Ever wonder what "Evangelion" would have been like had Shinji left after the incident with Unit-03? This story gives us a possible idea.

"Home" picks up three years after Shinji quit NERV and went back to his teacher's to live. Since then, he has grown into quite an attractive young man, but is more of a loner than ever due to the guilt he feels over what happened with Unit-03. Also, he's been having nightmares that have left serious damage to his psyche, which makes him even more withdrawn.

Then Misato, Rei, Asuka, and Toji, show up, asking Shinji to come back to NERV. After much internal debate, Shinji once again decides he "mustn't run away" and goes back. From there, the story goes into how Shinji tries to adapt to living in Tokyo-3 again, and being an EVA pilot. The "bliss" is short-lived, as his nightmares get worse, and SEELE strikes with the Unit-05 series.

"Home" has been called a "darkfic", and I can agree due to the amount of graphic violence that the story contains. The author goes into much detail with it, particularly with Shinji's battles with the Unit-05s and a nightmare that he has. And there is almost no comedy at all in this story, taking on the same tone that the original "Evangelion" series did following episode 18 (the one with the 13th Angel, for those who don't know).

One nice thing about the series is that each chapter is nice and short, wrapping certain things up in one or two parts and then moving on. The one exception is the major battle with the EVA-05 series later on, which goes on for several chapters with no apparent end in sight, ala "Dragonball Z". Just when you think things are going to get better or worse, a new twist shows up to keep things rolling.

Almost all of the characters remain IC for the story, save for Shinji, who's really OOC, due to the changes in his life. One major thing that's different about him is, due to his new good looks, he's become a "chick magnet", though he does little about it. Other than that, though, everyone else is okay: Misato's still Misato, Ritsuko's still Ritsuko,
Asuka's still Asuka, etc.

One thing that really confuses me (and probably other readers as well) is the absence of the remaining Angels in the story. The other Angels stopped showing up following Shinji's departure, which brings up a question about a possible connection. However, instead of having the remaining make a surprising return just as Shinji does, the author goes straight to the events of "End of Evangelion", throwing out the ideas of the original series. I really would've liked to have seen how the Shinji of this story would've connected with Kaoru, or even what would've happened had he been absorbed into Unit-01. And there's still the question of Shinji's nightmares, and just how much Gendo seems to know about them.

Despite the drawbacks, "Home" is still worth a read, if not to answer that "What if--?" question that probably plagues everyone's minds. If you don't mind darkfics, I'd recommend this one.

Until Instrumentality is needed again...