This is a heavy modification of an old idea I have had. Special Thanks to Strypgia for suffering...
Broken Wings [NGE]
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Chapter 1
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is a heavy modification of an old idea I have had. Special Thanks to Strypgia for suffering through my numerous grammar errors while betaing this.
/
Chapter One: The Giants of Dusk
Today was the coldest day in recent Japanese history. For the first time in decades it was cold enough to snow in Kyoto. Sadly, for any school children hoping to catch their first glimpse of snow, the day had proved a clear one. Even now, with the sun a brilliant fading orange, the sky was cloudless.
The cold convinced most people at the coffee shop that it was better to take their drinks inside, leaving the outside tables largely empty, which suited Shinji Ikari just fine.
Twenty years had done a lot to diminish his fame but he was still Shinji Ikari, the Third Child, Pilot of Eva Unit-01. A household name to everyone in Japan and most of the world.
Somedays it felt like everyone wanted to talk with him, get a few words in the "Hero" of Third Impact. Something vile hit his throat at the mere thought of it.
He stared at his laptop with exhaustion. For the last hour he had been staring at the screen, unable to type out a single word. It was a simple thing really, a job application. Yet it had confounded him.
He didn't need a job. The Japanese government gave them a considerable pension, more than even for him to live comfortably without working a day in his life. For a time he had considered doing just that, but things with Asuka fell apart, and he found himself with far far too much free time on his hands.
For a while he had focused on his music, even playing as part of an orchestra in Europe. It had been a good few years, but it never provided the escape it he had hoped it would and it left him too far away from his family, such as it was.
A year ago he had left the band and quietly moved back to Japan. Of course now he couldn't find a job. It wasn't that no one would take him, indeed almost everyone would. But for all the wrong reasons.
His phone buzzed on the table, vibrating the fake wood.
He picked it up. "Hello?"
"Hey, Shinji," Asuka replied. "How's the job hunt going?"
"What do you think about me being a Music teacher?" he asked.
The sound of a muffled laugh came out of the phone.
"You're not exactly the best with kids," she pointed out.
"Fair enough," he agreed.
"So," Asuka's tone went somber. "Ria wants to know if you're up for a visit next weekend."
Shinji swallowed in surprise. His daughter wanted to see him. He'd seen her plenty of times in the year since he returned, and he generally saw her on holidays and birthdays, but she had never gone out of her way to see him. She didn't hate him, at least he didn't think so, but she had always been rather cool and distant towards him. Which frankly she had every right to be.
"Is that okay with you?" Shinji asked hesitantly. "It's not like I have any visitation rights. You can refuse if you want."
Shinji and Asuka had Ria when they were young, only a few years after the Angels. Society had barely gotten itself back on it's feet, and for the first time in a while, things were looking up. The two had foolishly thought their relationship might actually last. It didn't: Never even reached the altar.
"It's fine," Asuka insisted. "There's no reason you two shouldn't have something of a normal relationship."
The brought a small smile to Shinji's face.
"So how is she doing in school?" he asked.
Asuka groaned. "She's found a way to make good grades frustrating."
"How?"
"School offered her the chance to take the college entry exams early because of her grades, completely skipping two years of high school. Not quite on the same level of what I did but still really good, you know?" Asuka ranted.
"Right, right," Shinji said.
"She refused, flat out, before she even told me about the offer. I mean, she has her friends in high school, I get it. But this is an amazing opportunity for her and she just ignored it."
"Well-" Shinji began.
His words were cut off a moment later as a bright light, brighter than anything he had seen before suddenly filled his vision. The sounds of thunder and shrieking metal filled his ears. A hot gale wind crashed into him, knocking him to the concrete. The wind roared over him, ripping into his face and chest, suddenly shifting directions for a moment, threatening to drag him down the street. The very earth beneath him was shaking.In a second he went from boiling to freezing back to boiling. It was a desperate struggle just to breathe.
"What the hell is that?" Shinj distantly heard Asuka scream into the phone.
For a brief, terrifying second, Shinji thought he would die, blinded and helpless on the ground. Then as quickly as it began, it ended. The light faded, the wind died and the world returned to normal.
Shinji pulled himself back up, his vision filled with dancing spots and his head wracked with pain. Every car alarm in the area was screaming, the coffee shop patio was littered with broken glass and overturned tables and chairs. Blood dripped from his head and arms.
The heck was that?
Wasn't a nuke, he won't be alive if it was, perhaps it had been some sort of power surge? Or maybe it was something weird like ball lightning?
Shinji froze. His mind went blank save for animalistic screaming. Before him, towards the center of downtown Kyoto, now stood something that couldn't, shouldn't be possible.
/
"Is everyone okay?" Kodama Suzhara asked as she pulled herself out from underneath a table.
Kodama's head rang, her vision was spinning, and there was a high pitched whine in her ears. She struggled to stay standing. A minute ago they had been having a wonderful Saturday night full of games and horribly overpriced food, then that light appeared, a split second after that there was a horrible crash that knocked her and almost everyone else to the ground, and now...
The arcade was trashed, broken glass littered the floor, the machines themselves were silent and dark, some toppled over, some broken by the burst of energy. The whole arcade was dark and filled with dust, part of the ceiling bulged downwards, a large chunk of grey metal bursting from it.
"I'm okay," her twin brother Okito said as he stumbled into view, his short brown hair turned grey from the ash. Besides looking vaguely like a ghost, her brother seemed uninjured.
"Still alive," Ria Soryu called out as she helped an injured man into a seat. Her aviator sunglasses were broken and her beret was torn and ragged, but she seemed intact.
At least everyone was alive.
"What the hell just happened?" Kodama screamed, her head still pounding.
Ria brushed herself off as best she could as she walked towards Kodama and her brother. "Don't know, but we should probably get out of here."
The damage for the most part wasn't too bad, save for the ceiling. Whatever had crashed into it seemed to be pressing against the roof of the whole arcade. Kodama heard the faint sounds of metal groaning and straining.
"Yeah, that seems like a very smart idea," Kodama said hurriedly as she rushed for the door, nearly getting knocked down by a couple of screaming college students in the process.
The street was filled with dozens of panicked and confused people, most of them staring at something Kodama couldn't see. A few others ran off screaming or were huddled on the street, nursing their wounds. Cars were stopped haphazardly across the road. Two of them had crashed into a nearby clothing store. More dust filled the air.
"I felt electricity dancing on the back of my head right before the explosion," Okito commented as they tried to get look at what everyone else was staring at.
"Same here," Ria agreed as she pushed ahead. "Was rather strange."
"So what the hell is everyone looking at?" Kodama asked. "Did a plane crash into the building or something?"
Ria froze in place as she finally saw what everyone was looking at it, her jaw visibly dropping in shock.
"No, it's not a plane," she said numbly.
Kodama turned her head, and what she saw nearly knocked her off her feet.
The Arcade was at one end of the mall, a three story building that covered most of the block. Now collapsed on top of the mall was some large metal giant.
One grey handed hung limply over the edge. It's fingers were each as long as a truck. The thing that had wrecked the arcade was probably no more than the tip of the thing's pinky finger.
The thing's crimson and white head was half buried in the building. Four giant green eyes gazed out onto the street.
A split second later Kodama remembered what the thing looked like. It was certainly the right size and color. But that thing, the particular thing she was thinking of was in a locked vault underground and in a far worse state than this. This couldn't possibly be...
"That's my mom's Evangelion!" Ria exclaimed in shock, running towards the hand.
"Ria, I wouldn't go near that!" Okito shouted.
The people around them were equally confused and shocked. It didn't stop a couple from taking photos of it with their phone, or a few more terrified individuals bowing down and starting to pray at the giant mecha. Most just watched in wordless shock or screamed in horror at the carnage that surrounded them.
Someone screamed and pointed down the street. The ash mostly hid it, but in the distance Kodama could see something, something huge, towering over all the surrounding buildings. Part of Kodama guessed what it might have been.
Okito looked sick, his eyes darting nervously. Ria's attention remained focused on Eva closest to them. The one her mother used to pilot.
"This thing was rotting, decayed. Barely anything remained of it. This doesn't make any sense, how is it here. This isn't possible, not possible," she muttered.
The hand suddenly moving, tearing deeply into the metal walls of the mall.
Kodama and the others scrambled frantically backwards to get out of the way. Ria barely moved, her attention focused on the Eva.
The Eva pulled itself forwardly slightly, it's head twisting and turning, gazing out at the city before turning it's gaze down, at Ria.
Then it rose, pulling itself up higher and higher, chunks of the mall falling off of it as it did. Soon the thing towered over them, the last bits of sunlight reflecting off it's scarlet armor.
They now stood in shadow of a giant, a machine stronger than nations, stronger than gods. A marvel that had saved all of mankind and killed hundreds of Japanese troops in the final moments before Third Impact. The world had spent twenty years without anything comparable to it, most gathered near it had little to no memory of the Angels. Even still, all gathered found themselves overwhelmed by the sight. Some filled were with awe, others found their hearts gripped in pure terror.
/
"Please tell me someone has gotten through to whatever or whoever is in the Evas!" Misato Katsuragi barked into the radio as she weaved her way through the Gordian knot of traffic that lay before her, her car twisting and turning at speeds the machine could barely handle.
Misato's current emotional state was a typhoon of confusion, fear, bewilderment, astonishment and several things should couldn't quite label but were making her stomach do somersaults. To her right she could see Unit-01 looming in the distance, standing there like a silent statue in the middle of downtown Kyoto. Ahead of her, growing ever larger, was Unit-02, Asuka's Eva. According to some accounts she heard, it had been moving earlier but had stopped a short time later. Likely ran out of power.
She oversaw the efforts to preserve what little was left of Unit-02 herself. There was maybe a quarter of the original thing left in a very cold vault deep underground, and it wasn't exactly in good shape. Unit-01 had flown off into space according to Shinji, one of those parts of Third Impact that Misato had learned over the years that she really should not ask questions about.
And yet here they were, and at least one of them had moved.
"We're trying ma'am." Maya Ibuki's voice came on the radio. "But the Eva's communications are encrypted. Ristuko's going through the records as we speak."
Lovely, just lovely.
"Ma'am" Another voice came on the radio. "We found Shinji Ikari. He's unhurt."
Some good news at least.
"Bring him to my office, keep him there, keep him safe," she ordered.
Misato slammed her brakes to the floor as she approached the hastily erected barricades the police had set up. Though even most of the police were staying further away from Unit-02, fearful the Eva might step on them.
A familiar face greeted her as she stepped out of the car.
"Ria, what are you doing here?" she asked.
Asuka's daughter was covered in ash, her clothes were torn in places, and there was a distinctly nervous look in her eye.
"The twins and I were at the Arcade when the event happened," she explained. "The Eva about collapsed on us."
"The twins are alright," she quickly added.
"Good." Misato nodded. "How are you holding up?"
"I'm fine. I mean my plans for tonight are ruined and I'm down a month's allowance worth of clothing and accessories, but I'm fine," Ria said dismissively. "Mother's waiting for you at the tent."
Misato followed Ria through the debris surrounding the now largely collapsed mall.
"Someone's piloting the thing," Ria explained as they walked. "Though they seem to have largely powered down for now. We've tried hailing them through both megaphone and shouting. They haven't replied though. Either out of distrust or external speakers are damaged."
"And does it look like an actual Eva to you?" Misato asked.
"All I've seen are pictures and relics," Ria pointed out. "But yeah."
Misato gritted her teeth, this being something other than Unit-02 would actually make things simpler. But looking at it now, it seemed every bit the real deal.
They found Asuka outside a hastily erected command tent, as Maya and a few other former NERV employees worked furiously on nearby radios and computers.
Asuka was still in her lab uniform, her hair in bun that was falling apart into a ponytail. She'd probably been just leaving the WILLE office when the event happened.
"Well, can't say this is how I expected today to go. " Asuka said dryly.
"No kidding." Misato replied.
Maya balked an order at a nearby police officer, who stood there dumbfounded before Maya about screamed at him.
"Things are kind of a mess as you can tell," Asuka said. "We've been calling up anyone and everyone who works at WILLE or used to work at NERV, but things are in a panic, traffic is completely tied up, the police are terrified. It's been a rough few hours."
Six hours ago Misato had been mulling over the idea of retiring early. Now she stared at the impossible.
"What do you make of this?" Misato asked.
Asuka stared at her with disbelief.
"I'm still not entirely sure this isn't one big fever dream," she said. "I don't know what to make of this, as far as I can tell someone jacked my ride, but my ride's too broken to be jacked! I can think of what it might be but none of them are physically possible."
"General!" one of the people working radio shouted, "We got the frequency!"
"Hopefully we can get some answers now." Misato grabbed the radio. "Unknown Pilot of Evangelion Unit-02, identify yourself."
"Küss meinen Arsch! Misato, what the hell is going on?! Where the hell am I?!" a voice shouted back.
The few people gathered around the radio froze. No one had actually expected that answer, or rather, that person to answer.
The voice was unmistakably Asuka's, though younger, much younger. She sounded just like she did as a Pilot.
Misato turned towards Asuka, who looked about as confused as Misato felt.
Misato pushed the button on the radio "Asuka?"
It couldn't be, it just couldn't.
"Who the hell else would it be?!" the younger Asuka screeched.
If Asuka, this other Asuka was here that meant another Shinji was in the other one, that the other giant was actually Unit-01.
Tonight just got a lot more complicated.
/
Chapter One: The Giants of Dusk
Today was the coldest day in recent Japanese history. For the first time in decades it was cold enough to snow in Kyoto. Sadly, for any school children hoping to catch their first glimpse of snow, the day had proved a clear one. Even now, with the sun a brilliant fading orange, the sky was cloudless.
The cold convinced most people at the coffee shop that it was better to take their drinks inside, leaving the outside tables largely empty, which suited Shinji Ikari just fine.
Twenty years had done a lot to diminish his fame but he was still Shinji Ikari, the Third Child, Pilot of Eva Unit-01. A household name to everyone in Japan and most of the world.
Somedays it felt like everyone wanted to talk with him, get a few words in the "Hero" of Third Impact. Something vile hit his throat at the mere thought of it.
He stared at his laptop with exhaustion. For the last hour he had been staring at the screen, unable to type out a single word. It was a simple thing really, a job application. Yet it had confounded him.
He didn't need a job. The Japanese government gave them a considerable pension, more than even for him to live comfortably without working a day in his life. For a time he had considered doing just that, but things with Asuka fell apart, and he found himself with far far too much free time on his hands.
For a while he had focused on his music, even playing as part of an orchestra in Europe. It had been a good few years, but it never provided the escape it he had hoped it would and it left him too far away from his family, such as it was.
A year ago he had left the band and quietly moved back to Japan. Of course now he couldn't find a job. It wasn't that no one would take him, indeed almost everyone would. But for all the wrong reasons.
His phone buzzed on the table, vibrating the fake wood.
He picked it up. "Hello?"
"Hey, Shinji," Asuka replied. "How's the job hunt going?"
"What do you think about me being a Music teacher?" he asked.
The sound of a muffled laugh came out of the phone.
"You're not exactly the best with kids," she pointed out.
"Fair enough," he agreed.
"So," Asuka's tone went somber. "Ria wants to know if you're up for a visit next weekend."
Shinji swallowed in surprise. His daughter wanted to see him. He'd seen her plenty of times in the year since he returned, and he generally saw her on holidays and birthdays, but she had never gone out of her way to see him. She didn't hate him, at least he didn't think so, but she had always been rather cool and distant towards him. Which frankly she had every right to be.
"Is that okay with you?" Shinji asked hesitantly. "It's not like I have any visitation rights. You can refuse if you want."
Shinji and Asuka had Ria when they were young, only a few years after the Angels. Society had barely gotten itself back on it's feet, and for the first time in a while, things were looking up. The two had foolishly thought their relationship might actually last. It didn't: Never even reached the altar.
"It's fine," Asuka insisted. "There's no reason you two shouldn't have something of a normal relationship."
The brought a small smile to Shinji's face.
"So how is she doing in school?" he asked.
Asuka groaned. "She's found a way to make good grades frustrating."
"How?"
"School offered her the chance to take the college entry exams early because of her grades, completely skipping two years of high school. Not quite on the same level of what I did but still really good, you know?" Asuka ranted.
"Right, right," Shinji said.
"She refused, flat out, before she even told me about the offer. I mean, she has her friends in high school, I get it. But this is an amazing opportunity for her and she just ignored it."
"Well-" Shinji began.
His words were cut off a moment later as a bright light, brighter than anything he had seen before suddenly filled his vision. The sounds of thunder and shrieking metal filled his ears. A hot gale wind crashed into him, knocking him to the concrete. The wind roared over him, ripping into his face and chest, suddenly shifting directions for a moment, threatening to drag him down the street. The very earth beneath him was shaking.In a second he went from boiling to freezing back to boiling. It was a desperate struggle just to breathe.
"What the hell is that?" Shinj distantly heard Asuka scream into the phone.
For a brief, terrifying second, Shinji thought he would die, blinded and helpless on the ground. Then as quickly as it began, it ended. The light faded, the wind died and the world returned to normal.
Shinji pulled himself back up, his vision filled with dancing spots and his head wracked with pain. Every car alarm in the area was screaming, the coffee shop patio was littered with broken glass and overturned tables and chairs. Blood dripped from his head and arms.
The heck was that?
Wasn't a nuke, he won't be alive if it was, perhaps it had been some sort of power surge? Or maybe it was something weird like ball lightning?
Shinji froze. His mind went blank save for animalistic screaming. Before him, towards the center of downtown Kyoto, now stood something that couldn't, shouldn't be possible.
/
"Is everyone okay?" Kodama Suzhara asked as she pulled herself out from underneath a table.
Kodama's head rang, her vision was spinning, and there was a high pitched whine in her ears. She struggled to stay standing. A minute ago they had been having a wonderful Saturday night full of games and horribly overpriced food, then that light appeared, a split second after that there was a horrible crash that knocked her and almost everyone else to the ground, and now...
The arcade was trashed, broken glass littered the floor, the machines themselves were silent and dark, some toppled over, some broken by the burst of energy. The whole arcade was dark and filled with dust, part of the ceiling bulged downwards, a large chunk of grey metal bursting from it.
"I'm okay," her twin brother Okito said as he stumbled into view, his short brown hair turned grey from the ash. Besides looking vaguely like a ghost, her brother seemed uninjured.
"Still alive," Ria Soryu called out as she helped an injured man into a seat. Her aviator sunglasses were broken and her beret was torn and ragged, but she seemed intact.
At least everyone was alive.
"What the hell just happened?" Kodama screamed, her head still pounding.
Ria brushed herself off as best she could as she walked towards Kodama and her brother. "Don't know, but we should probably get out of here."
The damage for the most part wasn't too bad, save for the ceiling. Whatever had crashed into it seemed to be pressing against the roof of the whole arcade. Kodama heard the faint sounds of metal groaning and straining.
"Yeah, that seems like a very smart idea," Kodama said hurriedly as she rushed for the door, nearly getting knocked down by a couple of screaming college students in the process.
The street was filled with dozens of panicked and confused people, most of them staring at something Kodama couldn't see. A few others ran off screaming or were huddled on the street, nursing their wounds. Cars were stopped haphazardly across the road. Two of them had crashed into a nearby clothing store. More dust filled the air.
"I felt electricity dancing on the back of my head right before the explosion," Okito commented as they tried to get look at what everyone else was staring at.
"Same here," Ria agreed as she pushed ahead. "Was rather strange."
"So what the hell is everyone looking at?" Kodama asked. "Did a plane crash into the building or something?"
Ria froze in place as she finally saw what everyone was looking at it, her jaw visibly dropping in shock.
"No, it's not a plane," she said numbly.
Kodama turned her head, and what she saw nearly knocked her off her feet.
The Arcade was at one end of the mall, a three story building that covered most of the block. Now collapsed on top of the mall was some large metal giant.
One grey handed hung limply over the edge. It's fingers were each as long as a truck. The thing that had wrecked the arcade was probably no more than the tip of the thing's pinky finger.
The thing's crimson and white head was half buried in the building. Four giant green eyes gazed out onto the street.
A split second later Kodama remembered what the thing looked like. It was certainly the right size and color. But that thing, the particular thing she was thinking of was in a locked vault underground and in a far worse state than this. This couldn't possibly be...
"That's my mom's Evangelion!" Ria exclaimed in shock, running towards the hand.
"Ria, I wouldn't go near that!" Okito shouted.
The people around them were equally confused and shocked. It didn't stop a couple from taking photos of it with their phone, or a few more terrified individuals bowing down and starting to pray at the giant mecha. Most just watched in wordless shock or screamed in horror at the carnage that surrounded them.
Someone screamed and pointed down the street. The ash mostly hid it, but in the distance Kodama could see something, something huge, towering over all the surrounding buildings. Part of Kodama guessed what it might have been.
Okito looked sick, his eyes darting nervously. Ria's attention remained focused on Eva closest to them. The one her mother used to pilot.
"This thing was rotting, decayed. Barely anything remained of it. This doesn't make any sense, how is it here. This isn't possible, not possible," she muttered.
The hand suddenly moving, tearing deeply into the metal walls of the mall.
Kodama and the others scrambled frantically backwards to get out of the way. Ria barely moved, her attention focused on the Eva.
The Eva pulled itself forwardly slightly, it's head twisting and turning, gazing out at the city before turning it's gaze down, at Ria.
Then it rose, pulling itself up higher and higher, chunks of the mall falling off of it as it did. Soon the thing towered over them, the last bits of sunlight reflecting off it's scarlet armor.
They now stood in shadow of a giant, a machine stronger than nations, stronger than gods. A marvel that had saved all of mankind and killed hundreds of Japanese troops in the final moments before Third Impact. The world had spent twenty years without anything comparable to it, most gathered near it had little to no memory of the Angels. Even still, all gathered found themselves overwhelmed by the sight. Some filled were with awe, others found their hearts gripped in pure terror.
/
"Please tell me someone has gotten through to whatever or whoever is in the Evas!" Misato Katsuragi barked into the radio as she weaved her way through the Gordian knot of traffic that lay before her, her car twisting and turning at speeds the machine could barely handle.
Misato's current emotional state was a typhoon of confusion, fear, bewilderment, astonishment and several things should couldn't quite label but were making her stomach do somersaults. To her right she could see Unit-01 looming in the distance, standing there like a silent statue in the middle of downtown Kyoto. Ahead of her, growing ever larger, was Unit-02, Asuka's Eva. According to some accounts she heard, it had been moving earlier but had stopped a short time later. Likely ran out of power.
She oversaw the efforts to preserve what little was left of Unit-02 herself. There was maybe a quarter of the original thing left in a very cold vault deep underground, and it wasn't exactly in good shape. Unit-01 had flown off into space according to Shinji, one of those parts of Third Impact that Misato had learned over the years that she really should not ask questions about.
And yet here they were, and at least one of them had moved.
"We're trying ma'am." Maya Ibuki's voice came on the radio. "But the Eva's communications are encrypted. Ristuko's going through the records as we speak."
Lovely, just lovely.
"Ma'am" Another voice came on the radio. "We found Shinji Ikari. He's unhurt."
Some good news at least.
"Bring him to my office, keep him there, keep him safe," she ordered.
Misato slammed her brakes to the floor as she approached the hastily erected barricades the police had set up. Though even most of the police were staying further away from Unit-02, fearful the Eva might step on them.
A familiar face greeted her as she stepped out of the car.
"Ria, what are you doing here?" she asked.
Asuka's daughter was covered in ash, her clothes were torn in places, and there was a distinctly nervous look in her eye.
"The twins and I were at the Arcade when the event happened," she explained. "The Eva about collapsed on us."
"The twins are alright," she quickly added.
"Good." Misato nodded. "How are you holding up?"
"I'm fine. I mean my plans for tonight are ruined and I'm down a month's allowance worth of clothing and accessories, but I'm fine," Ria said dismissively. "Mother's waiting for you at the tent."
Misato followed Ria through the debris surrounding the now largely collapsed mall.
"Someone's piloting the thing," Ria explained as they walked. "Though they seem to have largely powered down for now. We've tried hailing them through both megaphone and shouting. They haven't replied though. Either out of distrust or external speakers are damaged."
"And does it look like an actual Eva to you?" Misato asked.
"All I've seen are pictures and relics," Ria pointed out. "But yeah."
Misato gritted her teeth, this being something other than Unit-02 would actually make things simpler. But looking at it now, it seemed every bit the real deal.
They found Asuka outside a hastily erected command tent, as Maya and a few other former NERV employees worked furiously on nearby radios and computers.
Asuka was still in her lab uniform, her hair in bun that was falling apart into a ponytail. She'd probably been just leaving the WILLE office when the event happened.
"Well, can't say this is how I expected today to go. " Asuka said dryly.
"No kidding." Misato replied.
Maya balked an order at a nearby police officer, who stood there dumbfounded before Maya about screamed at him.
"Things are kind of a mess as you can tell," Asuka said. "We've been calling up anyone and everyone who works at WILLE or used to work at NERV, but things are in a panic, traffic is completely tied up, the police are terrified. It's been a rough few hours."
Six hours ago Misato had been mulling over the idea of retiring early. Now she stared at the impossible.
"What do you make of this?" Misato asked.
Asuka stared at her with disbelief.
"I'm still not entirely sure this isn't one big fever dream," she said. "I don't know what to make of this, as far as I can tell someone jacked my ride, but my ride's too broken to be jacked! I can think of what it might be but none of them are physically possible."
"General!" one of the people working radio shouted, "We got the frequency!"
"Hopefully we can get some answers now." Misato grabbed the radio. "Unknown Pilot of Evangelion Unit-02, identify yourself."
"Küss meinen Arsch! Misato, what the hell is going on?! Where the hell am I?!" a voice shouted back.
The few people gathered around the radio froze. No one had actually expected that answer, or rather, that person to answer.
The voice was unmistakably Asuka's, though younger, much younger. She sounded just like she did as a Pilot.
Misato turned towards Asuka, who looked about as confused as Misato felt.
Misato pushed the button on the radio "Asuka?"
It couldn't be, it just couldn't.
"Who the hell else would it be?!" the younger Asuka screeched.
If Asuka, this other Asuka was here that meant another Shinji was in the other one, that the other giant was actually Unit-01.
Tonight just got a lot more complicated.
Chapter 2 Part 1
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chapter 2: The World You Made.
Shinji runs, he runs as fast as he can. His feet carving out huge gashes in the ground beneath him with every step. Ripping through roads, tearing apart buildings, as he grew faster and faster each step became more and more destructive. It didn't matter, he had to get to the Angel.
He leaps over a cliff, his feet sailing high above the ground for a few seconds. His speed increases more and more, his vision turns blurry, the Angel no more than an orange blur in the distance. He wasn't fast enough, he wouldn't reach it in time.
He pushes harder, and harder, trying to force himself to go faster. He's almost there, Asuka and Rei are approaching alongside him. They're close, so very close.
He trips, despair grips him. He's failed, he's doomed them all. Despair gives way to confusion as he realizes he hasn't stop falling. The ground has given way to a black void that has swallowed him and Asuka both. They're falling, further and further into the abyss. He grabs frantically for something, anything to stop his fall, but there's nothing. He grabs at empty air as the abyss consumes him completely.
Shinji awakes with a start, finding himself sitting up ramrod straight before he's even fully awake. He grabs frantically for the controls, only to find himself clawing at bedsheets. He's not in the Eva anymore.
He looks down to find himself in a hospital gown. So he had survived, just with another trip to the hospital as a result.
"Oh, so you're awake," an unfamiliar voice said.
Shinji turned to see who it was. For a brief second he thought it was Asuka, her blue eyes staring back at him. But these blue eyes belonged to someone else entirely. She was sitting next to his bed on a plastic chair. She was older than Asuka or him, but not by much, with short brown hair and the features that were somewhere between European and Japanese. Her clothing looked high-end, though much of it had small rips in it and spots of dust.
"Who-who are you?" Shinji asked.
"Not important right now," she said. "Misato will explain more in a moment."
She stood up and walked towards the door, pulling out a cellphone.
"Wait!" Shinji begged. "What happened? Did we win, did we stop the Angel?"
"Would we be here if you didn't?" She smirked, texting something into her phone.
It was a fair point.
Shinji looked around a bit more, something was off. This wasn't a NERV hospital bed, like the one he recovered in after the first fight. The layout was different, indeed it barely seemed like a hospital room at all. The wall opposite his bed had folded up chairs and tables than looked liked they had hastily been thrown up against the wall. A TV had been unplugged to make way for the equipment and monitors he was now hooked up too.
It looked more like a break room that had been hastily turned into a hospital room. NERV wouldn't need to do something like that.
"Where am I?" Shinji asked nervously.
"Kyoto," the girl said flatly.
"Why?" Shinji blurted out. Kyoto was nowhere near Tokyo-3. Why would he be this far away?
"Now ain't that the question of the day?" she replied. "Misato will explain."
She was playing casual but her attention never strayed from him for more than a second.
The door suddenly burst open. Misato stepped into the room.
Only she looked different. Older, her hair streaked with grey and tied up in a bun. Her outfit was red, though far different that anything she normally wore. High collared, four large buttons on her chest, and a stylized golden W on her shoulder.
She looked at him with relief and confusion. Like she wasn't even sure if he was himself.
"Shinji, h-how are you feeling?" she said hesitantly before turning to the girl. "Where's the doctor?"
The voice was hers, but it sounded tired. It was Misato, but what was she doing here, in Kyoto?
"Got pulled away once he was stable," she explained.
Misato groaned. "I told her to stay by his side."
"She tried," the girl said defensively. "But the hospital threatened to fire her on the spot if she didn't, and well, Sakura couldn't exactly explain who she was treating."
"Fine. I'll get her back later," Misato said with frustration.
"I'm going to go see how my dad's holding up," the girl said, staring briefly at Shinji before disappearing out the door.
"Misato, what's going on?" Shinji asked, panicked. "This isn't NERV. Why do you look like that? Who was the girl? Where's Asuka?"
Nothing was making sense, if he had been kidnapped.
Misato placed a hand on Shinji's shoulder. "It's okay, calm down. She's fine, she's been awake since this all begun."
"Since what began?" he asked.
She sigh as she took a seat next to his bed. "Shinji, I have to tell you some things now that aren't going to make a lot of sense. I barely understand it myself. Some of it is going to be hard to handle. I'm sorry."
"What happened?" He asked, his voice quiet and shaking "We were running towards the Angel and then... and then Asuka and I fell into something."
"That's about what Asuka told me," Misato agreed.
She sighed, looking like she would give anything to not have this conversation. "Shinji, that fight was over twenty years ago."
Twenty years? No that couldn't be right, Shinji told himself, he had misheard that was all.
"Twenty years?" he repeated skeptically.
"Yes, Misato nodded.
"HOW!?" Shinji shouted.
"I don't know," Misato admitted. "All I know is you and Asuka appeared in the heart of downtown Kyoto three hours ago."
"But if me and Asuka were gone for twenty years, what happened with the Angels?" Shinji asked fearfully.
Had father made Rei fight all those battles by herself?
"This is where things get even more confusing. You defeated that Angel, and every Angel that came after it. You two never disappeared. In fact, Asuka was one of the first people on the scene when you two appeared."
Part of Shinji's brain wanted to reject what she was saying outright for the nonsense it was. It had to be, it just had to.
But why would Misato say it if it was?
"Perhaps this will prove it," Misato said as she opened the door.
Asuka stepped through, only she was older, about as old as Misato was when he first met her. She didn't have hair clips in, she was wearing some sort of tan uniform. She looked exhausted, but more than that she was looking at him in a way he never saw Asuka looking at him, with genuine sympathy
"Hello Shinji," she said, a sad smile on her face.
/
Asuka Langley Soryu was many things: Pilot of the greatest Evangelion to ever exist, child genius with a college degree, and technically an officer in the German Air Force.
Right now, more than any of those things, she was annoyed. Deeply and profoundly annoyed. She found herself annoyed at quite a number of things. At Shinji, for slowing everything down. At her future self for not being here to speed things along. At the old spinster Misato had become, for forcing her to abandon Unit-02 in the middle of the street and whisking her away to... wherever the hell this place was with barely more than a few sentences of explanation as to what the hell was going on. And most of all, at her guard and his constant pen clicking.
Twenty years in the future, that was a lot to process. But they were alive so that must mean they won. No doubt her other self achieved a glorious victory.
But what happened after that? Misato mentioned the other Asuka and Shinji were in this building as well, which made the whole mechanics of how they time traveled all the more confusing. But without an Angel to fight, why would her counterpart even bother staying in Japan. What was Misato even in command of?
"Hey," she said to the guard. "Misato said NERV has been gone for years now, so who are you guys?"
"WILLE."
"WILLE?" Asuka sneered. "What kind of name is that?"
"I believe you picked it ma'am," the guard replied, "Something about the will the survive, to thrive."
"Oh," Asuka sputtered. "W-well obviously future me has different taste."
"Of course, ma'am," The guard snarked.
An awkward silence filled the room. Save for the guard's damned pen clicking.
"How much longer?" Asuka asked.
"As soon as Ikari's awake and cleared by the doctor. That was General Katsuragi's orders."
General, Asuka wanted to laugh at that. How bad were things that a drunkard like Misato was a general?
Asuka's stomach rumbled, it had been quite a while since her last meal.
"Please tell me this place has food," she said nonchalantly. "You do still have food in the future?"
"No, we switched to an all liquid diet five years ago. Solid food is actually illegal in Japan."
Asuka glared at the man. "If that's a joke I'm not laughing."
"Relax," The guard said dismissively. "There's an employee cafe down the hall. I'll take you there."
/
"So I guess this proves multiverse theory," Ria said as she handed her father a warm cup of coffee.
Shinji stared at her, confused. "What?"
Ria took a sip from her own coffee "Well the other Shinji and Asuka are here. And you and mom have no memory of anything like this happening, right?"
"It would have come up in conversation, yes," Shinji agreed.
"And I haven't been completely wiped from existence," Ria said far too casually for Shinji's taste. "So either they come from a completely different but very similar universe, or their universe split from ours when they traveled here."
"That...does make sense."
The employee cafe was abandoned save for Ria and Shinji. Every employee of WILLE was looking at least a twenty hour shift. The appearance of two Evangelions in the middle of Kyoto and WILLE scrambling on all fronts: Trying to secure the area, trying to figure out where to put the Evas, trying avoid an all-out war with the military over who had control of the Evas, trying to figure out how and why this even occurred... The list of things had to do right now was mind boggling.
Shinji and Ria were here because, well, Misato didn't know where else to put either of them right now.
"So honestly, how are you feeling, dad?" Ria asked with concern. "This can't be easy for you."
Shinji had been nowhere close to the site, having been taken by an ambulance right towards WILLE HQ. Still he had seen images of both of them, seeing Unit-01, seeing mother stand over the city like that. It brought back memories he had spent the past twenty years trying to push out of his mind. And yet…
"I'm not great," he admitted. "But it's not like I have to fight again. So I'll manage."
"Quite true," Ria agreed. "Thankfully no Angels came through with them."
Shinji was beyond grateful for that. The Angels were dead and would remain dead. It would be interesting to see what the other Asuka and him thought of a world without Angels.
"Are you ready?" he asked. "For dealing with me and your mom's counterparts. At that age your mother was…"
"A loud mouth narcissist with a list of emotional problems about ten kilometers long?" Ria finished, smirking.
"I was going to say hard to handle but, yes," Shinji agreed. "And I wasn't much better. Just don't think less of your mother because of this."
Ria laughed. "It'll be fine. At the very least I'll have someone else to practice my German with."
A moment later the door opened, and in walked a security guard… and a young Asuka Langley Soryu, nerve clips still in her hair.
"Speak of the devil," Ria whispered.
Asuka and Shinji's eyes meet immediately. A confused and bemused expression appeared across her face as she marched towards him.
"Shinji."
"Asuka."
The Security guard bowed apologetically. "Apologies, Mr. Ikari. I thought this room was empty."
"Mr. Ikari?" she teased as Shinji stood up. "You look... taller than I expected. I dare say you almost look like an actual man now."
A backhanded compliment from Asuka? That was a downright friendly greeting all things considered.
It felt incredibly strange looking down at her like this. It was surreal, seeing how short the two of them had been back then.
"What do you think of 2035?" he asked.
"Oh, it's fine," she said with a huff. "Wish Misato would actually explain what the hell is going on."
Her attention turned towards Ria.
"And you are?" she said scornfully.
"Deine tochter," Ria said bluntly in accented German.
Asuka's eyes went wide. "What."
Shinji was positive that Misato didn't want their counterparts being made aware of Ria's identify this soon, or this bluntly.
"Allow me to introduce myself," Ria said with a small bow. "Ria Soryu, at your service."
At least she didn't use her full name. Announcing herself as Ria Ikari Soryu might have caused Asuka to burst a blood vessel right there and then.
A wave of emotions appeared on Asuka's face as she tried and failed to say something in response.
"Well, it is twenty years in the future, children are to be expected I guess," she said finally, still somewhat stunned. "Though I had hoped any daughter of mine would dress better than that."
"I was there when you appeared," Ria said simply. "Nearly got crushed."
"Oh," was all Asuka could manage.
Ria waved her off. "It's fine."
"No it's not!" Asuka suddenly shouted "That was hours ago! The least Misato could have done was given you a fresh pair of clothes. The gall of that woman!
Ria seemed more amused by the younger Asuka than anything. And it was clear Asuka rather liked the idea of having a daughter, though thankfully she had yet to realize Shinji was the father. He knew her reaction to that would be...loud to say the least.
"Well this is kind of a crisis situation," Ria said in defense of pseudo-grandmother.
"It's not like an angel's attacking," Asuka said dismissively. "It's bad enough she's keeping you up at such a late hour."
"Well, Shinji… the other Shinji is awake," Ria admitted. "So Misato probably wants to see you soon anyways. So why don't I escort you there?"
"Finally someone here's actually doing something. That sounds wonderful." Asuka grabbed Ria by the shoulder. "On the way I can regale you with stories of my brilliant victories."
"Errr..." Ria said hesitantly.
Asuka laughed "What am I saying, the other me has probably told you those stories a dozen times. Heck there are probably movies about it. Why don't you tell me about you?"
Ria hesitantly lead Asuka towards the door.
"So do you have a boyfriend?" Asuka asked.
"No," Ria said.
"Of course, you and I have to be selective about who we date. Can't lower ourselves to dating trash after all." Asuka replied.
They left, leaving Shinji feeling like he had just let his daughter walk blindly into danger. She was a strong girl though, she could handle Asuka, probably.
Hopefully.
/
A daughter, she had a daughter.
Well, the other her had a daughter, who was technically older than her. That would take some getting used to, as would many other things. Like stupid Shinji now looking a bit like a weird beardless version of his dad.
Ria hadn't said a whole lot but it seem apparent that she cared deeply for her mother. Her future self must have been a good parent. Much better than her own father had been, that's for sure.
Between her and the whole saving the world thing, the future was starting to sound pretty good to Asuka.
If there was one thing that bugged Asuka, one thing about Ria that Asuka couldn't help but find maybe not disappointing per se, but at least annoying, was her accent. Ria sounded as Japanese as Misato or Shinji.
"So why did you live here?" Asuka asked as they walked down the hallway. "I didn't have any intentions of living in Japan after this was all over. Japan's far too polite for my taste."
"Not a big fan of that myself," Ria admitted with a shrug. "But well...things were, let's say hectic after the fight with the Angels."
Asuka gave her a confused look.
"Misato will explain," Ria added quickly. "But travelling back to Germany became rather impossible for a while, then I happened four years after the last Angel died, which further delayed any thoughts of moving. By the time moving back to Germany became a realistic possibility, you were already far too invested in getting WILLE off the ground to even consider moving."
So that meant her future self had Ria when she was seventeen or eighteen? That was awfully young. Must have been one heck of a man. Maybe it was Kaji, that would be wonderful.
"So you have any brothers or sisters?" Asuka asked.
"No," Ria replied.
"Who's your father?" Asuka dared.
Ria stared at her with exhausted blue eyes.
"Look," she said with a sigh, "I'm pretty sure Misato's going to be mad I told you who my mother is. I'm positive my mom wants to be the one to tell you that when she's ready."
Well that was...odd. Why keep it a secret?
"Why?" Asuka asked, annoyed.
"Because it's complicated," Ria huffed. "Maybe I'm the result of a one night stand and my mom has no actual memory of who my father is. Maybe he died. Maybe I'm a genetically altered clone bred for nefarious purposes that she decided to raise as her own. It's just not the time and place for it."
"Okay, okay," Asuka said, putting her hands up in defeat. "Sheesh, didn't realize it was a sensitive issue."
An awkward pause filled the air.
"You're not a clone right?" Asuka asked. "You don't exactly have the hair for it."
"This could be hair dye," Ria teased.
A guard appeared at the corner, dressed in the urban camouflage color scheme WILLE seemed to adore.
There was something familiar about him, he looked familiar. Like an older version of someone she knew…
"Toji?!" She shouted in shock.
That idiot worked here?!
"Asuka." He replied deadpan "Ria."
"Hello, Mr. Suzuhara," Ria replied with a small bow.
"Surprised Misato's willing to hire someone who exposed themselves on the deck of aircraft carrier," Asuka snarked.
Toji laughed a bit in response, his attention shifted towards Ria.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Ran into her in the cafe," Ria explained. "The younger Shinji's awake, so I'm taking her to Misato."
"Fair enough,"he nodded.
Ria got fidgety and nervous "So um, are Okito and Kodama okay? I kind of lost track of them and my cellphone's dead."
"They're fine, few cuts and bruises," Toji said reassuringly. "Hikari took them home."
He turned to Asuka. "Yes, I married Hikari. Your friend was willing to lower herself to my level."
Well, there's no accounting for taste in men. Still sad to hear that Hikari married this fool.
"Anyways," Ria cut off any response by Asuka, "Probably going to be stuck here a while but if I have the time, the twins and I had plans for Thursday night. Is that still okay with you? I mean considering what happened tonight I would understand if you have doubts."
"Unless someone drops Rei on you, I think you'll be fine," Touji replied. "It was a one time accident and none of you were hurt."
What did happen to Wondergirl?
"Okay, thanks," Ria replied. "So tell them I said hi."
"Okito and Kodama?" Asuka questioned as they walked towards the room Misato was apparently keeping Shinji in.
"Toji and Hikari's kids, my age, twins... We've been friends since we were like two," Ria explained. "If I get the chance I'll introduce you to them, but you have to be nice."
"What?" Asuka was defensive. "I can be perfectly nice and charming to people who aren't complete idiots."
Ria stared at her skeptically as she grabbed the door.
"Right," Ria said. "Let me just check and make sure Misato's ready for you."
////
Thanks everyone for the feedback.
Shinji runs, he runs as fast as he can. His feet carving out huge gashes in the ground beneath him with every step. Ripping through roads, tearing apart buildings, as he grew faster and faster each step became more and more destructive. It didn't matter, he had to get to the Angel.
He leaps over a cliff, his feet sailing high above the ground for a few seconds. His speed increases more and more, his vision turns blurry, the Angel no more than an orange blur in the distance. He wasn't fast enough, he wouldn't reach it in time.
He pushes harder, and harder, trying to force himself to go faster. He's almost there, Asuka and Rei are approaching alongside him. They're close, so very close.
He trips, despair grips him. He's failed, he's doomed them all. Despair gives way to confusion as he realizes he hasn't stop falling. The ground has given way to a black void that has swallowed him and Asuka both. They're falling, further and further into the abyss. He grabs frantically for something, anything to stop his fall, but there's nothing. He grabs at empty air as the abyss consumes him completely.
Shinji awakes with a start, finding himself sitting up ramrod straight before he's even fully awake. He grabs frantically for the controls, only to find himself clawing at bedsheets. He's not in the Eva anymore.
He looks down to find himself in a hospital gown. So he had survived, just with another trip to the hospital as a result.
"Oh, so you're awake," an unfamiliar voice said.
Shinji turned to see who it was. For a brief second he thought it was Asuka, her blue eyes staring back at him. But these blue eyes belonged to someone else entirely. She was sitting next to his bed on a plastic chair. She was older than Asuka or him, but not by much, with short brown hair and the features that were somewhere between European and Japanese. Her clothing looked high-end, though much of it had small rips in it and spots of dust.
"Who-who are you?" Shinji asked.
"Not important right now," she said. "Misato will explain more in a moment."
She stood up and walked towards the door, pulling out a cellphone.
"Wait!" Shinji begged. "What happened? Did we win, did we stop the Angel?"
"Would we be here if you didn't?" She smirked, texting something into her phone.
It was a fair point.
Shinji looked around a bit more, something was off. This wasn't a NERV hospital bed, like the one he recovered in after the first fight. The layout was different, indeed it barely seemed like a hospital room at all. The wall opposite his bed had folded up chairs and tables than looked liked they had hastily been thrown up against the wall. A TV had been unplugged to make way for the equipment and monitors he was now hooked up too.
It looked more like a break room that had been hastily turned into a hospital room. NERV wouldn't need to do something like that.
"Where am I?" Shinji asked nervously.
"Kyoto," the girl said flatly.
"Why?" Shinji blurted out. Kyoto was nowhere near Tokyo-3. Why would he be this far away?
"Now ain't that the question of the day?" she replied. "Misato will explain."
She was playing casual but her attention never strayed from him for more than a second.
The door suddenly burst open. Misato stepped into the room.
Only she looked different. Older, her hair streaked with grey and tied up in a bun. Her outfit was red, though far different that anything she normally wore. High collared, four large buttons on her chest, and a stylized golden W on her shoulder.
She looked at him with relief and confusion. Like she wasn't even sure if he was himself.
"Shinji, h-how are you feeling?" she said hesitantly before turning to the girl. "Where's the doctor?"
The voice was hers, but it sounded tired. It was Misato, but what was she doing here, in Kyoto?
"Got pulled away once he was stable," she explained.
Misato groaned. "I told her to stay by his side."
"She tried," the girl said defensively. "But the hospital threatened to fire her on the spot if she didn't, and well, Sakura couldn't exactly explain who she was treating."
"Fine. I'll get her back later," Misato said with frustration.
"I'm going to go see how my dad's holding up," the girl said, staring briefly at Shinji before disappearing out the door.
"Misato, what's going on?" Shinji asked, panicked. "This isn't NERV. Why do you look like that? Who was the girl? Where's Asuka?"
Nothing was making sense, if he had been kidnapped.
Misato placed a hand on Shinji's shoulder. "It's okay, calm down. She's fine, she's been awake since this all begun."
"Since what began?" he asked.
She sigh as she took a seat next to his bed. "Shinji, I have to tell you some things now that aren't going to make a lot of sense. I barely understand it myself. Some of it is going to be hard to handle. I'm sorry."
"What happened?" He asked, his voice quiet and shaking "We were running towards the Angel and then... and then Asuka and I fell into something."
"That's about what Asuka told me," Misato agreed.
She sighed, looking like she would give anything to not have this conversation. "Shinji, that fight was over twenty years ago."
Twenty years? No that couldn't be right, Shinji told himself, he had misheard that was all.
"Twenty years?" he repeated skeptically.
"Yes, Misato nodded.
"HOW!?" Shinji shouted.
"I don't know," Misato admitted. "All I know is you and Asuka appeared in the heart of downtown Kyoto three hours ago."
"But if me and Asuka were gone for twenty years, what happened with the Angels?" Shinji asked fearfully.
Had father made Rei fight all those battles by herself?
"This is where things get even more confusing. You defeated that Angel, and every Angel that came after it. You two never disappeared. In fact, Asuka was one of the first people on the scene when you two appeared."
Part of Shinji's brain wanted to reject what she was saying outright for the nonsense it was. It had to be, it just had to.
But why would Misato say it if it was?
"Perhaps this will prove it," Misato said as she opened the door.
Asuka stepped through, only she was older, about as old as Misato was when he first met her. She didn't have hair clips in, she was wearing some sort of tan uniform. She looked exhausted, but more than that she was looking at him in a way he never saw Asuka looking at him, with genuine sympathy
"Hello Shinji," she said, a sad smile on her face.
/
Asuka Langley Soryu was many things: Pilot of the greatest Evangelion to ever exist, child genius with a college degree, and technically an officer in the German Air Force.
Right now, more than any of those things, she was annoyed. Deeply and profoundly annoyed. She found herself annoyed at quite a number of things. At Shinji, for slowing everything down. At her future self for not being here to speed things along. At the old spinster Misato had become, for forcing her to abandon Unit-02 in the middle of the street and whisking her away to... wherever the hell this place was with barely more than a few sentences of explanation as to what the hell was going on. And most of all, at her guard and his constant pen clicking.
Twenty years in the future, that was a lot to process. But they were alive so that must mean they won. No doubt her other self achieved a glorious victory.
But what happened after that? Misato mentioned the other Asuka and Shinji were in this building as well, which made the whole mechanics of how they time traveled all the more confusing. But without an Angel to fight, why would her counterpart even bother staying in Japan. What was Misato even in command of?
"Hey," she said to the guard. "Misato said NERV has been gone for years now, so who are you guys?"
"WILLE."
"WILLE?" Asuka sneered. "What kind of name is that?"
"I believe you picked it ma'am," the guard replied, "Something about the will the survive, to thrive."
"Oh," Asuka sputtered. "W-well obviously future me has different taste."
"Of course, ma'am," The guard snarked.
An awkward silence filled the room. Save for the guard's damned pen clicking.
"How much longer?" Asuka asked.
"As soon as Ikari's awake and cleared by the doctor. That was General Katsuragi's orders."
General, Asuka wanted to laugh at that. How bad were things that a drunkard like Misato was a general?
Asuka's stomach rumbled, it had been quite a while since her last meal.
"Please tell me this place has food," she said nonchalantly. "You do still have food in the future?"
"No, we switched to an all liquid diet five years ago. Solid food is actually illegal in Japan."
Asuka glared at the man. "If that's a joke I'm not laughing."
"Relax," The guard said dismissively. "There's an employee cafe down the hall. I'll take you there."
/
"So I guess this proves multiverse theory," Ria said as she handed her father a warm cup of coffee.
Shinji stared at her, confused. "What?"
Ria took a sip from her own coffee "Well the other Shinji and Asuka are here. And you and mom have no memory of anything like this happening, right?"
"It would have come up in conversation, yes," Shinji agreed.
"And I haven't been completely wiped from existence," Ria said far too casually for Shinji's taste. "So either they come from a completely different but very similar universe, or their universe split from ours when they traveled here."
"That...does make sense."
The employee cafe was abandoned save for Ria and Shinji. Every employee of WILLE was looking at least a twenty hour shift. The appearance of two Evangelions in the middle of Kyoto and WILLE scrambling on all fronts: Trying to secure the area, trying to figure out where to put the Evas, trying avoid an all-out war with the military over who had control of the Evas, trying to figure out how and why this even occurred... The list of things had to do right now was mind boggling.
Shinji and Ria were here because, well, Misato didn't know where else to put either of them right now.
"So honestly, how are you feeling, dad?" Ria asked with concern. "This can't be easy for you."
Shinji had been nowhere close to the site, having been taken by an ambulance right towards WILLE HQ. Still he had seen images of both of them, seeing Unit-01, seeing mother stand over the city like that. It brought back memories he had spent the past twenty years trying to push out of his mind. And yet…
"I'm not great," he admitted. "But it's not like I have to fight again. So I'll manage."
"Quite true," Ria agreed. "Thankfully no Angels came through with them."
Shinji was beyond grateful for that. The Angels were dead and would remain dead. It would be interesting to see what the other Asuka and him thought of a world without Angels.
"Are you ready?" he asked. "For dealing with me and your mom's counterparts. At that age your mother was…"
"A loud mouth narcissist with a list of emotional problems about ten kilometers long?" Ria finished, smirking.
"I was going to say hard to handle but, yes," Shinji agreed. "And I wasn't much better. Just don't think less of your mother because of this."
Ria laughed. "It'll be fine. At the very least I'll have someone else to practice my German with."
A moment later the door opened, and in walked a security guard… and a young Asuka Langley Soryu, nerve clips still in her hair.
"Speak of the devil," Ria whispered.
Asuka and Shinji's eyes meet immediately. A confused and bemused expression appeared across her face as she marched towards him.
"Shinji."
"Asuka."
The Security guard bowed apologetically. "Apologies, Mr. Ikari. I thought this room was empty."
"Mr. Ikari?" she teased as Shinji stood up. "You look... taller than I expected. I dare say you almost look like an actual man now."
A backhanded compliment from Asuka? That was a downright friendly greeting all things considered.
It felt incredibly strange looking down at her like this. It was surreal, seeing how short the two of them had been back then.
"What do you think of 2035?" he asked.
"Oh, it's fine," she said with a huff. "Wish Misato would actually explain what the hell is going on."
Her attention turned towards Ria.
"And you are?" she said scornfully.
"Deine tochter," Ria said bluntly in accented German.
Asuka's eyes went wide. "What."
Shinji was positive that Misato didn't want their counterparts being made aware of Ria's identify this soon, or this bluntly.
"Allow me to introduce myself," Ria said with a small bow. "Ria Soryu, at your service."
At least she didn't use her full name. Announcing herself as Ria Ikari Soryu might have caused Asuka to burst a blood vessel right there and then.
A wave of emotions appeared on Asuka's face as she tried and failed to say something in response.
"Well, it is twenty years in the future, children are to be expected I guess," she said finally, still somewhat stunned. "Though I had hoped any daughter of mine would dress better than that."
"I was there when you appeared," Ria said simply. "Nearly got crushed."
"Oh," was all Asuka could manage.
Ria waved her off. "It's fine."
"No it's not!" Asuka suddenly shouted "That was hours ago! The least Misato could have done was given you a fresh pair of clothes. The gall of that woman!
Ria seemed more amused by the younger Asuka than anything. And it was clear Asuka rather liked the idea of having a daughter, though thankfully she had yet to realize Shinji was the father. He knew her reaction to that would be...loud to say the least.
"Well this is kind of a crisis situation," Ria said in defense of pseudo-grandmother.
"It's not like an angel's attacking," Asuka said dismissively. "It's bad enough she's keeping you up at such a late hour."
"Well, Shinji… the other Shinji is awake," Ria admitted. "So Misato probably wants to see you soon anyways. So why don't I escort you there?"
"Finally someone here's actually doing something. That sounds wonderful." Asuka grabbed Ria by the shoulder. "On the way I can regale you with stories of my brilliant victories."
"Errr..." Ria said hesitantly.
Asuka laughed "What am I saying, the other me has probably told you those stories a dozen times. Heck there are probably movies about it. Why don't you tell me about you?"
Ria hesitantly lead Asuka towards the door.
"So do you have a boyfriend?" Asuka asked.
"No," Ria said.
"Of course, you and I have to be selective about who we date. Can't lower ourselves to dating trash after all." Asuka replied.
They left, leaving Shinji feeling like he had just let his daughter walk blindly into danger. She was a strong girl though, she could handle Asuka, probably.
Hopefully.
/
A daughter, she had a daughter.
Well, the other her had a daughter, who was technically older than her. That would take some getting used to, as would many other things. Like stupid Shinji now looking a bit like a weird beardless version of his dad.
Ria hadn't said a whole lot but it seem apparent that she cared deeply for her mother. Her future self must have been a good parent. Much better than her own father had been, that's for sure.
Between her and the whole saving the world thing, the future was starting to sound pretty good to Asuka.
If there was one thing that bugged Asuka, one thing about Ria that Asuka couldn't help but find maybe not disappointing per se, but at least annoying, was her accent. Ria sounded as Japanese as Misato or Shinji.
"So why did you live here?" Asuka asked as they walked down the hallway. "I didn't have any intentions of living in Japan after this was all over. Japan's far too polite for my taste."
"Not a big fan of that myself," Ria admitted with a shrug. "But well...things were, let's say hectic after the fight with the Angels."
Asuka gave her a confused look.
"Misato will explain," Ria added quickly. "But travelling back to Germany became rather impossible for a while, then I happened four years after the last Angel died, which further delayed any thoughts of moving. By the time moving back to Germany became a realistic possibility, you were already far too invested in getting WILLE off the ground to even consider moving."
So that meant her future self had Ria when she was seventeen or eighteen? That was awfully young. Must have been one heck of a man. Maybe it was Kaji, that would be wonderful.
"So you have any brothers or sisters?" Asuka asked.
"No," Ria replied.
"Who's your father?" Asuka dared.
Ria stared at her with exhausted blue eyes.
"Look," she said with a sigh, "I'm pretty sure Misato's going to be mad I told you who my mother is. I'm positive my mom wants to be the one to tell you that when she's ready."
Well that was...odd. Why keep it a secret?
"Why?" Asuka asked, annoyed.
"Because it's complicated," Ria huffed. "Maybe I'm the result of a one night stand and my mom has no actual memory of who my father is. Maybe he died. Maybe I'm a genetically altered clone bred for nefarious purposes that she decided to raise as her own. It's just not the time and place for it."
"Okay, okay," Asuka said, putting her hands up in defeat. "Sheesh, didn't realize it was a sensitive issue."
An awkward pause filled the air.
"You're not a clone right?" Asuka asked. "You don't exactly have the hair for it."
"This could be hair dye," Ria teased.
A guard appeared at the corner, dressed in the urban camouflage color scheme WILLE seemed to adore.
There was something familiar about him, he looked familiar. Like an older version of someone she knew…
"Toji?!" She shouted in shock.
That idiot worked here?!
"Asuka." He replied deadpan "Ria."
"Hello, Mr. Suzuhara," Ria replied with a small bow.
"Surprised Misato's willing to hire someone who exposed themselves on the deck of aircraft carrier," Asuka snarked.
Toji laughed a bit in response, his attention shifted towards Ria.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Ran into her in the cafe," Ria explained. "The younger Shinji's awake, so I'm taking her to Misato."
"Fair enough,"he nodded.
Ria got fidgety and nervous "So um, are Okito and Kodama okay? I kind of lost track of them and my cellphone's dead."
"They're fine, few cuts and bruises," Toji said reassuringly. "Hikari took them home."
He turned to Asuka. "Yes, I married Hikari. Your friend was willing to lower herself to my level."
Well, there's no accounting for taste in men. Still sad to hear that Hikari married this fool.
"Anyways," Ria cut off any response by Asuka, "Probably going to be stuck here a while but if I have the time, the twins and I had plans for Thursday night. Is that still okay with you? I mean considering what happened tonight I would understand if you have doubts."
"Unless someone drops Rei on you, I think you'll be fine," Touji replied. "It was a one time accident and none of you were hurt."
What did happen to Wondergirl?
"Okay, thanks," Ria replied. "So tell them I said hi."
"Okito and Kodama?" Asuka questioned as they walked towards the room Misato was apparently keeping Shinji in.
"Toji and Hikari's kids, my age, twins... We've been friends since we were like two," Ria explained. "If I get the chance I'll introduce you to them, but you have to be nice."
"What?" Asuka was defensive. "I can be perfectly nice and charming to people who aren't complete idiots."
Ria stared at her skeptically as she grabbed the door.
"Right," Ria said. "Let me just check and make sure Misato's ready for you."
////
Thanks everyone for the feedback.
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Chapter 2 Part 2
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chapter 2.2
----
Ritsuko stared at Unit-01, looming above them like a monster out of some old movie. The sky was black and cloudless, no signs of dawn approaching anytime soon.
For the first time in many years, Ritsuko Akagi felt disquieted. She was staring at something that should not exist anymore. Not on this planet at least.
Unit-01 was currently drifting in space somewhere near Jupiter, Yui Ikari's bizarre monument to mankind.
Ritsuko scratched her head, briefly tracing the circular scar that marked her forehead. Her survival was a fluke of Third Impact, something Ritsuko was never quite sure what to make of.
Unit-01 and Unit-02 had most of Kyoto paralyzed. Their physical presence blocked several major streets, but the public reaction was proving to be the biggest issue.
Past the police barricades lay a sea of onlookers, most just staring at the Eva, taking pictures and gawking at the sight. A few, though more than Ritsuko would have guessed, were praying to it.
Cults of all stripes had appeared since Third Impact. More than a few worshiped Evas and even the Pilots as either aspects of god/Lilith or as gods themselves. Fools the lot of them, but they were popular fools. This event would only bolster their numbers.
Maya walked up next to her. "So where do we put them?"
"Good question," Ritsuko muttered.
She glanced over to see Maya fiddling with her wedding ring.
"Tomorrow is your third anniversary isn't it?" Ritsuko asked.
"Fourth," Maya corrected with a sigh. "I've already told her to cancel our plans."
"Satsuki's a good woman, she'll understand," Ristuko said in an attempt at sympathy.
Maya had appeared out Instrumentality six years ago, the last person of note from the old NERV to reform. A short time afterwards Maya worked up the courage to confess her true feelings to Ristuko. Feelings Ristuko felt stupid for not noticing earlier.
In another life, in another time, Ristuko might have pursued her. But by that point she was an old woman, burdened with regret for the crimes she'd committed, the sins she'd helped perform. She had no right to waste Maya's time and Ristuko told her as much. Thankfully Maya found someone else not long after.
Still, there was an awkwardness between them, one that would probably never fully go away.
"We need to get them out of public sight," Maya commented. "How hard would it be to get them into the Vault below HQ?"
"We'd have to rip up and completely redo the back entrance, along with a good portion of the Vault. That would take months."
There were things in the Vault there were just as big as the Evas, but they were never meant to be taken out.
"Building a new facility to take care of them would take even longer," Maya countered.
"We could just put them on ice," Ritsuko suggested. "Bethany base still has capability to do that."
"We wouldn't exactly be able to return them in functional condition if we do that."
"Assuming we can return them."
None of them even knew the mechanics of how the two arrived here. Replicating it was a pipe dream at this point. One Ritsuko didn't see much point in. Their arrival didn't utterly shatter time as they knew it, meaning they were likely from a separate universe. What happened to that universe was of little consequence here.
"True enough," Maya said. "We need to figure out how to move them off of the street before we can even think of returning them home."
/
All things considered, Shinji was taking the news well. Which is to say he wasn't screaming and crying. He was terrified sure, but as far as Asuka was concerned he had every right to be.
"Where's Rei?" he asked.
That was a question she had been hoping to avoid.
"We haven't seen Unit-00," Misato replied. "The event seems to have taken just you and Asuka."
"Not my Rei," Shinji insisted. "Your Rei. You've talked about the…about the other me but you haven't said anything about her. Where is she?"
"We don't know," Asuka lied. "She's been missing since the end of the Angel war. A lot of people have."
She hated lying to him, but she couldn't possibly consider telling the truth about what Rei was, what she became. He wouldn't be able to handle it.
"Why?!" Shinji shouted.
"We'll explain more in the debriefing."
The door opened. Ria poked her head in.
"So Asuka's here if you're ready for her," she said.
"Wait, why did you bring her here?" Asuka groaned. She was rather hoping to have Ria avoid her younger self for as much as possible, indeed she had been hoping to personally avoid her past self. Highly unlikely, but she could hope.
"Well...Shinji, the older one, and I ran into her in the café and-" Ria began, before the distinct sound of someone complaining in German interrupted her.
"Alright, alright, stop pushing." Ria opened the door.
In marched her younger self, her eyes full of arrogant pride. That is, until she saw her counterpart.
The two stared at each other. Asuka had seen her younger self at distance when she got out of the Eva, but she had stayed out of sight for the most part. Now seeing her teenage self up close and person, it was like looking at a living breathing example of who she had once been. It was surreal and unpleasant. Every regret she had of those years came rushing to surface of her thoughts, her brattiness, her missteps with Shinji, those damn nerve clips she was wearing in her hair.
The younger Asuka's face twisted with pain. She probably looked too much like their mother, making an already awkward situation just that much more uncomfortable.
Everyone in the room was staring at them.
"Well..." her younger self said, trying to regain her composure. "At least you're not fat."
Sadly, that was about the level of greeting she expected from her.
"Okay, not going to lie. This is a lot weirder than I thought it would be," Ria muttered.
The younger Asuka turned her attention to Shinji.
"Well at least you're finally up, idiot," she nagged. "You know how long we've been waiting for you?!"
"Yes, because clearly being knocked unconscious was his fault," Asuka snarked, earning a withering glare from her younger self.
"Anyways," the younger Asuka said, "I was told by your lovely daughter here that Misato might soon actually explain what the hell's going on."
"Wait, daughter?!" Shinji said in surprise.
The Sub-Commander grabbed her daughter by the shoulders. "Yes, Shinji, this is my daughter, Ria."
And his too but this was not the time and place for that.
"Hello again, Mr.Ikari," Ria said with an awkward wave. "Apologies for the lack of a proper introduction earlier."
"It's okay," Shinji said hesitantly. "Err, nice to meet you, again."
Ria nodded, causing the younger Asuka to sneer in disdain.
"I talked to the older Shinji," she explained. "He was..."
Ria lightly nudged the younger Asuka with her elbow.
"Errr, more mature than I expected," Asuka finished.
"Ookay…" Shinji said, puzzled.
"We should get the debriefing started." Misato said matter of factly. "There's a lot of ground we have to cover."
"Some of it is going to be hard to hear," Asuka warned.
They weren't, barring an unexpected miracle, going to be sending these two back to their time in the near future, for all anyone knew it was impossible. Which meant they would have to give them something of a normal life until then, maybe even have them go to school.
So they needed to tell them the truth of what happened between their last fight and now. Their struggles against the rest of the angels, SEELE, Third Impact, Instrumentality. But the tricky part lay in how much to tell them.
Misato once said there was there were three kinds of truth when it came to Third Impact; The public truth, the official truth which was known only to WILLE and parts of the government, and the actual truth, which was probably only known by Shinji.
It wasn't that Ikari had lied to Misato and her about what exactly happened with Lilith and Unit-01. It's just they never asked. As far as the world was concerned, Instrumentality was caused solely by SEELE, and Shinji had been the one to put a stop to it.
"It can't be that bad, right?" Shinji asked. "I mean we survived, humanity survived. We won, right?"
Oh you sweet child.
"We won, but the cost was high," Asuka said.
And the scars would mark the world forever.
"Whatever," her younger counterpart said dismissively. "Let's just get this over with."
"We'll provide you with some proper clothes and then Asuka and I will escort you to the conference room, We'll explain everything there." Misato explained.
She turned to Ria, who stared back at her with an exhausted expression.
"Do you need my help?" Ria asked wearily. "Or can I go home?"
"No to both unfortunately," Misato said. "I don't need you now, but I'm probably going to need you in a few hours. You can rest until then."
In truth she probably had little need of Ria, but the arrival of the Evas had made Kyoto unstable, particularly for someone with name like Soryu. WILLE was the safest place for her right now.
"Well you did warn me being an intern here would mean long hours," Ria said half-heartedly. "Well I guess I'll take a shower and catch a nap."
Ria walked out, giving a brief wave to Shinji and Asuka as she left.
/
The debriefing had not been what Shinji expected. For starters they'd spent the first hour just going over everything that had happened before their last fight. Everything from the First Angel attack to more minor stuff like when Misato had been promoted to Major. Like they were testing them.
It was just the four of them, in what looked like a small classroom more than anything, though far more advanced than any classroom Shinji remembered.
Finally Asuka got fed up. "I thought you were going to tell us what happened these past twenty years, not quiz us on trivia!"
"We need to make sure your knowledge of the past matches up with ours." Misato explained.
"Why?" Shinji questioned, they shared the same past after all.
"Because our future selves have no memory of this ever occurring," the younger Asuka said with dawning realization.
"Exactly," her older counterpart agreed. "Nothing like this occurred with that Angel. We killed it, it exploded, and we carried on. We're trying to make sure this is the only change between our two timelines, so what we explain to you isn't too confusing."
"So this isn't our future, more of an alternate universe?" Shinji asked, unsure if that made him feel better or worse about what was happening.
"We're not sure," Misato admitted. "As it stands, everything you've told us matches what we know. So let's begin."
Misato pressed a button on her desk and seven images appeared on the board behind her. Images of what he assumed were Angels they had yet to fight, with dates and various info displayed below them. Only something was wrong.
"That last one is a person," Shinji pointed out, referring to a picture of a grey haired boy dressed in what looked like his school uniform.
"And one of the others is just an ugly looking Eva," Asuka added.
"That one was an Angel that infected a newly arrived Eva," Misato explained. "The Pilot was maimed in the process. They're fine now."
"And that last one was an Angel," the older Asuka insisted. "But he was a rather unique situation from what I understand."
An Angel that looked human, now that was a truly terrifying thought.
"The point is you won, but there was heavy cost," Misato said reluctantly.
"By the time the last Angel died, Unit-00 had been destroyed, which Rei barely survived. Most of Tokyo-3 was in ruins and I was in a coma," the older Asuka said.
That last part hit the two pilots hard. Asuka in particular looked stunned.
"Then came Third Impact and Human instrumentality," Misato said, looking increasingly uncomfortable.
"Wait," Asuka spoke up, still troubled by what her counterpart had told her. "How could Third Impact happen if the Angels were all gone? How could we even be alive if it happened?"
"Simple," Misato said. "Third Impact wasn't caused by Angels, it was caused by humans."
The images of angels they had yet to fight vanished, and were replaced by one logo. A multi colored inverted triangle with seven eyes.
"Specifically it was caused by a group known as SEELE."
/
Asuka sat there, unsure of what to say, what to think even. What her other self and Misato had told her was almost impossible to believe. They had been deceived from the start. NERV was just being used by some insane old men trying to make themselves gods. Everything she, everything Shinji and even Rei had suffered through, it was all because of some goddamn idiots reading some ancient freaking scroll. The damaged they did was unimaginable. Frankly it was amazing society had recovered on any real level.
Instrumentality. The very thought of it made her ill, being stripped of any barrier between you and other people, sharing thoughts with billions of others. No privacy, barely any sense of self. It sounded horrid. Thankfully her future self was strong enough to pull herself out of it immediately. Still the thought that there were a few million people still trapped in that existence, staining the sea red. It made her skin crawl.
While Shinji was taking it poorly, he hadn't broken down, surprisingly. But he was rather distressed. She would yell at him but honestly, she didn't find herself angry at him. His friend Kensuke, his father, and apparently Wondergirl were all still trapped in Instrumentality.Sure he got the credit for saving humanity from SEELE but it sounded like she got the recognition she deserved, so Shinji wasn't claiming all the spotlight.
Besides her role during Third Impact sounded just as important as Shinji, and far more badass even if it didn't turn out so well. Taking on nine Mass Production Evas at once and winning the first round, even if she did taken out by a cheap shot in the end, Asuka had a newfound respect for her future self.
Still, it wasn't her glory. It was her other self's glory. As long as they were here they were going to be living in the shadow of what their other selves did.
"So we're pretty much stuck here unless you find a way to either time travel or travel to alternate dimensions," Asuka said, trying to push thoughts of Instrumentality out of her head.
"Yes," Misato admitted. "But to be fair, you being here proves that at least one of those things is physically possible."
That was admittedly a good point.
"So, any questions about the future?" her future self said, trying to take their minds off of Third Impact and SEELE. "Like what Hikari has been up to, how have computers changed, something light hearted?"
Asuka raised her hand. "I have one, who's Ria's father?"
Something about her didn't quite add up. She had her too soon to be a test tube baby, and she clearly wasn't a clone. Why would NERV clone anyone to begin with? If Kaji was her father, there's no way in hell Asuka would have let him go without a marriage, and there wasn't a wedding band on her future self's finger.
The older Asuka sighed. "Fair enough, it's not exactly a state secret."
Touji was married and Kensuke was not around so she didn't lower herself to that level, and there's no way it could be stupid…
"Shinji is her father."
Both Asuka and Shinji stared at her in shock.
That couldn't possibly be what she said. She must have misheard. There's no way she would...
"Shinji Ikari?" she repeated, dumbfounded.
Her older self nodded. "Yes, we dated for a few years after Third Impact."
She dated Shinji?! She had a kid with that stupid preverted idiot?! Was she that desperate for physical attention?
The older Asuka and Misato looked on has the young pilots struggled with a dozen conflicting feelings. Misato taking a couple of steps away from the pilots.
This couldn't have been her future, no she would never lower herself to that, she wouldn't...She couldn't.
Finally the emotional maelstrom raging inside Asuka burst forth with an angry scream of rage and embarrassment.
"Du verdammter Idiot!"
----
Ritsuko stared at Unit-01, looming above them like a monster out of some old movie. The sky was black and cloudless, no signs of dawn approaching anytime soon.
For the first time in many years, Ritsuko Akagi felt disquieted. She was staring at something that should not exist anymore. Not on this planet at least.
Unit-01 was currently drifting in space somewhere near Jupiter, Yui Ikari's bizarre monument to mankind.
Ritsuko scratched her head, briefly tracing the circular scar that marked her forehead. Her survival was a fluke of Third Impact, something Ritsuko was never quite sure what to make of.
Unit-01 and Unit-02 had most of Kyoto paralyzed. Their physical presence blocked several major streets, but the public reaction was proving to be the biggest issue.
Past the police barricades lay a sea of onlookers, most just staring at the Eva, taking pictures and gawking at the sight. A few, though more than Ritsuko would have guessed, were praying to it.
Cults of all stripes had appeared since Third Impact. More than a few worshiped Evas and even the Pilots as either aspects of god/Lilith or as gods themselves. Fools the lot of them, but they were popular fools. This event would only bolster their numbers.
Maya walked up next to her. "So where do we put them?"
"Good question," Ritsuko muttered.
She glanced over to see Maya fiddling with her wedding ring.
"Tomorrow is your third anniversary isn't it?" Ritsuko asked.
"Fourth," Maya corrected with a sigh. "I've already told her to cancel our plans."
"Satsuki's a good woman, she'll understand," Ristuko said in an attempt at sympathy.
Maya had appeared out Instrumentality six years ago, the last person of note from the old NERV to reform. A short time afterwards Maya worked up the courage to confess her true feelings to Ristuko. Feelings Ristuko felt stupid for not noticing earlier.
In another life, in another time, Ristuko might have pursued her. But by that point she was an old woman, burdened with regret for the crimes she'd committed, the sins she'd helped perform. She had no right to waste Maya's time and Ristuko told her as much. Thankfully Maya found someone else not long after.
Still, there was an awkwardness between them, one that would probably never fully go away.
"We need to get them out of public sight," Maya commented. "How hard would it be to get them into the Vault below HQ?"
"We'd have to rip up and completely redo the back entrance, along with a good portion of the Vault. That would take months."
There were things in the Vault there were just as big as the Evas, but they were never meant to be taken out.
"Building a new facility to take care of them would take even longer," Maya countered.
"We could just put them on ice," Ritsuko suggested. "Bethany base still has capability to do that."
"We wouldn't exactly be able to return them in functional condition if we do that."
"Assuming we can return them."
None of them even knew the mechanics of how the two arrived here. Replicating it was a pipe dream at this point. One Ritsuko didn't see much point in. Their arrival didn't utterly shatter time as they knew it, meaning they were likely from a separate universe. What happened to that universe was of little consequence here.
"True enough," Maya said. "We need to figure out how to move them off of the street before we can even think of returning them home."
/
All things considered, Shinji was taking the news well. Which is to say he wasn't screaming and crying. He was terrified sure, but as far as Asuka was concerned he had every right to be.
"Where's Rei?" he asked.
That was a question she had been hoping to avoid.
"We haven't seen Unit-00," Misato replied. "The event seems to have taken just you and Asuka."
"Not my Rei," Shinji insisted. "Your Rei. You've talked about the…about the other me but you haven't said anything about her. Where is she?"
"We don't know," Asuka lied. "She's been missing since the end of the Angel war. A lot of people have."
She hated lying to him, but she couldn't possibly consider telling the truth about what Rei was, what she became. He wouldn't be able to handle it.
"Why?!" Shinji shouted.
"We'll explain more in the debriefing."
The door opened. Ria poked her head in.
"So Asuka's here if you're ready for her," she said.
"Wait, why did you bring her here?" Asuka groaned. She was rather hoping to have Ria avoid her younger self for as much as possible, indeed she had been hoping to personally avoid her past self. Highly unlikely, but she could hope.
"Well...Shinji, the older one, and I ran into her in the café and-" Ria began, before the distinct sound of someone complaining in German interrupted her.
"Alright, alright, stop pushing." Ria opened the door.
In marched her younger self, her eyes full of arrogant pride. That is, until she saw her counterpart.
The two stared at each other. Asuka had seen her younger self at distance when she got out of the Eva, but she had stayed out of sight for the most part. Now seeing her teenage self up close and person, it was like looking at a living breathing example of who she had once been. It was surreal and unpleasant. Every regret she had of those years came rushing to surface of her thoughts, her brattiness, her missteps with Shinji, those damn nerve clips she was wearing in her hair.
The younger Asuka's face twisted with pain. She probably looked too much like their mother, making an already awkward situation just that much more uncomfortable.
Everyone in the room was staring at them.
"Well..." her younger self said, trying to regain her composure. "At least you're not fat."
Sadly, that was about the level of greeting she expected from her.
"Okay, not going to lie. This is a lot weirder than I thought it would be," Ria muttered.
The younger Asuka turned her attention to Shinji.
"Well at least you're finally up, idiot," she nagged. "You know how long we've been waiting for you?!"
"Yes, because clearly being knocked unconscious was his fault," Asuka snarked, earning a withering glare from her younger self.
"Anyways," the younger Asuka said, "I was told by your lovely daughter here that Misato might soon actually explain what the hell's going on."
"Wait, daughter?!" Shinji said in surprise.
The Sub-Commander grabbed her daughter by the shoulders. "Yes, Shinji, this is my daughter, Ria."
And his too but this was not the time and place for that.
"Hello again, Mr.Ikari," Ria said with an awkward wave. "Apologies for the lack of a proper introduction earlier."
"It's okay," Shinji said hesitantly. "Err, nice to meet you, again."
Ria nodded, causing the younger Asuka to sneer in disdain.
"I talked to the older Shinji," she explained. "He was..."
Ria lightly nudged the younger Asuka with her elbow.
"Errr, more mature than I expected," Asuka finished.
"Ookay…" Shinji said, puzzled.
"We should get the debriefing started." Misato said matter of factly. "There's a lot of ground we have to cover."
"Some of it is going to be hard to hear," Asuka warned.
They weren't, barring an unexpected miracle, going to be sending these two back to their time in the near future, for all anyone knew it was impossible. Which meant they would have to give them something of a normal life until then, maybe even have them go to school.
So they needed to tell them the truth of what happened between their last fight and now. Their struggles against the rest of the angels, SEELE, Third Impact, Instrumentality. But the tricky part lay in how much to tell them.
Misato once said there was there were three kinds of truth when it came to Third Impact; The public truth, the official truth which was known only to WILLE and parts of the government, and the actual truth, which was probably only known by Shinji.
It wasn't that Ikari had lied to Misato and her about what exactly happened with Lilith and Unit-01. It's just they never asked. As far as the world was concerned, Instrumentality was caused solely by SEELE, and Shinji had been the one to put a stop to it.
"It can't be that bad, right?" Shinji asked. "I mean we survived, humanity survived. We won, right?"
Oh you sweet child.
"We won, but the cost was high," Asuka said.
And the scars would mark the world forever.
"Whatever," her younger counterpart said dismissively. "Let's just get this over with."
"We'll provide you with some proper clothes and then Asuka and I will escort you to the conference room, We'll explain everything there." Misato explained.
She turned to Ria, who stared back at her with an exhausted expression.
"Do you need my help?" Ria asked wearily. "Or can I go home?"
"No to both unfortunately," Misato said. "I don't need you now, but I'm probably going to need you in a few hours. You can rest until then."
In truth she probably had little need of Ria, but the arrival of the Evas had made Kyoto unstable, particularly for someone with name like Soryu. WILLE was the safest place for her right now.
"Well you did warn me being an intern here would mean long hours," Ria said half-heartedly. "Well I guess I'll take a shower and catch a nap."
Ria walked out, giving a brief wave to Shinji and Asuka as she left.
/
The debriefing had not been what Shinji expected. For starters they'd spent the first hour just going over everything that had happened before their last fight. Everything from the First Angel attack to more minor stuff like when Misato had been promoted to Major. Like they were testing them.
It was just the four of them, in what looked like a small classroom more than anything, though far more advanced than any classroom Shinji remembered.
Finally Asuka got fed up. "I thought you were going to tell us what happened these past twenty years, not quiz us on trivia!"
"We need to make sure your knowledge of the past matches up with ours." Misato explained.
"Why?" Shinji questioned, they shared the same past after all.
"Because our future selves have no memory of this ever occurring," the younger Asuka said with dawning realization.
"Exactly," her older counterpart agreed. "Nothing like this occurred with that Angel. We killed it, it exploded, and we carried on. We're trying to make sure this is the only change between our two timelines, so what we explain to you isn't too confusing."
"So this isn't our future, more of an alternate universe?" Shinji asked, unsure if that made him feel better or worse about what was happening.
"We're not sure," Misato admitted. "As it stands, everything you've told us matches what we know. So let's begin."
Misato pressed a button on her desk and seven images appeared on the board behind her. Images of what he assumed were Angels they had yet to fight, with dates and various info displayed below them. Only something was wrong.
"That last one is a person," Shinji pointed out, referring to a picture of a grey haired boy dressed in what looked like his school uniform.
"And one of the others is just an ugly looking Eva," Asuka added.
"That one was an Angel that infected a newly arrived Eva," Misato explained. "The Pilot was maimed in the process. They're fine now."
"And that last one was an Angel," the older Asuka insisted. "But he was a rather unique situation from what I understand."
An Angel that looked human, now that was a truly terrifying thought.
"The point is you won, but there was heavy cost," Misato said reluctantly.
"By the time the last Angel died, Unit-00 had been destroyed, which Rei barely survived. Most of Tokyo-3 was in ruins and I was in a coma," the older Asuka said.
That last part hit the two pilots hard. Asuka in particular looked stunned.
"Then came Third Impact and Human instrumentality," Misato said, looking increasingly uncomfortable.
"Wait," Asuka spoke up, still troubled by what her counterpart had told her. "How could Third Impact happen if the Angels were all gone? How could we even be alive if it happened?"
"Simple," Misato said. "Third Impact wasn't caused by Angels, it was caused by humans."
The images of angels they had yet to fight vanished, and were replaced by one logo. A multi colored inverted triangle with seven eyes.
"Specifically it was caused by a group known as SEELE."
/
Asuka sat there, unsure of what to say, what to think even. What her other self and Misato had told her was almost impossible to believe. They had been deceived from the start. NERV was just being used by some insane old men trying to make themselves gods. Everything she, everything Shinji and even Rei had suffered through, it was all because of some goddamn idiots reading some ancient freaking scroll. The damaged they did was unimaginable. Frankly it was amazing society had recovered on any real level.
Instrumentality. The very thought of it made her ill, being stripped of any barrier between you and other people, sharing thoughts with billions of others. No privacy, barely any sense of self. It sounded horrid. Thankfully her future self was strong enough to pull herself out of it immediately. Still the thought that there were a few million people still trapped in that existence, staining the sea red. It made her skin crawl.
While Shinji was taking it poorly, he hadn't broken down, surprisingly. But he was rather distressed. She would yell at him but honestly, she didn't find herself angry at him. His friend Kensuke, his father, and apparently Wondergirl were all still trapped in Instrumentality.Sure he got the credit for saving humanity from SEELE but it sounded like she got the recognition she deserved, so Shinji wasn't claiming all the spotlight.
Besides her role during Third Impact sounded just as important as Shinji, and far more badass even if it didn't turn out so well. Taking on nine Mass Production Evas at once and winning the first round, even if she did taken out by a cheap shot in the end, Asuka had a newfound respect for her future self.
Still, it wasn't her glory. It was her other self's glory. As long as they were here they were going to be living in the shadow of what their other selves did.
"So we're pretty much stuck here unless you find a way to either time travel or travel to alternate dimensions," Asuka said, trying to push thoughts of Instrumentality out of her head.
"Yes," Misato admitted. "But to be fair, you being here proves that at least one of those things is physically possible."
That was admittedly a good point.
"So, any questions about the future?" her future self said, trying to take their minds off of Third Impact and SEELE. "Like what Hikari has been up to, how have computers changed, something light hearted?"
Asuka raised her hand. "I have one, who's Ria's father?"
Something about her didn't quite add up. She had her too soon to be a test tube baby, and she clearly wasn't a clone. Why would NERV clone anyone to begin with? If Kaji was her father, there's no way in hell Asuka would have let him go without a marriage, and there wasn't a wedding band on her future self's finger.
The older Asuka sighed. "Fair enough, it's not exactly a state secret."
Touji was married and Kensuke was not around so she didn't lower herself to that level, and there's no way it could be stupid…
"Shinji is her father."
Both Asuka and Shinji stared at her in shock.
That couldn't possibly be what she said. She must have misheard. There's no way she would...
"Shinji Ikari?" she repeated, dumbfounded.
Her older self nodded. "Yes, we dated for a few years after Third Impact."
She dated Shinji?! She had a kid with that stupid preverted idiot?! Was she that desperate for physical attention?
The older Asuka and Misato looked on has the young pilots struggled with a dozen conflicting feelings. Misato taking a couple of steps away from the pilots.
This couldn't have been her future, no she would never lower herself to that, she wouldn't...She couldn't.
Finally the emotional maelstrom raging inside Asuka burst forth with an angry scream of rage and embarrassment.
"Du verdammter Idiot!"
Chapter 3 Part 1
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chapter 3 (Part 1): Figuring out Normal.
Sleep wasn't easy for Shinji Ikari anymore. In truth he isn't sure it ever was. But over the past few years, his nightmares had grown worse and worse. To the point where barely a week went by when he didn't have at least a couple of them. Waking up covered in cold sweat, visions of Third Impact or his fight with Bardiel filling his head. It didn't take a psychiatrist, though he'd seen more than one, to tell him it was guilt.
Guilt over his failures, guilt over the could have beens, the people he could have saved if he was braver. And guilt over a sentence he would regret until his dying breath.
He knew it was useless, what's done was done, what he had created was healing itself, slowly, very slowly, but it could never be completely undone. It would be forever his secret to bear.
Strangely, he hadn't dreamed of any of that tonight. When he woke up in the employee cafe he found himself thinking of Kaworu.
Kaworu, the last angel, and his friend. He had spent years trying to push Kaworu out of his thoughts. Why would he dream of him now?
Shinji pulled himself out of the chair he had been sleeping in and went to a nearby counter to fix himself some coffee. He pushed the little pod into the machine and pressed a button. Soon the not entirely unpleasant smell of artificial coffee filled the room.
Ria walked in, having changed out of her damaged clothing into what must have been a spare she had stored here. Her eyes were hidden behind a large pair of wire rimmed aviator sunglasses, but even still her exhaustion was obvious.
"How much sleep did you get?" he asked.
"Three," Ria replied wearily. "No, three and a half hours. You?"
"Four."
"Lucky."
Ria grabbed a bottle of soda out of a vending machine.
"So mom just texted me a few minutes ago, apparently she told the Pilots about you being my dad," Ria said.
Oh, that could not have been a fun conversation. Chairs were probably thrown at the least.
"So should we move?" Shinji asked half jokingly. "I mean, Asuka knows we're here."
Ria shrugged. "It will be fine, probably."
"So I hear your mom's upset with you not accepting the chance to go to college early," Shinji said, trying to talk about something normal.
Ria slumped in her chair. "So she told you? I don't understand why she cares so much. My grades are great, and I've said since I was twelve I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Be a writer. I even got a short story published for crying out loud! What more does she want?"
"She just wants to make sure you get the best possible education." Shinji didn't think of himself as much of a father, but he knew he should at least try to support Asuka on this.
"All this would do would mean I go to college sooner. Doesn't mean I'll get into a better one." Ria sighed. "I'm happy where I am. College means I have considerably less time with my friends. I have a plan, I should be able to stick to my plan."
He couldn't really fault her.
"You should have a chance at a normal life," Shinji agreed. "Your mother and I certainly didn't."
Ria laughed. "You call this normal? I haven't had a chance at a normal life since I was born, I just want the enjoy what I have."
At sixteen he and Asuka were struggling to stay alive as famine and civil war rocked Japan, and that was a marked improvement from how their lives had been a few years previous. Some considered Ria's generation ungrateful for what their parents had suffered, he was just glad she never had to go through a fraction of what he endured.
Just then Shinji's phone rang.
"Hello?" he answered.
"Hey." It was Asuka. "Are you busy?"
"Just talking with Ria."
"Okay, good, Misato and I have something we want to discuss with you in the conference room."
"Okay, um I'm not sure how much help I could be." He wasn't exactly part of WILLE so what could they need him for?
"We're trying to figure where our past selves are going to live for the time being," Asuka explained.
Oh, wonderful.
/
In stark contrast to the rest of the rest of the building, the outer hallways of WILLE had huge windows giving a clear view of Kyoto.
According to Misato, WILLE was a giant glass pyramid that reached the height of most skyscrapers, and from the windows, it was easy to see that now. The lower levels sloped outwards, covered in a purple glass shell.
Shinji was amazed by the contrast between Kyoto and Tokyo-3. Tokyo-3 was a purely artificial creation built in the course of a couple of years. It was more like what one would imagine a lunar colony would be like than any other city in Japan. Kyoto by contrast was an old city. While many of the buildings surrounding WILLE were steel and glass giants, in the distance he spotted the top of the pagoda of the Tō-ji Buddhist temple, and numerous other buildings that existed since the Shogunate.
Shinji was alone in the hallway, save for a guard in the distance. Asuka was sulking, for lack of a better term. After finding out about Ria's parentage, Asuka went on a blistering rant against her future self, which only earned snark from her, after that she went to the makeshift hospital room Shinji had woken up in and slammed the door behind her.
Shinji considered the idea of him, well his future self, being a father. He honestly hadn't really given much thought to possibility before: He was fourteen after all, and it's not like he'd even come close to having a girlfriend before. And with Asuka no less, that was a shock. She was pretty, and her personality did have its charms, some of the time. But he couldn't picture Asuka, any Asuka being willing to go that far with him.
Ria's last name was Soryu, that meant her parents never married. What sort of parent was his other self? Was he a decent one? Or had he even been there for her at all. Did she hate him and her civil behavior was just a mask?
"Hello, Shinji," Ria said suddenly.
Ikari screamed in surprise and nearly slammed his head against the glass. He stumbled backwards.
"Oh! Um, sorry about that," she said sympathetically.
Shinji turned to face her. Seeing her now, the family resemblance was hard to miss. They had the same chin for starters.
"Hi, uh Ria. How's it going?" Shinji said, awkwardly trying find words.
"Well my parents were called to a meeting about something so I thought, 'Hey, why not see what their tiny counterparts are up to?'" she replied.
Shinji froze, the surreality of the situation leaving him unable to speak.
"You okay?" she asked.
"I-I'm, fine," he said nervously. "Sorry."
"No no, don't apologize," she said reassuringly. "All things considered you're handling it well. I mean if the reverse had happened and WILLE had ended up in your time, I would be terrified. Well admittedly there would be Angels and SEELE, and grandpa too now that I think. I well...you know what I mean."
Ria buried her head in her hand, cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
"Look," she went on, "this is awkward for both of us. I'm trying to make it less awkward, because we're probably going to be seeing each other a lot for the next few months and we should at least try to be friends, you read me?"
"I...yeah, that makes sense," he replied.
She was earnest, awkward but earnest.
"I have an idea, why don't I show the Museum on the lower floor. Give you a tour of the place?" Ria suggested.
"WILLE has a museum?"
"Of course," she nodded. "Until about fifteen hours ago it was probably the most publicly known part of WILLE. I give tours on the weekends sometimes."
"Sure that sounds... interesting," Shinji replied.
"Wonderful, I'll grab Asuka." Ria started walking away.
"I'd wouldn't if I were you." Shinji spoke up "She's still rather angry with your mother, and your father, and Misato and me, and... well, pretty much everyone really."
Ria smirked "Yeah, let's give her time to calm down."
/
"We need jumper cables," Maya said calmly in between her fourth and fifth coffee.
"What?" Ristuko replied, more than a little confused by the statement.
"The only way we're moving those things anytime soon is if we have the Pilots move them. That means we either need to rebuild the umbilical cables or build a temporary power supply to attach to them. All things considered, the umbilical cables would be far easier."
The tent was empty save for the two of them. Ritsuko took a long drag from her cigarette. Having the Pilots actually control their Evas again, even briefly, would make the Japanese government very unhappy. The JSSDF may have been replaced in the years since Third Impact, but a lot of generals still remembered the fight against Unit-02. Officially the Japanese Government apologized for being misled by SEELE. Unofficially, she knew quite a few people never forgave Sub-Commander Soryu for what happened.
Two active Evangelions would make the military extremely nervous, and probably a few cultists way too happy. Still, it would be the best opiton.
"I have the plans for the umbilical cables on file," Ritsuko said. "Having two constructed should only take us a few weeks. Though we're going to need a lot of power, and a temporary site to store them until the modifications to the Vault are complete."
At least they were making progress.
A worker burst into the tent, his breath fast and hard.
"Someone tried to plant a bomb on Unit-01!" he exclaimed.
/
"What do we know?" Misato asked.
She knew this was not going to be easy. She knew people would react poorly, but she had hoped it would not escalate to this level.
There had already been a bombing attempt. An incredibly unsucessful one thankfully.
"Suspect is a teenager, maybe seventeen, male. Japanese according to eyewitnesses." Makoto Hyuga rattled off. "Fled the scene before police could detain him. No one got a really good look at him."
"And the bomb itself?" Asuka asked.
"It was small, too small to even scratch the armor on Unit-01. Wouldn't have worked either, the trigger was wired wrong," Hyuga stated.
Well at least this was done by an incompetent.
"Have Captain Suzuhara send two additional squads to the site immediately," Misato ordered. "And tell the police this is now their top priority. And not one word of it to the press."
Hyuga bowed and left the room.
"It probably was just an idiot thinking he could make a statement," Asuka commented.
Misato nodded. "Agreed. We've had far worse threats over the years. I just want to make sure it's just an idiot."
"Of course."
"Let's not tell this to Shinji or the Pilots for now," Misato added.
"No need to scare them," Asuka agreed.
A few minutes later, Shinji entered.
"So, how did past Asuka take the news?"
"I think I'm now deaf in my right ear," Asuka joked.
"Well, that's better than I expected," Shinji replied.
"Near as I can tell, they were taken during the fight with the Tenth Angel. Pretty sure neither of us had even thought about that by that point."
Tenth Angel? So that was before he got sucked into the Dirac, before Toji got injured, before things took a sharp nose dive from unpleasant to just outright awful. So his counterpart wasn't quite so gripped by despair.
"So we're talking about our past selves' living arrangements?" Shinji asked.
"Yeah," Misato replied. "I don't want to keep them here longer than I have to, it's unfair to them and it's unfair to the people who work here."
"Not to be rude, but I kind of figured they would just stay with you, Misato." Shinji said "After all you do have the most experience with them, with us."
Misato shook her head "Honestly, I'm not up to it. I'm pushing fifty years old, I'm probably going to be working sixty-seventy hour weeks until we send them home, and Pen-Pen's still recovering from surgery."
"Plus dealing with us sober would probably be a lot harder," Asuka added.
"That too," Misato agreed.
And frankly they both deserved a better guardian than her. Misato counted herself lucky that Asuka and Shinji had turned out to be largely functional adults.
"So who do we have them stay with?" Shinji asked.
There weren't a lot of options admittedly. Most people she just simply didn't trust enough, whoever was going to take care of the two had to be sensitive to their various emotional and psychological issues and keep the media off them. Of those she trusted, most weren't up to it for one reason or another. Maya didn't have the space, Toji had three kids already, they would probably starve if she sent them to live with Ritsuko. That left her only two options.
"No," Asuka said before Misato could say a word. "No no no no no! I'm not taking care of those two! Ria would probably get into a fight with my past self before the end of the week. And I really don't know how to deal with Shinji."
"They'll have therapists," Misato said defensively. That was one thing they would certainly fix this time around.
"And I'll probably undo all the good they do and cause my past self to descend into a pile of misery," Shinji said. "I had a million problems at that age and living with me will just make all of them worse."
Both of them looked like they would rather jump in a lake of boiling acid while completely naked than deal with their past selves.
"I don't have anyone else," Misato said. "If I did I would have asked them first. You two have the financial means to support them easily and understand their issues better than anyone else."
"I have my job here, you can't expect me to leave them at home with my daughter!" Asuka said angrily.
"And I can't handle one of them by myself, let alone both of them," Shinji pleaded.
They weren't going to budge. And she didn't really have a good argument. Misato reached for something, anything that might convince them.
"What if you two move into together?" Misato blurted out.
Asuka and Shinji stared at her blankly. "What." they both said at the same time.
'I immediately regret this,' Misato thought.
"Well, I mean not live together exactly." Misato said defensively. "But... the apartment next to Asuka's is unoccupied. Shinji could move in there. Have the pilots live with Asuka. Shinji can help when Asuka's stuck here. That way Ria doesn't have to deal with them alone."
"Misato, you do remember the last time I lived with Asuka I ended up having to leave the country, right?!" Shinji shouted.
"Actually," Asuka spoke up, "that's not a terrible idea."
Well that was a shock.
"You're joking, right?" Shinji said.
Asuka turned towards him. "Shinji, you realize we were both on the verge of a psychological breakdown when you left? We are both far far better off then we were thirteen years ago. Neither of us could handle them alone. Living next to each other, it wouldn't be so bad."
"Really?" Shinji said, shocked.
Asuka nodded "Really."
"...Okay," he said reluctantly. "I'll help."
Misato sighed with relief. She wanted what was best for her kids, both sets of them. It ate at her to do this but she didn't have a choice.
"You know neither of them is going to be happy about this," Asuka commented.
"Oh, I know," Misato replied. "Believe me, I know."
/
Sleep wasn't easy for Shinji Ikari anymore. In truth he isn't sure it ever was. But over the past few years, his nightmares had grown worse and worse. To the point where barely a week went by when he didn't have at least a couple of them. Waking up covered in cold sweat, visions of Third Impact or his fight with Bardiel filling his head. It didn't take a psychiatrist, though he'd seen more than one, to tell him it was guilt.
Guilt over his failures, guilt over the could have beens, the people he could have saved if he was braver. And guilt over a sentence he would regret until his dying breath.
He knew it was useless, what's done was done, what he had created was healing itself, slowly, very slowly, but it could never be completely undone. It would be forever his secret to bear.
Strangely, he hadn't dreamed of any of that tonight. When he woke up in the employee cafe he found himself thinking of Kaworu.
Kaworu, the last angel, and his friend. He had spent years trying to push Kaworu out of his thoughts. Why would he dream of him now?
Shinji pulled himself out of the chair he had been sleeping in and went to a nearby counter to fix himself some coffee. He pushed the little pod into the machine and pressed a button. Soon the not entirely unpleasant smell of artificial coffee filled the room.
Ria walked in, having changed out of her damaged clothing into what must have been a spare she had stored here. Her eyes were hidden behind a large pair of wire rimmed aviator sunglasses, but even still her exhaustion was obvious.
"How much sleep did you get?" he asked.
"Three," Ria replied wearily. "No, three and a half hours. You?"
"Four."
"Lucky."
Ria grabbed a bottle of soda out of a vending machine.
"So mom just texted me a few minutes ago, apparently she told the Pilots about you being my dad," Ria said.
Oh, that could not have been a fun conversation. Chairs were probably thrown at the least.
"So should we move?" Shinji asked half jokingly. "I mean, Asuka knows we're here."
Ria shrugged. "It will be fine, probably."
"So I hear your mom's upset with you not accepting the chance to go to college early," Shinji said, trying to talk about something normal.
Ria slumped in her chair. "So she told you? I don't understand why she cares so much. My grades are great, and I've said since I was twelve I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Be a writer. I even got a short story published for crying out loud! What more does she want?"
"She just wants to make sure you get the best possible education." Shinji didn't think of himself as much of a father, but he knew he should at least try to support Asuka on this.
"All this would do would mean I go to college sooner. Doesn't mean I'll get into a better one." Ria sighed. "I'm happy where I am. College means I have considerably less time with my friends. I have a plan, I should be able to stick to my plan."
He couldn't really fault her.
"You should have a chance at a normal life," Shinji agreed. "Your mother and I certainly didn't."
Ria laughed. "You call this normal? I haven't had a chance at a normal life since I was born, I just want the enjoy what I have."
At sixteen he and Asuka were struggling to stay alive as famine and civil war rocked Japan, and that was a marked improvement from how their lives had been a few years previous. Some considered Ria's generation ungrateful for what their parents had suffered, he was just glad she never had to go through a fraction of what he endured.
Just then Shinji's phone rang.
"Hello?" he answered.
"Hey." It was Asuka. "Are you busy?"
"Just talking with Ria."
"Okay, good, Misato and I have something we want to discuss with you in the conference room."
"Okay, um I'm not sure how much help I could be." He wasn't exactly part of WILLE so what could they need him for?
"We're trying to figure where our past selves are going to live for the time being," Asuka explained.
Oh, wonderful.
/
In stark contrast to the rest of the rest of the building, the outer hallways of WILLE had huge windows giving a clear view of Kyoto.
According to Misato, WILLE was a giant glass pyramid that reached the height of most skyscrapers, and from the windows, it was easy to see that now. The lower levels sloped outwards, covered in a purple glass shell.
Shinji was amazed by the contrast between Kyoto and Tokyo-3. Tokyo-3 was a purely artificial creation built in the course of a couple of years. It was more like what one would imagine a lunar colony would be like than any other city in Japan. Kyoto by contrast was an old city. While many of the buildings surrounding WILLE were steel and glass giants, in the distance he spotted the top of the pagoda of the Tō-ji Buddhist temple, and numerous other buildings that existed since the Shogunate.
Shinji was alone in the hallway, save for a guard in the distance. Asuka was sulking, for lack of a better term. After finding out about Ria's parentage, Asuka went on a blistering rant against her future self, which only earned snark from her, after that she went to the makeshift hospital room Shinji had woken up in and slammed the door behind her.
Shinji considered the idea of him, well his future self, being a father. He honestly hadn't really given much thought to possibility before: He was fourteen after all, and it's not like he'd even come close to having a girlfriend before. And with Asuka no less, that was a shock. She was pretty, and her personality did have its charms, some of the time. But he couldn't picture Asuka, any Asuka being willing to go that far with him.
Ria's last name was Soryu, that meant her parents never married. What sort of parent was his other self? Was he a decent one? Or had he even been there for her at all. Did she hate him and her civil behavior was just a mask?
"Hello, Shinji," Ria said suddenly.
Ikari screamed in surprise and nearly slammed his head against the glass. He stumbled backwards.
"Oh! Um, sorry about that," she said sympathetically.
Shinji turned to face her. Seeing her now, the family resemblance was hard to miss. They had the same chin for starters.
"Hi, uh Ria. How's it going?" Shinji said, awkwardly trying find words.
"Well my parents were called to a meeting about something so I thought, 'Hey, why not see what their tiny counterparts are up to?'" she replied.
Shinji froze, the surreality of the situation leaving him unable to speak.
"You okay?" she asked.
"I-I'm, fine," he said nervously. "Sorry."
"No no, don't apologize," she said reassuringly. "All things considered you're handling it well. I mean if the reverse had happened and WILLE had ended up in your time, I would be terrified. Well admittedly there would be Angels and SEELE, and grandpa too now that I think. I well...you know what I mean."
Ria buried her head in her hand, cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
"Look," she went on, "this is awkward for both of us. I'm trying to make it less awkward, because we're probably going to be seeing each other a lot for the next few months and we should at least try to be friends, you read me?"
"I...yeah, that makes sense," he replied.
She was earnest, awkward but earnest.
"I have an idea, why don't I show the Museum on the lower floor. Give you a tour of the place?" Ria suggested.
"WILLE has a museum?"
"Of course," she nodded. "Until about fifteen hours ago it was probably the most publicly known part of WILLE. I give tours on the weekends sometimes."
"Sure that sounds... interesting," Shinji replied.
"Wonderful, I'll grab Asuka." Ria started walking away.
"I'd wouldn't if I were you." Shinji spoke up "She's still rather angry with your mother, and your father, and Misato and me, and... well, pretty much everyone really."
Ria smirked "Yeah, let's give her time to calm down."
/
"We need jumper cables," Maya said calmly in between her fourth and fifth coffee.
"What?" Ristuko replied, more than a little confused by the statement.
"The only way we're moving those things anytime soon is if we have the Pilots move them. That means we either need to rebuild the umbilical cables or build a temporary power supply to attach to them. All things considered, the umbilical cables would be far easier."
The tent was empty save for the two of them. Ritsuko took a long drag from her cigarette. Having the Pilots actually control their Evas again, even briefly, would make the Japanese government very unhappy. The JSSDF may have been replaced in the years since Third Impact, but a lot of generals still remembered the fight against Unit-02. Officially the Japanese Government apologized for being misled by SEELE. Unofficially, she knew quite a few people never forgave Sub-Commander Soryu for what happened.
Two active Evangelions would make the military extremely nervous, and probably a few cultists way too happy. Still, it would be the best opiton.
"I have the plans for the umbilical cables on file," Ritsuko said. "Having two constructed should only take us a few weeks. Though we're going to need a lot of power, and a temporary site to store them until the modifications to the Vault are complete."
At least they were making progress.
A worker burst into the tent, his breath fast and hard.
"Someone tried to plant a bomb on Unit-01!" he exclaimed.
/
"What do we know?" Misato asked.
She knew this was not going to be easy. She knew people would react poorly, but she had hoped it would not escalate to this level.
There had already been a bombing attempt. An incredibly unsucessful one thankfully.
"Suspect is a teenager, maybe seventeen, male. Japanese according to eyewitnesses." Makoto Hyuga rattled off. "Fled the scene before police could detain him. No one got a really good look at him."
"And the bomb itself?" Asuka asked.
"It was small, too small to even scratch the armor on Unit-01. Wouldn't have worked either, the trigger was wired wrong," Hyuga stated.
Well at least this was done by an incompetent.
"Have Captain Suzuhara send two additional squads to the site immediately," Misato ordered. "And tell the police this is now their top priority. And not one word of it to the press."
Hyuga bowed and left the room.
"It probably was just an idiot thinking he could make a statement," Asuka commented.
Misato nodded. "Agreed. We've had far worse threats over the years. I just want to make sure it's just an idiot."
"Of course."
"Let's not tell this to Shinji or the Pilots for now," Misato added.
"No need to scare them," Asuka agreed.
A few minutes later, Shinji entered.
"So, how did past Asuka take the news?"
"I think I'm now deaf in my right ear," Asuka joked.
"Well, that's better than I expected," Shinji replied.
"Near as I can tell, they were taken during the fight with the Tenth Angel. Pretty sure neither of us had even thought about that by that point."
Tenth Angel? So that was before he got sucked into the Dirac, before Toji got injured, before things took a sharp nose dive from unpleasant to just outright awful. So his counterpart wasn't quite so gripped by despair.
"So we're talking about our past selves' living arrangements?" Shinji asked.
"Yeah," Misato replied. "I don't want to keep them here longer than I have to, it's unfair to them and it's unfair to the people who work here."
"Not to be rude, but I kind of figured they would just stay with you, Misato." Shinji said "After all you do have the most experience with them, with us."
Misato shook her head "Honestly, I'm not up to it. I'm pushing fifty years old, I'm probably going to be working sixty-seventy hour weeks until we send them home, and Pen-Pen's still recovering from surgery."
"Plus dealing with us sober would probably be a lot harder," Asuka added.
"That too," Misato agreed.
And frankly they both deserved a better guardian than her. Misato counted herself lucky that Asuka and Shinji had turned out to be largely functional adults.
"So who do we have them stay with?" Shinji asked.
There weren't a lot of options admittedly. Most people she just simply didn't trust enough, whoever was going to take care of the two had to be sensitive to their various emotional and psychological issues and keep the media off them. Of those she trusted, most weren't up to it for one reason or another. Maya didn't have the space, Toji had three kids already, they would probably starve if she sent them to live with Ritsuko. That left her only two options.
"No," Asuka said before Misato could say a word. "No no no no no! I'm not taking care of those two! Ria would probably get into a fight with my past self before the end of the week. And I really don't know how to deal with Shinji."
"They'll have therapists," Misato said defensively. That was one thing they would certainly fix this time around.
"And I'll probably undo all the good they do and cause my past self to descend into a pile of misery," Shinji said. "I had a million problems at that age and living with me will just make all of them worse."
Both of them looked like they would rather jump in a lake of boiling acid while completely naked than deal with their past selves.
"I don't have anyone else," Misato said. "If I did I would have asked them first. You two have the financial means to support them easily and understand their issues better than anyone else."
"I have my job here, you can't expect me to leave them at home with my daughter!" Asuka said angrily.
"And I can't handle one of them by myself, let alone both of them," Shinji pleaded.
They weren't going to budge. And she didn't really have a good argument. Misato reached for something, anything that might convince them.
"What if you two move into together?" Misato blurted out.
Asuka and Shinji stared at her blankly. "What." they both said at the same time.
'I immediately regret this,' Misato thought.
"Well, I mean not live together exactly." Misato said defensively. "But... the apartment next to Asuka's is unoccupied. Shinji could move in there. Have the pilots live with Asuka. Shinji can help when Asuka's stuck here. That way Ria doesn't have to deal with them alone."
"Misato, you do remember the last time I lived with Asuka I ended up having to leave the country, right?!" Shinji shouted.
"Actually," Asuka spoke up, "that's not a terrible idea."
Well that was a shock.
"You're joking, right?" Shinji said.
Asuka turned towards him. "Shinji, you realize we were both on the verge of a psychological breakdown when you left? We are both far far better off then we were thirteen years ago. Neither of us could handle them alone. Living next to each other, it wouldn't be so bad."
"Really?" Shinji said, shocked.
Asuka nodded "Really."
"...Okay," he said reluctantly. "I'll help."
Misato sighed with relief. She wanted what was best for her kids, both sets of them. It ate at her to do this but she didn't have a choice.
"You know neither of them is going to be happy about this," Asuka commented.
"Oh, I know," Misato replied. "Believe me, I know."
/
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Chapter 3 Part 2.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Part 2
"Here we are," Ria announced as the elevator reached it's destination. "The National Museum of Angelic History."
The first thing Shinji noticed where the three statues in the center of the room: Replicas, easily twice as tall as he was, of Rei's, Asuka's, and his Evangelions. All done in such detail they looked like someone had shrunk the real things.
The rest of the room was dominated with displays, models, and figures depicting one or several of the Evas fighting against Angels, some that he recognized, some he didn't. Four doors lead out of the room, one on each wall. One to the Lobby, one to a section labeled "GEHIRN, SEELE, and The Dead Sea Scrolls", another labeled "The War Against the Angels", and the last "Third Impact, Instrumentality, and Recovery."
"Misato wanted to make sure humanity never forgot what SEELE did, how close we came to extinction, or what you, mom, and Rei suffered through," Ria explained.
Shinji felt conflicted, at once honored by Misato's gesture and deeply embarrassed that his own cowardice was on display.
"What's this room?" he asked.
"The Hall of Valor. Well, at least that's what Misato called it., Ria explained. "These are the fights they felt should be remembered. Ones where 'victory wasn't bitter'. Misato's words."
One caught his attention. It was him, fighting an Angel he didn't recognize, inside of Central Dogma.
The Angel was bigger than Unit-01. It's body was black and white with spots of orange, it's face a toothless skull mask, a huge red Core in it's chest, and massive boney shoulders. Unit-01, his other self, was grappling it, forcing it away from the Command Center. Tiny featureless figurines cluttered behind Unit-01. The Angel had come close, extremely close to wiping out everyone in NERV.
There was a bronze plaque in front of it: Shinji Ikari vs Zeruel in Central Dogma. With a date listed several months after they 'left'.
"Zeruel?" Shinji questioned. Since when did the Angels have names?
"SEELE gave the Angels names. After most of their records were leaked the names became commonly used." Ria walked up beside him. "This one I remember Misato debated including for months.This fight had a rough ending from what I understand. But she said that this moment right here, was the bravest thing she ever saw."
"How did it get all the way inside of NERV?"
"The Angel was powerful, one of the strongest of them. And for very important reasons, you were nowhere near NERV when it happened. The Angel punched through the defenses like they were nothing. Asuka fell, Rei fell, neither managed to even inflict a scratch on the thing. All the while you're rushing towards NERV. The Angel broke through into the Geofront and breached the Command Center. Misato said she thought it was staring directly at her. The Angel was moments away from wiping everyone when you burst in, saving everyone with a hard punch to the Angle's jaw. Then you forced it into one of the launch bays and launched it out of NERV."
Shinji stared at her, unsure of what to say.
"Misato tells the story better," she added.
That didn't sound like him. It sounded brave and heroic. An Angel that could defeat Rei, and even Asuka that easily? He would probably run at the first sight of such a monster.
"But I'm a coward," Shinji said quietly. "That couldn't have been me."
"Huh?" Ria looked at him with a confused expression.
"I'm not that brave. I don't see how I could ever be that brave," he said.
Ria sighed, "You give yourself too little credit. Everyone who ever piloted an Eva was brave."
"But I tried to run away!" Shinji exclaimed. "I tried to refuse, I..I.."
"You had every right to do both," Ria said sympathetically. "Mom was trained to pilot for years. So was Rei. You? You were just a kid that was blackmailed into piloting, forced into career you never asked for. Having to fight for your life along with everyone else's. You weren't a coward for wanting to run away, you're brave because you stayed despite that fear."
"I...Thank you," was all Shinji could muster.
"Just don't be so hard on yourself," Ria urged. "You're a better person than you think."
The door to the elevator opened with a chime.
A man walked out.
It was...his father, only he had shaved his beard, and he wasn't wearing glasses.
Shinji stepped back. It wasn't his father and all, it was him, his older self.
His counterpart froze, for a moment they stared at each other silently. He looked taller and stronger than he expected. There was a gauntness to him though, and his eyes were filled with exhaustion.
Looking at him was uncomfortable. There was something unreal about his appearance. Looking at him was like looking at his own corpse.
"Well... this is bizarre," his older self said bluntly.
"Yes, it is," Shinji agreed. "I...I... I honestly don't know what else to say."
"Same here," his other self agreed.
Well, at least they were both horribly uncomfortable.
"Wait, wait," his older self said, "I came here to tell you that Misato's figured out where you're going to live for the time being."
"Are we staying with her?" he asked.
"Not exactly."
/
"I don't see what the problem is here, General," the Prime Minister said, his old and weathered face filling up the screen on her desk.
"The problem," Misato declared, "is you're blatantly overstepping your authority. The Imperial Palace agreed Evangelions and anything related to NERV were the domain of WILLE and WILLE alone. That's not just an agreement, that's the law."
"That was ten years ago," the Minister replied. "And the Empress does not share her father's faith in your organization. Not to mention that agreement was made when we thought the only surviving examples were in pieces, not two fully functioning models. Those two alone could overthrow the government before tonight if they choose."
"And you could use it to conquer half of Asia," Misato spat. The prime minister and his whole party were imperialist war hawks of the worst variety. She couldn't afford them anywhere near Unit-01 and 02.
"I'm not talking about that," the Minister said, calm and cool. "But they would be most beneficial for Defense in these uncertain times. The world is scared, General. Some think the Evas' return signals the end of the world."
"If we're attacked, WILLE will defend Japan," Misato said firmly. "But until then you will not lay a hand on either the Evas or the Pilots."
"Your resistance is needless, General. And annoying."
"Good." Misato slammed the end call button.
The Prime Minister's face disappeared from the screen.
She knew he didn't have the authority to do anything. The public would never stand for it. WILLE was built on the good reputation of the Pilots: The public adored them. No matter how much the two wished they didn't.
Even still, the fact he was bold enough to call was concerning. Hopefully, that would be the end of it.
/
Ria, Shinji, and Asuka sat alone in the conference room, Shinji's future self having been called away by one of the security guards for some matter. Asuka had calmed down but she was still irate, occasionally glaring at Shinji angrily.
"Maybe they're just setting us up in our own apartment?" Shinji suggested.
"You're fourteen," Ria pointed out.
"Oh, right."
His other self had said Misato wasn't up to it, so who else could they be living with. Toji? He could not see Toji agreeing to live with Asuka.
Asuka's face suddenly twisted in surprise, and anger.
"They named you after Wonder Girl!" she hissed.
Ria turned towards her. "Pardon?"
"They named you after Wonder girl!" she repeatedly angrily. "One letter difference, sounds pretty much identical. Stupid Shinji named his own kid after some girl he liked."
"Actually there's a good deal of difference between Ria and Donna Troy."
Asuka glared daggers at her.
"And the name was actually my mother's suggestion," Ria said. "Actually she wanted to just outright name me Rei, but my dad convinced her not to."
That shocked both of them.
"What?" Asuka said. "That can't be possible. There's no way I would name any kid I had after her of all people."
"I don't appreciate being called a liar." Ria sounded more than a bit annoyed.
"But why would I ever do that?!"
"I don't know!" Ria said angrily. "Maybe it turned out you rushed to judgment and you warmed up to her over time. I wasn't there."
Asuka said nothing more, though she went to a corner on the opposite side of the room.
A few minutes later, Ria's mother entered the room. Two small stacks of clothing in her arms, one clearly meant for Shinji, another for Asuka.
"Good news and bad news," the older Asuka announced. "Good news is we've found a place for you two to stay for the time being, and you'll be out of here in a few hours, once we have one final check up and a battery of tests."
"That's fast," Shinji said. I mean they had been there less than 24 hours. He thought he would be here a few weeks at least.
"You're both healthy. Misato wants you both to at least find some sense of normalcy, and the faster that happens, the better. Plus, WILLE isn't NERV. We don't really have the means to take care of you two here."
"So what's the bad news?" the younger Soryu asked dryly.
"You have to live with me," her older self said.
Shinji expected as much, Misato would want them with someone familiar. And while he hadn't interacted much with this Asuka, she seemed nice. Not as energetic as Misato had been, but kind and understanding.
Asuka rolled her eyes at her older counterpart but otherwise seemed to accept it.
Ria looked like she something she swallowed went down the wrong pipe.
"Well, this is going to be fun to explain to Okito," She muttered.
"Okay, technically you guys have the option to live with either me or Shinji," Asuka explained. "But they're moving him next door, and that's gonna take some time. So for now you're stuck with me."
Her younger self snorted. "Like I would want to deal with creepy old man Shinji."'
Ria glared at her.
"No one asked for the snark, Second Child," the older redhead replied.
"Wait, Dad's moving in next to us?" Ria said,looking utterly shocked.
"For the time being, yeah."
"And you're okay with it?"
"Yeah," Asuka nodded. "Neither of us have issues working together as friends."
The younger Asuka laughed.
Her older self ignored her. "You're okay with it, right?"
"Yeah," Ria said. "Yeahyeahyeah, it's fine. I'm just surprised, that's all."
Asuka and him working together as friends. Young Shinji mulled over the idea. It seemed at once very possible and million miles away.
/
There's at least one maybe two more parts to this chapter.
"Here we are," Ria announced as the elevator reached it's destination. "The National Museum of Angelic History."
The first thing Shinji noticed where the three statues in the center of the room: Replicas, easily twice as tall as he was, of Rei's, Asuka's, and his Evangelions. All done in such detail they looked like someone had shrunk the real things.
The rest of the room was dominated with displays, models, and figures depicting one or several of the Evas fighting against Angels, some that he recognized, some he didn't. Four doors lead out of the room, one on each wall. One to the Lobby, one to a section labeled "GEHIRN, SEELE, and The Dead Sea Scrolls", another labeled "The War Against the Angels", and the last "Third Impact, Instrumentality, and Recovery."
"Misato wanted to make sure humanity never forgot what SEELE did, how close we came to extinction, or what you, mom, and Rei suffered through," Ria explained.
Shinji felt conflicted, at once honored by Misato's gesture and deeply embarrassed that his own cowardice was on display.
"What's this room?" he asked.
"The Hall of Valor. Well, at least that's what Misato called it., Ria explained. "These are the fights they felt should be remembered. Ones where 'victory wasn't bitter'. Misato's words."
One caught his attention. It was him, fighting an Angel he didn't recognize, inside of Central Dogma.
The Angel was bigger than Unit-01. It's body was black and white with spots of orange, it's face a toothless skull mask, a huge red Core in it's chest, and massive boney shoulders. Unit-01, his other self, was grappling it, forcing it away from the Command Center. Tiny featureless figurines cluttered behind Unit-01. The Angel had come close, extremely close to wiping out everyone in NERV.
There was a bronze plaque in front of it: Shinji Ikari vs Zeruel in Central Dogma. With a date listed several months after they 'left'.
"Zeruel?" Shinji questioned. Since when did the Angels have names?
"SEELE gave the Angels names. After most of their records were leaked the names became commonly used." Ria walked up beside him. "This one I remember Misato debated including for months.This fight had a rough ending from what I understand. But she said that this moment right here, was the bravest thing she ever saw."
"How did it get all the way inside of NERV?"
"The Angel was powerful, one of the strongest of them. And for very important reasons, you were nowhere near NERV when it happened. The Angel punched through the defenses like they were nothing. Asuka fell, Rei fell, neither managed to even inflict a scratch on the thing. All the while you're rushing towards NERV. The Angel broke through into the Geofront and breached the Command Center. Misato said she thought it was staring directly at her. The Angel was moments away from wiping everyone when you burst in, saving everyone with a hard punch to the Angle's jaw. Then you forced it into one of the launch bays and launched it out of NERV."
Shinji stared at her, unsure of what to say.
"Misato tells the story better," she added.
That didn't sound like him. It sounded brave and heroic. An Angel that could defeat Rei, and even Asuka that easily? He would probably run at the first sight of such a monster.
"But I'm a coward," Shinji said quietly. "That couldn't have been me."
"Huh?" Ria looked at him with a confused expression.
"I'm not that brave. I don't see how I could ever be that brave," he said.
Ria sighed, "You give yourself too little credit. Everyone who ever piloted an Eva was brave."
"But I tried to run away!" Shinji exclaimed. "I tried to refuse, I..I.."
"You had every right to do both," Ria said sympathetically. "Mom was trained to pilot for years. So was Rei. You? You were just a kid that was blackmailed into piloting, forced into career you never asked for. Having to fight for your life along with everyone else's. You weren't a coward for wanting to run away, you're brave because you stayed despite that fear."
"I...Thank you," was all Shinji could muster.
"Just don't be so hard on yourself," Ria urged. "You're a better person than you think."
The door to the elevator opened with a chime.
A man walked out.
It was...his father, only he had shaved his beard, and he wasn't wearing glasses.
Shinji stepped back. It wasn't his father and all, it was him, his older self.
His counterpart froze, for a moment they stared at each other silently. He looked taller and stronger than he expected. There was a gauntness to him though, and his eyes were filled with exhaustion.
Looking at him was uncomfortable. There was something unreal about his appearance. Looking at him was like looking at his own corpse.
"Well... this is bizarre," his older self said bluntly.
"Yes, it is," Shinji agreed. "I...I... I honestly don't know what else to say."
"Same here," his other self agreed.
Well, at least they were both horribly uncomfortable.
"Wait, wait," his older self said, "I came here to tell you that Misato's figured out where you're going to live for the time being."
"Are we staying with her?" he asked.
"Not exactly."
/
"I don't see what the problem is here, General," the Prime Minister said, his old and weathered face filling up the screen on her desk.
"The problem," Misato declared, "is you're blatantly overstepping your authority. The Imperial Palace agreed Evangelions and anything related to NERV were the domain of WILLE and WILLE alone. That's not just an agreement, that's the law."
"That was ten years ago," the Minister replied. "And the Empress does not share her father's faith in your organization. Not to mention that agreement was made when we thought the only surviving examples were in pieces, not two fully functioning models. Those two alone could overthrow the government before tonight if they choose."
"And you could use it to conquer half of Asia," Misato spat. The prime minister and his whole party were imperialist war hawks of the worst variety. She couldn't afford them anywhere near Unit-01 and 02.
"I'm not talking about that," the Minister said, calm and cool. "But they would be most beneficial for Defense in these uncertain times. The world is scared, General. Some think the Evas' return signals the end of the world."
"If we're attacked, WILLE will defend Japan," Misato said firmly. "But until then you will not lay a hand on either the Evas or the Pilots."
"Your resistance is needless, General. And annoying."
"Good." Misato slammed the end call button.
The Prime Minister's face disappeared from the screen.
She knew he didn't have the authority to do anything. The public would never stand for it. WILLE was built on the good reputation of the Pilots: The public adored them. No matter how much the two wished they didn't.
Even still, the fact he was bold enough to call was concerning. Hopefully, that would be the end of it.
/
Ria, Shinji, and Asuka sat alone in the conference room, Shinji's future self having been called away by one of the security guards for some matter. Asuka had calmed down but she was still irate, occasionally glaring at Shinji angrily.
"Maybe they're just setting us up in our own apartment?" Shinji suggested.
"You're fourteen," Ria pointed out.
"Oh, right."
His other self had said Misato wasn't up to it, so who else could they be living with. Toji? He could not see Toji agreeing to live with Asuka.
Asuka's face suddenly twisted in surprise, and anger.
"They named you after Wonder Girl!" she hissed.
Ria turned towards her. "Pardon?"
"They named you after Wonder girl!" she repeatedly angrily. "One letter difference, sounds pretty much identical. Stupid Shinji named his own kid after some girl he liked."
"Actually there's a good deal of difference between Ria and Donna Troy."
Asuka glared daggers at her.
"And the name was actually my mother's suggestion," Ria said. "Actually she wanted to just outright name me Rei, but my dad convinced her not to."
That shocked both of them.
"What?" Asuka said. "That can't be possible. There's no way I would name any kid I had after her of all people."
"I don't appreciate being called a liar." Ria sounded more than a bit annoyed.
"But why would I ever do that?!"
"I don't know!" Ria said angrily. "Maybe it turned out you rushed to judgment and you warmed up to her over time. I wasn't there."
Asuka said nothing more, though she went to a corner on the opposite side of the room.
A few minutes later, Ria's mother entered the room. Two small stacks of clothing in her arms, one clearly meant for Shinji, another for Asuka.
"Good news and bad news," the older Asuka announced. "Good news is we've found a place for you two to stay for the time being, and you'll be out of here in a few hours, once we have one final check up and a battery of tests."
"That's fast," Shinji said. I mean they had been there less than 24 hours. He thought he would be here a few weeks at least.
"You're both healthy. Misato wants you both to at least find some sense of normalcy, and the faster that happens, the better. Plus, WILLE isn't NERV. We don't really have the means to take care of you two here."
"So what's the bad news?" the younger Soryu asked dryly.
"You have to live with me," her older self said.
Shinji expected as much, Misato would want them with someone familiar. And while he hadn't interacted much with this Asuka, she seemed nice. Not as energetic as Misato had been, but kind and understanding.
Asuka rolled her eyes at her older counterpart but otherwise seemed to accept it.
Ria looked like she something she swallowed went down the wrong pipe.
"Well, this is going to be fun to explain to Okito," She muttered.
"Okay, technically you guys have the option to live with either me or Shinji," Asuka explained. "But they're moving him next door, and that's gonna take some time. So for now you're stuck with me."
Her younger self snorted. "Like I would want to deal with creepy old man Shinji."'
Ria glared at her.
"No one asked for the snark, Second Child," the older redhead replied.
"Wait, Dad's moving in next to us?" Ria said,looking utterly shocked.
"For the time being, yeah."
"And you're okay with it?"
"Yeah," Asuka nodded. "Neither of us have issues working together as friends."
The younger Asuka laughed.
Her older self ignored her. "You're okay with it, right?"
"Yeah," Ria said. "Yeahyeahyeah, it's fine. I'm just surprised, that's all."
Asuka and him working together as friends. Young Shinji mulled over the idea. It seemed at once very possible and million miles away.
/
There's at least one maybe two more parts to this chapter.
Chapter 3 Part 3
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chapter 3 Part 3 (Of 3)
The drive to Sub-Director Soryu's apartment had been utterly bizarre. Asuka sat in the back seat next to Ria as Shinji rode up front with her future self. The ride was largely quiet, Shinji keeping his attention focused on the various buildings and streets they passed. Ria was buried in her weird blocky phone for the most part, occasionally making casual conversation with her or Shinji.
Asuka decided she wasn't sure what to make of her other self's daughter. She wasn't timid like Shinji, she was perhaps overly polite, but she wasn't intimidated by Asuka. In fact, she seemed to find Asuka annoying. Between that how much she hung out with both Shinjis, and the girl's rather weird sense of fashion, Asuka found herself increasingly concerned.
Her future self had grown soft and weird.
"And here we are," Ria said as her mother opened the door to their apartment.
The first thing that struck Asuka was the size the apartment: The front area alone was easily twice the size of Misato's place. And yet it didn't feel like a rich person's apartment. Sure, it had more stuff than Misato's, her future self had gone for more much European furniture, and the kitchen table had actual chairs for example, but it didn't seem like her future self was showing off. Indeed the place seemed downright...homey.
To the right of the short entrance hallway was the kitchen, ahead of it was a living room with huge window opening up to a decent sized patio looking out to the city below. One wall of the living room was dominated by a massive entrainment system with a oversized couch in front of it.
Two hallways led out from the living room, one leading to a single room which was more than likely the master bedroom. The other was far larger and had a half dozen doors leading off of it.
"So here are the ground rules," the older Asuka explained as she set her purse down on the kitchen table. "Misato doesn't want you leaving here until the day after tomorrow. By that point things should have calmed down. That also means we're going to have to refuse any visitors except those we can trust."
"So the Suzuharas are fine?" Ria asked, having flopped onto the couch.
"Yeah, though you're going to have to tell Okito and Kodama that it'll be a while before they can stay the night."
"You let boys stay over?" the younger Asuka questioned. She would have thought her older self was smarter than to let something like that happen.
"Just Okito and he's just a friend," Ria said defensively.
"Uh huh. I thought you said you didn't have a boyfriend," Asuka teased.
"I don't," Ria said dryily.
"Anyways," her older self said trying to get things back on track. "I'll figure out a chore chart for later but for now just try keep things neat, also don't go poking around in personal stuff. Particularly Ria's. As for sleeping arrangements... the guest room has two separate beds but I imagine you two would prefer separate rooms. Which means one of you is going to have to sleep on a couch in the study."
"I have enough space in my room for a futon," Ria added helpfully.
"Thanks, but I'll just take the couch," Shinji offered.
"You sure?" the older Asuka asked. "You don't have to."
"It's fine," he replied.
The older Asuka smiled. "Okay then, bathroom is the second door on the left down the right hallway. Guest room is the first room on the right and the study is the last door at the end. Don't change the TV without asking. Breakfast is generally around seven. And just try to be civil."
The younger Soryu turned towards Ria. "Care to give me a tour of your room?"
"Uh, sure?" Ria said.
Ria's room was large, but yet it still felt cramped. Mainly because it was utterly filled with stuff. Shelves upon shelves filled with all manner of books lined the walls. A stack of various books sat in an unstable looking tower next to the bed. Next to the window was a large black desk with a very futuristic looking computer on it. Various papers laid scattered about. The closet was open, filled with all manner of fancy looking shirts and pants, along with four berets, all neatly organized. No dresses though, and all her shoes were flat.
"Sorry for the mess," Ria said apologetically. "Wasn't expecting visitors."
"Don't apologize," Asuka said as she stared at her outfits. "You have...interesting taste. I take it you're big on... pretty much every genre of fiction there is? And non-fiction as well?"
The books were arranged it what seemed like a pattern but one that really made sense only to Ria. Books of French history stacked with science fiction. Manga piled with mythology and philosophy.
"I like what I like," Ria said with a shrug.
Asuka turned towards Ria. "Speaking of which. What's with you and this Okito fellow?"
Ria groaned with annoyance. "Nothing. He's just a friend."
"Really?" Asuka teased.
"Really," Ria insisted. "He has a girlfriend, her name is Aki."
"Doesn't change anything," Asuka said. "In my experience, teenage boys can't just be friends with girls. It's not how they work."
Ria buried her face in her hands. "Let me be blunt, I have a girlfriend as well."
"Oh," Asuka said, more surprised than anything. "You mean like an actual girlfriend or that weirdo pseudo-romance thing Japanese schoolgirls do?"
"Actual girlfriend," Ria said evenly. "I've had a few. Guys hold zero interest for me."
Well, that explained why her other self was okay with letting this Okito fellow stay over.
Asuka suddenly felt incredibly awkward, she hadn't meant to press Ria that far.
"Do you have an issue with that?" Ria asked.
"Nonononono," Asuka said rapidly. "I'm perfectly fine with that. I know Japan's rather conservative about that but I've always considered myself a very progressive person. I just thought that...well, you know."
"You thought I was either pulling an incredibly obvious fast one on my mom or I was being a complete idiot?" Ria said with a smirk.
"Yes, exactly," Asuka replied eagerly. "I was just concerned for your well being, that's all."
Yes, Asuka, play it off as budding maternal affection.
"Thanks, but really. My parents are Pilots, the Soryu name is well known to say the least. I've been getting unwanted attention all my life. I know how to deal with it." The look in Ria's eye gave Asuka the distinct impression she knew exactly how Ria dealt with perverts.
Pride filled Asuka for a moment. This girl wasn't proving too much of an Ikari after all.
"So what's her name?" she asked.
"Mari Kirishima," Ria said warmly, a soft smile on her face. "We've been going out for a month now."
/
Shinji and Misato sat in her office, a kettle of tea and some cups sitting between them on the desk.
"Thirsty?" Misato asked as she grabbed the kettle. Shinji nodded.
The tea was actually surprisingly good, hot and refreshing.
"Thank you," Shinji said.
"Sorry to unload the pilots on you two," Misato said, her voice filled with regret. "I just, I wasn't a fit guardian then and I don't think I'm one now."
"Don't be too hard on yourself," Shinji urged. "You were a far better parent to us than our own."
Misato laughed. "A bit of damning with faint praise there, don't you think?"
She had a point there.
Misato was perfectly correct. He had numerous memories of her, particularly one during Third Impact, that he would really rather forget. But she had tried, she'd tried more than his own mother and father had. As for Asuka...
Shinji had met Mr. Langely, his wife, and Asuka's half-sister once, about five years ago at a concert hall in New Hamburg. The wife and daughter were pleasant people, but Langely himself...The man made Gendo Ikari look like an upstanding citizen and model father.
"So I have to ask," Misato said, "you are planning on staying in Japan when this is all over, right?"
Admittedly he had been fighting the urge to flee the country since the moment he saw Unit-01 but all things considered…
"Yes," Shinji admitted. "Asuka and I actually getting along well and Ria surprisingly wants an actual relationship with me. Though I can't understand why."
"You're her father," Misato insisted. "Of course she wants a relationship with you."
"I was barely there for her. I abandoned her like…"
Misato grabbed him by the wrist, her expression hard and serious. "No, you didn't. You are not your father. You were more involved in your daughter's life than he ever was in yours. You ran, yes, but no one, not me, not Asuka, not even Ria, blames you for it."
Surprisingly he actually believed her. Ria had been far more warm and open the past day then she had been, if she had any issues with him she appeared to be over them.
"You're right," Shinji said. "Sorry."
"It's fine," Misato said reassuringly. "You're still seeing a therapist right?"
"Have an appointment on Tuesday."
"Good." Misato nodded. "So is it okay if I talk about something less serious?"
"Sure."
"We're going to need to send the pilots to school soon. Ritsuko's best estimates say it's going to be years before we can send them back, and that's the best case scenario. They need normalcy, an education, actual lives. Problem is, the only decent school I can think of sending them to is, well…"
"Ria's school." Shinji finished. "Misato, do you hate my daughter?"
She laughed. "No no, but going to school with teenage versions of your parents? Pretty sure I've had nightmares like that."
Shinji imagined himself going to same school as Gendo or Yui...yeah that would not be fun.
"She'll understand," Shinji insisted. "Probably."
"I'll make it up to her," Misato insisted. "Maybe we can go on a vacation when things have calmed down, just the four of us."
"That sounds…" Shinji began.
The door burst open and an aide rushed in. "Dr. Akagi needs you down in the Vault, ma'am!"
"Sorry, Shinji." Misato said as she rushed to the door. "Break's over."
/
Shinji woke to the sound of a rumbling alarm clock. He sat up on the couch, for a brief moment he worried about synchro tests, and the possibility of an Angel attack. Then he realized he didn't have to worry about any of those things. There was no pressure, not expectation. The world would not die if he slept in today.
It left him confused, but happy.
He walked down the hallway, in the early morning hours the apartment was peaceful, quiet. The only sounds where the distance rumbling of traffic,his own steps...
"Gottverdammt Blue shell!"
And that.
Shinji walked into the living room to find Ria and her mother sitting on the couch, both very intensely focused on a video game they were both playing. Asuka was standing behind the couch, staring with some interest at the game.
"How's it going?" Shinji asked.
"I'm playing winner," the younger Asuka declared.
"Oookay?" Shinji replied, his question unanswered. "Should I make breakfast?"
"No no," Ria said, her eyes glued to her game. "I'll get to it in a bit."
A knock came at the door.
"I'll get it," Shinji said.
He opened the door to find two teenagers staring at him in shock.
They took a step back in surprise.
"Wow, you're a lot shorter as a kid," the boy said.
He was a tall lanky fellow with thin arms and long brown hair.
The girl elbowed him in annoyance.
"My apologies, Mr.Ikari," the young woman said with a bow. "I'm Kodama Suzhara, this is Okito. We're friends with your...I mean with Ria."
"Oh, you're Toji and Hikari's kids," Shinji replied. Finding out those two had had kids was probably one of the least surprising aspects of this whole event.
Kodama was the spitting image of her mother, only she had a ponytail instead of two pigtails.
"Okito? Kodama?" Ria said as she walked over. "What are you guys doing here so early?"
The two grabbed her in a big hug.
"Came over to see you of course!" Okito said. "Though you might be locked up in WILLE forever."
"I'm fine," Ria said. "Please tell me you're not skipping school today? You know your mom yells at me when you do that."
"No we're just skipping Homeroom," Kodama explained. "Besides, you're not dressed for school either."
"I have to help these two get settled in today," Ria explained as she pointed towards Shinji and Asuka.
"So I take it these two are your friends?" Asuka said warily as she approached.
Ria nodded. "Asuka, this is Okito and Kodama. Okito and Kodama, this is uh, Asuka Langley Soryu."
"Charmed," Asuka replied. "How is Hikari doing?"
Kodama bowed. "Pleased to meet you. Our mother is well. She says hi and hopes you'll stop by our place sometime."
"I'd like that," Asuka said.
"And dad says not to worry," Okito added. "No one is blaming you for nearly crushing us."
Asuka glared at him in silence.
Okito turned his attention to Ria. "So, listen, bit of bad news. We're going to have to cancel Thursday."
"What?" Ria replied, her voice filled with immense disappointment "But your dad said it was fine."
"Something came up." Kodama said.
"Mom's older sister, Kodama's namesake, washed ashore near Nagasaki last night. Alive," Okito added. "First one in the family who's washed up in years. Mom's down there now to sort out the paper work. Mom wants Thursday for a family reunion dinner. Sorry."
Ria sighed, "Yeah, that does take priority over movie night. Hope it goes well."
"Hey, maybe you can invite Mari instead? Make it a date night?" Kodama suggested.
"That's a thought." Ria blushed slightly at the idea.
Okito checked his watch. "Well, listen, we kind of just came here to tell you that. We have to go."
He bowed towards Shinji. "It was nice to meet you, again, Mr. Ikari. See you around."
/
The Evangelions were visible from almost every part of Kyoto proper, a biomechanical god looming over the city. For most the sight was starting to lose its novelty. People still had to get to work after all.
There were still people giving it plenty of attention, however. Men and women from the Church of Lilith, praying to it in their crisp white robes. Schoolchildren for who Angels and Evas had been little more than something they read about in history class gawked at the sight.
One figure in particular though stared at the sight in quiet rage. She was American, with flowing blonde hair and a simple cross on her black choker necklace. By all appearances she was just a young woman reading her newspaper on a bench. However her attention never left the Evas, particularly Unit-01.
Her phone rang. The woman gritted her teeth when she saw the number.
"A bomb?!" she said, not even bothering with a greeting. "You planted a bomb on a fucking Evangelion?! Are you brain dead?"
"You wanted something done that night," the young man on the other side of the line complained. "I wasn't exactly ready to commit an act of terrorism!"
"Well, then you should have said something," the woman hissed. "I needed you to actually accomplish something, not a meaningless gesture."
"I tried to warn you." The boy was irritated. "You weren't listening because you were screaming your head off."
"Those things are a threat to each and every one one of us. Anyone with half a brain would have been terrified!"
"Yes, blatantly insulting me is a good way to win my loyalty," he snarked back.
"I'm doing this for you," she declared. "I'm doing it for all of us."
"Right, sure. So what's our next step?"
The woman was silent for a long while.
"I don't know," she admitted fearfully. "I'll think of a plan. I'll call you back when I have something."
She hung up the phone and sat there, a few minutes later an older woman appeared.
"Maria!" her mother said with a hug.
"Mother, it's good to see you," Maria replied, her eyes fixed on Unit-01.
/
Yes Ria's in a relationship with the daughter of the woman from Girlfriend of Steel. Why? Because I can.
The drive to Sub-Director Soryu's apartment had been utterly bizarre. Asuka sat in the back seat next to Ria as Shinji rode up front with her future self. The ride was largely quiet, Shinji keeping his attention focused on the various buildings and streets they passed. Ria was buried in her weird blocky phone for the most part, occasionally making casual conversation with her or Shinji.
Asuka decided she wasn't sure what to make of her other self's daughter. She wasn't timid like Shinji, she was perhaps overly polite, but she wasn't intimidated by Asuka. In fact, she seemed to find Asuka annoying. Between that how much she hung out with both Shinjis, and the girl's rather weird sense of fashion, Asuka found herself increasingly concerned.
Her future self had grown soft and weird.
"And here we are," Ria said as her mother opened the door to their apartment.
The first thing that struck Asuka was the size the apartment: The front area alone was easily twice the size of Misato's place. And yet it didn't feel like a rich person's apartment. Sure, it had more stuff than Misato's, her future self had gone for more much European furniture, and the kitchen table had actual chairs for example, but it didn't seem like her future self was showing off. Indeed the place seemed downright...homey.
To the right of the short entrance hallway was the kitchen, ahead of it was a living room with huge window opening up to a decent sized patio looking out to the city below. One wall of the living room was dominated by a massive entrainment system with a oversized couch in front of it.
Two hallways led out from the living room, one leading to a single room which was more than likely the master bedroom. The other was far larger and had a half dozen doors leading off of it.
"So here are the ground rules," the older Asuka explained as she set her purse down on the kitchen table. "Misato doesn't want you leaving here until the day after tomorrow. By that point things should have calmed down. That also means we're going to have to refuse any visitors except those we can trust."
"So the Suzuharas are fine?" Ria asked, having flopped onto the couch.
"Yeah, though you're going to have to tell Okito and Kodama that it'll be a while before they can stay the night."
"You let boys stay over?" the younger Asuka questioned. She would have thought her older self was smarter than to let something like that happen.
"Just Okito and he's just a friend," Ria said defensively.
"Uh huh. I thought you said you didn't have a boyfriend," Asuka teased.
"I don't," Ria said dryily.
"Anyways," her older self said trying to get things back on track. "I'll figure out a chore chart for later but for now just try keep things neat, also don't go poking around in personal stuff. Particularly Ria's. As for sleeping arrangements... the guest room has two separate beds but I imagine you two would prefer separate rooms. Which means one of you is going to have to sleep on a couch in the study."
"I have enough space in my room for a futon," Ria added helpfully.
"Thanks, but I'll just take the couch," Shinji offered.
"You sure?" the older Asuka asked. "You don't have to."
"It's fine," he replied.
The older Asuka smiled. "Okay then, bathroom is the second door on the left down the right hallway. Guest room is the first room on the right and the study is the last door at the end. Don't change the TV without asking. Breakfast is generally around seven. And just try to be civil."
The younger Soryu turned towards Ria. "Care to give me a tour of your room?"
"Uh, sure?" Ria said.
Ria's room was large, but yet it still felt cramped. Mainly because it was utterly filled with stuff. Shelves upon shelves filled with all manner of books lined the walls. A stack of various books sat in an unstable looking tower next to the bed. Next to the window was a large black desk with a very futuristic looking computer on it. Various papers laid scattered about. The closet was open, filled with all manner of fancy looking shirts and pants, along with four berets, all neatly organized. No dresses though, and all her shoes were flat.
"Sorry for the mess," Ria said apologetically. "Wasn't expecting visitors."
"Don't apologize," Asuka said as she stared at her outfits. "You have...interesting taste. I take it you're big on... pretty much every genre of fiction there is? And non-fiction as well?"
The books were arranged it what seemed like a pattern but one that really made sense only to Ria. Books of French history stacked with science fiction. Manga piled with mythology and philosophy.
"I like what I like," Ria said with a shrug.
Asuka turned towards Ria. "Speaking of which. What's with you and this Okito fellow?"
Ria groaned with annoyance. "Nothing. He's just a friend."
"Really?" Asuka teased.
"Really," Ria insisted. "He has a girlfriend, her name is Aki."
"Doesn't change anything," Asuka said. "In my experience, teenage boys can't just be friends with girls. It's not how they work."
Ria buried her face in her hands. "Let me be blunt, I have a girlfriend as well."
"Oh," Asuka said, more surprised than anything. "You mean like an actual girlfriend or that weirdo pseudo-romance thing Japanese schoolgirls do?"
"Actual girlfriend," Ria said evenly. "I've had a few. Guys hold zero interest for me."
Well, that explained why her other self was okay with letting this Okito fellow stay over.
Asuka suddenly felt incredibly awkward, she hadn't meant to press Ria that far.
"Do you have an issue with that?" Ria asked.
"Nonononono," Asuka said rapidly. "I'm perfectly fine with that. I know Japan's rather conservative about that but I've always considered myself a very progressive person. I just thought that...well, you know."
"You thought I was either pulling an incredibly obvious fast one on my mom or I was being a complete idiot?" Ria said with a smirk.
"Yes, exactly," Asuka replied eagerly. "I was just concerned for your well being, that's all."
Yes, Asuka, play it off as budding maternal affection.
"Thanks, but really. My parents are Pilots, the Soryu name is well known to say the least. I've been getting unwanted attention all my life. I know how to deal with it." The look in Ria's eye gave Asuka the distinct impression she knew exactly how Ria dealt with perverts.
Pride filled Asuka for a moment. This girl wasn't proving too much of an Ikari after all.
"So what's her name?" she asked.
"Mari Kirishima," Ria said warmly, a soft smile on her face. "We've been going out for a month now."
/
Shinji and Misato sat in her office, a kettle of tea and some cups sitting between them on the desk.
"Thirsty?" Misato asked as she grabbed the kettle. Shinji nodded.
The tea was actually surprisingly good, hot and refreshing.
"Thank you," Shinji said.
"Sorry to unload the pilots on you two," Misato said, her voice filled with regret. "I just, I wasn't a fit guardian then and I don't think I'm one now."
"Don't be too hard on yourself," Shinji urged. "You were a far better parent to us than our own."
Misato laughed. "A bit of damning with faint praise there, don't you think?"
She had a point there.
Misato was perfectly correct. He had numerous memories of her, particularly one during Third Impact, that he would really rather forget. But she had tried, she'd tried more than his own mother and father had. As for Asuka...
Shinji had met Mr. Langely, his wife, and Asuka's half-sister once, about five years ago at a concert hall in New Hamburg. The wife and daughter were pleasant people, but Langely himself...The man made Gendo Ikari look like an upstanding citizen and model father.
"So I have to ask," Misato said, "you are planning on staying in Japan when this is all over, right?"
Admittedly he had been fighting the urge to flee the country since the moment he saw Unit-01 but all things considered…
"Yes," Shinji admitted. "Asuka and I actually getting along well and Ria surprisingly wants an actual relationship with me. Though I can't understand why."
"You're her father," Misato insisted. "Of course she wants a relationship with you."
"I was barely there for her. I abandoned her like…"
Misato grabbed him by the wrist, her expression hard and serious. "No, you didn't. You are not your father. You were more involved in your daughter's life than he ever was in yours. You ran, yes, but no one, not me, not Asuka, not even Ria, blames you for it."
Surprisingly he actually believed her. Ria had been far more warm and open the past day then she had been, if she had any issues with him she appeared to be over them.
"You're right," Shinji said. "Sorry."
"It's fine," Misato said reassuringly. "You're still seeing a therapist right?"
"Have an appointment on Tuesday."
"Good." Misato nodded. "So is it okay if I talk about something less serious?"
"Sure."
"We're going to need to send the pilots to school soon. Ritsuko's best estimates say it's going to be years before we can send them back, and that's the best case scenario. They need normalcy, an education, actual lives. Problem is, the only decent school I can think of sending them to is, well…"
"Ria's school." Shinji finished. "Misato, do you hate my daughter?"
She laughed. "No no, but going to school with teenage versions of your parents? Pretty sure I've had nightmares like that."
Shinji imagined himself going to same school as Gendo or Yui...yeah that would not be fun.
"She'll understand," Shinji insisted. "Probably."
"I'll make it up to her," Misato insisted. "Maybe we can go on a vacation when things have calmed down, just the four of us."
"That sounds…" Shinji began.
The door burst open and an aide rushed in. "Dr. Akagi needs you down in the Vault, ma'am!"
"Sorry, Shinji." Misato said as she rushed to the door. "Break's over."
/
Shinji woke to the sound of a rumbling alarm clock. He sat up on the couch, for a brief moment he worried about synchro tests, and the possibility of an Angel attack. Then he realized he didn't have to worry about any of those things. There was no pressure, not expectation. The world would not die if he slept in today.
It left him confused, but happy.
He walked down the hallway, in the early morning hours the apartment was peaceful, quiet. The only sounds where the distance rumbling of traffic,his own steps...
"Gottverdammt Blue shell!"
And that.
Shinji walked into the living room to find Ria and her mother sitting on the couch, both very intensely focused on a video game they were both playing. Asuka was standing behind the couch, staring with some interest at the game.
"How's it going?" Shinji asked.
"I'm playing winner," the younger Asuka declared.
"Oookay?" Shinji replied, his question unanswered. "Should I make breakfast?"
"No no," Ria said, her eyes glued to her game. "I'll get to it in a bit."
A knock came at the door.
"I'll get it," Shinji said.
He opened the door to find two teenagers staring at him in shock.
They took a step back in surprise.
"Wow, you're a lot shorter as a kid," the boy said.
He was a tall lanky fellow with thin arms and long brown hair.
The girl elbowed him in annoyance.
"My apologies, Mr.Ikari," the young woman said with a bow. "I'm Kodama Suzhara, this is Okito. We're friends with your...I mean with Ria."
"Oh, you're Toji and Hikari's kids," Shinji replied. Finding out those two had had kids was probably one of the least surprising aspects of this whole event.
Kodama was the spitting image of her mother, only she had a ponytail instead of two pigtails.
"Okito? Kodama?" Ria said as she walked over. "What are you guys doing here so early?"
The two grabbed her in a big hug.
"Came over to see you of course!" Okito said. "Though you might be locked up in WILLE forever."
"I'm fine," Ria said. "Please tell me you're not skipping school today? You know your mom yells at me when you do that."
"No we're just skipping Homeroom," Kodama explained. "Besides, you're not dressed for school either."
"I have to help these two get settled in today," Ria explained as she pointed towards Shinji and Asuka.
"So I take it these two are your friends?" Asuka said warily as she approached.
Ria nodded. "Asuka, this is Okito and Kodama. Okito and Kodama, this is uh, Asuka Langley Soryu."
"Charmed," Asuka replied. "How is Hikari doing?"
Kodama bowed. "Pleased to meet you. Our mother is well. She says hi and hopes you'll stop by our place sometime."
"I'd like that," Asuka said.
"And dad says not to worry," Okito added. "No one is blaming you for nearly crushing us."
Asuka glared at him in silence.
Okito turned his attention to Ria. "So, listen, bit of bad news. We're going to have to cancel Thursday."
"What?" Ria replied, her voice filled with immense disappointment "But your dad said it was fine."
"Something came up." Kodama said.
"Mom's older sister, Kodama's namesake, washed ashore near Nagasaki last night. Alive," Okito added. "First one in the family who's washed up in years. Mom's down there now to sort out the paper work. Mom wants Thursday for a family reunion dinner. Sorry."
Ria sighed, "Yeah, that does take priority over movie night. Hope it goes well."
"Hey, maybe you can invite Mari instead? Make it a date night?" Kodama suggested.
"That's a thought." Ria blushed slightly at the idea.
Okito checked his watch. "Well, listen, we kind of just came here to tell you that. We have to go."
He bowed towards Shinji. "It was nice to meet you, again, Mr. Ikari. See you around."
/
The Evangelions were visible from almost every part of Kyoto proper, a biomechanical god looming over the city. For most the sight was starting to lose its novelty. People still had to get to work after all.
There were still people giving it plenty of attention, however. Men and women from the Church of Lilith, praying to it in their crisp white robes. Schoolchildren for who Angels and Evas had been little more than something they read about in history class gawked at the sight.
One figure in particular though stared at the sight in quiet rage. She was American, with flowing blonde hair and a simple cross on her black choker necklace. By all appearances she was just a young woman reading her newspaper on a bench. However her attention never left the Evas, particularly Unit-01.
Her phone rang. The woman gritted her teeth when she saw the number.
"A bomb?!" she said, not even bothering with a greeting. "You planted a bomb on a fucking Evangelion?! Are you brain dead?"
"You wanted something done that night," the young man on the other side of the line complained. "I wasn't exactly ready to commit an act of terrorism!"
"Well, then you should have said something," the woman hissed. "I needed you to actually accomplish something, not a meaningless gesture."
"I tried to warn you." The boy was irritated. "You weren't listening because you were screaming your head off."
"Those things are a threat to each and every one one of us. Anyone with half a brain would have been terrified!"
"Yes, blatantly insulting me is a good way to win my loyalty," he snarked back.
"I'm doing this for you," she declared. "I'm doing it for all of us."
"Right, sure. So what's our next step?"
The woman was silent for a long while.
"I don't know," she admitted fearfully. "I'll think of a plan. I'll call you back when I have something."
She hung up the phone and sat there, a few minutes later an older woman appeared.
"Maria!" her mother said with a hug.
"Mother, it's good to see you," Maria replied, her eyes fixed on Unit-01.
/
Yes Ria's in a relationship with the daughter of the woman from Girlfriend of Steel. Why? Because I can.
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Chapter 4 Part 1
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chapter 4: Old Wounds, New Scars.
The Vault. Misato hated coming here. It was frigid, misty, and stank of things she would rather forget. The doors to the place were designed to withstand several direct N2 strikes, if worse came to worst. WILLE could operate down here for five years completely cut off from the outside. That was not the Vault's primary function, though. The Vault was a storage facility. It stretched far past the glass Pyramid above, each item within the Vault was sealed in it's own separate section, behind locks less than a half dozen people in WILLE had the authorization to open.
There were ten storage sections in the Vault. One of them was empty, originally intended for part of Lilith's head, any trace of the Second Angel had dissolved shortly before the Vault was completed. Another contained what remained of the Mass Produced Evangelion series, all of which had turned to stone. Seven contained the remains of Angels: Sachiel, Shamshel, Zeruel, Ramiel, Matarael, Bardiel, and Leliel. Most were little more than scraps. All of them had long since had anything left of their S2 organs removed, either by SEELE or Unit-01. They were kept here because they were too dangerous to simply leave to rot, even after all these years.
The final one contained what remained of Unit-02, the last true Evangelion. It was a pathetic sight really: All that remained of it was the torso, head, and part of its right arm, all locked in a giant metal coffin. Most of the armor had been torn away, the ribs were exposed, as were the eyes, three giant orange eyes staring blankly at the steel wall in front it. Its few remaining organs sprawled out on floor. Its arm was sealed inside a special protective cover to stop any further rot that was festering in what remained of the hand.
A few years previous there had been some thought given to possibly restoring Unit-02 to working order. Nothing serious but the Korean Union had been making very jingoistic noises, and an Eva would serve as a strong deterrent for any aggression. Alas, the idea died within days of suggestion. Either Kyoko's soul had departed from the Eva or had become so dormant that nothing short of a miracle would reawaken her.
Unit-02 was dead, its remains kept here as a private memorial to its service.
"We need to move it to the empty unit," Ristuko said, largely bundled up against the cold of the Vault.
"That wall," she added, pointing to the left wall of the containment unit, "is the only place we can place an entrance big enough for Unit-01 and -02 to use without this project taking years."
"What about offsite storage?" Misato asked.
Ristuko shook her head. "Unless you want to relocate to Osaka, there's nowhere nearby usable that we have access to. Even a temporary storage place would barely have enough space for all the equipment we need to keep them functional."
"How long with it take to make the needed renovations?" Misato said evenly.
"Three months, two if we're lucky," Ristuko explained. "The sooner we can get these things out of sight, the better."
Misato stared at the scientist. "Why do you seem nervous?"
"I don't know," Ristuko admitted. "I just, I hate to use this term, having them here gives me a bad feeling. Plus seeing them reminds me of those times, of who I was back then. I don't like that person nor do I wish to remember her."
"I hear ya," Misato replied. "Every time I see the Evas, or the Pilots for that matter. I find myself thinking about things I haven't thought about in years, good and bad. Mostly bad unfortunately. Worst part is I can't even drink to forget anymore."
/
"Well, look who's back," Kodama Suzuhara said as Ria walked into homeroom.
Ria flopped ungracefully into her seat, sighing and groaning as she pulled out her laptop.
"I take it things are not well on the homefront?" Okito commented.
"They're fine," Ria groaned. "Well, okay, they're not. Asuka's fustrated by the future and seems to think acting like a five year old is going to help matters. And Shinji can't figure out if he's happy or terrified. But it's just...weird."
"Well, yeah," Okito said. "You're living with copies of your parents, that's textbook weird."
Then Mari Kirishima walked in, taking Ria's attention away from the conversation.
Mari was a shy girl with short red hair and brown eyes. Unmistakably cute but not exceptionally pretty. A bookish nerd who probably would have been eaten alive by the school for dating a girl in any other situation but, well, the only child of the two famous Eva Pilots taking an interest in you had some very distinct advantages.
"Got your text," Mari said quietly. "A movie and a trip to the bookstore sounds wonderful."
Mari playfully brushed her hand on Ria's arm, causing Ria to break out in a wide grin.
"Wonderful," she said.
"How are you though?" Mari asked with concern. "I mean, with the Evangelions and all. I know the Army has already contacted my mom."
"Well, I've gotten maybe ten hours of sleep but other than that... wait, what?" Ria said in confusion. "Why would they call her?"
Mari's mother had been in the JSSDF, part of some Anti-Evangelion unit if the rumor was be believed. Naturally Kodama and Okito had joked for a week straight about Ria dating the enemy when she first got together with her.
"I don't know, she wouldn't explain…" Mari paused as she noticed several students were staring at Ria.
"Can I help you?" Ria said with annoyance.
"What happened?" one of the girls asked.
"What happened where?" Ria asked.
"Come on," Koji, a senior, whined, his foot on Ria's desk. "Biggest story of the year and you were front row. We want details."
Ria pushed the foot off, causing Koji to nearly fall to the floor.
"You know I can't tell you." Ria sighed with frustration. Being hit up for top secret info was nothing new for her.
"You tell those two brats."
Kodama rose from her seat, prepared to deck Koji in his stupid fat ugly face.
"Get down," Okito whispered, annoyed and frustrated.
"Yeah, 'cause they can keep a secret. And I trust them. I don't even know you, Koji."
Koji grumbled but the bell put an end to the argument, causing the group to disperse.
Later, between classes Mari approached Kodama and Okito.
"Sooo... am I in the circle?" she asked unexpectedly.
Okito stared at her like she just announced she was made of asparagus.
"Huh?"
"Ria's circle of friends," Mari explained nervously. "I know you two are important to her and after what happened with Shimizu…"
"Shimizu was a straight girl who was hoping for a famous last name." Okito explained "We have no issue with you."
"Hurt her, though, and we will end you," Kodama added.
"Right...right," Mari said nervously, backing away a bit from Kodama.
"Oh, by the way," Okito said right before they entered their next class. "Tell Ria we're taking lunch up on the roof."
****
"So why are we on the roof?" Ria said, hiding in the shade over an overhang with Kodama. "It's hot out."
"For the view, of course," Okito replied, gesturing to the two giants in the distance.
Mari had broken out her pencils and was quietly sketching the two Evangelions. Her sketch book was well worn and filled with dozens of drawings.
"Seen it," Ria replied. "Heck, we were nearly crushed by it."
"I know, I know, but I feel like a part of history has suddenly come alive," Okito explained "Maybe it's different for you. Our dad never told us anything of those years."
"There's a reason for that," Ria noted. "They weren't fun."
"History isn't fun," Okito said. "Wars, famine, political upheavals, Second and Third Impact... They aren't fun, they're thrilling. This is a glimpse of that time, a glimpse we would never be able to experience otherwise. Without all the horrible aspects..."
"Hopefully," Ria said.
"Hopefully?" Okito and the others questioned.
Ria's expression suddenly turned incredibly sullen.
"This wasn't a natural event," Ria stated. "Something intelligent did this, and they had a reason. What if this isn't the end of their plan?"
/
Asuka found herself overloaded with something she had hardly any of until the past few days: Free time. She had painful, agonizing, mind numbing amounts of it on her hands. WILLE only had scarce need of her, there was no school yet, and with Ria at school the only people she had to interact with were her future self, who was largely too busy try to do her job from home, and Shinji.
With nothing better to do, Asuka turned to the internet. Curiosity quickly got the better of her, and she found herself searching her own past.
Rapidly, Asuka became angry. Sure, her past self was considered a hero, but Stupid Shinji had far more of the glory. People even worshipped him, for crying out loud!
On the surface it was easy to understand, Shinji had multiple solo kills, even Wonder Girl had a few solos, though the final one cost her her Eva so that didn't exactly count. What did her future self have? None of her kills were solo. Even the one where it was just Unit-02 had been with Shinji's presence. The rest of it was assists at best. Assists!
She had been trained practically since birth to pilot and had the best Eva and she didn't even have a single solo kill to her name. Shinji's shadow made everything she did seem so small and her past self seemed content with it. Content with a mediocre career as second in command to Misato, content with the only relationship she ever had with a man being fucking Shinji of all people. She could have had her pick of any man and she decided to become a freaking spinster.
She could have been so much more and yet she seemed okay with wallowing in her tiny amount of fame and prestige.
The front door opened. Ria was home.
Asuka poked her head out of the guest room.
"So how was school?" her older self asked.
"Fine, a few annoying kids tried to pump me for details but that wasn't gonna happen," Ria said. "I might be going out later. Okito and Mari want to do a bit of shopping."
"Well, okay, but I might call you back early. Shinji's coming over in a few hours with the movers and he might need help."
Having to live near two Shinjis, that was going to be a nightmare.
"Okay," Ria said. "So, how's Grandma doing?"
Grandma, who the heck was she calling grandma?
"You know she hates it when you call her that," her other self replied dryily. "But things are finally starting to calm down."
She was referring to Misato wasn't she?
A rage boiled inside Asuka suddenly. She slammed the door to the guest room.
Grandmother?! She called Misato grandmother?! How, why would her other self allow her daughter to treat that drunken pervert as a grandmother?! Did she care so little for Mama?
Asuka paced around the room, fists clinched.
The door opened. Ria walked in, still dressed in her dark blue school uniform.
"Go away," Asuka said flatly.
"There a reason you're trying to break the door?" Ria asked sardonically.
Asuka glared at her. "You called Misato grandmother."
"Oookay?" she replied, staring at Asuka in confusion.
"She is not my mother!" Asuka shouted, her rage growing further and further.
"I know that," Ria sighed. "But I don't exactly know any of my actual grandparents. Both my grandmothers are gone. Same with Gendo Ikari and as far as my mother's concerned, Mr. Langley might as well be dead. Misato's been there my whole life. Heck, she helped my parents take care of me for the first few years because surprise, seventeen year olds don't make the best parents. So yeah, Misato's the closest thing I have to a grandparent."
She needed Misato's help to raise a kid? She needed Misato's help?
"Your mother is pathetic," Asuka said bluntly.
Ria's expression narrowed, any smile removed from her face. "What did you say?"
Asuka didn't hold back, her anger and frustration coming out.
"Your mother is pathetic! She barely won any fights and she's stuck as second in command of a glorified museum! The only man she ever got was stupid Shinji, and she couldn't even hold onto him! I am ashamed I could ever turn out like her!"
Ria stepped closer, until there was barely an inch between them. Ria glared down at Asuka, yet her expression was calm, and collected.
Asuka backed away.
"The heck are you doing?" she said angrily.
"You know what I think?" Ria said, her voice devoid of emotion. "I think you're more upset that my parents broke up than the fact they got together in the first place."
Asuka snorted. That was absurd.
"Are you kidding? There are so many better options out there. I don't care about Shinji in the slightest."
"Then why do you care what my mom did?" Ria said, slightly smirking. "I think you're just upset that you have to deal with your feelings towards Shinji far sooner than you expected."
"I don't have any feelings towards Shinji!" Asuka shouted.
"Bullshit."
"You don't know me!" Asuka declared. "Scheißkopf! You don't know anything about me!"
Ria pressed. "I know you far better than you think Du Dummkopf. I know you're only acting like a brat because you're scared. You're not upset about Misato, or the fights, not really. You're upset that the world knows how you really feel about the Third Child."
"Shut up!"
"You're mad that your future self actually managed to find happiness without needing constant validation."
"SHUT UP!"
"And you're scared that your shitty behavior might drive away Shinji before you ever get a chance with him."
"Shut!" Asuka's right arm shook with rage. "Up!"
Asuka launched her fist at Ria in a blind fury. The fist connected with Ria's left eye, sending the girl tumbling to the floor.
The Vault. Misato hated coming here. It was frigid, misty, and stank of things she would rather forget. The doors to the place were designed to withstand several direct N2 strikes, if worse came to worst. WILLE could operate down here for five years completely cut off from the outside. That was not the Vault's primary function, though. The Vault was a storage facility. It stretched far past the glass Pyramid above, each item within the Vault was sealed in it's own separate section, behind locks less than a half dozen people in WILLE had the authorization to open.
There were ten storage sections in the Vault. One of them was empty, originally intended for part of Lilith's head, any trace of the Second Angel had dissolved shortly before the Vault was completed. Another contained what remained of the Mass Produced Evangelion series, all of which had turned to stone. Seven contained the remains of Angels: Sachiel, Shamshel, Zeruel, Ramiel, Matarael, Bardiel, and Leliel. Most were little more than scraps. All of them had long since had anything left of their S2 organs removed, either by SEELE or Unit-01. They were kept here because they were too dangerous to simply leave to rot, even after all these years.
The final one contained what remained of Unit-02, the last true Evangelion. It was a pathetic sight really: All that remained of it was the torso, head, and part of its right arm, all locked in a giant metal coffin. Most of the armor had been torn away, the ribs were exposed, as were the eyes, three giant orange eyes staring blankly at the steel wall in front it. Its few remaining organs sprawled out on floor. Its arm was sealed inside a special protective cover to stop any further rot that was festering in what remained of the hand.
A few years previous there had been some thought given to possibly restoring Unit-02 to working order. Nothing serious but the Korean Union had been making very jingoistic noises, and an Eva would serve as a strong deterrent for any aggression. Alas, the idea died within days of suggestion. Either Kyoko's soul had departed from the Eva or had become so dormant that nothing short of a miracle would reawaken her.
Unit-02 was dead, its remains kept here as a private memorial to its service.
"We need to move it to the empty unit," Ristuko said, largely bundled up against the cold of the Vault.
"That wall," she added, pointing to the left wall of the containment unit, "is the only place we can place an entrance big enough for Unit-01 and -02 to use without this project taking years."
"What about offsite storage?" Misato asked.
Ristuko shook her head. "Unless you want to relocate to Osaka, there's nowhere nearby usable that we have access to. Even a temporary storage place would barely have enough space for all the equipment we need to keep them functional."
"How long with it take to make the needed renovations?" Misato said evenly.
"Three months, two if we're lucky," Ristuko explained. "The sooner we can get these things out of sight, the better."
Misato stared at the scientist. "Why do you seem nervous?"
"I don't know," Ristuko admitted. "I just, I hate to use this term, having them here gives me a bad feeling. Plus seeing them reminds me of those times, of who I was back then. I don't like that person nor do I wish to remember her."
"I hear ya," Misato replied. "Every time I see the Evas, or the Pilots for that matter. I find myself thinking about things I haven't thought about in years, good and bad. Mostly bad unfortunately. Worst part is I can't even drink to forget anymore."
/
"Well, look who's back," Kodama Suzuhara said as Ria walked into homeroom.
Ria flopped ungracefully into her seat, sighing and groaning as she pulled out her laptop.
"I take it things are not well on the homefront?" Okito commented.
"They're fine," Ria groaned. "Well, okay, they're not. Asuka's fustrated by the future and seems to think acting like a five year old is going to help matters. And Shinji can't figure out if he's happy or terrified. But it's just...weird."
"Well, yeah," Okito said. "You're living with copies of your parents, that's textbook weird."
Then Mari Kirishima walked in, taking Ria's attention away from the conversation.
Mari was a shy girl with short red hair and brown eyes. Unmistakably cute but not exceptionally pretty. A bookish nerd who probably would have been eaten alive by the school for dating a girl in any other situation but, well, the only child of the two famous Eva Pilots taking an interest in you had some very distinct advantages.
"Got your text," Mari said quietly. "A movie and a trip to the bookstore sounds wonderful."
Mari playfully brushed her hand on Ria's arm, causing Ria to break out in a wide grin.
"Wonderful," she said.
"How are you though?" Mari asked with concern. "I mean, with the Evangelions and all. I know the Army has already contacted my mom."
"Well, I've gotten maybe ten hours of sleep but other than that... wait, what?" Ria said in confusion. "Why would they call her?"
Mari's mother had been in the JSSDF, part of some Anti-Evangelion unit if the rumor was be believed. Naturally Kodama and Okito had joked for a week straight about Ria dating the enemy when she first got together with her.
"I don't know, she wouldn't explain…" Mari paused as she noticed several students were staring at Ria.
"Can I help you?" Ria said with annoyance.
"What happened?" one of the girls asked.
"What happened where?" Ria asked.
"Come on," Koji, a senior, whined, his foot on Ria's desk. "Biggest story of the year and you were front row. We want details."
Ria pushed the foot off, causing Koji to nearly fall to the floor.
"You know I can't tell you." Ria sighed with frustration. Being hit up for top secret info was nothing new for her.
"You tell those two brats."
Kodama rose from her seat, prepared to deck Koji in his stupid fat ugly face.
"Get down," Okito whispered, annoyed and frustrated.
"Yeah, 'cause they can keep a secret. And I trust them. I don't even know you, Koji."
Koji grumbled but the bell put an end to the argument, causing the group to disperse.
Later, between classes Mari approached Kodama and Okito.
"Sooo... am I in the circle?" she asked unexpectedly.
Okito stared at her like she just announced she was made of asparagus.
"Huh?"
"Ria's circle of friends," Mari explained nervously. "I know you two are important to her and after what happened with Shimizu…"
"Shimizu was a straight girl who was hoping for a famous last name." Okito explained "We have no issue with you."
"Hurt her, though, and we will end you," Kodama added.
"Right...right," Mari said nervously, backing away a bit from Kodama.
"Oh, by the way," Okito said right before they entered their next class. "Tell Ria we're taking lunch up on the roof."
****
"So why are we on the roof?" Ria said, hiding in the shade over an overhang with Kodama. "It's hot out."
"For the view, of course," Okito replied, gesturing to the two giants in the distance.
Mari had broken out her pencils and was quietly sketching the two Evangelions. Her sketch book was well worn and filled with dozens of drawings.
"Seen it," Ria replied. "Heck, we were nearly crushed by it."
"I know, I know, but I feel like a part of history has suddenly come alive," Okito explained "Maybe it's different for you. Our dad never told us anything of those years."
"There's a reason for that," Ria noted. "They weren't fun."
"History isn't fun," Okito said. "Wars, famine, political upheavals, Second and Third Impact... They aren't fun, they're thrilling. This is a glimpse of that time, a glimpse we would never be able to experience otherwise. Without all the horrible aspects..."
"Hopefully," Ria said.
"Hopefully?" Okito and the others questioned.
Ria's expression suddenly turned incredibly sullen.
"This wasn't a natural event," Ria stated. "Something intelligent did this, and they had a reason. What if this isn't the end of their plan?"
/
Asuka found herself overloaded with something she had hardly any of until the past few days: Free time. She had painful, agonizing, mind numbing amounts of it on her hands. WILLE only had scarce need of her, there was no school yet, and with Ria at school the only people she had to interact with were her future self, who was largely too busy try to do her job from home, and Shinji.
With nothing better to do, Asuka turned to the internet. Curiosity quickly got the better of her, and she found herself searching her own past.
Rapidly, Asuka became angry. Sure, her past self was considered a hero, but Stupid Shinji had far more of the glory. People even worshipped him, for crying out loud!
On the surface it was easy to understand, Shinji had multiple solo kills, even Wonder Girl had a few solos, though the final one cost her her Eva so that didn't exactly count. What did her future self have? None of her kills were solo. Even the one where it was just Unit-02 had been with Shinji's presence. The rest of it was assists at best. Assists!
She had been trained practically since birth to pilot and had the best Eva and she didn't even have a single solo kill to her name. Shinji's shadow made everything she did seem so small and her past self seemed content with it. Content with a mediocre career as second in command to Misato, content with the only relationship she ever had with a man being fucking Shinji of all people. She could have had her pick of any man and she decided to become a freaking spinster.
She could have been so much more and yet she seemed okay with wallowing in her tiny amount of fame and prestige.
The front door opened. Ria was home.
Asuka poked her head out of the guest room.
"So how was school?" her older self asked.
"Fine, a few annoying kids tried to pump me for details but that wasn't gonna happen," Ria said. "I might be going out later. Okito and Mari want to do a bit of shopping."
"Well, okay, but I might call you back early. Shinji's coming over in a few hours with the movers and he might need help."
Having to live near two Shinjis, that was going to be a nightmare.
"Okay," Ria said. "So, how's Grandma doing?"
Grandma, who the heck was she calling grandma?
"You know she hates it when you call her that," her other self replied dryily. "But things are finally starting to calm down."
She was referring to Misato wasn't she?
A rage boiled inside Asuka suddenly. She slammed the door to the guest room.
Grandmother?! She called Misato grandmother?! How, why would her other self allow her daughter to treat that drunken pervert as a grandmother?! Did she care so little for Mama?
Asuka paced around the room, fists clinched.
The door opened. Ria walked in, still dressed in her dark blue school uniform.
"Go away," Asuka said flatly.
"There a reason you're trying to break the door?" Ria asked sardonically.
Asuka glared at her. "You called Misato grandmother."
"Oookay?" she replied, staring at Asuka in confusion.
"She is not my mother!" Asuka shouted, her rage growing further and further.
"I know that," Ria sighed. "But I don't exactly know any of my actual grandparents. Both my grandmothers are gone. Same with Gendo Ikari and as far as my mother's concerned, Mr. Langley might as well be dead. Misato's been there my whole life. Heck, she helped my parents take care of me for the first few years because surprise, seventeen year olds don't make the best parents. So yeah, Misato's the closest thing I have to a grandparent."
She needed Misato's help to raise a kid? She needed Misato's help?
"Your mother is pathetic," Asuka said bluntly.
Ria's expression narrowed, any smile removed from her face. "What did you say?"
Asuka didn't hold back, her anger and frustration coming out.
"Your mother is pathetic! She barely won any fights and she's stuck as second in command of a glorified museum! The only man she ever got was stupid Shinji, and she couldn't even hold onto him! I am ashamed I could ever turn out like her!"
Ria stepped closer, until there was barely an inch between them. Ria glared down at Asuka, yet her expression was calm, and collected.
Asuka backed away.
"The heck are you doing?" she said angrily.
"You know what I think?" Ria said, her voice devoid of emotion. "I think you're more upset that my parents broke up than the fact they got together in the first place."
Asuka snorted. That was absurd.
"Are you kidding? There are so many better options out there. I don't care about Shinji in the slightest."
"Then why do you care what my mom did?" Ria said, slightly smirking. "I think you're just upset that you have to deal with your feelings towards Shinji far sooner than you expected."
"I don't have any feelings towards Shinji!" Asuka shouted.
"Bullshit."
"You don't know me!" Asuka declared. "Scheißkopf! You don't know anything about me!"
Ria pressed. "I know you far better than you think Du Dummkopf. I know you're only acting like a brat because you're scared. You're not upset about Misato, or the fights, not really. You're upset that the world knows how you really feel about the Third Child."
"Shut up!"
"You're mad that your future self actually managed to find happiness without needing constant validation."
"SHUT UP!"
"And you're scared that your shitty behavior might drive away Shinji before you ever get a chance with him."
"Shut!" Asuka's right arm shook with rage. "Up!"
Asuka launched her fist at Ria in a blind fury. The fist connected with Ria's left eye, sending the girl tumbling to the floor.
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Chapter 4 Part 2
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Part 2
For a brief moment, both of them were stunned. Ria was more surprised than anything. Asuka suddenly realized her future self was a few room away and punching her daughter in the face may not have in fact been the smartest move.
Ria got up and pressed Asuka against the wall with surprising force. For the briefest second Ria craned back her fist, feral anger in her eyes. But she stopped, lowering her arm.
To Asuka's shock, Ria laughed. Not loudly, barely more the chuckle, but she was still laughing. The heck did she find so funny?
"Thirteen years old and you're already smacking around your kid. Not the best of starts there, Asuka."
"I am not your mother." Asuka was defiant. "I don't know you and you don't know me."
What did this girl want from her anyways? An aunt or some sort of sister? Whatever she saw her as, whatever she wanted Asuka to be. She knew she could never be it.
"Don't give me that," Ria chided as she sat on the bed. "Until last weekend you and my mother were one and the same. I know enough about your history, what you and Shinji suffered through."
"Ohh really?" Asuka replied, curious and bemused. "And what did the favorite child suffer through?"
Ikari was the Commander's son, what could he have possibility suffered through that was even a fraction of what she endured?
"Well, he was there when his mother died. And not too long after that his father abandoned him to live with rather unfriendly relatives."
Wait...what? Shinji had been abandoned by her father, like she had. But Gendo Ikari was the Commander of NERV, why would he abandon a Pilot he knew he was going to need again?
"He has no friends, even his foster family doesn't like him. Then one day, a decade or so after his father abandons him, Shinji receives a letter from him, telling him to come to Tokyo-3. No attempt is made to explain himself or why he needs Shinji. Just 'come'."
He was alone, friendless. Deprived of his mother, abandoned by his father. He was...he is...
He is just like me. The thought startled Asuka. No, it couldn't be true. She wasn't a coward like him. She…
Ria didn't let her finish the thought. "And what happens when he gets there? Beyond narrowly surviving an Angel attack on foot and Misato's driving, he's told he has to pilot Unit-01 into combat against the angel. Something he had no training for, something he probably wasn't even aware existed until just then."
"Why didn't Rei pilot?!" Asuka blurted out.
That was just stupid, you don't let someone without any training fight an Angel, that's a sure way to end up with a dead Pilot and destroyed Evangelion.
Yet Shinji did pilot with no training, and he won. Asuka found herself puzzled.
"Oh, that was discussed as an option. Rei was of course so injured at this point that she was barely able to get out of her hospital bed. So Shinji was flat out told he could either get in the damn robot or send this young girl to her more than likely death. Now, sure they needed Shinji to pilot, they were out of options. But does any of what happened seem fair? Blackmailing a kid into fighting a life and death battle in a giant he can barely control?"
"...No, no it doesn't," Asuka admitted.
Would she have done better in his position? She found herself pondering, she was a good Pilot, a great Pilot. But that was just as much training as it was talent.
"The only difference between what my mother went through and what my father went through was she at least had training first. That's why they got together, I think, because no one else understood their pain half as well as they did."
He's just like me.
The door opened. Her future self was standing there.
Oh crap.
Her expression was calm, yet distinctly unhappy.
"Everything's fine now," Ria turned towards the younger Asuka. "It is fine now, right?"
Asuka nodded hesitantly. "Yeah, we're cool."
"Good." Ria walked towards the door. "Now excuse me, I have a bookstore to get to."
Ria left, leaving the two Asukas alone.
"I don't fight my daughter's battles. She doesn't need me to," the older one said in low, threatening German. "But if you ever hit her again I will make you regret it."
The younger one swallowed hard.
"Believe me, it won't happen again," the younger Soryu said defensively.
"Good."
"So was what she said true?" Asuka dared.
Her older self stared at her, not with anger or annoyance, just with regret.
"Shinji, your Shinji... he's an idiot and a pervert, but yeah what she said was true, every word of it."
"Oh," was all the younger Asuka could muster.
"Yeah," the older Soryu replied. "Look, I'm not asking you to date him or even like him. Just try to act like a decent human being to him, okay? The poor boy's been through enough as it is."
/
Shinji found himself sitting on an uncomfortable metal folding chair, barefoot with warm clear water up to his ankles. Surrounding him was nothing but clear blue skies and more water surrounding him. Though judging by the horizon he was either really tall or this was a really small world.
"Oh, great, this again," Shinji muttered. Bizarre memories from Instrumentality came rushing to the surface.
Shinji groaned in frustration. This wasn't a memory, nothing like this had ever occurred, it was just a dream, a dream of a dream, a figment of his imagination that had run rampant in the days after his great mistake.
The sound of splashing footsteps approached.
"I swear to God, if you start saying 'congratulations!', I will punch you in the throat."
"Hello, Shinji-sama." The voice was hauntingly familiar.
Shinji turned around to see Kaworu standing behind him, his face, his clothes, his grey hair all the same as they day he last saw him, the day he died.
"Why are you here?!" Shinji demanded.
Kaworu betrayed him, more to the point, he let Shinji kill him. Shinji had grieved, he had grieved hard. But he had moved on in the twenty years since. It was one of the few things he had been able to actually forgive himself for.
So why was he dreaming of him?
Kaworu moved his mouth to say something but no words came forth.
"I can't hear you," Shinji said.
Kaworu frowned, and tried to speak again. Still nothing.
Shinji's temper got the better of him.
"What do you want from me?!"
His words were swept away by a heavy wind and the world turned dark.
/
Shinji awoke with a start.
"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to disturb you." His younger self was standing in front of him, looking very uncomfortable.
Shinji looked around, he had fallen asleep on the couch. Not for very long though, the movers had only just finished unloading the entertainment system.
Still, this was odd. He had only sat down for a quick break.
"As...Ms.Soryu told me to see if you needed help," his younger self explained.
"Thanks, but the movers are taking care of it," Shinji replied.
His past self was hesitant, nervous and looked more like a rat caught in a trap then anything. He was probably just as uncomfortable as he felt.
This time travel stuff was headache inducing.
"How are you adjusting?" Present Shinji asked.
Going five years into the future would have been rough. But twenty years, dealing with a future version of yourself that's over twice your age and a daughter that's older than you? That had to be rough on the kid.
Did I just call myself kid? Shinji shook his head at the thought. Seeing his past self was making him feel like he was fifty instead of thirty four.
"W-well, I mean, I'm more than a little freaked out," the younger Ikari said hesitantly. "And it's scary how everyone views me but things worked out well in the end. Everyone's alive, you and Ms. Soryu aren't together but she speaks well of you and your daughter looks up to you. So it's a good future, right?"
The young Shinji paused for a moment, almost losing the nerve to say what said next.
"Is it wrong that I want to stay?"
That took Ikari by surprise. He had suspected his other self would want to stay but he honestly didn't think he would outright say it.
His younger self pressed on. "It's just, what if I screw up everything? What if I lose? What if things turn out worse? But at the same time, if we stay here, what happens to Misato and Rei? I don't want them to die, but I just...I don't…"
Shinji grabbed his younger self by the shoulders.
"I messed up, a lot," he admitted. "I have regrets that will haunt me until my dying day. But I understand completely. If had a chance to do everything over again, I'd be paralyzed with fear. What if I fixed things, but as a result Ria never existed?"
And now that nightmare was going to haunt him for a week. Good going, brain.
"What about everyone back in my time, though?"
"Maybe whatever transported you also created quantum duplicates or something and that's why we don't remember. Maybe a Shinji and Asuka from another universe took your place, maybe Rei saved everyone. You don't know. You can't know. Unless Doctor Akagi comes up with a way to travel to your time you're stuck her for the foreseeable future. You can't worry about them, you'd drive yourself mad worrying over something you had zero control of."
In truth they were probably stuck here, Asuka told him that everyone they consulted didn't have the slightest clue of how to accomplish such a task. Their timeline, their universe was likely dead, wiped out by one of the following Angels. But he didn't know that for certain and there was no way he was going to tell the pilots that.
"And I don't blame you for wanting to stay," he added.
Frankly, hearing his past self say that was a considerable morale boost. His guilt felt less heavy right now.
His younger self nodded, still uncertain, but his mood improved a bit.
Shinji walked over to a wooden box, he had been planning to save this for later but now felt the best time.
Inside the box was a large fiberglass case that was deep scarlet in color. The thing was taller than the younger Shinji and rather heavy.
He placed it gently on the ground in front of his younger self, who stared at in confusion.
"It's a cello." the younger Shinji stated. Though the shape of the case made that incredibly obvious.
"It's your cello," Shinji corrected. "I lost our original after Third impact but it's a close match."
"But I'm not very good."
"I have a ten years of European orchestra experience that says you're wrong," Shinji said with a smile.
His younger self grabbed the case, a similar, if not as wide smile appeared across his face.
/
Two weeks passed. The umbilical cables had been rebuilt, powered by a military nuclear power plant. Now today would be the day Shinji and Asuka would pilot their Evangelions again, for probably the last time for months to come.
Even after that, Shinji realized, it was just be another walk, this time to WILLE. Where the Evas would remain for years, possibly forever.
The thought was bit troubling for Shinji but he had learned to put those troubles aside. Today was the day things changed for him, for the better hopefully. In a few days he and Asuka would resume school.
With Ria admittedly, which was every kind of awkward. Poor Ria, it was bad enough having to live with past versions of her parents, having to go to school with them would be bordering on Hell.
Thankfully Asuka had quieted down, though everyone, Shinji included, had given her dirty looks for days after Ria's blackeye appeared. Asuka had been surprisingly apologetic though. Indeed Asuka's behavior since that day had been rather odd. She'd been downright civil to Shinji, though she had barely said more than a few words to him, largely keeping to herself in the guest room.
Shinji pushed a button on his wrist, causing the plug suit to seal around him.
It would be a few more minutes before they called him, after that it was just a short drive and..
"You better be decent in there!" Asuka's voice called from the door.
"I am, I am," Shinji said quickly.
Asuka barged in, fully dressed in her red plugsuit. But her normal confident demeanour was gone, she seemed almost nervous.
She sat down on the metal bench, not quite next to him but close.
"There's some things you should know about me," Asuka said nervously.
What brought this on?
"I...I, when I was...Verdammt, das ist hart!"
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Shinji said.
Asuka liked to brag, constantly, but this felt like it was something personal.
"No, no," Asuka shook her head. "Ria told me something about your past. It only seems fair that you learn something about me. And I'm not leaving it up to that girl."
What did Ria know about him? How much had her parents told her?
The thought that someone he barely knew knowing so much more about him was...unnerving and a bit disturbing.
Asuka twitched, her eyes focused on her hands.
"My mother went insane from her work on Unit-02," Asuka admitted painfully. "She was hospitalized. Shortly thereafter my father began an affair with her doctor. They were not subtle about it."
"Oh. Asuka, I had..."
"Stop." She put her hand on his mouth. "Let. Me. Finish."
"After... after my mother died,they married. They were married before the funeral actually. My step-mother tried to replace my mother, bribing me with pathetic gifts. When that didn't work, my Father basically left me to be raised by NERV. I was abandoned like..."
"I was abandoned," Shinji finished.
She understood! She understood what he was going through!
"Asuka, I had no idea." Shinji said sympathetically.
"Because I never told you," Asuka said bluntly.
"So why are you telling me now?"
Why would Asuka open up to him? Why did she care?
"I was unfair to you, Third Child," she said. The apology was implied.
She turned towards him, her eyes meeting his own.
"You and I, one way or another. We're always going to be outsiders here. Either we return and we're remembered as brief visitors or we're stuck here and we're also remembered as the "other' Shinji and Asuka. You and I... I think we understand each other more than anyone does, or even can."
Shinji nodded in agreement.
"We are not bound by what our other selves did. I'm not looking for a boyfriend, okay? I'm... I just we need to be there for each other. I'll be nicer, I'll try at least. But you need to actually talk to me. Can you manage that?"
Shinji's heart raced, he found himself thinking about Asuka in ways he hadn't really before. Hearing her flat out reject the two dating was surprisingly disappointing but she was opening up to him. She honestly seemed to be making an effort.
She was trying to be friends. Asuka Langley Soryu wanted to be friends with him.
Well wasn't that just the most shocking revelation of the day?
"Yes, I can manage that," Shinji replied.
"Good." Asuka stood up. "Now get ready. We maybe going for a casual stroll but we are not going to embarrass ourselves out there."
/
The ride over was quiet, Shinji lost in his thoughts about his conversation with Asuka.
Getting into Unit-01 was strange. Having to climb from the roof of a nearby building onto the Eva itself was weird. Thankfully he was strapped to Unit-01 so there was no danger, and the roof made it impossible to see just how high up he was.
Even still he felt his stomach doing flips as he climbed.
He sat in the Entry Plug and the thing sealed with hiss. LCL rapidly filled the plug. Soon it was at his nose. Something was off about it.
"This smells strange," Shinji complained.
There was an unmistakably metallic smell and taste to it now. Less blood like than before, more like Aluminum being shoved into his mouth.
"It's a substitute," Misato explained over the radio. "We don't have access to LCL anymore. It's been tested though, don't worry."
Shinji felt his left hand clench. Being back in the Eva made him nervous and more than a little terrified.
Misato came over the radio again. "Alright, the path is already downloaded into your Eva and should display on your HUD. Just follow it and you'll be fine."
"It's just walking, General," Asuka said,annoyed. "We know what we're doing."
Misato was defensive. "It's been twenty years for us, give me a break."
"You know I can take over for you if you don't feel up to it," The older Asuka teased over the link.
"Please," Asuka replied. "You probably can't fit into the jumpsuit anymore."
Unit-01 activated. The path displayed as a bright red line.
It was just a few kilometers. It would be over in a few minutes. Nothing to worry about.
Shinji took a step forward.
Something exploded to the left of him. Glass windows shattered all around the Eva.
Shinji turned Unit-01's head to see…
"What the hell?!" he blurted out.
For a moment it was nothing more than a formless ball of orange energy, sending thick bolts of lighting out, striking nearby cars and buildings. But it rapidly gained form. Legs and three clawed hands appeared. The thing grew taller and taller until it was larger than Unit-01.
The energy disappeared revealing…
Shinji's stomach grew ice cold. Pure terror griped at his very being.
No, it wasn't possible! It couldn't be possible! It was dead, they were all dead!
The Third Angel, the one SEELE had named Sachiel, stood before them, less than a block away, completely alive and intact. It's blank eyeless mask staring directly at him.
Shinji screamed.
For a brief moment, both of them were stunned. Ria was more surprised than anything. Asuka suddenly realized her future self was a few room away and punching her daughter in the face may not have in fact been the smartest move.
Ria got up and pressed Asuka against the wall with surprising force. For the briefest second Ria craned back her fist, feral anger in her eyes. But she stopped, lowering her arm.
To Asuka's shock, Ria laughed. Not loudly, barely more the chuckle, but she was still laughing. The heck did she find so funny?
"Thirteen years old and you're already smacking around your kid. Not the best of starts there, Asuka."
"I am not your mother." Asuka was defiant. "I don't know you and you don't know me."
What did this girl want from her anyways? An aunt or some sort of sister? Whatever she saw her as, whatever she wanted Asuka to be. She knew she could never be it.
"Don't give me that," Ria chided as she sat on the bed. "Until last weekend you and my mother were one and the same. I know enough about your history, what you and Shinji suffered through."
"Ohh really?" Asuka replied, curious and bemused. "And what did the favorite child suffer through?"
Ikari was the Commander's son, what could he have possibility suffered through that was even a fraction of what she endured?
"Well, he was there when his mother died. And not too long after that his father abandoned him to live with rather unfriendly relatives."
Wait...what? Shinji had been abandoned by her father, like she had. But Gendo Ikari was the Commander of NERV, why would he abandon a Pilot he knew he was going to need again?
"He has no friends, even his foster family doesn't like him. Then one day, a decade or so after his father abandons him, Shinji receives a letter from him, telling him to come to Tokyo-3. No attempt is made to explain himself or why he needs Shinji. Just 'come'."
He was alone, friendless. Deprived of his mother, abandoned by his father. He was...he is...
He is just like me. The thought startled Asuka. No, it couldn't be true. She wasn't a coward like him. She…
Ria didn't let her finish the thought. "And what happens when he gets there? Beyond narrowly surviving an Angel attack on foot and Misato's driving, he's told he has to pilot Unit-01 into combat against the angel. Something he had no training for, something he probably wasn't even aware existed until just then."
"Why didn't Rei pilot?!" Asuka blurted out.
That was just stupid, you don't let someone without any training fight an Angel, that's a sure way to end up with a dead Pilot and destroyed Evangelion.
Yet Shinji did pilot with no training, and he won. Asuka found herself puzzled.
"Oh, that was discussed as an option. Rei was of course so injured at this point that she was barely able to get out of her hospital bed. So Shinji was flat out told he could either get in the damn robot or send this young girl to her more than likely death. Now, sure they needed Shinji to pilot, they were out of options. But does any of what happened seem fair? Blackmailing a kid into fighting a life and death battle in a giant he can barely control?"
"...No, no it doesn't," Asuka admitted.
Would she have done better in his position? She found herself pondering, she was a good Pilot, a great Pilot. But that was just as much training as it was talent.
"The only difference between what my mother went through and what my father went through was she at least had training first. That's why they got together, I think, because no one else understood their pain half as well as they did."
He's just like me.
The door opened. Her future self was standing there.
Oh crap.
Her expression was calm, yet distinctly unhappy.
"Everything's fine now," Ria turned towards the younger Asuka. "It is fine now, right?"
Asuka nodded hesitantly. "Yeah, we're cool."
"Good." Ria walked towards the door. "Now excuse me, I have a bookstore to get to."
Ria left, leaving the two Asukas alone.
"I don't fight my daughter's battles. She doesn't need me to," the older one said in low, threatening German. "But if you ever hit her again I will make you regret it."
The younger one swallowed hard.
"Believe me, it won't happen again," the younger Soryu said defensively.
"Good."
"So was what she said true?" Asuka dared.
Her older self stared at her, not with anger or annoyance, just with regret.
"Shinji, your Shinji... he's an idiot and a pervert, but yeah what she said was true, every word of it."
"Oh," was all the younger Asuka could muster.
"Yeah," the older Soryu replied. "Look, I'm not asking you to date him or even like him. Just try to act like a decent human being to him, okay? The poor boy's been through enough as it is."
/
Shinji found himself sitting on an uncomfortable metal folding chair, barefoot with warm clear water up to his ankles. Surrounding him was nothing but clear blue skies and more water surrounding him. Though judging by the horizon he was either really tall or this was a really small world.
"Oh, great, this again," Shinji muttered. Bizarre memories from Instrumentality came rushing to the surface.
Shinji groaned in frustration. This wasn't a memory, nothing like this had ever occurred, it was just a dream, a dream of a dream, a figment of his imagination that had run rampant in the days after his great mistake.
The sound of splashing footsteps approached.
"I swear to God, if you start saying 'congratulations!', I will punch you in the throat."
"Hello, Shinji-sama." The voice was hauntingly familiar.
Shinji turned around to see Kaworu standing behind him, his face, his clothes, his grey hair all the same as they day he last saw him, the day he died.
"Why are you here?!" Shinji demanded.
Kaworu betrayed him, more to the point, he let Shinji kill him. Shinji had grieved, he had grieved hard. But he had moved on in the twenty years since. It was one of the few things he had been able to actually forgive himself for.
So why was he dreaming of him?
Kaworu moved his mouth to say something but no words came forth.
"I can't hear you," Shinji said.
Kaworu frowned, and tried to speak again. Still nothing.
Shinji's temper got the better of him.
"What do you want from me?!"
His words were swept away by a heavy wind and the world turned dark.
/
Shinji awoke with a start.
"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to disturb you." His younger self was standing in front of him, looking very uncomfortable.
Shinji looked around, he had fallen asleep on the couch. Not for very long though, the movers had only just finished unloading the entertainment system.
Still, this was odd. He had only sat down for a quick break.
"As...Ms.Soryu told me to see if you needed help," his younger self explained.
"Thanks, but the movers are taking care of it," Shinji replied.
His past self was hesitant, nervous and looked more like a rat caught in a trap then anything. He was probably just as uncomfortable as he felt.
This time travel stuff was headache inducing.
"How are you adjusting?" Present Shinji asked.
Going five years into the future would have been rough. But twenty years, dealing with a future version of yourself that's over twice your age and a daughter that's older than you? That had to be rough on the kid.
Did I just call myself kid? Shinji shook his head at the thought. Seeing his past self was making him feel like he was fifty instead of thirty four.
"W-well, I mean, I'm more than a little freaked out," the younger Ikari said hesitantly. "And it's scary how everyone views me but things worked out well in the end. Everyone's alive, you and Ms. Soryu aren't together but she speaks well of you and your daughter looks up to you. So it's a good future, right?"
The young Shinji paused for a moment, almost losing the nerve to say what said next.
"Is it wrong that I want to stay?"
That took Ikari by surprise. He had suspected his other self would want to stay but he honestly didn't think he would outright say it.
His younger self pressed on. "It's just, what if I screw up everything? What if I lose? What if things turn out worse? But at the same time, if we stay here, what happens to Misato and Rei? I don't want them to die, but I just...I don't…"
Shinji grabbed his younger self by the shoulders.
"I messed up, a lot," he admitted. "I have regrets that will haunt me until my dying day. But I understand completely. If had a chance to do everything over again, I'd be paralyzed with fear. What if I fixed things, but as a result Ria never existed?"
And now that nightmare was going to haunt him for a week. Good going, brain.
"What about everyone back in my time, though?"
"Maybe whatever transported you also created quantum duplicates or something and that's why we don't remember. Maybe a Shinji and Asuka from another universe took your place, maybe Rei saved everyone. You don't know. You can't know. Unless Doctor Akagi comes up with a way to travel to your time you're stuck her for the foreseeable future. You can't worry about them, you'd drive yourself mad worrying over something you had zero control of."
In truth they were probably stuck here, Asuka told him that everyone they consulted didn't have the slightest clue of how to accomplish such a task. Their timeline, their universe was likely dead, wiped out by one of the following Angels. But he didn't know that for certain and there was no way he was going to tell the pilots that.
"And I don't blame you for wanting to stay," he added.
Frankly, hearing his past self say that was a considerable morale boost. His guilt felt less heavy right now.
His younger self nodded, still uncertain, but his mood improved a bit.
Shinji walked over to a wooden box, he had been planning to save this for later but now felt the best time.
Inside the box was a large fiberglass case that was deep scarlet in color. The thing was taller than the younger Shinji and rather heavy.
He placed it gently on the ground in front of his younger self, who stared at in confusion.
"It's a cello." the younger Shinji stated. Though the shape of the case made that incredibly obvious.
"It's your cello," Shinji corrected. "I lost our original after Third impact but it's a close match."
"But I'm not very good."
"I have a ten years of European orchestra experience that says you're wrong," Shinji said with a smile.
His younger self grabbed the case, a similar, if not as wide smile appeared across his face.
/
Two weeks passed. The umbilical cables had been rebuilt, powered by a military nuclear power plant. Now today would be the day Shinji and Asuka would pilot their Evangelions again, for probably the last time for months to come.
Even after that, Shinji realized, it was just be another walk, this time to WILLE. Where the Evas would remain for years, possibly forever.
The thought was bit troubling for Shinji but he had learned to put those troubles aside. Today was the day things changed for him, for the better hopefully. In a few days he and Asuka would resume school.
With Ria admittedly, which was every kind of awkward. Poor Ria, it was bad enough having to live with past versions of her parents, having to go to school with them would be bordering on Hell.
Thankfully Asuka had quieted down, though everyone, Shinji included, had given her dirty looks for days after Ria's blackeye appeared. Asuka had been surprisingly apologetic though. Indeed Asuka's behavior since that day had been rather odd. She'd been downright civil to Shinji, though she had barely said more than a few words to him, largely keeping to herself in the guest room.
Shinji pushed a button on his wrist, causing the plug suit to seal around him.
It would be a few more minutes before they called him, after that it was just a short drive and..
"You better be decent in there!" Asuka's voice called from the door.
"I am, I am," Shinji said quickly.
Asuka barged in, fully dressed in her red plugsuit. But her normal confident demeanour was gone, she seemed almost nervous.
She sat down on the metal bench, not quite next to him but close.
"There's some things you should know about me," Asuka said nervously.
What brought this on?
"I...I, when I was...Verdammt, das ist hart!"
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Shinji said.
Asuka liked to brag, constantly, but this felt like it was something personal.
"No, no," Asuka shook her head. "Ria told me something about your past. It only seems fair that you learn something about me. And I'm not leaving it up to that girl."
What did Ria know about him? How much had her parents told her?
The thought that someone he barely knew knowing so much more about him was...unnerving and a bit disturbing.
Asuka twitched, her eyes focused on her hands.
"My mother went insane from her work on Unit-02," Asuka admitted painfully. "She was hospitalized. Shortly thereafter my father began an affair with her doctor. They were not subtle about it."
"Oh. Asuka, I had..."
"Stop." She put her hand on his mouth. "Let. Me. Finish."
"After... after my mother died,they married. They were married before the funeral actually. My step-mother tried to replace my mother, bribing me with pathetic gifts. When that didn't work, my Father basically left me to be raised by NERV. I was abandoned like..."
"I was abandoned," Shinji finished.
She understood! She understood what he was going through!
"Asuka, I had no idea." Shinji said sympathetically.
"Because I never told you," Asuka said bluntly.
"So why are you telling me now?"
Why would Asuka open up to him? Why did she care?
"I was unfair to you, Third Child," she said. The apology was implied.
She turned towards him, her eyes meeting his own.
"You and I, one way or another. We're always going to be outsiders here. Either we return and we're remembered as brief visitors or we're stuck here and we're also remembered as the "other' Shinji and Asuka. You and I... I think we understand each other more than anyone does, or even can."
Shinji nodded in agreement.
"We are not bound by what our other selves did. I'm not looking for a boyfriend, okay? I'm... I just we need to be there for each other. I'll be nicer, I'll try at least. But you need to actually talk to me. Can you manage that?"
Shinji's heart raced, he found himself thinking about Asuka in ways he hadn't really before. Hearing her flat out reject the two dating was surprisingly disappointing but she was opening up to him. She honestly seemed to be making an effort.
She was trying to be friends. Asuka Langley Soryu wanted to be friends with him.
Well wasn't that just the most shocking revelation of the day?
"Yes, I can manage that," Shinji replied.
"Good." Asuka stood up. "Now get ready. We maybe going for a casual stroll but we are not going to embarrass ourselves out there."
/
The ride over was quiet, Shinji lost in his thoughts about his conversation with Asuka.
Getting into Unit-01 was strange. Having to climb from the roof of a nearby building onto the Eva itself was weird. Thankfully he was strapped to Unit-01 so there was no danger, and the roof made it impossible to see just how high up he was.
Even still he felt his stomach doing flips as he climbed.
He sat in the Entry Plug and the thing sealed with hiss. LCL rapidly filled the plug. Soon it was at his nose. Something was off about it.
"This smells strange," Shinji complained.
There was an unmistakably metallic smell and taste to it now. Less blood like than before, more like Aluminum being shoved into his mouth.
"It's a substitute," Misato explained over the radio. "We don't have access to LCL anymore. It's been tested though, don't worry."
Shinji felt his left hand clench. Being back in the Eva made him nervous and more than a little terrified.
Misato came over the radio again. "Alright, the path is already downloaded into your Eva and should display on your HUD. Just follow it and you'll be fine."
"It's just walking, General," Asuka said,annoyed. "We know what we're doing."
Misato was defensive. "It's been twenty years for us, give me a break."
"You know I can take over for you if you don't feel up to it," The older Asuka teased over the link.
"Please," Asuka replied. "You probably can't fit into the jumpsuit anymore."
Unit-01 activated. The path displayed as a bright red line.
It was just a few kilometers. It would be over in a few minutes. Nothing to worry about.
Shinji took a step forward.
Something exploded to the left of him. Glass windows shattered all around the Eva.
Shinji turned Unit-01's head to see…
"What the hell?!" he blurted out.
For a moment it was nothing more than a formless ball of orange energy, sending thick bolts of lighting out, striking nearby cars and buildings. But it rapidly gained form. Legs and three clawed hands appeared. The thing grew taller and taller until it was larger than Unit-01.
The energy disappeared revealing…
Shinji's stomach grew ice cold. Pure terror griped at his very being.
No, it wasn't possible! It couldn't be possible! It was dead, they were all dead!
The Third Angel, the one SEELE had named Sachiel, stood before them, less than a block away, completely alive and intact. It's blank eyeless mask staring directly at him.
Shinji screamed.
Last edited:
Chapter 4 Part 3
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Part 3.
Shinji sat there in the Tactical Room, his mind trying and failing to understand what he was seeing.
It just couldn't be possible. The Angels were dead, they were all dead. Mother killed them, he killed them, he killed them all.
The Tactical Room was dead silent, all eyes fixed upon the impossible sight before them.
Shinji's stomach did somersaults, his mind immediately pushed to the edge of sanity. This couldn't be happening, the Third Angel was long dead. Nothing even remained of it.
And yet he was staring at it, the camera displaying its hollow eyed bird mask for all to see.
A moment after the Angel appeared, Ria let out a terrified, almost animalistic scream of terror. Tears rolling down her face.
The scream knocked Shinji back to his senses.
Misato began barking orders. Maya and Ritsuko scrambled to get more equipment working. Asuka was on the phone with the military, trying to get any sort of support.
Ria sat in a chair, trembling with fear as WILLE scrambled around them. This was supposed to have been a simple, downright boring affair. Now...
Now he was staring down one of his nightmares made flesh, and he was powerless to do anything about it. He couldn't do anything at all. If the Angel focused on WILLE, went after his family, his daughter, there was nothing he could do to stop it.
For a brief terrifying moment, he regretted not being in the pilot's seat of a Eva.
Shinji grabbed Ria in a tight hug, trying to comfort her as the battle unfolded on screen.
/
It took seventeen seconds for Pilot Shinji Ikari to process what was happening in front of him and began trying to defend himself. Unfortunately for him, that was far too long.
The Angel was upon him in an instant, it's blank mask nearly at level with Unit-01's.
A massive bony claw grabbed Unit-01 by the head, it's black arms bulging with thick muscle as it lifted Shinji into the air.
The pressure of the claws squeezed Shinji's head until he felt it was going to pop.
This was a nightmare, it had to be. This Angel was dead. This was just his mind tormenting him with visions of the past. Next Shinji assumed it would try to impale him through the eye.
Asuka yelled, preparing to charge the Angel.
The Angel grabbed Unit-01's leg with it's other arm and, with surprising ease, lifted Unit-01 off the ground. It threw him back-first into Asuka, sending the two Evas tumbling into a nearby row of buildings.
The buildings shattered and collapsed on impact, breaking apart like so much rotting wood.
Shinji's view outside the Eva was filled with dust, broken glass, and twisted grey steel. His head spun as he tried to pull himself back up.
"Stehe verdammt auf!" Asuka complained as she tried to pull Unit-02 out from under him.
Shinji froze. The Angel was staring directly at him.
He remembered his first battle. The Angel had this vacant, almost curious look to it in the way it was tilting it's head and staring at things. Like it found the world just as confusing as the world found it.
This time, the Angel's attention was entirely focused on Shinji. The mask was solid bone, no expression of any sort was possible on it. Yet Shinji felt certain that if it could, the Angel would look enraged right now.
/
Misato had feared something like this happening since the night the past Shinji and Asuka appeared. But she had thought it was just the paranoia of an old soldier talking.
And yet here she was, fighting against one of her biggest nightmares. She didn't have half the resources and equipment she had at NERV. She could do barely more than watch.
Even the Tactical Room itself was hastily assembled, built from computers torn out of a dozen different rooms and hastily put together office furniture.
Dark, bitter anger consumed Misato. What right did this Angel have to exist anymore? They had been destroyed, wiped from the planet. Humanity had won, and this monster was trying for round two.
"Military has transferred command of the Kyoto's Self Defense Network. Turrets will be online in thirty seconds," Asuka called out from her desk. "Air support five minutes out."
The Angel grabbed Unit-01's power cable, casually snapping it between its claws.
No timer appeared on screen. 'What would be the point?' Misato had argued not two days prior.
At least Unit-01's batteries were charged, otherwise Shinji would be out of the fight right now. They had five minutes with two pilots against one Angel. If the two recovered they had a good shot at winning this.
Unit-02 was nearly back on it's feet. Shinji was still struggling to get up.
"Self Defense Network is online!" Asuka shouted.
"Fire!" Misato ordered.
/
Japan had been invaded three times since Third Impact: Once by Korea and twice by Russia. None of the invasions had come close to Kyoto, but the government still took precautions.
Three massive turrets rose out of the ground around Kyoto, each containing a smaller version of the Positron rifle once used by the Evas. None of them were nearly as strong as the original but they could lay waste to an enemy armor formation or squadron of bombers.
The three opened fire simultaneously, sending beams of energy streaking across the city, smashing into the Angel.
The Angel stumbled, thick plumes of smoke pouring from it's back. Gobs of black Angelic flesh rolled off it's body and splattered onto the road below.
The heat from the attack had reduced much of the surrounding buildings to half melted slag.
Shinji pulled Unit-01 up, Progressive knife in hand.
This world had been free of Angels, he had been free of Angels. Now it was here, threatening his other self, his daughter, everything they built.
He'd killed this Angel, and now it was haunting him like a ghost. This could not stand.
Shinji screamed as he charged, his knife hitting the orange outlined AT-Field of the Angel.
He had been free of them, free of everything they brought, free of the misery and the fear, free of the guilt, free of the weight on his shoulders. And now one of them was back!
The knife broke through the AT-field. The Angel immediately grabbed his arm by the wrist, stopping Shinji's attack.
Shinji struggled against the Angel, trying to pry himself away.
A red light appeared in the Angel's eyes. For a moment, Shinji feared the worst.
The shot went above his head, engulfing one of the turrets in a pillar of light.
The Angel let out two more shots, leveling the remaining defenses.
Shinji clawed at the Angel's mask, trying to pry it off.
Suddenly he felt a white hot heat impale his right hand. He looked down to see a spear of brilliant light piercing his captured arm.
Shinji screamed, this time in pain and terror. The Angel slammed him to the ground hard, smashing Unit-01's head through the concrete road.
Misato begged him to stand up, as the Angel stepped on Unit-01's head, pulling hard on his injured arm.
"Hey, idiot! Did you forget about me?!" Asuka screamed as Unit-02 slammed into the Angel.
The Angel stumbled backwards, freeing Shinji.
Asuka had cut deeply into the Angel's right arm, causing crimson blood to spill onto the damaged streets.
She was grappling with the beast now, pinning both its arms to its sides as it forced the beast back more and more, until it eventually collapsed to the ground.
"Help me hold it down!" Asuka screamed.
Shinji rushed over, pinning the Angel's good arm as Asuka worked to free her knife.
She slammed it into the Angel's Core. The bright red orb cracked but didn't break.
"Scheisse," she grunted as she tried to stab it again.
An AT-field suddenly flared in front of both them, knocking them back.
The Angel got back on its feet, its Core cracked and one arm hanging limply at its side.
Then it jumped, using an AT-field to propel itself far away from the two Evas, landing several blocks away.
"I think the Angel's scared of us," Shinji quipped.
He looked at the clock. He had two minutes left. This fight would have to end soon.
"What were you thinking?!" Asuka complained. "You could have been killed, rushing in like that!"
"I panicked!" Shinji was defensive. "I killed it. How is it here? I just...I..."
Asuka snapped at him. "So you thought throwing yourself at the ghost was a good idea?!"
"Focus, idiot!" The older Asuka chastised her younger self.
Asuka grunted in annoyance. "Okay, I have a plan. Just follow my lead, Shinji."
Shinji nodded. He was scared out of his mind, confused, and in pain. But he couldn't run away, not from a dead Angel.
Asuka reversed her grip on her knife and prepared to charge.
The Angel, still standing where it landed, had a energy spear erupt from its wirst. It raised the spear into the air, and then it stabbed itself, impaling the spear through the upper part of it's own Core.
Shinji and Asuka froze in shock as the Angel stood there, seemingly swaying in the breeze. Its Core, dull and lifeless, cracked apart, chunks falling off.
Then the Angel collapsed, first to its knees, then falling to the ground in a broken heap.
The Angel had, by all appearances, killed itself rather than continue the fight.
For an already confused Shinji, this was too much. And he found himself laughing under his breath.
"What the hell?" Asuka muttered.
"Misato, what do we do?" Shinji asked, at a complete loss.
Complete silence greeted him on the radio.
Unit-01's power ran out, bathing the entry plug in darkness.
"I don't know," Misato finally said. "I don't know."
/
The past five hours had been the most confusing time of Misato's life. An Angel, a very long dead Angel, had seemingly manifested out of nowhere and attacked the Evangelions when they were being moved, then after battling them it abandoned the fight and killed itself.
Even if the force behind the appearance of the two Evas was behind this, that still didn't explain half of it.
Angels had killed themselves before, that very Angel had in fact done that, by detonating itself right next to Unit-01, sending Shinji to the hospital for days.
So why did it stab itself now, ending the fight without any further loss of life or possibility of damaging the Evas?
It just didn't make a bit of sense to Misato.
She and Ritsuko were currently observing the Angel's body from a temporary base being set up next to it. It was dead, its Core completely shattered, but they needed all the info they could as quickly as possible.
The Angel, looking at it now, felt unreal, like it was a massive prop on some movie set.
Anger swelled up inside her: Anger at her father's death, over all the chaos that had followed Second and Third Impact, at all Shinji, Asuka, and Rei had suffered through. Part of her wanted to burn the thing until there was nothing left.
And it could just be the start of another wave of reborn Angels.
Angrily Misato returned inside the tent. Ristuko was there, reviewing footage on a laptop.
"What are you looking for?" Misato asked.
"I noticed something rather odd on the footage." Ristuko said. Even her voice sounded lost and confused today. "Well, besides everything else. The Angel was focused entirely on Pilot Ikari."
"It probably saw him as the primary threat," Misato replied.
"Even after Asuka attacked him?" Ristuko pointed out. "It's gaze never left Unit-01. It barely seemed to acknowledge Unit-02 was even there. To its great determent."
One more confusing piece to this insane puzzle.
"We're going to rebuild," Misato said. "Everything. For all we know this is just the first. We're going to need every bit of equipment we had the first time, more if possible."
"We're going to need to build a Tactical Center inside the Vault." Ristuko added
They didn't have a fraction of the resources they had the first time, then again they didn't have Gendo or SEELE to worry about, or Adam.
"Why would it even attack?" Misato wondered aloud. "There's no way for it to cause a Fourth Impact. Victory isn't even possible."
Ristuko had no answer.
Shortly thereafter an aide burst in, looking quite distressed.
"General, ma'am, we have a situation here! The Angel is starting to um... melt?" he explained.
"Melt?" Misato said as she and Ritsuko followed him outside.
Melting was really the only word to describe it. What had been bone and Angelic flesh was now running off the Angel in black and white streams. Pools of what looked like LCL were forming around its limbs. The whole Angel was starting to look like a wax figure that had been left in the sun for a few hours.
Ritsuko was shocked. "That's not... possible," she muttered. "None of the Angels had behaved like this after death, this isn't possible."
Then the Angel collapsed in on itself, the color fading from every part of its body before finally the remains seemed to pop, letting out a wave of LCL-like liquid that washed over the surrounding area. The red-orange wave came up to Misato's knees as it washed past her.
There was nothing left of the Angel, just the impression it made on the concrete and rubble. The foul-smelling liquid covered everything for at least a block.
Ristuko snapped a pencil in frustration. Misato could only stand there, half stunned by what she was seeing. It seemed the day had thrown her one final surprise.
Shinji sat there in the Tactical Room, his mind trying and failing to understand what he was seeing.
It just couldn't be possible. The Angels were dead, they were all dead. Mother killed them, he killed them, he killed them all.
The Tactical Room was dead silent, all eyes fixed upon the impossible sight before them.
Shinji's stomach did somersaults, his mind immediately pushed to the edge of sanity. This couldn't be happening, the Third Angel was long dead. Nothing even remained of it.
And yet he was staring at it, the camera displaying its hollow eyed bird mask for all to see.
A moment after the Angel appeared, Ria let out a terrified, almost animalistic scream of terror. Tears rolling down her face.
The scream knocked Shinji back to his senses.
Misato began barking orders. Maya and Ritsuko scrambled to get more equipment working. Asuka was on the phone with the military, trying to get any sort of support.
Ria sat in a chair, trembling with fear as WILLE scrambled around them. This was supposed to have been a simple, downright boring affair. Now...
Now he was staring down one of his nightmares made flesh, and he was powerless to do anything about it. He couldn't do anything at all. If the Angel focused on WILLE, went after his family, his daughter, there was nothing he could do to stop it.
For a brief terrifying moment, he regretted not being in the pilot's seat of a Eva.
Shinji grabbed Ria in a tight hug, trying to comfort her as the battle unfolded on screen.
/
It took seventeen seconds for Pilot Shinji Ikari to process what was happening in front of him and began trying to defend himself. Unfortunately for him, that was far too long.
The Angel was upon him in an instant, it's blank mask nearly at level with Unit-01's.
A massive bony claw grabbed Unit-01 by the head, it's black arms bulging with thick muscle as it lifted Shinji into the air.
The pressure of the claws squeezed Shinji's head until he felt it was going to pop.
This was a nightmare, it had to be. This Angel was dead. This was just his mind tormenting him with visions of the past. Next Shinji assumed it would try to impale him through the eye.
Asuka yelled, preparing to charge the Angel.
The Angel grabbed Unit-01's leg with it's other arm and, with surprising ease, lifted Unit-01 off the ground. It threw him back-first into Asuka, sending the two Evas tumbling into a nearby row of buildings.
The buildings shattered and collapsed on impact, breaking apart like so much rotting wood.
Shinji's view outside the Eva was filled with dust, broken glass, and twisted grey steel. His head spun as he tried to pull himself back up.
"Stehe verdammt auf!" Asuka complained as she tried to pull Unit-02 out from under him.
Shinji froze. The Angel was staring directly at him.
He remembered his first battle. The Angel had this vacant, almost curious look to it in the way it was tilting it's head and staring at things. Like it found the world just as confusing as the world found it.
This time, the Angel's attention was entirely focused on Shinji. The mask was solid bone, no expression of any sort was possible on it. Yet Shinji felt certain that if it could, the Angel would look enraged right now.
/
Misato had feared something like this happening since the night the past Shinji and Asuka appeared. But she had thought it was just the paranoia of an old soldier talking.
And yet here she was, fighting against one of her biggest nightmares. She didn't have half the resources and equipment she had at NERV. She could do barely more than watch.
Even the Tactical Room itself was hastily assembled, built from computers torn out of a dozen different rooms and hastily put together office furniture.
Dark, bitter anger consumed Misato. What right did this Angel have to exist anymore? They had been destroyed, wiped from the planet. Humanity had won, and this monster was trying for round two.
"Military has transferred command of the Kyoto's Self Defense Network. Turrets will be online in thirty seconds," Asuka called out from her desk. "Air support five minutes out."
The Angel grabbed Unit-01's power cable, casually snapping it between its claws.
No timer appeared on screen. 'What would be the point?' Misato had argued not two days prior.
At least Unit-01's batteries were charged, otherwise Shinji would be out of the fight right now. They had five minutes with two pilots against one Angel. If the two recovered they had a good shot at winning this.
Unit-02 was nearly back on it's feet. Shinji was still struggling to get up.
"Self Defense Network is online!" Asuka shouted.
"Fire!" Misato ordered.
/
Japan had been invaded three times since Third Impact: Once by Korea and twice by Russia. None of the invasions had come close to Kyoto, but the government still took precautions.
Three massive turrets rose out of the ground around Kyoto, each containing a smaller version of the Positron rifle once used by the Evas. None of them were nearly as strong as the original but they could lay waste to an enemy armor formation or squadron of bombers.
The three opened fire simultaneously, sending beams of energy streaking across the city, smashing into the Angel.
The Angel stumbled, thick plumes of smoke pouring from it's back. Gobs of black Angelic flesh rolled off it's body and splattered onto the road below.
The heat from the attack had reduced much of the surrounding buildings to half melted slag.
Shinji pulled Unit-01 up, Progressive knife in hand.
This world had been free of Angels, he had been free of Angels. Now it was here, threatening his other self, his daughter, everything they built.
He'd killed this Angel, and now it was haunting him like a ghost. This could not stand.
Shinji screamed as he charged, his knife hitting the orange outlined AT-Field of the Angel.
He had been free of them, free of everything they brought, free of the misery and the fear, free of the guilt, free of the weight on his shoulders. And now one of them was back!
The knife broke through the AT-field. The Angel immediately grabbed his arm by the wrist, stopping Shinji's attack.
Shinji struggled against the Angel, trying to pry himself away.
A red light appeared in the Angel's eyes. For a moment, Shinji feared the worst.
The shot went above his head, engulfing one of the turrets in a pillar of light.
The Angel let out two more shots, leveling the remaining defenses.
Shinji clawed at the Angel's mask, trying to pry it off.
Suddenly he felt a white hot heat impale his right hand. He looked down to see a spear of brilliant light piercing his captured arm.
Shinji screamed, this time in pain and terror. The Angel slammed him to the ground hard, smashing Unit-01's head through the concrete road.
Misato begged him to stand up, as the Angel stepped on Unit-01's head, pulling hard on his injured arm.
"Hey, idiot! Did you forget about me?!" Asuka screamed as Unit-02 slammed into the Angel.
The Angel stumbled backwards, freeing Shinji.
Asuka had cut deeply into the Angel's right arm, causing crimson blood to spill onto the damaged streets.
She was grappling with the beast now, pinning both its arms to its sides as it forced the beast back more and more, until it eventually collapsed to the ground.
"Help me hold it down!" Asuka screamed.
Shinji rushed over, pinning the Angel's good arm as Asuka worked to free her knife.
She slammed it into the Angel's Core. The bright red orb cracked but didn't break.
"Scheisse," she grunted as she tried to stab it again.
An AT-field suddenly flared in front of both them, knocking them back.
The Angel got back on its feet, its Core cracked and one arm hanging limply at its side.
Then it jumped, using an AT-field to propel itself far away from the two Evas, landing several blocks away.
"I think the Angel's scared of us," Shinji quipped.
He looked at the clock. He had two minutes left. This fight would have to end soon.
"What were you thinking?!" Asuka complained. "You could have been killed, rushing in like that!"
"I panicked!" Shinji was defensive. "I killed it. How is it here? I just...I..."
Asuka snapped at him. "So you thought throwing yourself at the ghost was a good idea?!"
"Focus, idiot!" The older Asuka chastised her younger self.
Asuka grunted in annoyance. "Okay, I have a plan. Just follow my lead, Shinji."
Shinji nodded. He was scared out of his mind, confused, and in pain. But he couldn't run away, not from a dead Angel.
Asuka reversed her grip on her knife and prepared to charge.
The Angel, still standing where it landed, had a energy spear erupt from its wirst. It raised the spear into the air, and then it stabbed itself, impaling the spear through the upper part of it's own Core.
Shinji and Asuka froze in shock as the Angel stood there, seemingly swaying in the breeze. Its Core, dull and lifeless, cracked apart, chunks falling off.
Then the Angel collapsed, first to its knees, then falling to the ground in a broken heap.
The Angel had, by all appearances, killed itself rather than continue the fight.
For an already confused Shinji, this was too much. And he found himself laughing under his breath.
"What the hell?" Asuka muttered.
"Misato, what do we do?" Shinji asked, at a complete loss.
Complete silence greeted him on the radio.
Unit-01's power ran out, bathing the entry plug in darkness.
"I don't know," Misato finally said. "I don't know."
/
The past five hours had been the most confusing time of Misato's life. An Angel, a very long dead Angel, had seemingly manifested out of nowhere and attacked the Evangelions when they were being moved, then after battling them it abandoned the fight and killed itself.
Even if the force behind the appearance of the two Evas was behind this, that still didn't explain half of it.
Angels had killed themselves before, that very Angel had in fact done that, by detonating itself right next to Unit-01, sending Shinji to the hospital for days.
So why did it stab itself now, ending the fight without any further loss of life or possibility of damaging the Evas?
It just didn't make a bit of sense to Misato.
She and Ritsuko were currently observing the Angel's body from a temporary base being set up next to it. It was dead, its Core completely shattered, but they needed all the info they could as quickly as possible.
The Angel, looking at it now, felt unreal, like it was a massive prop on some movie set.
Anger swelled up inside her: Anger at her father's death, over all the chaos that had followed Second and Third Impact, at all Shinji, Asuka, and Rei had suffered through. Part of her wanted to burn the thing until there was nothing left.
And it could just be the start of another wave of reborn Angels.
Angrily Misato returned inside the tent. Ristuko was there, reviewing footage on a laptop.
"What are you looking for?" Misato asked.
"I noticed something rather odd on the footage." Ristuko said. Even her voice sounded lost and confused today. "Well, besides everything else. The Angel was focused entirely on Pilot Ikari."
"It probably saw him as the primary threat," Misato replied.
"Even after Asuka attacked him?" Ristuko pointed out. "It's gaze never left Unit-01. It barely seemed to acknowledge Unit-02 was even there. To its great determent."
One more confusing piece to this insane puzzle.
"We're going to rebuild," Misato said. "Everything. For all we know this is just the first. We're going to need every bit of equipment we had the first time, more if possible."
"We're going to need to build a Tactical Center inside the Vault." Ristuko added
They didn't have a fraction of the resources they had the first time, then again they didn't have Gendo or SEELE to worry about, or Adam.
"Why would it even attack?" Misato wondered aloud. "There's no way for it to cause a Fourth Impact. Victory isn't even possible."
Ristuko had no answer.
Shortly thereafter an aide burst in, looking quite distressed.
"General, ma'am, we have a situation here! The Angel is starting to um... melt?" he explained.
"Melt?" Misato said as she and Ritsuko followed him outside.
Melting was really the only word to describe it. What had been bone and Angelic flesh was now running off the Angel in black and white streams. Pools of what looked like LCL were forming around its limbs. The whole Angel was starting to look like a wax figure that had been left in the sun for a few hours.
Ritsuko was shocked. "That's not... possible," she muttered. "None of the Angels had behaved like this after death, this isn't possible."
Then the Angel collapsed in on itself, the color fading from every part of its body before finally the remains seemed to pop, letting out a wave of LCL-like liquid that washed over the surrounding area. The red-orange wave came up to Misato's knees as it washed past her.
There was nothing left of the Angel, just the impression it made on the concrete and rubble. The foul-smelling liquid covered everything for at least a block.
Ristuko snapped a pencil in frustration. Misato could only stand there, half stunned by what she was seeing. It seemed the day had thrown her one final surprise.
Chapter 4 Part 4
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"So that's it, then?" Shinji said to no one as he paced the outer walls of WILLE. He had left shortly after it was confirmed the Angel was dead. He just couldn't stand being there another minute, looking at the corpse of one of his biggest nightmares.
"Everything I did, every fight, every mistake, everything Asuka, Rei, Touji, and I suffered and what? 'It doesn't count, you get a redo'?"
Shinji found himself clenching his left fist. He forced himself to stop.
Part of him wished it had been him in that plug so he could have strangled the bastard and tossed it's toxic corpse into a volcano.
Of course technically speaking he was in that plug. Freaking time travel.
He almost wanted to blame his past self for this. They had twenty years of peace and then not three weeks after their arrival, a goddamn Angel appears. The two had to be connected in some way.
Of course that was unfair, the two Pilots were just as much victims as the rest of them.
Shinji felt robbed. He'd done his duty, he'd made mistakes, tons of mistakes, but he'd won. He won, the Angels were dead, most by his hands.
Shinji collapsed into a chair. He felt utterly helpless.
What was the point of everything if it was just going to start again?
"I know you're listening," Shinji growled. "I saw you in the dream. I know you're there, Kaworu. Or is it Tabris, or Adam?! You know what? I don't care. I want answers goddamnit. Answer me!"
Silence greeted him.
"What is this?! Vengeance, retribution for your defeat? Punishment for my mistakes?! Was everything you and Rei told me a lie?!"
His mind flashed back to that terrible moment, the god Rei and Kaworu had become, even the faces of the mass produced Evas. Nothing either had said hinted this would happen. If anything it seemed Kaworu was at peace with his loss and Rei, Lilith was in total control.
Did...did that mean Rei was behind this?
Shinji dismissed the thought. Whatever Rei was truly, she would never do something like that.
He couldn't see Kaworu being behind it either, not truly. If that really was him in his dreams, he wouldn't be taunting him. Kaworu betrayed him, but he never taunted him.
Shinji walked over to a window. The street was empty, blocked off in preparation for the massive amount of construction that was set to begin.
WILLE would become a fortress. The war had begun, and there was nothing Shinji could do but watch.
/
"So you were nowhere close to the Angel when the attack happened?" Ria said, her voice distraught.
Asuka froze at the restroom door. Ria had left practically the moment Sachiel fell. Naturally Asuka was worried. She'd never seen her daughter that scared before. She'd seen her nervous plenty of times, particularly when they were going to see Shinji when she was younger. But she'd never seen her terrified, not like that.
That scream would haunt Asuka's nightmares for years to come.
"No, no, it's cool, it's cool," Ria went on, her voice calming down but sounding exhausted. "So how's your sister? They make it out okay? Oh? Good, good. Yeah, yeah, no, I got a text from Mari, she's fine."
She was talking to Okito? Not surprising. It was good to hear he had come out of this okay. Reports were sketchy to say the least but casualties were already in the hundreds.
"I have to go...stay safe out there."
Ria hung up the phone. A second later she let out a loud, guttural scream and began beating a stall door. The sound of fists banging against aluminum doors echoed through the restroom.
"Verdammte Scheiße!" Ria screamed.
Asuka walked in, her steps silencing Ria's fury.
Her daughter stared at her in shock, completely surprised by her appearance.
The thin stall door was dented and caved in. Ria was rubbing her hands. She was sore but that was it.
"How long have you been there?" she asked quietly.
"Just caught the tail end of the conversation. How's Okito?" Asuka replied.
"Fine. He was out shopping when it happened. The rest of the family is okay, though apparently his little brother won't stop crying," Ria said evenly.
Good, Hikari was safe at least.
Ria was pumping her fists, her breathing measured. She was angry, enraged even, but she was desperately trying not to show it.
"You want to talk about what happened?" Asuka asked.
Everyone was shaken up by what happened. It was Humanity's collective worst nightmare made flesh: The war against the Angels begun anew. It was all Asuka could do to restrain herself from running to the nearest bar and pursuing a career in Alcoholism. But she knew she had to be strong, for Ria, for Shinji, even for her other self and the small Shinji.
"I want to keep beating that door until it falls off it's hinges but that's not exactly healthy. But I..It's just, It's just fucking bullshit," Ria muttered.
"Yeah, it is," Asuka agreed.
It really was.
"Sorry, sorry," Ria said, apologizing for her vulgarity.
"It's fine," Asuka said, reassuring her.
Ria grabbed her mother in a tight hug, sniffling slightly.
"It's alright," Asuka said, stroking her daughter's head. "It will be alright."
"Stay safe," Ria begged. "Just promise me you'll stay safe."
/
"Look here." Shinji followed the light with his eyes. "And here."
The medical facilities had certainly improved, actually looked like a doctor's office now, for one thing.
The doctor was young, older than him by a good decade or so, but still. She had long, warm brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a blue ascot tied around her neck. There was something familiar about her, but Ikari couldn't quite place it.
"Well there's no sign of concussion," the doctor said. "Looks like you just had a few bruises. Pretty lucky, all things considered."
"Yeah," Shinji replied.
Considering he was hospitalized after his first fight with the Angel, yeah, he was very lucky indeed.
She smiled. "Still, make sure to let us know right away if you experience any dizzy spells or anything like that."
"So, do I know you? You look familiar," Shinji asked nervously.
She laughed, her face slightly flushed.
She offered her hand. "Oh! I'm sorry, I never properly introduced myself. I'm Sakura Suzuhara. Touji's younger sister."
Shinji froze. Touji's sister? That meant she was... oh no, oh no.
"I'm so-"
"Don't apologize," Dr. Suzuhara interrupted, her voice kind. "There's nothing to apologize for. I've long since recovered. Wasn't your fault to begin with. It's ancient history for us."
Shinji nodded "I suppose it is."
He still couldn't shake the guilt. It was nice to see she recovered though, hopefully it wasn't too costly for Touji's family.
"I have to file my reports now. Press the button on the wall if you need help. It was nice to meet you again, Mister Ikari," she said.
She smiled as she left.
Shinji sat there, trying not to think about the fight. Trying and failing. He had a few blissful weeks of thinking he would never again have to worry about piloting an Eva. Now it seemed like he would have to fight every single Angel over again. At least WILLE knew how to fight them.
Five minutes after Dr. Suzuhara left, Asuka walked in, dressed in an outfit he was pretty sure she borrowed from Ria.
"We're even," she said as she entered, looking particularly pleased with herself.
"Pardon?" Shinji raised an eyebrow.
"For Mount Asama," she explained. "You pulled me from the Volcano, I saved your ass from the Third Angel. That makes us even."
Shinji didn't think that was quite fair. She had saved him from an Angel that was fully intent on murdering him, he had just prevented her from being crushed by the lava. She'd done far more than him.
"Thank you for doing that," Shinji replied. "I froze up. If it wasn't for you I would have died."
Asuka looked shocked. "Err, well it's okay. Seeing an Angel you already killed is quite a shock."
Shinji nodded.
"You need to relax, Shinji, we got this." her voice brimming with confidence. "We've fought most of them already and the ones we haven't, WILLE has records of. We're going to beat these Angels so hard, even our future selves will look at us in awe."
Shinji smiled. Her confidence was inspiring.
"Just wish we knew why this was happening," he said.
Misato had told them any more Impacts were impossible, Adam was gone. So what was even the point?
Asuka waved it off dismissively. "Probably one of the Angels dropped us here thinking we would be easy prey."
"Yeah," Shinji agreed. "That makes sense."
/
There were only three people in the conference room: Ristuko, Misato, and Sub-Director Soryu. The Prime Minister's face filled the video screen.
They were discussing how to deal with a situation that yesterday would have been unthinkable: the return of the Angels.
"We need more funding," Misato stated. "Effectively unlimited."
Bold but true. They were starting from a far worse position than they did twenty years ago. Keeping the Evas operational was a struggle as it was. They needed more, much much more.
The Prime Minister nodded. "Agreed. The Empress was most alarmed by this morning's events."
Well, that was easy.
"Though," the Prime Minister added, "the Diet is wondering if it is possible to move WILLE outside of Kyoto. We could revive the Tokyo-4 project."
Misato shook her head "If we had a couple years to prepare I would say yes. Unfortunately, Prime Minister, we don't know if the next Angel will come in two years or two hours. Moving out of Kyoto would leave us dangerously vunerable."
The Prime Minister sighed. "Regrettable, but I understand."
Misato turned towards Ristuko and Asuka. "Our two biggest concerns now are getting this facility battle-ready and figuring out just how the hell this happened."
Ristuko pulled out several folders. Even she couldn't hide her confusion at the whole situation. Past Shinji and Asuka coming over was bad enough, but the Angel appearing, and it's bizarre behavior and death? Misato could tell that Ristuko was on the verge of punching a wall or something. Everything they knew about the Angels was being tossed into the wind.
"Over the years I've had the research teams design Evangelion weapons and equipment," Ristuko explained. "Hypotheticals, mainly to keep them sharp. Most of them are entirely impractical for our present situation. But there are a few I believe would prove useful."
Misato sorted through them. There was a generator that could attach to the Evangelions, giving them thirty minutes of power without the cables. Non-nuclear or N2, so the dangers were minimal. Though they did look like the bulk could be an issue.
Most of the rest were weapons, a long staff with a blade on each end, each curving in the opposite direction, a portable shield…
"Is that a positron Gatling gun?" Asuka said in disbelief.
Misato flipped through the files, sure enough there were blueprints for a shoulder mounted weapon that used five miniaturized positron rifles.
"Assault Cannon," Ritsuko corrected.
"Asuka, look over those later," Misato ordered as she put away the files.
"Will do," she replied.
"So, any answers yet on what happened with the Angel?" Misato asked.
Ristuko's eye twitched. "The liquid. It's not LCL, but near as we can tell it's not any known Angelic substance either. We're going to be running tests on it for days though."
Well, it's not like any of them expected the answer to be simple.
"Its behavior concerns me more," Asuka noted. "I reviewed past footage from all the Angel fights. Some, like Kaworu displayed human or near human level intelligence. Sachiel was not one of those. The behavior it displayed the first time was animalistic at best. It only attacked the turrets when they proved a threat, yet it knew to attack the cord. From everything we know about Angels it should have barely registered that cord existed."
"Wait, what are you saying?" the Prime Minister asked, fear creeping into his voice.
"I'm saying the Angel displayed increased intelligence and at worst, understood the importance of the power cord. Something it should have no knowledge of."
Well that was a cold kick to the stomach. Smarter Angels were the last thing they needed. And the Angel knowing something like that, the implications were... incredibly troubling.
Asuka went on."Then there's its behavior. As Dr.Akagi has already noted, it focused almost entirely Shinji, much to its determinant. Then there's its behavior after it jumped away. It could have attacked from afar, it could have tried to heal. It could have done anything: The two Pilots had become briefly distracted, giving it the perfect window. Yet it just watched. And of course despite demonstrating twenty years ago it was perfectly capable of turning itself into a bomb and yet.."
"It just stabbed itself," Misato finished.
The behavior was bewildering to say the least. Angels had a certain predictability to them. Misato hated them, but she also thought she understood the basics of what they wanted and how they behaved. Now she felt completely lost.
Asuka sighed. "I don't mean to be alarmist, and I know there are weeks and months of analysis ahead of us. But I believe the attack was one of two things. Either the Angel was probing us or it was a full attack the Angel decided to abandon after injury. Both have troubling implications."
"Neither of them fit known Angel behavior," Ristuko noted.
That was putting it mildly.
Asuka nodded in agreement.
"Between the the bizarre nature of the Angel's death and it's abnormal behavior, we can't treat this as just the return of the Angels. This is something more. There is something far bigger going on here that we just scratched the surface of. Something with the means and power to move two Evangelions across time and space."
/
Chapter 4 has one more part after this.
"Everything I did, every fight, every mistake, everything Asuka, Rei, Touji, and I suffered and what? 'It doesn't count, you get a redo'?"
Shinji found himself clenching his left fist. He forced himself to stop.
Part of him wished it had been him in that plug so he could have strangled the bastard and tossed it's toxic corpse into a volcano.
Of course technically speaking he was in that plug. Freaking time travel.
He almost wanted to blame his past self for this. They had twenty years of peace and then not three weeks after their arrival, a goddamn Angel appears. The two had to be connected in some way.
Of course that was unfair, the two Pilots were just as much victims as the rest of them.
Shinji felt robbed. He'd done his duty, he'd made mistakes, tons of mistakes, but he'd won. He won, the Angels were dead, most by his hands.
Shinji collapsed into a chair. He felt utterly helpless.
What was the point of everything if it was just going to start again?
"I know you're listening," Shinji growled. "I saw you in the dream. I know you're there, Kaworu. Or is it Tabris, or Adam?! You know what? I don't care. I want answers goddamnit. Answer me!"
Silence greeted him.
"What is this?! Vengeance, retribution for your defeat? Punishment for my mistakes?! Was everything you and Rei told me a lie?!"
His mind flashed back to that terrible moment, the god Rei and Kaworu had become, even the faces of the mass produced Evas. Nothing either had said hinted this would happen. If anything it seemed Kaworu was at peace with his loss and Rei, Lilith was in total control.
Did...did that mean Rei was behind this?
Shinji dismissed the thought. Whatever Rei was truly, she would never do something like that.
He couldn't see Kaworu being behind it either, not truly. If that really was him in his dreams, he wouldn't be taunting him. Kaworu betrayed him, but he never taunted him.
Shinji walked over to a window. The street was empty, blocked off in preparation for the massive amount of construction that was set to begin.
WILLE would become a fortress. The war had begun, and there was nothing Shinji could do but watch.
/
"So you were nowhere close to the Angel when the attack happened?" Ria said, her voice distraught.
Asuka froze at the restroom door. Ria had left practically the moment Sachiel fell. Naturally Asuka was worried. She'd never seen her daughter that scared before. She'd seen her nervous plenty of times, particularly when they were going to see Shinji when she was younger. But she'd never seen her terrified, not like that.
That scream would haunt Asuka's nightmares for years to come.
"No, no, it's cool, it's cool," Ria went on, her voice calming down but sounding exhausted. "So how's your sister? They make it out okay? Oh? Good, good. Yeah, yeah, no, I got a text from Mari, she's fine."
She was talking to Okito? Not surprising. It was good to hear he had come out of this okay. Reports were sketchy to say the least but casualties were already in the hundreds.
"I have to go...stay safe out there."
Ria hung up the phone. A second later she let out a loud, guttural scream and began beating a stall door. The sound of fists banging against aluminum doors echoed through the restroom.
"Verdammte Scheiße!" Ria screamed.
Asuka walked in, her steps silencing Ria's fury.
Her daughter stared at her in shock, completely surprised by her appearance.
The thin stall door was dented and caved in. Ria was rubbing her hands. She was sore but that was it.
"How long have you been there?" she asked quietly.
"Just caught the tail end of the conversation. How's Okito?" Asuka replied.
"Fine. He was out shopping when it happened. The rest of the family is okay, though apparently his little brother won't stop crying," Ria said evenly.
Good, Hikari was safe at least.
Ria was pumping her fists, her breathing measured. She was angry, enraged even, but she was desperately trying not to show it.
"You want to talk about what happened?" Asuka asked.
Everyone was shaken up by what happened. It was Humanity's collective worst nightmare made flesh: The war against the Angels begun anew. It was all Asuka could do to restrain herself from running to the nearest bar and pursuing a career in Alcoholism. But she knew she had to be strong, for Ria, for Shinji, even for her other self and the small Shinji.
"I want to keep beating that door until it falls off it's hinges but that's not exactly healthy. But I..It's just, It's just fucking bullshit," Ria muttered.
"Yeah, it is," Asuka agreed.
It really was.
"Sorry, sorry," Ria said, apologizing for her vulgarity.
"It's fine," Asuka said, reassuring her.
Ria grabbed her mother in a tight hug, sniffling slightly.
"It's alright," Asuka said, stroking her daughter's head. "It will be alright."
"Stay safe," Ria begged. "Just promise me you'll stay safe."
/
"Look here." Shinji followed the light with his eyes. "And here."
The medical facilities had certainly improved, actually looked like a doctor's office now, for one thing.
The doctor was young, older than him by a good decade or so, but still. She had long, warm brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a blue ascot tied around her neck. There was something familiar about her, but Ikari couldn't quite place it.
"Well there's no sign of concussion," the doctor said. "Looks like you just had a few bruises. Pretty lucky, all things considered."
"Yeah," Shinji replied.
Considering he was hospitalized after his first fight with the Angel, yeah, he was very lucky indeed.
She smiled. "Still, make sure to let us know right away if you experience any dizzy spells or anything like that."
"So, do I know you? You look familiar," Shinji asked nervously.
She laughed, her face slightly flushed.
She offered her hand. "Oh! I'm sorry, I never properly introduced myself. I'm Sakura Suzuhara. Touji's younger sister."
Shinji froze. Touji's sister? That meant she was... oh no, oh no.
"I'm so-"
"Don't apologize," Dr. Suzuhara interrupted, her voice kind. "There's nothing to apologize for. I've long since recovered. Wasn't your fault to begin with. It's ancient history for us."
Shinji nodded "I suppose it is."
He still couldn't shake the guilt. It was nice to see she recovered though, hopefully it wasn't too costly for Touji's family.
"I have to file my reports now. Press the button on the wall if you need help. It was nice to meet you again, Mister Ikari," she said.
She smiled as she left.
Shinji sat there, trying not to think about the fight. Trying and failing. He had a few blissful weeks of thinking he would never again have to worry about piloting an Eva. Now it seemed like he would have to fight every single Angel over again. At least WILLE knew how to fight them.
Five minutes after Dr. Suzuhara left, Asuka walked in, dressed in an outfit he was pretty sure she borrowed from Ria.
"We're even," she said as she entered, looking particularly pleased with herself.
"Pardon?" Shinji raised an eyebrow.
"For Mount Asama," she explained. "You pulled me from the Volcano, I saved your ass from the Third Angel. That makes us even."
Shinji didn't think that was quite fair. She had saved him from an Angel that was fully intent on murdering him, he had just prevented her from being crushed by the lava. She'd done far more than him.
"Thank you for doing that," Shinji replied. "I froze up. If it wasn't for you I would have died."
Asuka looked shocked. "Err, well it's okay. Seeing an Angel you already killed is quite a shock."
Shinji nodded.
"You need to relax, Shinji, we got this." her voice brimming with confidence. "We've fought most of them already and the ones we haven't, WILLE has records of. We're going to beat these Angels so hard, even our future selves will look at us in awe."
Shinji smiled. Her confidence was inspiring.
"Just wish we knew why this was happening," he said.
Misato had told them any more Impacts were impossible, Adam was gone. So what was even the point?
Asuka waved it off dismissively. "Probably one of the Angels dropped us here thinking we would be easy prey."
"Yeah," Shinji agreed. "That makes sense."
/
There were only three people in the conference room: Ristuko, Misato, and Sub-Director Soryu. The Prime Minister's face filled the video screen.
They were discussing how to deal with a situation that yesterday would have been unthinkable: the return of the Angels.
"We need more funding," Misato stated. "Effectively unlimited."
Bold but true. They were starting from a far worse position than they did twenty years ago. Keeping the Evas operational was a struggle as it was. They needed more, much much more.
The Prime Minister nodded. "Agreed. The Empress was most alarmed by this morning's events."
Well, that was easy.
"Though," the Prime Minister added, "the Diet is wondering if it is possible to move WILLE outside of Kyoto. We could revive the Tokyo-4 project."
Misato shook her head "If we had a couple years to prepare I would say yes. Unfortunately, Prime Minister, we don't know if the next Angel will come in two years or two hours. Moving out of Kyoto would leave us dangerously vunerable."
The Prime Minister sighed. "Regrettable, but I understand."
Misato turned towards Ristuko and Asuka. "Our two biggest concerns now are getting this facility battle-ready and figuring out just how the hell this happened."
Ristuko pulled out several folders. Even she couldn't hide her confusion at the whole situation. Past Shinji and Asuka coming over was bad enough, but the Angel appearing, and it's bizarre behavior and death? Misato could tell that Ristuko was on the verge of punching a wall or something. Everything they knew about the Angels was being tossed into the wind.
"Over the years I've had the research teams design Evangelion weapons and equipment," Ristuko explained. "Hypotheticals, mainly to keep them sharp. Most of them are entirely impractical for our present situation. But there are a few I believe would prove useful."
Misato sorted through them. There was a generator that could attach to the Evangelions, giving them thirty minutes of power without the cables. Non-nuclear or N2, so the dangers were minimal. Though they did look like the bulk could be an issue.
Most of the rest were weapons, a long staff with a blade on each end, each curving in the opposite direction, a portable shield…
"Is that a positron Gatling gun?" Asuka said in disbelief.
Misato flipped through the files, sure enough there were blueprints for a shoulder mounted weapon that used five miniaturized positron rifles.
"Assault Cannon," Ritsuko corrected.
"Asuka, look over those later," Misato ordered as she put away the files.
"Will do," she replied.
"So, any answers yet on what happened with the Angel?" Misato asked.
Ristuko's eye twitched. "The liquid. It's not LCL, but near as we can tell it's not any known Angelic substance either. We're going to be running tests on it for days though."
Well, it's not like any of them expected the answer to be simple.
"Its behavior concerns me more," Asuka noted. "I reviewed past footage from all the Angel fights. Some, like Kaworu displayed human or near human level intelligence. Sachiel was not one of those. The behavior it displayed the first time was animalistic at best. It only attacked the turrets when they proved a threat, yet it knew to attack the cord. From everything we know about Angels it should have barely registered that cord existed."
"Wait, what are you saying?" the Prime Minister asked, fear creeping into his voice.
"I'm saying the Angel displayed increased intelligence and at worst, understood the importance of the power cord. Something it should have no knowledge of."
Well that was a cold kick to the stomach. Smarter Angels were the last thing they needed. And the Angel knowing something like that, the implications were... incredibly troubling.
Asuka went on."Then there's its behavior. As Dr.Akagi has already noted, it focused almost entirely Shinji, much to its determinant. Then there's its behavior after it jumped away. It could have attacked from afar, it could have tried to heal. It could have done anything: The two Pilots had become briefly distracted, giving it the perfect window. Yet it just watched. And of course despite demonstrating twenty years ago it was perfectly capable of turning itself into a bomb and yet.."
"It just stabbed itself," Misato finished.
The behavior was bewildering to say the least. Angels had a certain predictability to them. Misato hated them, but she also thought she understood the basics of what they wanted and how they behaved. Now she felt completely lost.
Asuka sighed. "I don't mean to be alarmist, and I know there are weeks and months of analysis ahead of us. But I believe the attack was one of two things. Either the Angel was probing us or it was a full attack the Angel decided to abandon after injury. Both have troubling implications."
"Neither of them fit known Angel behavior," Ristuko noted.
That was putting it mildly.
Asuka nodded in agreement.
"Between the the bizarre nature of the Angel's death and it's abnormal behavior, we can't treat this as just the return of the Angels. This is something more. There is something far bigger going on here that we just scratched the surface of. Something with the means and power to move two Evangelions across time and space."
/
Chapter 4 has one more part after this.