Shinji Tokisaka: Chapter 7

Practice and Preparation

By Type-00

Shinji woke from his nap to the sounds of battle. He replaced his
sunglasses on his face before glancing into the training arena. He
watched two fighters face off against each other. The aggressor of
the battle, Asuka, kept on attacking, never once ceasing, even when it
left her overexposed. The Only reason she hadn't lost was that the
other warrior wasn't as experienced.
Unlike Asuka, who had a few weeks of training, Rei only had a few
hours of a crash course from Kyosuke to aid her. Her cool attitude
seemed to balance the fight out. Each of her movements were
flawlessly calculated to counter Asuka's occasional wayward attack.
Rarely, Rei would strike out. Her training katana moving like a
snake, each attack's speed was so great, Asuka barely deflected them
before resuming her relentless assault. Her lack of skill didn't show
itself throughout the battle. Her mental strength made up for any
deficiency of technique.
However much raw talent Rei had however, it was nonetheless, only raw
talent. Asuka had had a longer time to practice her moves, as well as
develop her endurance for battles. A few minute more of resounding
clashes of blades passed before Rei's exhaustion began to show itself.
Her dodges were slightly slower, her blocks less effective, and she
no longer attempted to retaliate against Asuka. Instead of lightening
her attack, Asuka redoubled her efforts. In a matter of moments, she
forced Rei to the ground, her blade glinting millimeters from her
visibly pulsing throat. A smirk was evident on her face, and after
Shinji signaled to let Rei up, Asuka made no move to help her.
"That was fairly good Asuka, but you might want to take a page out of
Rei's book, and temper your passion for battle." Shinji commented
coolly.
"Are you insinuating that I won through luck!" Asuka spat back at
him, seething at the implied insult.
"I mean nothing of the sort. Your training is superior to hers,
which allowed you to defeat her without exhausting yourself. However,
you put too much energy into some of your attacks, and didn't give the
slightest attention to your defense. If Rei's style of fighting was
the same as yours, the fight would have been over much sooner, though
I think it would have been another victory for you." Shinji replied,
revealing nothing through minute guestures or changes in his tone of
voice.
Asuka considered this for a moment, and chose to take it as a
compliment. Before she could begin her verbal abuse of Rei's
inadequacies, the sound of an opening door cut her off. All three
Evangelion pilots turned towards the door, Asuak in rage, Rei with
indifference, and Shinji with an aura of caution and a hand on his
blade.
He visibly relaxed as Kyosuke walked through the door, wearing a
Light Jack, T-shirt, and jeans. He took his hand out of his pocket,
revealing a miniature CD. He smirked at Shinji's questioning eyes,
before saying anything.
"We got it. Shiro did a pretty good job of hacking into the system.
SEELE and NERV couldn't trace him, and he verified that its clean."
Asuak and Rei looked on with slight confusion, not knowing what was
going on.
"Well then, let's take a look, shall we? Or do you want to wait for
Komugi and Runa?" Shinji inquired.
"They can see it later. I'd rather know exactly what these are."
"Excuse me, but what exactly are you two talking about." Asuka
interrupted, no longer content to remain oblivious to what the two
swordsmen were conversing about.
"This disk happens to contain all the information about Second
Impact, The Angels, and The Evangelions. It is a copy of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, the key to humanity and instrumentality. Both NERV and SEELE
have them, but now we can see exactly what they say about what's
happening now." Kyosuke explained. "Let's go have a look at what kind
of skeletons are in the closet, shall we?" Both girls silently
nodded, before allowing the elder Tokisaka to lead them into another
room.

All four of the room occupants staredin different degrees of surpise,
disbelief, and horror at the glowing computer screen. Rei looked at
it with sadness and horror, finally seeing the true reason for her
creation. Asuka stared with incredulity, her brain refusing to accept
what she had been raised to do, and had so willingly gone along with.
The Tokisaka brothers gazed at the screen with grim set faces, now
finally knowing the truth, while confirming the saying, "Ignorance is
Bliss." No one said anything for another few moents, before Kyosuke
shattered the silence by beginning to outline plans.
"Alright, things are a lot worse than we originally thought, but now
we know what we're up against, and what's coming next. Unit-03 will
be taken over by the 13th angel. Be ready. I don't know who the
pilot for the activation test will be, but I want all of you to
prepare for the worst. I haven't even heard about Unit-03 being
shipped over here, but as soon as I do, I want all of you to lay off
training so you can be at your peak when this happens. I don't want
any of you responsible for someone's death." Kyosuke looked each of
them in the eye as he said this, making sure they took this seriously.
Both Shinji and Rei's expressions remained the same, but Asuka seemed
to deflate a bit, seeing how dangerous it would be from Kyosuke's
eyes.
Kyosuke sighed. "Well, you three should get a little more practice
in today before you go home. How about you two against Shinji?"
Kyosuke inquired. Asuka's eyes lit up at the chance to defeat Shinji,
while Rei simply gazed at Kyosuke with indifference. Shinji sighed in
annoyance before drawing two daggers. Fighting with two smaller
blades would be more effective than one large sword against multiple
opponents.
Asuka and Rei stood side by side, each with a focused expression on
their face. Shinji crouched in a more defensive position than usual.
Facing two fairly competent warriors isn't something to take lightly.
All three pilots stood silently for a moment, before Asuka and Rei
attacked in tandem, reacting to an invisible signal. Shinji's blades
met their in s shriek of metal on metal. Shinji made no aggressive
moves. He waited for the two swordswomen to come after him, instead
of rushing into a weak position. Both females realized this almost
instantly, and rushed him. Asuka struck with wide horizontal slash
while Rei chose to use her blade more like a fencing saber, jabbing at
Shinji's body, seeking the weak point in his defense. She found none,
and Shinji whipped one of his daggers at her. She instinctively
dodged it, and noticed a fraction of a second too late that it was
what Shinji wanted her to do. Without Rei's supporting strategic
strikes, Asuka's powerful but predictable attacks were useless.
Before Rei could strike at Shinji, he had changed into an extremely
aggressive style and was ripping Asuka to shreds. Asuka still fought
spectacularly. She lasted an entire 3 seconds before he started
hitting her with his blades. She lasted another 4 seconds before the
massive number of superficial wounds took their toll and forced her to
unconsciousness.
This all took Place in the amount of time it took Rei to pivot and
renew her attack on Shinji. Her blade stopped scant millimeters from
his chest. Shinji's blades locked around the hilt of her sword,
preventing it from reaching any vital points. Shock passed over Rei's
features for a brief second before they return to their neutral cold
appearance. Shinji smirked in amusement and sadistic pleasure for a
moment before he launched a second offensive. Rei lasted a shorter
time than Asuka only six second before yielding to Shinji. Shinji,
instead of gloating or saying nothing, simply wiped a thin, red line
off of his face before waking away. As he passed the two girls, they
heard him murmur, "That's the first time in a long time that some one
drew blood from me. Maybe you two aren't hopeless cases after all.
Asuka's fuming glare provided more amusement for him, and he was on
the verge of bursting into laughter until he left the dojo.

Far below the surface of Tokyo-3, Runa Tokisaka was diligently
working on the maintenance of the MAGI computer system. At least,
that was what she was supposed to be doing. She had already finished that and was currently learning all the nuances of the main facility of NERV. It was surprising how many unlisted passages and entryways there were on just the first five levels alone.

Boring… Boring… Boring…

Runa eventually switched off between playing an online arcade game and searching for data on NERV's secret files. Trash, trash, nudie pics, trash, some criminal records… Runa suddenly stopped, finding something that actually caught her interest.

"Hmm… An Eva graveyard… I wonder what an angel could do with THAT at its disposal… Nothing good, that's for sure." Runa logged off of her computer before packing up to go home.

"Well, how are my boys?" Runa asked as she walked into their three bedroom apartment. She stopped, then sighed in frustration seeing both Shinji and Kyosuke sprawled on the ground, out cold. A vein popped up on her forehead, and she drew twin pistols from her belt. After sparing a second to make sure they were loaded with rubber bullets. She pointed them at her bothers, and opened fire. Screams of Pain could be heard throughout the neighborhood. After a few minutes of these ungodly sounds, silence reigned again.

"Ow… Runa, did you have to shoot us like that? It hurts way too much." Kyosuke complained, sounding more like a six year old child than his normal self.

"Hmph… maybe next time you shouldn't get drunk an pass out. Then I'll be a lot less likely to shoot you." Runa huffed at him, fire dancing across her face.

"Alright, alright Shinji and I are sorry for falling asleep, okay?" Kyosuke said trying to calm his twin down. Shinji just did his best o stay out of their way.

"Oh, fine. I'll forgive you for this." Runa sighed, annoyed at giving in, but feeling it was necessay at the moment. "Now, I was looking through some of the NERV security files, and this is what I found out…"

Yes cliff hangers are cruel to readers, but I like it this way right now, and I'm tired. Don't know when the next chapter will be up, but I'm going to try and update some of my other stuff before this one. Next update will push it to 10,000+ words! Be happy!