NEON GENESIS EVANGELION: EVOLUTION
BOOK IV
An Evangelion Fanfic in Many Parts
By Sentinel 28II (aka Sentinel 28A)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for the very long hiatus. End of semester, vacation to Anime Central, health issues...all that and everything else. But summer's here, and with it, hopefully, back to this story.
WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE: It has been over a month since Riana Arashikaze became the newest pilot of the Evangelion Project, but it has not been an easy road. She possesses little of the natural talent of the other Eva pilots, and is still piloting a preproduction version of the Eva mecha—EVA-03A. She and her mecha lack the ability to generate an AT-Field, leaving her at a huge disadvantage against the Angels.
Riana does have one advantage: she seems to have some sort of inherent magic, allowing her to control time. She is unsure of her powers and how to use them, much less how much potential she actually has. Director Gendo Ikari believes she can be used as a weapon, but he is about the only one who believes this, including Riana herself. Nonetheless, she has survived four battles with Angels, and her skill is growing—along with her friendship with Shinji and Rei, and her rivalry with Asuka.
After the last battle with Zeruel, Riana was knocked unconscious. She has woken up…but in a different place, in possibly a different time, and in a different body.
Artificial Evolution Lab
Tokyo-3, Japan
12 November 2016
Doctor Tetsuo Fuchida returned the smile of the three young female technicians that passed him in the hallway. He sighed a little as they went past; to be young again. Truth to tell, he admitted to himself, he always felt a little out of his depth at the Evolution Lab. It was a gathering of some of the smartest, most brilliant people in the world—Fuchida, after all, merely had a single Ph.D., and it was in medicine.
He knocked politely on the director's office door. "Come in," came the muffled reply, and Fuchida entered. He and Director Gendo Ikari exchanged bows, and then Gendo slid the chair back and walked around the desk. "Good morning, Dr. Fuchida."
"Good morning, Director Ikari." He glanced around. "I was hoping Dr. Ikari would be here as well."
"Yui's downstairs, with Dr. Soryu. You know how it is. Girl talk." Gendo winked conspiratorially.
Actually, Fuchida had no idea, but he smiled nonetheless. "I have the reports on Mana Kirishima."
"Ah, excellent. Walk with me, Doctor." Gendo led the way out of the office. "How is she?"
"Physically, she's fine. She sustained a concussion when she fell and struck her head on the side of the bathtub. However, she no longer shows any physical symptoms of the concussion. As you know, she also cut the back of her head when she fell, but we've closed up that wound. I doubt it will even scar. Were it not for the mental symptoms, I would send her home today, but…"
"But for the mental symptoms," Gendo finished.
"Yes, sir." Fuchida consulted his notes, to be sure. "Mana insists she is not Mana, but someone named Riana Arashikaze."
"I admit I'm not a doctor—at least in the medical sense," Gendo said, "but could that be something left over from the concussion?"
"A certain amount of confusion and even amnesia surrounding the event of the concussion itself is not unusual," Fuchida replied, "but this is like something I have never seen. Mana remembers absolutely nothing about her life. When her parents came to see her after she was brought here, she didn't even recognize them. She doesn't know her own birthday. However, she does know everything about this Riana person—birthday, birthplace, parents, etcetera.
"It gets stranger," Fuchida continued. "She knows you. She knows Dr. Ikari. When I asked her about her schoolmates, she instantly named all of them—your son Shinji, Rei Ayanami, Asuka Langley-Soryu, Hiraki Horiaki, all of them. She knows the layout of Tokyo-3."
"Forgive my lack of knowledge," Gendo told Fuchida, "but it sounds if she might have developed some sort of split personality, or has gaps in her knowledge."
"I've never heard of that happening, but I suppose it's possible." Fuchida shrugged. "To be honest, Director Ikari, I feel very much out of my depth here. We did a CT scan on her the night she was brought in. No bleeding in the brain or damage that we can see. We did another last night, and again, nothing. I have no explanation for this. It's possible she might wake up tomorrow and be back to normal. It's possible she may never return to normal. With your permission, I'd like to turn Mana over to Dr. Soryu. Her research may be able to learn the answers that I can't."
"Hmm," Gendo mused. "All right. I'll arrange it…assuming I can find Dr. Soryu." Fuchida nodded but said nothing out of courtesy. It was well known at the lab that Gendo got lost a lot.
Two floors down and one hallway over, Riana Arashikaze lay in bed, propped against a pillow. She put down the book she had been reading and stared at the ceiling. Something was very wrong, and unlike the dreams she had experienced earlier, this one did not seem to be ending anytime soon.
There was a soft knock at her door, then it opened. She expected to see the kind, middle-aged doctor who had been treating her, or one of the nurses. Instead, it was a taller woman with blond hair, dressed in the ubiquitous labcoat that Riana had seen in this place, but offset with a bright pink blouse and a black skirt that Riana thought was a bit short for a woman of a certain age. She smiled at Riana…but then again, everyone had smiled at her here. Riana was used to cleanliness of NERV, but at no time during her stay there was everyone this kind.
"Hello, Mana," the woman greeted her. "I'm Doctor Kyoko Soryu."
God, Riana thought in shock, this has got to be Asuka's mother. She could see the resemblance: the hair was far more blond, but the eyes had the same shape, as did the face. Riana had never really known what had happened to Asuka's mother, nor even her name, but she knew that Asuka's mother was dead. And yet, just like Shinji's mother, here she was, very much alive.
"Hello, Dr. Soryu." Riana extended a hand. Kyoko went to take it, but tripped and nearly fell. She caught herself on the bed just in time. "Oops!" Kyoko laughed in embarrassment. "Sorry. These floors must have been just mopped." She finally took the hand, gave it one shake, then drew up a chair and sat alongside the bed.
"So what should we talk about, Mana?" Kyoko clasped her hands together.
Riana had given this a lot of thought. It was tempting just to tell this woman, and any other doctors that followed, that she had been delusional and she really was this Mana Kirishima. The problem with that was, she had no idea who Mana was, or what her life was like. In the mirror, in the body, she was Mana. In her mind and soul, she was Riana. So she decided to tell the truth…or at least as much as she could figure out.
"No disrespect, ma'am," Riana began, "but I'm not Mana Kirishima."
"Really?" Kyoko looked surprised. "You look just like her."
"I know. And I don't know why I do. But I'm not, really." At the look on Kyoko's face, Riana shrugged. "Ask me a question about Mana Kirishima. It doesn't matter. I won't know the answer."
"Okay. So who are you, then?"
Riana was sure she was being humored, but there was nothing else to do. "My name is Riana Arashikaze. I was born in Seattle, Washington, in the United States, on September 11, 2001-"
"Oh my." Kyoko's eyes were wide. "What a bad luck day to be born."
Riana's mouth fell open. "Then…you know about Second Impact?"
Kyoko shook her head. "I don't know anything about a Second Impact, but September 11—that was the day those terrorists attacked the United States." At Riana's quizzical look, Kyoko prompted, "You know. September 11? 9/11? Al-Qaeda? I mean, I slept through the whole thing—I was pregnant with Asuka at the time…"
"I'm sorry. I don't know what you're talking about. I've never heard of that."
"I'm sorry too," Kyoko apologized. "I interrupted you. Please, continue. What was Second Impact?"
Riana explained, and Kyoko listened patiently. Riana ended up telling her everything—almost. She decided not to mention the fact that Kyoko Soryu was supposed to be dead, along with Yui Ikari; all she said about Asuka was that they worked and went to school together. When Kyoko asked about Mana Kirishima, Riana told the truth: in her world, Mana did not exist—at least, Riana had never met her or heard of her.
When Riana had finished, Kyoko sat back in her chair; she had been leaning forward the whole time. She tapped her pen against her chin. "So…what do you think?" Riana said, almost desperately, into the silence.
Kyoko took her time in answering. "You're not crazy."
"I'm glad someone doesn't think I am—"
"I'm not sure what you are." Kyoko got up, took one of Riana's hands in her own cool ones. "Stay here. I'm going to help you as best I can." Then she released the girl and left.
Yui Ikari did not bother to translate the notes Kyoko had scribbled after she left Riana's room: the other woman was one of the most brilliant women in the world, possessed of an Einstein-level intellect and a photographic memory—for certain things—but penmanship was not one of Dr. Soryu's talents. "Short version," she asked Kyoko from behind her desk. "Is she suffering from a severe concussion?"
"Nope." Kyoko used the English word, another habit of hers. "Not according to the CT scans, and not according to anything I could see."
"Is she insane?"
"Nope."
Yui steepled her hands and leaned forward on her desk. "Is she Mana Kirishima?"
"Yes. And no."
The beginnings of a headache appeared behind Yui's eyes. "That's not an answer."
"I don't have one, Yui. Physically, she's definitely Mana. Everything's there. Blood type is the same, hair, eyes, breast size—really, I don't know why Asuka feels so intimidated by Mana, Asuka is bigger and—"
"Kyoko…"
The elder Soryu smiled mischievously. "Okay, okay." She returned to being more serious, at least as serious as Kyoko could get. "Mentally? You could it put it down to brain damage, or concussion, amnesia, even split personality…but she has come up with an incredibly detailed backstory. From near-extinction-level events, attacks from space—at least I think that's what she meant by 'Angels'—to mecha that she pilots…too much to be a delusion. She's been somewhere, Yui. Where, I don't know."
"You believe her, then? That's she's not Mana but this Riana person?"
Kyoko shrugged. "I don't know what I believe. I've never seen anything like this."
"All right, Doctor. What should we do, then? Holding her here seems counterproductive, if she's healthy." Yui rubbed her temples.
"I think we should let her go home," Kyoko answered. "If it is amnesia, which I doubt, it might trigger recall. If not, at least she's not stuck in a hospital bed. She can go to school, too—she does at least know Asuka, Shinji, and the others. We keep an eye on her, of course."
"Of course." Yui sighed. "All right, I'll let Mana's parents know. It's better than nothing, which is what we have now. If you think of anything, let me know."
"I've got a few ideas." Yui did not like the tone in Kyoko Soryu's voice. While the other woman was not exactly a mad scientist—at least, not any more than anyone else at the Artificial Evolution Lab, which occasionally wasn't saying much—she had some interesting ideas on bioethics sometimes. As in, she didn't believe in them. Luckily, Kyoko tended to be harmless, mostly. "I'll see you later, Yui."
"Thanks again, Kyoko." As the other woman turned to leave, Yui asked, "Oh, have you seen my husband? He's gone missing again, I'm afraid."
"No, I haven't—" The door opened to admit Gendo Ikari, who promptly collided with Kyoko Soryu. Yui leapt out of her chair, but it was too late: both crashed to the floor. "I'm sorry, Dr. Soryu," Gendo said; at least, that's what Yui thought he said, as his face was buried between Kyoko's ample breasts. His head came up after too long a time there. "It was an accident, Yui! Please!"
"Oww." Kyoko rubbed the back of her head. Luckily, the office floor was carpeted.
"Will you two please get untangled?" Yui put down the potted plant. She didn't need any more concussions around the lab.