"SHUT UP!!!" - Shinji Ikari
==============================================================
Neon Genesis:Immortals
Episode 0:2
==============================================================
Reckoning
----------
By Jared Waddell
Disclaimer: Characters contained herein are not property of the author.
This work is non-profit. All rights reserved by Squaresoft, Viz Video,
Gainix, ADVision, and all other respective copyright holders of Final
Fantasy VII, DragonBallZ, and Neon Genesis:Evangelion.
Text Ver 1.0
----------
[June 20th, 2015.]
Shinji stumbled out of the small elevator Ritsuko had shoved him into
mere seconds ago, blinking furtively. His bearings lost, he glanced
around, eyes adjusting slowly to the light which filtered through the
dark clouds painted across the evening sky. A single question hung at
the back of his mind like the final secret of a hundred-level video game
maze: Where was he?
*Tokyo-3 is still here.* He mused, a forest of stone buildings
stretching into the distance before him like the columns of a long-
forgotten temple. Even as he stepped off the platform and into the open,
he could see most of the buildings shrinking, retracting into the ground
and leaving the remainder of the city a barren concrete wasteland. A
look skyward revealed the gathering of hateful clouds--a thick layer of
dirty gauze poised to strike like the marching army of an ancient god--
the meaning behind their existence painfully clear.
The boy paused there for a moment, bringing his vision down to the
wide concrete street laid before him. The street lights had already
turned on, unnecessary just yet, but called upon nonetheless. The air
had turned harshly cold, tainted by ozone and wetted by unseen rain-
drops. The chilling wind that was slowly building felt supernatural--an
evil force making its way into the city. For a moment, he crossed his
arms and rubbed them rapidly, hugging himself to ward off the cold. The
wind tugged at his hair like a dozen impatient toddlers, pulling the
short locks low over his forehead. *I'm not ready to do this!* His mind
screamed. The situation felt wrong; the inevitable confrontation was
tainted, empty; it felt hollow in a way that the boy could not describe.
At that exact instant, he felt a presence beside him. It was subtle
as a spring breeze, and warm enough to stop the coldness working its way
under his skin. Shinji turned to face the newcomer, trying to figure out
just who could affect his senses that way by mere proximity. His gaze
revealed a tall man with long locks of raven hair that sprang up from
his head, easily defying gravity's will. He held himself in a loose
ready stance, relaxed and observant. He wore a set of hand-made
clothing; specifically, a bright red sleeve-less gi with a black T-shirt
underneath the top. The gi was well cut, fitting the man like a second
skin. A pair of deep blue wrist-bands and black boots rounded out the
costume. To Shinji, it seemed there was something important about the
clothes, something he was missing with a casual glance. Part of it came
from way he wore them; the clothing set upon his powerful frame like a
ward of invincibility.
He didn't move or say a word for several minutes, his coal black eyes
trained on the distant horizon as Shinji's had been moments ago. He
ignored they young man at his side completely, waiting.
The wind blew through the arrival's hair, drawing the black strands
out to dance carefree in the cold breeze. Shinji's tongue found a way
around the dryness in his mouth after a moment, and poised itself to ask
a question.
"Who are you?" He said. Everything felt like a dream, the unreal
closeness of the wind combined with the distant sounds of nature, even
though they stood in the center of Japan's largest city.
The arrival answered immediately, as if he had been waiting for this
question. "Goku Son. Who are you?"
*Goku Son... that name sounds familiar.* Thought the boy. "Uh... I'm
Shinji. Shinji Ikari."
Goku scratched his chin, looking at the boy as if sizing him up for a
fight. "Hmm... Shinji? Wait, do you know Dr. Akagi?"
"Yes." Said Shinji, looking up at the fighter. Then, it hit him. *The
Kamehame-ha wave. The Tenkaichi Budokai. The alien fighters. Goku Son!
It's him!*
Shinji may have lived a sheltered life for most of his fifteen years,
but he was trained by a martial artist to become a martial artist.
Studying the history of martial arts and the people that were beacons
along that particular path to enlightenment was a minimum requirement
for a serious student like him.
Moreover, any fighter worth salt knew about the Tenkaichi Budokai.
The world famous meeting of skill and entertainment in the twentieth
century, it was proving ground to dozens of esoteric martial arts
styles. Shinji knew well of the tournament, but it had been canceled
forever shortly before he was born.
Standing beside him was the champion who quite possibly saved the
entire planet from a vicious demon during the final tournament. A legend
among legends at the age of eighteen. And there was something else....
"Hello? Shinji? Are you okay?"
Shinji blinked at the question, and realized he'd been staring into
space, his introspection getting the better of him. "I'm, uh... okay.
It's just a-a-amazing to see you here."
The fighter relaxed his posture, the worried look vanishing from his
face as quickly a spring rainstorm. He let his arms rest loosely at his
sides. "Are you okay?"
"I don't believe it." Shinji whispered, barely breathing. "The winner
of the Tenkaichi Budokai."
"Yes, that would be me." Goku nodded, still watching the youth
carefully. The boy had a very shocked, and somewhat reverent expression
on his face. Several seconds passed, and the boy didn't so much move.
"What?" Goku finally asked.
"What ARE you doing out here?!" Shinji shouted, sparked into motion
by the question.
Goku blinked. "Fighting the Angel, of course. Aren't you?"
Shinji shrugged, then looked at the small ring of cloth fit about his
wrist. Ritsuko said it was a communicator, and that it was on all the
time. Did that mean his father could hear this conversation? *Well, who
cares if he can hear me. Jerk.* Shinji thought to himself before
answering Goku's question. "Well... yeah."
The tall man smiled, looking in the direction of their approaching
enemy. Though his face was mirthful, his attitude was nervous, yet
certain. It was a tired kind of nervousness, of knowing what was to come
and still fearing it, and it did not seem to bother the fighter at all.
If anything, the expression on his face showed he welcomed the building
tension, the charged, tangy quality of the air. "The doctor." He said
suddenly. "She told me about you."
"Fight..." Shinji was not doing as well as his new comrade. His
breathing had nearly halted. The fear was with now, as it was with
Goku. To the boy, however, this fear was new and overwhelming. Like a
drowning man cast into a storm, he could not tell up from down.
Everything sounded and looked alien. Nothing was familiar anymore.
It had all begun with the long ride by train into Tokyo-3. He hadn't
slept on the train, though he had been tired during the whole trip. The
stress of speaking with his father again, this time almost in person,
had worn severely on his nerves. Merely knowing that another Angel was
coming for them--coming right for this city--was enough to make him want
to run screaming into the foothills.
And yet, the lone country boy, the lost little kid, the new arrival
in the big bad city; _he_ was supposed to stand alone against a
destructive force that the entire world's military just barely stopped.
It was madness.
"My... my father said he wanted me to fight. He meant it literally.
But this... This is beyond what I had imagined." Shinji said haltingly.
"It always is, Shinji." Goku said sympathetically.
"I guess they weren't kidding." The boy said under his breath.
"Kidding?"
"It's a long story." Shinji answered, directing his vision to the
ground.
Goku adjusted his wristbands absently. Shinji watched his every
movement carefully. It didn't look like a nervous habit and Goku didn't
seem the type to engage in such senseless activities to let his mind
rest. Every movement of his fingers was carefully coordinated down to
the tinniest detail. He almost seemed to be balancing the weight of the
fabric across his skin.
Shinji wondered what kind of man would willingly throw himself in
harm's way like this. Well, he had... but that felt different. Shinji
was doing this to... to...
"Say, Shinji, I'm having a hard time feeling your power level... are
you sure you're up to this?"
Shinji looked his unexpected companion in the eye. "I've been
wondering that myself." He said quietly. "But I don't think I'll have
much say in the matter."
"What makes you say that?"
"You do know what an Angel is capable of, right Goku?"
The fighter shrugged, answering honestly. "Somewhat."
"S-s-s-somewhat?!" Shinji said, actually staggering back. *He just
said `somewhat' to that question?!!*
The fighter sighed tiredly, then smirked. He raised one arm and
pointed into the distance with a weathered finger. "Maybe I don't,
Shinji, but the time for talking is over."
Shinji looked, a felt a gasp fall from his lips. He had never quite
believed in monsters. Not real ones anyway. He had been born into
interesting times, and today few things were beyond the reach of
science. One such thing was the Angels. Another, Shinji had considered,
was why his father was running a United Nations Special Agency like NERV
all by himself. His father was, at best, a simple fact-finder; at worst
a simple thug. And yet, he had told Shinji to fight the Angels. Shinji
had been told, repeatedly, that his father, Gendo Ikari, was the
all-knowing supreme commander of NERV.
It didn't make any sense.
*Can I really win? Can I succeed were even the military failed?*
Shinji looked to his new partner, Goku, who gazed into the distance
intently, eyeing the foe they had chosen to face that day. *Even with
the man once named the Strongest Fighter on Earth? Does my father really
have that much faith in me, after all he's done? Does he really think I
can beat this thing?*
Evidence suggested that the answer was a resounding `YES,' and now,
the merits of Gendo Ikari's plans were to be given the ultimate test.
While Shinji gazed in the direction of Goku's pointing finger, the
thunder of distant cannons slowly silenced, descending into the dead
calm of a coming storm. Shinji's heart tightened in his chest as he saw
a speck of darkness on the horizon. A single object was headed directly
for them, at a very high rate of speed. From this distance, the dust
cloud billowing out behind it was easy to see, the object itself cloaked
in concealing shadows. A split-second later, the sound of a powerful
explosion reached them.
Goku took up a fighting stance, his fingers curled like a tiger
preparing to pounce. Shinji followed suit, taking up his familiar
ju-jitsu stance. *It's show time.*
Shinji felt himself nod in the affirmative, amazed that he could
still move. The Angel. That was the Angel! He could feel it, a pin prick
of fear on the back of your neck when you know someone is trying to
sneak up behind you. His eyes narrowed, his muscles tightened, and
everything else seemed to fade into the background, like troubled waters
washing down the drain. After a few seconds, even the fear was gone.
Goku spoke to Shinji in hushed, almost reverent tones. "Have you done
anything like this before?"
"Like what?" Shinji said, keeping his own voice low. The silence
since the military action had deepened, seeming to surround them, press
in on them.
Goku answered. "Have you ever... you know, fought in a battle like
this before?"
"You mean, as in fight something like an Angel? No, never."
"But you've fought before. Fought people,"
Shinji took a deep breath, the last of his fear crystallizing. "Yes."
"Then you know what to do."
The Angel was almost in visible range, coming right at them. Shinji
locked it with his gaze, and when he spoke, his voice had an edge of
steel behind it. "Yes."
----------
At about three hundred meters, the Angel took on a color to match its
ominous aura; a blood-red speck in the distance. Shinji's fists
tightened as he prepared himself for what was to come, at a moment when
he had no time left.
At one hundred meters, the Angel resolved itself into a shape that
was roughly humanoid, but it was mysteriously surrounded a red aura
that flickered like the fires lit in the deepest bowels of Hell.
Shinji's hind-brain began to scream, clawing through his calm fighting
instincts and pumping raw terror through his veins.
At fifty meters, Shinji swore he could see that it had eyes. Dead,
pale pink pink eyes. It did indeed look human, an emaciated body with
long arms and legs, skin a pale blue, and talons almost a half meter
long where a human being would have grown fingers.
The boy stood rooted in place, while the Saiyajin warrior tightened
his lips into a slight but distinct snarl, ready to attack.
At ten meters, the screaming stopped. All Shinji could hear was his
own heart beating. His brown, human eyes fixed on the Angel's pink,
alien ones, and everything came to end for Shinji.
His father ceased to matter.
The world ceased to matter.
Color, light, the very sense of being drained away.
His mind was the last thing to go, blown away completely, as a
handful of dust dropped into a hurricane.
Then, only darkness.
----------
Gendo Ikari was not a vain man. To see him following the basic
principles of personal hygiene was a requirement for a man of his
position, but beyond being presentable at all hours of the day, he was
still very much an absent-minded. His hair was between emergency
trimmings--not quite long enough to be a problem, but plenty long enough
to get noticed. A shave was a rare thing; Gendo had grown a short beard
to avoid that regular hassle. All that was left to his attention was a
shower.
One was posted on his daily schedule.
Contrary to his appearance, Gendo was a one-of-a-kind commander. As
the head of NERV, he had all the administrative responsibility of a
bureaucrat and the leadership responsibility of a General in the JSSDF.
What would have been the worst of both worlds to an ordinary person,
however, looked as easy as pie to Ikari. Gendo alone seemed to know all
that happening in NERV, moment to moment, and when his attention was
needed, it was given directly and wholly to the problem for only as long
as necessary. His confidence and poise were two things which never
failed him. His calm face among panicked subordinates was like the eye
of a hurricane. He turned chaos into order as if by magic.
Except right now, that is.
Gendo was leaning over Ritsuko's shoulder, his face tense with lines of
worry, his collar unbuttoned and nervous sweat flowing freely down his
neck. The doctor, working at a speed that brought to mind the mayhem of
villagers running from an erupting volcano but without the sense of
order and purpose that the villagers might have showed, was bent nearly
double under the Commander and had already elbowed him in the ribs--
twice--in an attempt to get him to give her some breathing room.
"Ikari-san, could you PLEASE leave me room to work here?"
"Doctor," he said, his normally deep voice escalated into a pleading
tone. "How much longer is this going to take?"
Ritsuko finally stopped working the keyboard in front of her, popped
her knuckles, and prepared to give Commander Ikari a piece of her mind.
She liked that Shinji kid. Nice (as he could be, considering the
circumstances), always very understanding, and very responsible for a
boy of his age. She had no children of her own, but it wasn't hard to
see why the commander was so agitated. It was his only son out there,
but somewhere Ritsuko had to draw the line.
"Commander. I am aware you have jurisdiction over administrative
work, and oversee field operations, but when the damn computers break,
it's MY department. I know you're concerned about your son--we all
are--but be reasonable, please, and give me enough room to BREATHE, and
I'll see about getting the cameras back on line."
Gendo actually took a step back, surprised at Ritsuko's sharp tongue,
but obeyed her directions nonetheless. "I'm sorry for disturbing you,
Doctor, I was merely concerned for my son's safety. Is there anything
you can do to get this darned contraption to work?"
Even Misato, wearing her `official' jacket complete with rank bars,
cracked a smile. Despite NERV's heavy reliance on technology, the
Commander had a hard time swallowing these glitches. To him, everything
had to work properly, the first time. Given the circumstances, NERV was
an exceptional organization. A government entity that made do with its
limited budget and weight in political circles, managing to perform the
double-duty of a intelligence agency and a military force without
stepping too far from the middle of the road. Japan did not appreciate
having to build a substantial military like its allies had done, but
Ikari had persuaded the nay-sayers as if it were a personal crusade. His
ability to get whatever NERV needed, when NERV needed it, was legendary.
It was, to say the least, unusual to see him so worked up over his
son's safety. Still, it was understandable, given the circumstances. Any
parent would worry about sending their only child into what appeared to
be certain death. No, that was wrong. Any parent who did that would have
to be committed.
Yet, this was a risk the Commander was willing to take. A very big
risk. NERV had done all it could. It was now time to see if all of its
work would bear fruit.
----------
On the field of battle, things had not been going well. Thousands of
meters below, protected by two dozen layers of titanium armor, the core
of NERV waited, holding its collective breath. No news came from the
surface other than the muted sounds of small explosions. Below the
surface, no one could say for sure what was happening far above. No
sound came to them. No picture. A single report had come in from an
observation post ten kilometers out of the city, saying that it looked
like a full-scale ground war was being waged right in the center of
town.
With that, NERV had received its first accurate description of the
battle.
Shinji slumped to the ground, fighting to stay conscious. The impact
with what was left of a small apartment complex had left the back of his
head suddenly feeling in worse shape than the bits of charred concrete
that lay on the ground about him. In the distance, he could hear the
sounds battle as Goku fought the Angel to a stand still with fireballs
that he threw from his hands. And that wasn't all. Goku, of all people,
could fly!
It was unfortunate that the Angel could do so as well, but that
particular beast seemed to prefer the ground.
Shinji muttered a prayer under his breath as he slowly tried to get
to his feet. His body hurt too much to coordinate his actions
consciously, but his severely bruised brain was apparently receiving its
messages, and he was finally able to stand tall. Too exhausted by that
activity, he paused for a minute to make an attempt at breathing. The
pain in his chest was getting worse, and when he exhaled it felt like
someone was rubbing sharp sticks together in his rib cage. That probably
meant a couple of broken bones.
His vision clearing, the boy looked up to see the two fighters
tangling in a mass of blurring limbs, heading directly at him. He took
another deep breath, wincing, and braced himself for the coming attacks.
It wasn't likely he would survive much longer, and he resigned himself
to the inevitable with a grimace.
The two fighters were only a dozen meters away when Shinji felt...
something. It was something familiar; something he should have
immediately recognized, but didn't quite fit. It was like a warm,
motherly hand tugging at his soul. He turned around, his back to the
approaching fight, trying to pinpoint where this feeling was coming
from... and why he was privy to such an unusual phenomenon. Later he
would say that it was like the very act of life; breathing, working
lungs, and a beating heart, but _outside_ of his own body. He looked,
and after a moment, he saw. Just a few feet away, under a small pile of
rubble leaning against the foundation wall. The roar of wind and the
crack of fist on flesh rushed to catch up with him as he kneeled.
His hand reached out, and time began to slow. Goku was screaming
something incoherent to him. He could feel the electric aura of the
martial artist, and the dark, chilling aura of the Angel pressing
closer. *But there's something there.* His hand alighted on the rock,
and he swallowed hard, letting the hot saliva burn down his throat. The
hairs on the back of his neck stood up and started marching.
"SHINJI!" Goku was shouting. It sounded like it was right in his ear.
He still felt it, that warm feeling, close to heart. It was covered
with a bit of fear though, the lump in his throat like an apple coated
in a layer of dust. What _was_ that feeling?
Shinji told himself it was nothing, told himself it wasn't important,
and pulled his hand back, preparing to strike. Fear crawled across his
body like an army of spiders, nearly drowning out the pain of being
thrown into a building. He was ready to turn and face the Angel, ready
to give all that he had left.
Then he froze.
"SHINJI!"
The Angel's breath on the back of his neck. The continuous heavy
clank of shattered concrete and torn steel grating on his nerves. His
own voice, screaming inside his head. *This can't be!!!*
"SHINJI!"
A hand with tiny fingers peeked out at Shinji from under the rubble
of the destroyed apartment complex. A hand, in the center of a tiny pool
of blood. A tiny, child's hand. Shinji's vision clouded over and his own
hands, scarred hands, hands carved into tools made to protect people,
closed into fists.
"And the wicked sent their armies to do battle with the Angel."
*That's not Goku's voice.*
"But the Angel's great power, backed by the power of God, stopped the
armies in their tracks."
*Angels don't speak. Angels aren't people and only people can speak.
Angel's can't speak! They CAN'T!*
Shinji faced his enemy, the wind drawing itself slowly around his
feet, circling him and rising into the sky.
The Angel continued to speak, Goku laying on the ground behind it,
clutching his stomach in pain. "The wicked then sent their children--"
"SHUT UP!!!" Shinji cocked a fist back and let it fly at the Angel's
grotesque face. The Angel grabbed his hand and--
----------
"Wait! On the monitors!" Ritsuko pointed to a pair of screens at her
right elbow. Traces of wild lines scrolled across the screens slowly.
One had Shinji's name at the bottom, the other was marked with Goku's.
On Shinji's screen, the red line went flat.
For a moment, the gathered NERV officers felt that their hearts had
done the same thing.
----------
[June 21st, 2015.]
The small hospital room had a single bed. The patient, one Shinji
Ikari, lay on the bed staring into space. He was dazed, trying to recall
just how he had ended up here.
There were memories of the fight; short lived flashes of violence
whose recollection alone made him break into a cold sweat. He remembered
his arriving in Tokyo-3, and meeting his father. He talked to Ritsuko...
and then... he was fighting.
*Fighting? I shouldn't have been fighting anything.*
The boy blinked several times, then slowly moved his head to take in
his surroundings. While parts of the room came into view, he did not pay
attention to what rested before him, his eyes remaining blank and
glassy.
The curtains hung over the room's lone window were drawn. Needlessly,
as the sun had dipped low in the sky and only a few beams of amber light
made it to the foot of his bed, thin lines of light and darkness splayed
across the sheet. To his left, a stack of bizarre machines stood silent,
watching over him like the stoic ranks of some futuristic robot army.
The rest of the room was painted in an antiseptic white that would be
blinding in the full light of day. A small flat-screen TV, a dresser-
like piece of furniture on the opposite wall, and a single hard plastic
chair were all that made up the room's meager furnishings.
"... I am..." His voice echoed quietly in the room. He licked his
lips and tried again. "I'm alive."
*I feel okay...*
The boy sat up slowly, afraid his body might come apart at any
second. His head felt like it was wrapped in cotton and his eyes seemed
to throb with the pulse his heart. His mouth tasted like a dead insect
and his hospital... `clothing,' if it could be called that, was still
damp with his sweat. Sweat most likely born from unremembered dreams.
He was most definitely alive.
Drained from rising to his current position, Shinji slumped in the
bed, barely holding himself up with his arms. He noticed his hair
hanging in front of his face. *It's growing a bit too long for
brawling.*
He almost smirked, the corners of his mouth twitched, but then
suddenly died.
*For fighting.*
He looked around the room again, slices of his current residence
obscured by dirty strands of black.
*Fighting...*
In the darkness behind the half-drawn blinds, with the light creeping
through, his face turned slack, his attention focused inward.
*For fighting.*
*My hair is too long for fighting?*
Laboriously, he brought one hand to his bangs, and stroked them out
of his vision, only to watch them sway back in place.
*Why was I fighting in the first place?*
Even as he asked the question, the answer burned in his mind. Words
slipped from his mouth, generating barely a murmur. "Was all that just a
dream?"
His hand climbed higher, his vision locking on to the object. His own
hand, calloused from years of training, yet still young and still not
as strong as a truly experienced fighter, held in his view.
"It... it couldn't have been."
The stare continued until he dropped his hand to the bed. With a
painful grimace, he drew his spine back to a straight line. After a
pause, the grimace came back and stuck on his face while he rotated his
arm at the elbow, then at the shoulder. When he stopped, tears had
formed in his eyes.
*What happened? What _happened_? I'm alive but far from unharmed...*
In his mind's eye, a vision came, the face of a man, screaming. His
hands were held in front of him, a flickering light growing in his
palms. Then a blur of--
Shinji shook himself, gasping. *Breathe. Remember to breathe.*
He lay back in the bed, his eyes now wide, yet still staring sight-
lessly into the air, a look upon his face of a man who has marched
through Hell, but still insists he's home and everything's okay.
The look stayed there until he passed out an hour later.
----------
[June 20th, 2015.]
It was time to present a report to the Budget Committee.
The commander was a man of truly remarkable ability; to learn that he
was afraid of a committee would be quite funny to some people. Said
people, however, wouldn't find it funny at all if they had to deliver
this report. And humor would evaporate from the subject entirely should
they learn what this Committee was really planning.
Ikari detested the red tape and the meaningless maze of rules the
Committee imposed on him and his agency, NERV. It was especially trying
to keep a straight face when he had to lie to the Committee for one
little thing or another. The lies piled up, little ones here and little
ones there to cover the first lie, like dust caught in a spider web.
After a while, maintaining the lies became a task unto its own. Now
_that_ would be a funny thing to write into his schedule.
It was a necessary evil, to seek and keep funding for NERV's
existence on an almost weekly basis. The advanced research that NERV
personnel performed on a regular basis required a staggering amount of
money. Money which no government was willing to simply give up. It had
fallen to NERV's boss of bosses, Gendo Ikari, to keep the boat afloat.
To this end, he allied himself with an organization known as SEELE,
which was as demanding and impersonal as combat itself.
The final thorn in his side was the sinister setup, the dark walls,
and knowledge that this room technically didn't exist, except as a slick
computer graphic. The meeting room that this Committee insisted upon was
a holographic anchor linked to a network of super-computers. The signals
traveling from hidden location to hidden location not only allowed the
group to converse in near real- time without revealing much of their
actual location, but also added a small measure of additional security.
No one on earth could listen in on this conversation, barring those in
attendance.
"I trust the reports are up to your usual standards of accuracy?"
Asked a voice from the darkness.
*Why is it always so damn dark in here?* Ikari thought, fiddling with
his palm computer. "Everything has been completed within the established
guidelines." he said, voice barely level. *It's not like I can just
re-write these things to suit my own interests when five thousand people
saw that fight.*
"Good work, Ikari. You make us proud." The voice again. Low,
dangerous, and reminding Gendo of a caged animal--held back, but only
for the moment.
Gendo's slim and sterile smile remained frozen on his face as he
mulled over his odds of surviving this session without bowing to another
unreasonable demand from the committee. They were a crafty bunch, and
fond of toying with him, subtly insulting his every action, and annoying
him to no end. Then, they usually snuck in a `request' for him to do
something. Something, usually, that he would never even contemplate
until they suggested it.
It was a challenge indeed to fight this evil.
Gendo retorted to the voice's question. "NERV cannot afford gross
errors in an endeavor such as this."
Another voice responded quickly, from the far end of the meeting
room. "Our opinion exactly, Ikari. Your future work will be up to these
standards, yes?"
"Of course." *Even if it means sacrificing my young to an Elder God,
you bastards.* "Our technical staff is among the finest in Japan..."
A third voice from the darkness. "We aren't concerned with the
technical staff, Ikari, we meant your son."
*Oops.* Thought Gendo, quickly retracting his previous promise.
"The destruction he and that other fighter caused during their battle
with the Angel was quite... significant."
Gendo fought to keep from sweating. He had this one in the bag, but
SEELE wasn't here to toss around money without results. They had made
that abundantly clear long ago. "But far less than the cost of
ammunition and lives the JSSDF wasted against it." *There, that will do
them in.*
"True." Answered the chairman. Point for NERV. "You came through in a
time of crisis Ikari, with flying colors and a dry collar." Barely
visible, the chairman smiled. A jackal's grin rubbing against Ikari's
soul. "That will be all."
The holographic projectors clicked off.
A momentary sigh of relief echoed in the empty room. "Fucking
bastards."
The normally sealed door to Ikari's long-distance meeting room
opened, revealing the slim form an older man in a NERV uniform.
"What do you think? Did it go as well as you hoped?"
"I survived." Ikari thought for a moment. "I feel something is wrong,
however."
Fuyutsuki nodded, mostly to himself. The lines in his face seemed to
fade away, leaving with his worry. "As do I, old friend. How about we
cut the afternoon short?"
*An afternoon off?* Gendo usually spent the afternoons following one
of these meetings putting back a fair amount of sake at a mid-town bar.
One dirty secret Fuyutsuki and him shared. "Thanks for the offer, but
I'm afraid I can't. Ritsuko wanted me to see something. Something
important."
Fuyutsuki chuckled. "She's not going to try and seduce you again, is
she?"
Ikari made a face as he turned off his computer and stepped out of
the room. Fuyutsuki move aside, still egging on Gendo. "Want to take a
gas mask with you? Maybe some body armor?"
"I think I can survive an afternoon around the doctor." Gendo
retorted, closing the holographic meeting room. He led Fuyutsuki down a
short hallway whose walls, ceiling, and floor were all a dull brown
color with a pattern of perfect squares forming a continuous, enclosing
grid of black lines. It fit, somehow, the way SEELE seemed to shadow his
every moment, box him in.
"Hehe... Well, have a good time. I'll order an extra round of Sake in
your honor."
The pair finally reached Gendo's office, the last door before the
elevator. Fuyutsuki took his leave immediately with a small bow. Gendo,
already splayed out in his very large and very expensive desk chair,
just threw off a wave to his friend.
A single button on the desk killed the lights, leaving Gendo in the
darkness with his thoughts.
*I just wish I knew _why_ I have this odd and terrible sense of
foreboding...*
----------
[June 22nd, 2015.]
Shinji found it odd that Misato Katsuragi had an office. He had
always assumed the military woman operated completely from the top of
her head and ate any piece of written communication she received like
some secret agent from the old twentieth century movies.
The Commander of Field Operations did, in fact, have an office, and
it was no less demeaning than the standard Tokyo-3 sariman's office. It
was ironic and quite humanizing to see that even Misato had to turn
sideways to slip between her own desk and office's smallest file cabinet
before she could properly seat herself and aim a stern stare at the
young boy she had come to talk to.
Shinji, recovered from his stay at the local hospital, was rapidly
shoving his belonging into the large canvas bag which he had brought
with him to Tokyo-3. He was surprised to find that he hospital he was in
doubled as an infirmary for NERV personnel. He wondered if it was
something his father did, as an administrator for this facility, or if
that was a task he left to an underling.
*Yes, an underling.* Shinji decided.
"Shinji?"
The boy ignored her. He concentrated to jamming his toothbrush into
the bag's smallest pouch sideways, bending the plastic tool slightly to
make it fit.
Misato took to her feet. "Shinji!"
"Yes?" He did not look up.
"Will you stop that for a minute and look at me?"
He did as requested, bangs swinging into place over his eyes, which
looked at Misato coldly. The woman straightened her spine as taught
through years of military service, refusing to be intimidated by the
diminutive fighter before her. "Look at it this way, Shinji-kun."
"Look at it what way, Misato-san?"
"I was just about to explain tha--"
He went back to packing his travel bag at dangerous speeds. Misato
refused to sigh, to relent in the slightest, holding in her frustration
for the moment. She edged out from behind her desk and began pacing the
spot of gray floor tile that lay between her charge and the room's only
door.
"I know you're feeling quite rattled from all that's happened lately.
I know it's only been a few days since you got here, but there's no
reason to leave right now."
"No reason my ass, I--"
Misato stopped her tracks and spun on the boy, her voice booming into
his face at point-blank range. "WHAT did you just say?!"
The young man actually gulped before answering. "Gomen. Look, Misato-
san, I understand NERV has some problems here, but let's be realistic.
I'm not any good to you. I'd just be in the way. My father was too busy
to even come and see me in the hospital." He paused, his voice beginning
to waver. "A-and I think it would be better if I just left."
She had to hold herself back from giving the poor boy a hug. "Wait.
Shinji... I... We, the rest of NERV, need you."
His eyes, shrink-wrapped in tears, looked away from her and swept
through the bare office. It was kept with the same military precision he
remembered from those years long past, when he visited NERV for the
first time, to see his father. Why the cold order laid before him was
comforting was a mystery.
He chewed on his lower lip for a few seconds, holding back the tears
and waiting for his thoughts to become more a marching band than a
raging storm.
When he spoke, the words were almost drowned out by their own
echo. "I know."
His fingers slid loose of the bag's straps and his arm dropped back
to his side. His head hung low as he waited for judgment. He didn't feel
right to leave. Angry at his father, yes. Willing to turn his back on an
entire city, no.
And there was something else that was bugging him. Something else
wrong with his memory... or was it merely the world?
"Shinji-kun. If we didn't have to involve you in this war, believe
me, we wouldn't. I don't want you here just to fight. Kids shouldn't
have to fight in wars. It's not a child's job to engage in life and
death battles on a regular schedule. But Shinji-kun, that's exactly the
situation we're in right now; we don't have a choice." The boy swallowed
hard, his body shaking ever so slightly, holding back the tears. Misato
continued, her face tight with worry, her voice low and grave. "There's
just you and Rei, who isn't here yet. And Asuka... hell, she's still in
Germany. If another Angel were to attack..."
He broke his silence, a whisper like silk across a tanto. "You'd suit
me up and send me out there again, even if I thought I couldn't handle
it."
Misato nodded, even though Shinji could not see her, and did not turn
to see the movement.
"Would you... would...." He stopped, shaking his head, then
continued, his voice drawing out the words in a desperate rasp. "Would
you just... would you sacrifice my life to stop the Angels?"
*The moment of truth.* Thought Misato, crossing her arms. Shinji
turned to face her, his eyes dry, and now hardened; more dangerous.
She nodded.
"I understand."
The answer had to come from her, directly. He knew it already, in a
kind of distant way, as if he'd just browsed through his life story in a
newspaper article. This made it real, accepted.
Accepting the truth did not put him at ease.
One life for the sake of a hundred thousand, or one million. It
wasn't right, but just... just was.
It just was.
His mind slid back to the previous day.
[The previous day.]
White walls. White ceiling. White door. White lights. White-out. A
crimson glow was revealed to his eyes when he closed them. This only
made the white burnt into his retinas react in all kinds of weird ways
that reminded him of a recent chemistry experiment gone awry. The
kaleidescope of color and splotches of light that jumped around his
field of vision like a gang of wild monkeys did nothing to improve his
mood, and this only happened when he tried to wipe the dirty feeling
from his face.
He hadn't been able to sleep a wink in hours. After a few bouts of
fitful sleep filled with terrifying, ill-defined dreams, his exhausted
body had finally recovered enough energy to stay awake. He had not eaten
anything, but the mere thought of food was still repulsive to him.
The pain and weakness in his limbs was all but gone. He had measured
time recently by the position of the sun, as he had never thought to ask
for a clock. Now the sun was long gone and the only light in the room
came from the single fluorescent panel in the ceiling.
*I wonder if Heaven is lit up like this. A perverse torture chamber
for God to watch his creations squirm.*
His thoughts lingered like a half-asked question, the answers already
waiting on the tip of his tongue. It was tempting to simplify his
situation like that, just assign good and evil by giving them names;
paint the world black and white to ease his mind. Nothing was ever that
simple, nothing. He had lived and learned that for years.
The door opened and Shinji heard hesitant footsteps as someone
entered the room. The visitor's presence preceded him like the scent of
cinnamon and the taste of hot tea on a cold winter day. It was the
second time Shinji had felt such a presence, and he did not need to look
up to know that Goku was standing in front of the door, nervously
shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The fighter was dressed
casually now, the leather shoes and pressed slacks out of place on his
powerful frame.
Shinji had a flashback to every cheesy detective movie he'd ever
seen. *Isn't this where Goku comes bearing bad news?*
"Ah, hello." he said.
Shinji nodded at the greeting. "Hello. It's nice to see you're still
alive." That came out harsher than he had intended.
Goku only winced slightly, then quickly sat in the room's only chair.
Shinji struggled into a sitting position, his muscles protesting every
movement. Finally, he managed to look Goku in the eye. "I'm feeling
better."
The fighter's own gaze shifted away quickly. "Glad to hear it."
The silence stretched out, unbearable, until Shinji could hear the
fluorescent lights buzzing. He couldn't think of anything to say.
Goku spoke for him. "Do you remember what happened?"
"I remember." Shinji said, telling his half-truth. He looked down.
While he could remember most of the fight, parts were blanked-out, cut
from his mind. His most vague memory was of him attacking the Angel
head- on. Surely he would never do something so foolish, so insane.
Goku watched him carefully, then stood, walking up to the windows and
looking outside before he spoke. "And how are you doing?"
Shinji turned to face Goku at the sudden question. He stopped short
of answering, suddenly wondering himself how well he was. He felt well
enough to walk, perhaps get out of bed and around the room to stretch
his legs, but he was still a little sore. His head was clear, except for
his poor recollection of the last X amount of time. *Everything seems
alright.*
"I'm okay." he finally said.
"Good." said Goku curtly.
"Is there something wrong?" Asked Shinji.
Goku turned to face the boy. He folded and unfolded his hands in
front of him, then scratched the back of his head.
"Well?" Shinji persisted.
Goku took a deep breath. "I want to know if you're up to this. I know
your father didn't give you much choice in the matter, but I think it's
important you decide to do this yourself." He paused, uncomfortable,
glancing at Shinji several times before looking steadily at the ground.
Shinji's jaw slowly tightened. "What are you keeping from me?"
"Do you know what you're involved in?" Goku asked.
"I will if you tell me!" Shinji shouted, then shook his head. "Sorry,
I didn't mean to yell."
"You looked upset while we were fighting the Angel." Goku's voice was
distant. "Where you saw... where you saw..." He turned back to gaze out
the window. Shinji could have been mistaken, but for a second it looked
like the big warrior was about to cry.
Then he remembered.
The hand.
His eyes widened and his throat seemed to shut itself. His breathing
came to a halt. One moment he felt sick, the next he felt he was going
to faint.
The hand.
Finally, the words came where his feelings left off. "Why? Why did we
have to do it?!"
"No one else could, Shinji. No one else can fight Angels." Goku said,
still not facing the boy.
"But we didn't have to kill anybody!" He shouted at Goku's back.
The fighter whirled to face him. "We didn't!"
Shinji remained silent.
"That Angel killed someone! If you hadn't stopped it there's no
telling how many people it would have killed. These things don't have
morals!"
The door opened, whisper quiet. A tall man strode into the room,
adorned in black clothing and wearing a strange set of armor. His
clothes had not a mark or stain on them, unnaturally perfect in color.
They made him look like a figure that was cut out of one time, one
place, and pasted into this world, like a drawing of a person pasted
into a real photograph. He had one leather glove on this right hand that
featured a metal collar around his wrist. His armor was made of a pair
of spherical shoulder guards held in place with a single steel chain.
The flat grey metal that made them seemed utterly unable to reflect
light, though the surface looked as smooth as the surface of a mirror.
The man himself was not particularly extraordinary, apart from being
very tall. His face was calm and serene, and his gaze spoke of knowledge
worlds normal people. His hair was silver, like that of an old man,
though his face was youthful. His emerald eyes were cold and dangerously
intelligent.
"He's right, Shinji. It is now Us or Them." He spoke in an ordinary,
rather flat tone of voice.
Goku looked at the man. "Hey! Who are you?!"
"Yeah, who are you?" Shinji joined in.
"I am Sephiroth." the man said.
"Oh." said Goku. It seemed simple to him, although his eyes kept looking
at the man's armor.
"And how did you get here..." Shinji added.
"I wish to help you defeat the Angels."
There was a moment of silence as Goku and Shinji looked at one
another. The hospital door opened, stopping once it had moved far enough
for Ritsuko to poke her head inside.
"Yep!" The doctor said in a loud, saccharine voice. "Meet the newest
member of your team! He's been dead for many millennia, but he has a lot
of combat experience!" She then opened the door fully, stepped inside
and did a little cheer with two small fans.
"Indeed." Sephiroth said dryly, watching the display with a detached,
emotionless gaze.
"What was that all about?" Shinji asked, confused as the other two men.
"Tension breaker, had to done." Ritsuko answered. She left the room
before fielding any more questions.
Goku smiled ever-so-slightly, then put a hand on Shinji's shoulder.
The boy looked up at him. "Look, Shinji... not every battle is a fight
of Good verses Evil. Usually it doesn't even have anything to do with
`right' and `wrong'."
"Correct." Sephiroth added. "In fact, it usually just comes down to
`Us against Them,' which is where we are now."
"Fighting a war I don't understand, in a situation I don't want to be
in..." Shinji mumbled to himself. *Too late to back out now.*
Goku looked at the large warrior, his eyes holding a measure of
respect for the tall man. Shinji also looked at the arrival, his face
curious. "Who are you again?"
[The present.]
"I'll stay." Shinji answered.
Misato's response was quick, but honest. It was not the canned
happiness Shinji had feared. "Your father will be pleased."
Still, it wasn't great news.
Misato began walking out of the office. Shinji took the hint and
didn't try to follow her. He didn't bother to give a retort to her last
comment. "Commander Ikari is at least a fair man, Shinji."
He turned his nose up in her direction once she turned the corner,
and zipped his bag closed. Staring at the sack filled with his life's
belongings, he suddenly felt very small and alone. Living here, in a
city where he was a stranger, with no-one to call a friend, was not an
enviable prospect.
Sighing, he pulled his bag off the office chair and took the seat.
It looked like he would be here for a while.
----------
[June 20th, 2015.]
Deep within the metal and concrete base that was NERV, thousands upon
thousands of meters underground, lay a network of high-security storage
rooms. Accessible only through a nearly endless number of mind-numbingly
dull corridors, the low levels of NERV was not the kind of place one
would want to get lost in.
Deep within the twisting metal corridors of this base, protected from
all eavesdropping, NERV kept its darkest secrets. All of the hallways
were well-lit and exceedingly clean, which only served to magnify the
intense sterility of them, creating an almost hostile environment for
any unprepared visitor.
Visitors were few indeed; as one of the highest security areas in all
of NERV, only a handful of people even knew of its existence. Extra work
crews, when needed, were escorted under armed guard and didn't see
anything they were not supposed to. None of the doors were labeled. The
handful of people that were granted regular access to NERV's most secret
of secret places were not the type to work to distraction.
Within this maze, amidst the hundreds of random dead ends, Gendo
Ikari stood observing a most unusual structure. It was a wall, but as
the reflection from his tinted prescription glasses showed, it was a
wall with a huge hole. The room before him had been designed to hold
pretty much anything. It was surrounded by walls made of an insanely
tough titanium alloy. Each wall was more than two meters thick. Given
the melting point of the metal, and the ceramic case that surrounded the
room, nothing short of perhaps a nuclear weapon should have been melt
through that wall. And yet, the rest of the facility was quite intact.
No scorch marks marred the ceiling or floor near the wall. It was as if
the room was built with this most unusual egress when the facility was
constructed.
"This is the place he broke out of?" Gendo asked.
Standing at the Commander's elbow, Ritsuko answered his question.
"Yes. It happened during the fighting, caught on tape. No one was
injured. We barely picked up anything on the base's sensors."
"What was detected?" Gendo asked formally.
"A magnetic field, the type of which is often formed when melting
metal. No alarms were sounded, of course." Ritsuko didn't even look at
the clipboard held at her side as she spoke. She was quite surprised to
see the anomaly and had set the area cameras to record everything.
Discovering the hole had been quite a shock.
"And he was recaptured?" Gendo asked.
"He turned himself once on the surface. He said that something
`didn't feel right.' He wants to talk with me right now."
"I'll go with you." It was not an order, but it wasn't a request
either. The commander had Said So, which meant he would Be There.
"He wants to fight the Angels." Ritsuko said after a moment of
silence.
Gendo didn't move or acknowledge her comment at first, looking at the
destruction before him, contemplating the ease with which it was
wielded. "I know."
Ritsuko tucked the clipboard under one arm, pumping her free hand in
the air while gleefully shouting. "Okay! So, since we're done with all
the mysterious, evil stuff, let's go to the arcade!"
Gendo played statue. "Act your age, doctor."
"You didn't like that, Gen-chan?" Ritsuko asked, leaning around the
man's shoulder so she could look him in the eye while somewhat draped
over him.
This time the commander turned to fully face her, something like a
smirk curling his lip as he corrected her. "Don't call me Gen-chan."
----------
[June 22nd, 2015.]
Misato Katsuragi lived in a modest fifth floor apartment within
NERV's authorized housing district. She paid the rent, but NERV had
arranged for the place; making sure she lived close to base. The
apartment was not terribly small, but from where Shinji stood in the
open entrance, it looked positively tiny... especially with the huge
piles of trash and unopened moving boxes hogging most of the floor
space.
*Thank God I don't have much in the way of personal belongings.*
Shinji thought to himself. *It looks like there's barely enough room for
me in there. Misato said she had another roommate...*
"Okaerinasai!" Misato said cheerfully. She waited through the nervous
pause. After a moment she stopped waving. After another moment of
silence, she almost frowned. "Well, come on in, Shinji. You live here
now."
Shinji's feet were rooted in just outside of Misato's front door.
Behind him stretched the concrete walkway to the elevator. The skyline
of Tokyo-3 was only a few steps away, and the boy looked to it as if
seeking his answers there. After an eternity, he discovered only that,
if nothing else, Misato had a nice view of the city from way up here on
the seventh floor.
"I know..." he said.
"Don't be such a grump. We're gonna have ourselves a party tonight!"
*A party.* Shinji thought.
Two women exited an apartment a few doors down the walk. Shinji
twitched slightly at the sound of the automatic door sliding shut.
"Hey, don't feel so..." Misato started, her voice dropping off as she
heard the contents her her neighbors' conversation. The two women were
on their way to the elevator, talking far too loudly for normal
conversation, their voices carried clearly to the officer and the pilot.
"Can you believe that battle they had in town today?"
Shinji froze.
"I know, this is getting crazy. If something like that were to happen
before we evacuated..."
He boy couldn't tear his attention from the conversation. Misato
clenched her hand into a fist until her fingers turned white, her mouth
drawn into an angry line.
"I know! My husband says he's ready to move away tomorrow, and I
don't blame him. I wouldn't want to be in a city that's in the middle of
a war!"
The elevator doors closed. Silence once again overtook the building.
Shinji remained silent, wiping a single tear from the corner of his
eye. He looked at the tear, as if that single pearly ball of salt water
held all of his answers. Then, his face hardened, the tear flung away
with the flick of his finger. He stepped inside.
"Ta... Tadaima."
Misato reached past the boy and pushed a button near the door; it
slid shut with a quite "whoosh." Shinji didn't come in further into the
apartment, remaining in the entry area with his bag still on his
shoulder.
Misato finally broke the impasse of his mind with a burst of speech.
"Hey! Shinji! Are you coming in, our should I dig up a couple of
blankets?!"
"It's okay, I'm coming in." He answered meekly, walking into the
apartment. Misato threw her folder of papers on the couch and pointed
down the hall without a word. Shinji mumbled under his breath. "We're
always at war. Throughout history, it's the one constant. It may be the
only thing mankind is really good at. But wars have been fought through
cities many times over. Just because they've never been in the middle of
one...."
The boy stopped before a veritable mountain of beer cans. It was true
that trash seemed to lurk in every corner of the apartment, but this was
definitely the empty beer can depository.
Shinji took the time to comment on the fixture. "What's this? Mt.
Yebusi?"
Misato looked at the pile from inside the kitchen. "It's getting
there. Put the groceries here, okay? I'm going to change." She said,
pointing at the counter. Shinji noticed there was already a can of beer
in her hand.
"Sure."
"Your room's first on the right." She shouted from the short hallway.
Shinji found a bare spot on the living room floor that wasn't right
in the way, and set his bag down. The groceries that the two had stopped
to buy on the way home went to the kitchen. He sat the bags on the
counter first, unsure of whether he should just dig into the work or
wait for Misato to return. After a moment of indecision, he shrugged and
began putting the food away.
Some of the supplies he would have to leave out--Misato had made it
clear they would be eating some of... this stuff for dinner. All she
bought was fast food. After a minute of looking, it seemed to Shinji
that all she stocked in her kitchen was fast food. This made an odd kind
of sense to the boy. Even better, it made quick work of putting
everything in its proper place, leaving Shinji time to look over the
apartment one more time.
Apart from the huge supply of beer Misato seemed to consume, the
place was relatively normal. The western style couch was a nice touch,
set along one wall perpendicular to the balcony. The kitchen was a tiny
collection of cabinets wedged into the corner opposite the living room
couch, an the eating area was right in between the two, part kitchen,
parting living room. Most of the living room was actually consumed by
the moving boxes and various pieces of litter that Misato hadn't thrown
out yet.
After his examination, Misato still had not come back yet. She was
only down the hall... where Shinji did not want to go. Instead, he
opened the refrigerator, on a quest for something to drink. A lone milk
carton at the back grabbed his attention, he reached for it and
immediately wished he hadn't.
"Kami..."
The milk carton did not contain milk as advertised. Instead he found
a small handgun was taped to the inside of the carton.
He quickly put the `milk' back and went for a glass of water instead,
hands shaking. His fingers shook getting the glass, but he managed to
fill it without incident. Standing alone in the kitchen, he felt a
deathly silence creep over the place. Misato had not made any noise and
only the fluorescent lights buzzing above were left to keep him company.
His mind wandered back to the gun inside the refrigerator. It kind of
made sense, after a moment. Misato used to be in the JSDF; she still
held a rank of Captain, and she had once mentioned that her and one of
Ritsuko's assistants had been to Basic together.
Why did the sight of a weapon agitate him so? His mouth had dried,
his heart racing... his heart had been racing before, granted, but what
was it?
He sat the empty glass down on next to the tiny kitchen sink. He took
in its metal curves, looking at them without paying attention to the
details. Idly, he noticed a tiny shard of clear broken glass casting a
fan of light and shadow. The counter was spotless, save this single
piece of broken glass right in front of him, about the size of his
thumb-print.
After a another moment of the unbearable quiet, he was pushing the
shard around the counter idly. His mind was still lost, processing
events, reliving feelings, and going over everything that had happened
after his arrival. How many days ago was that?
Misato. His father's voice. The fight.
His finger stopped moving over the counter, catching the sliver of
glass between his skin and the Formica top.
He remembered it.
A red and black blur of motion followed by the very air itself
snapping--not unlike watching a piece of living lightning.
Fists and feet striking ineffectually against some kind of energy
barrier...
The earth-shattering crack of Goku being thrown into him.
Shinji's entire arm jerked, flinging the shard of glass across
Misato's kitchen. The movement brought him out of his revere, sharpening
his focus on the present. His finger; his finger hurt. He looked at the
bleeding digit, and another image hit him.
A collage of powerful, blinding lights. The sharp snapping of bones
breaking under his own skin--
"AAH!" Shinji looked at his hand again, a trail of crimson winding
down his arm. *Did I just say that out loud?*--Snap! Snap! Snap! It
echoed in his mind like a dry gunshot--*Was I just yelling?*
His attention returned to his wound. A flick of the wrist opened the
faucet for him, and the blood was quickly washed away with a cold stream
of water. The motions were all too familiar.
His arm emitted another snapping noise, twisted behind his back, far
beyond a reasonable angle, broken in no less than five separate places.
The pain was enough to nearly draw him into unconsciousness.
"AHH!!!" Shinji gasped. He was holding his own arm at the wrist
tightly. Everything was in its proper place. A tiny speck of blood was
perched on the tip of his finger, a red wink at him. He wiped the blood
away, the phantom pain of a broken limb fading from his mind, though he
felt strongly that he was forgetting something important.
He looked at the tiny cut on his finger. *What is it?*
The wound was closing.
Not closing in the sense that his skin was back to a normal position
and the bleeding had slowed, but in the sense that the cut itself was
_healing_ right before his eyes. Healing hundreds of times faster than
these things normally did, far faster than any human could. In a few
short breaths, it was done. The cut gone, the thin smear of his blood
across his fingers remaining.
A building rushing at him, through him, collapsing around him.
Unearthly screams of those were unlucky enough to merely be there when
the structure came down upon them.
Shinji shook his head more forcefully, and stumbled, dizziness
claiming his sense for a second. His footing faltered at that instant
and he fell to the floor, landing on his bottom, still staring at his
hand. His eyes saw one thing, but his mind seemed focused on another, as
the words for it slipped from his lips.
"Oh kami..."
The fight. Fighting the Angel.
Goku was asking him a question. "Have you ever... you know, fought in
a battle like this before?"
NO! He wanted to scream, but his voice was not his. The response his
body gave was unintelligible. Not so much a collection of words
representing thoughts, but more a loose train of feelings given to some
on-the-spot interpretation.
The explosive assault of the invincible monster. With hands like a
bundle of sharp scissors and skin like a sheet of armor, it felt as if
he were fighting a living tank. Nothing humane stood before him,
crushing him, tearing at his body like a demented toddler fiddling with
a new toy. Whatever it--this Angel--it was friend to no one. Shinji
could feel the hatred on its breath a dozen feet away, intensifying as
it came closer.
A few inches from his face, it smelled like he was drowning in Hell.
"Leave him alone!!!"
The yell almost cut through the overpowering presence of the Angel.
Almost. Goku didn't wait for a response. He charged the beast, striking
it with his shoulder and smoothly running through an arsenal of powerful
attacks. The Angel let go of Shinji, moving away from him faster than
the eye could follow. Goku was everywhere at once, a blur of
destruction. He would strike, and as Shinji looked, he seemed to catch a
hint of the Angel at the extreme edge of his peripheral vision. Even as
he looked, any blow that Goku mis-landed was like a meteorite slamming
into the earth. Concrete a meter thick vaporized at his touch. Steel ran
like his molasses around his finger. Power lines torn asunder like
whisps of cigarette smoke.
And the terrible glowing power Goku's very body emanated, like a
living, breathing sun.
The Angel was right there in front of him. Just there, inches away,
where but an eye-blink earlier there had been nothing. It looked at him
blankly, the pink eyeballs like two pieces of candy wedged into a
grotesque decoration. It _stared_ at him... no, more like it was looking
_into_ him, _through_ him.
"You are judged." It said.
Shinji didn't see its lips move. He didn't really hear a voice, he
just felt the words, unlike any he had heard in his life. The Angel
didn't speak again, it just kept looking at him.
"Shinji, get out of the way!"
How much time had passed? Goku's hands were glowing brightly,
building his famous energy attack--something Shinji had once thought to
be a myth, some black magic cooked up by the martial arts master simply
for show. The heat he was generating, even at this distance, instantly
convinced Shinji otherwise.
He looked right and bolted left as fast as he could move. The Angel
caught him by the arm, simply snatching his limb out of the air as
easily as frog catches a fly.
And then it squeezed.
Shinji felt like his eyes were bugging out and that the veins on his
forehead were ready to pop. None of this, however, concerned him as much
as the feeling of his entire arm being bent and twisted like a length of
warm taffy. His lips couldn't even move. His brain, overpowered with the
sensation of pain in volumes he had never experienced, was nearly short-
circuiting just to keep him conscious. He wanted to scream; he wanted
the pain to end. He was prepared to grant any wish to any being if only
it would _stop_, but he was frozen... hopelessly frozen by it...
powerless to do anything.
His heart stopped. Fed the poison of this demon the world had named
an Angel, enduring pain beyond belief, everything just stopped.
And everything else ceased to matter.
Goku, closing on the Angel with his hair on fire, his body wreathed
in flames. *Since when did Goku catch on fire?* Shinji asked himself. He
was quickly releaved to find the pressure on his arm gone, along with
the pain.
*That was nice of him... but I can't feel it very well. I can't seem
to feel anything very well at all...*
And the ground rushed up to meet him.
"Shinji! ... SHINJI!"
"Yes?" To Shinji's surprise, his mouth worked. Fluorescent lights
illuminated his surroundings silently. He heard the compressor to a
refrigerator operating somewhere nearby, and felt a pair of strong hands
gripping his shoulders. His vision lingered for a moment on the ceiling,
another ceiling he had never seen before. "M-Misato?"
The woman loomed above him, dressed in a sweatshirt five sizes too
big, holding him up off the floor. She was kneeling next to him. With a
glance, he noticed she was also wearing a pair of shorts that barely
qualified as "decent."
Shinji blinked, taking in the situation. They stayed still like that,
frozen in place for several interminable seconds, before Misato scooped
him up in a crushing hug that felt real--and refreshing.
Then he started screaming.
As Misato held the young boy, feeling his nails dig into her
shoulders, she looked up, her eyes automatically seeking the seam where
the kitchen wall met the ceiling. She had often lay semi-conscious in
this very room, hiding from the darkness outside after a heavy round of
drinking.
Captain Katsuragi, decorated officer of the JSSDF, expert tactician,
had seen almost all the horrors war had to offer in her short life. She
had seen entire squads of brave men cut down by a hail of machine gun
fire. She had witnessed limbs detached from bodies by argon lasers, and
seen first-hand the results of a carelessly thrown hand grenade. There
was a time when she thought she had seen it all, but thinking that never
helped. It _never_ helped. Every time she went back into combat, to
rescue some hostages, to secure an area for government operations, to do
anything, she had to face the same nightmares she saw every night with
her waking vision.
Not long ago, she had witnessed a boy and an unarmed martial artist
take on one of the deadliest creatures mankind had ever encountered by
themselves.
She could not escape the feeling that something fundamental had been
broken. Something in this world that was so important, it's loss might
mean their very lives.
----------
[June 21st, 2015.]
[Intro paragraph feels incomplete, scene setting in second paragraph
doesn't get the intended affect across.]
Ritsuko's office was not, by normal hours, a dark dungeon, but as the
doctor had long ago resigned herself to ridiculous hours that her post
demanded, her office had been customized slightly. To the outside world,
it was only three in the afternoon. Ritsuko had been up for 33 hours
straight, right through the most stressful day of her life, and the
`lazy' portion of her brain was begging for sleep. Her office lights
were turned down to help ease the throbbing in her head and the stinging
in her eyes. She would probably spend the night in here again. Trying to
walk home after the sun went down seemed like a trek barefoot to the
Himalayas and back. To hell with sleeping in her own bed; any sleep at
all would be bliss.
Yet one task remained, one which the doctor could no longer put off.
A girl was standing in the middle of her office, a young girl with
roughly cut short hair, wearing street clothes. Ritsuko leaned back in
her chair, the hard back cutting into her skin and keeping her just on
this side of dream land. The doctor had left her desk lamp on full blast,
leaving the unit to cast a beam of blinding white light into the face of
her visitor. The girl was probably squinting; to Ritsuko, her face was a
big white blur.
"Welcome back." The doctor said coldly.
"Akagi-sempai... why are the lights off?"
Ritsuko sighed. "I'm _trying_ to be dramatic."
"But--" The visitor began.
Ritsuko sharply drew in her breath before exploding. "AND YOU'RE
RUINING IT!!!"
"Yes ma'am!" The figure barked.
Ritsuko tapped the desk lamp's on/off switch, leaving her guest to
blink in the sudden darkness. The girl was about fifteen years old,
wearing blue jeans and a white blouse. She had short, dark hair that
shone an amazingly deep shade of blue under the office's lighting.
Ritsuko knew it would be an impressively bright blue in natural
light--not that she was up to testing that theory now.
"Yes ma'am, WHAT?" Ritsuko shouted, getting to her feet.
"Sempai?" The inquired.
Ritsuko's voice turned saccharine. "Please, Rei-chan, call me
Ritsuko."
Rei answered her with a tired shake of the head, her eyes still
spotty from the "interrogation light" that Ritsuko had blinded her with.
"Hai, Ritsuko-san."
"Well?" The doctor persisted.
Rei lifted a hand to shield her face. "Well what, I'm here aren't I?"
The doctor angled the desk lamp down properly and touched a button on
the desk's surface. The lighting returned to a more normal level. Though
still dim compared to outside conditions the office and its occupants
were now clearly visible.
Her scene set, Ritsuko laced her fingers together and placed her
elbows on the top of her desk, though she was almost short of room for
the feat. "Yes..." She said slowly, her voice somewhat muffled by her
own hands, held in front of her mouth as though concealing a national
secret.
The new arrival, Rei Ayanami, gave the doctor an exasperated look.
She'd done this before, and it was no more amusing this time than it was
the first dozen.
--- To Be Continued.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Notes:
See, the story is progressing nicely. Still only slightly diverged from
the "cannon" Eva story line, but digressing further by the moment. If you
keep reading, I will keep writing. Heck, I'll probably keep writing even
if Nobody is reading these things.
A note about the language file: I've moved it to two separate files. The
first separates terms by chapters, and the second alphabetically. Keep
in mind this list will be updated independently of the Immortals story,
but the story will be updated to reflect corrections in the list.
Learning Japanese can be fun!
DRAFT
Script : ???
Completed : Oct. 26, 2001.
Revised : Jan. 13, 2002.
(
geocities.com/tokyo/subway/1888/txt) (
geocities.com/tokyo/subway/1888) (
geocities.com/tokyo/subway) (
geocities.com/tokyo)