
that he expected. First would come the challenge, then the fight. After he won,
and was suffering something awful, Akane would misinterpret something he would
say and beat him with her mallet. That was the way things went.
"Which one of you is Saotome Ranma?"
Ranma could remember the cocky way he acknowledged the demon's call that day. He
was such a fool. Even then, after seeing what it had done to Happosai, after
seeing the ready way that Cologne held herself, he still answered it with a head
filled with too much ego, and not enough brains.
"I'm Ranma. If you want me: try and take me."
The demon laughed again. Hindsight brought tears to Ranma's eyes that froze
immediately. Hindsight showed him what a fool he was.
"I am He-That-Is-Known-As-Kim-Since-His-Real-Name-May-Not-Be-Spoken. I am the
greater demon of pus!"
Somehow it was a sickly image to comprehend, a demon whose realm of power was
pus and mucus and that sticky stuff you find under sores. On the other hand, it
did seem to be entirely appropriate for the demon. It was big and was that sort
of unhealthy grey colour that your leg gets when you've let the gangrene develop
for too long (don't try that at home kids, this demon is a professional).
The demon spat a large blob of something yellow at him, and Ranma nimbly dodged
aside. As it coughed up another load it looked at him. "Haaaaaaark! Mmm, a chewy
one!" *Spit*. "Now that I've gotten that off my chest... Feh! Humans have no
sense of humour. Anyway, as I was about to say: I don't want to fight you. The
spell that summoned me specifically keeps me here until you die. So, you can
just relax."
None of the martial artists relaxed in the slightest. They were not the sort to
be taken in by such simple tricks as an outright lie. The demon shrugged its
shoulders and moved forward for the attack, obviously it had not really expected
them to believe it either.
The strange thing was, they later managed to figure out that it was telling the
truth. Mousse was the first to go down, but that was only because the demon was
interested in Shampoo. It did not take long for the demon to snag the pretty
Chinese girl, and when it used one of it's smaller arms to start to grope her
ample chest, Mousse went berserk.
It was easy enough to see that Mousse died from the demon's attack. Very few
people can survive long without a head attached to their body, and that was one
trick Mousse had not mastered. Despite the best efforts of everyone involved, it
only took three minutes for the demon to toss Shampoo, Ukyo and Akane into small
glass prisons. During the fight, the demon easily evaded most of their attacks
and seemed to absorb those attacks that did get through.
The worst - most insulting - thing for Ranma was the fact that the demon refused
to even engage him in proper combat. It was always circumventing his attacks by
placing Cologne or Ryoga in the way... or even worse, it would place the prisons
which held the girls between them whenever he was preparing to throw a Ki blast.
The fight basically ended when Ryoga got thrown through the concrete wall around
the Tendo's compound. The blow itself could hardly have hurt him, but it was on
the far side of unlikely that he would be able to return within the next two
days, let alone two minutes.
Now faced with one less opponent, the Demon chose to skewer Cologne through one
lung with a long thin finger. That foolish move cost the demon its hand - which
was the first real injury that they had managed to inflict. However, its attack
had cost them their best fighter.
Kicking at the snow, Ranma brushed a tear from his face as he thought of those
times. It wasn't a tear of sadness - he could never care for the old ghoul that
much, could he? - it was just a tear from the wind. The wind and nothing else.
The was no way he could be weeping for the old ghoul, not after he had seen
Shampoo...
Oh look! Someone was jogging out to him from the convoy. Turning back to the
halted vehicles, he thought of what the old ghoul had told him before she died.
Back when she had lain in his arms, blood pooling on the ground, Shampoo's
screams now hoarsely blanketing the background.
"Son-In-Law, this one you cannot win. Not now. Not with what you know. If I had
another five years to train you, you could have won. But not now."
Cologne closed her eyes gently coughed some of the blood out of her collapsed
lung. "Shampoo is dying like an Amazon, dying in battle, there is no greater
honour."
A spasm ripped through her body, they both knew she was saying that to try and
ease the emotional pain she felt. Pain worse that her fatal injury. "Avenge her,
Ranma. I know you would not make her your bride, but you love her enough for
this. Avenge her death."
"Anything!"
And that was when she told him. Told him everything that brought him here today.
Three thousand years of Amazons had held the secret of the heavenly warrior,
buried in the ice. Three thousands years of lore had recorded something that was
ancient before the Amazon tribe was even formed. Three thousand years of word of
mouth was his only hope for saving Akane and Ukyo.
Somewhere in the Antarctic was an Angel. A messenger from Heaven. A harbinger of
the world to come. And it would speak to the most powerful, the most talented,
the most gifted, the most corruptible.
Legend said that the Angel could speak to the minds of the strongest of people.
People who had developed themselves beyond the norm, people one step closer to
the Angel that the rest of mankind. These people could hear the Siren's song of
the Angel: an offer of the power that it held.
That was why Cologne told him. The Angel's power was the only hope this side of
his suicide for stopping the demon, and Cologne loved Ranma like her own -
slightly foolish and errant - great grandson. She did not want to see him die,
and she knew that he had the honour and moral strength to use the Angel's power
for good or not at all. So she told him all the details she knew. They were
scant, but they should be enough to find the Angel. Once he was at the southern
continent, the words in his mind should be able to guide him.
Cologne passed away in his arms once he agreed. Taking only enough time to close
her eyes, Ranma sought out someone that could help. If he was too weak to defeat
the demon now, he would need to get the Angel's power. To get the Angel's power,
he needed to be in the Antarctic, and he knew only one person who could arrange
that: Nabiki.
In all honesty, she had worked a miracle. In under thirty-six hours he was in
the heated cabin of a mobile truck convoy destined for a scientific post almost
right on the South Pole. Both Nabiki and the Katsuragi Expedition were miracles
in his book. After four days of the fastest travel possible through the storm
ravaged, icy landscape, they were almost there. Soon he would be able to return
to Nerima. Soon he could rescue Akane, Ukyo, maybe even Shampoo. She was still
alive and in agony when he left Japan.
A flurry of snow gusted past and he could see it was time to end his trip down
memory lane. The man from the convoy was almost on top of him, offering a small
sheet of white paper, shouting over the biting wind.
"Saotome-san! We got this on the radio! It came though a bit garbled, but we
think we got it right! I'm sorry!" The radio operator had taken a slight liberty
with the wording of the note. It would hardly do to tell the poor guy his
sister-in-law's actual message. "...We all knew the demon would go for Akane
soon, but her time is up. Only an Angel could save her now. Please come home
soon." He didn't know why this 'Tendo Nabiki' would choose such a heartless way
to express the demise of her sister, but he had softened the blow a little.
Shaking with fear, Ranma's trembling hands held the note. 'What was he sorry
about?' The way his eyes kept misting up made it hard for him to read the note.
"Ms Tendo Nabiki regrets to inform you of the passing away of her sister, Ms
Tendo Akane. Sincere condolences, etc."
"Nooooooooooo! AKANEEEEEEE!!"
To protect, to rescue or to avenge.
Three options and only one left. Reaching for the Angel's mind, he turned and
ran straight for it. A day or two at the most, then he would return to Nerima
and end this demon's life... slowly.
The radio man watched their passenger run off into the snow, trailing tears and
screaming like one of the dammed. If this was how he took a well worded message,
how would he have taken the original. Shuffling through the snow, the radioman
reported to the expedition's leader that their passenger had run off.
Eventually the decision was made: Dr Katsuragi would stay in his crawler with
his sick daughter. Since it was broken anyway, he would need time to repair it.
The rest of the expedition would head after the foolish lad at best speed. If
they could find him tonight, they might be able to save his foolish life before
he froze to death.
Twenty eight hours later, Ranma stood above the Angel. He knew it was there,
under the ice. He could feel it. For the last day he could feel it's power
keeping him warm. He could feel the need for revenge providing a purpose in
life. He could feel it so strongly, he wanted to reach out and touch it. But
there was only one way to get through this much ice in a short time. Only one
thing that he could do. Calling on every reserve he had, inadvertently and
unconsciously siphoning whatever power he could gain from the Angel, Ranma went
to work.
"PERFECT SHI-SHI HOKODAN!"
* * *
Shinji sat on the train and stole furtive glances of Ayanami. He could not
understand what she was thinking, she was always so quiet. Even after what had
happened this morning, she had not even said a single word on the subject.
Shinji looked at his hand, slowly opening and closing it. It almost felt as
though he could still feel Ayanami's warm skin under his hand. Warm skin, cooled
from the cold showers that she said she took, but warm and soft... Smooth.
Smooth and nice. He glanced down the train carriage at her and flushed as he saw
her red eyes looking at him.
With a burning face, Shinji tried to think where things had gone wrong. It had
all seemed so easy when Misato asked him to deliver Ayanami's new ID badge. But
then her door had been unlocked, and he had looked inside for her. Her apartment
had been a mess, so when she had appeared from the shower - wearing a small
towel across her slender shoulders and nothing else - he had been flustered and
tripped.
That would not have been too bad, but by this time she was right next to him, so
when he fell, he took her too. Down on the floor, their faces only inches apart,
bodies even closer. Shinji flushed again just thinking about it. It was the
closest he had ever been to a girl, especially one as nice as Ayanami. Naturally
he had struggled back to his feet, gibbering and mumbling like a fool.
Ayanami had just lain there, looking for all the world like she was trying to
decided whether or not to repaint the ceiling. The fact that she obviously did
not care if he saw her small, pert, firm.... No, Shinji! Don't think about that!
Shinji said he was sorry a dozen times and ran out of the door, waiting for her
until she was dressed.
The treatment he got from her on the way to the train would have been a cold
shoulder from anyone else, but from Ayanami it was almost talkative. She had not
only responded to every question he had, she had even deigned to use three words
in a row once!
No matter how chatty she was, it was still his problem. Throwing oneself at
almost naked young ladies was not the done thing in Japan. It was certainly not
the way two NERV pilots acted together, even if they were classmates in High
School. How on earth could he possibly apologise to her properly? She must think
he was some kind of pervert now.
"Ikari-kun."
Shinji's head up and he looked around for who had spoken. But... the carriage
was empty. Just him and Ayanami, it was not as though she would actually start a
conversation. Was his guilt making hear voices now?
"Ikari-kun."
It... It was Ayanami. She was speaking to him. Of her own violation. Of her own
free will. She had even started a conversation. Coughing slightly to hide his
confusion - his amazement - he looked at her.
"Y- yes?"
"Ikari-kun. You have piloted the Evangelion now."
"Yes."
Shinji waited. He was not sure what she wanted to say to him. They both knew he
had piloted the Eva; it had been his first day in Tokyo-3. Ayanami had been too
badly injured to pilot it, so his father had forced him to. She had even been in
the control room when he had been doing synchronisation tests since then.
"What was it like?"
What was it like? What sort of question was that? It was like being drowned
alive when they flood the entry plug with LCL. It was like an image of hell
fighting the Angel. It was pain unbelievable, something he had never experienced
before.
"I- I hated it."
Perhaps that was not the answer she was looking for. Then again, perhaps it was.
It was very hard to read the bright red eyes that stared unwavering at him.
Shinji squirmed slightly under the gaze.
A minute passed in silence, broken only by the sound of the train on the tracks.
Shinji cleared his throat. Having a conversation with Ayanami was hard, no
matter who started it. "How was your first time?"
Ayanami blinked slowly and Shinji cursed himself for a fool. 'Well done, idiot.
First you throw yourself on her this morning. Now you ask a question like that?
Idiot!'
"Do you hear anything since Unit-01 went berserk?"
Shinji shrugged. "Just the usual sorts of things. I mean, my hearing is fine."
The train pulled into the station, they got off and began the short walk to
school. Ayanami turned to look at him. "Sometimes I hear a voice."
That stopped him. "A voice? Do you mean you hear a voice in your head? Something
no-one else can hear?"
They had almost reached school by the time she spoke to him again. "Can you hear
it now?"
Shinji strained his ears. "No... Just the other kids at school... Is that what
you mean?"
"Then you are right. It is a voice no-one else can hear. I do not believe that
this is part of the specified response to piloting the Evangelion."
Before class started, Shinji asked her a question and dashed to his desk. He
knew that she would pick up the thread of the conversation during the break.
After all, class was only an hour, that would almost be a normal paced
conversation.
The break between lessons came and Shinji was surprised to see Ayanami standing
beside his desk. "No. It doesn't tell me to do anything bad. It usually just
cries. Or asks for hot water. I think it sleeps a lot."
"Hot water?"
A nod.
"Well, that doesn't seem too bad. Just so long as it doesn't tell you to start
killing people or anything."
Shinji smiled. Ayanami was probably just feeling the same sorts of things he
was, she just was not as used to listening to her feelings. Shinji knew he often
felt like crying when he thought about having to pilot the Eva again.
Rei nodded again. She may have smiled, but that just could have been a trick of
the light, it was hard to tell.
Time passed school ended. Ayanami Rei said nothing more on the subject. Ikari
Shinji assumed that it was closed. Life in Tokyo-3 continued, waiting for the
arrival of the fifth Angel.
* * *
Ranma awoke and immediately felt happy.
It was dark. He was naked. He was in the bath. He had no idea whose bath he was
in.
He was alive.
End Of Chapter
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