Creation began on 03-04-18
Creation ended on 03-28-18
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Modern Day Legend of a Rage-filled Anchor: To Mend Old Wounds
Although it felt like it was his right to get some rest in his bed, Shinji didn't really feel the same ease that came with sleep. It was like he was forgetting something that he needed to get off his chest before he couldn't.
"Asuka?" He asked for the red-eyed redhead, hoping she was still awake.
"Yeah?" He heard her response.
"The whole year… I mean… You missed him so much for a whole year, didn't you?"
"Yes…but you're both dear to me…so you could say that I missed you for a whole year, as well."
"Do you believe that everyone is entitled to a second chance?"
"What do you mean?"
"Can people…earn second chances…to make up for their faults, however large or small they were?"
"I believe that…if you feel like you can change for the better…then you deserve a chance to see where the path you're on takes you."
"Thank you."
-x-
"You can't do this, boy," Gendo, angry at his son for turning his back on him in his time of greatest need, yelled at Shinji in the darkness as he walked away with these people that were different from the ones they knew. "You can't do this to me! Come back here!"
But Shinji didn't so much as turn back to face him. The young man, last seen by him with a blank expression directed towards his father, left him to his fate whilst departing for the unknown with the red-eyed Second Child, the doppelgänger of his wife that never built or performed experiments with the Evangelion, a teenage version of Major Katsuragi's doppelgänger and these other nonentities he could care less about.
"You tried to kill my friends," he heard Shinji say to him, his voice sounding a bit raspy, like his throat was dry. "You tried to kill me. All because you want something that will never be yours, no matter what you try. If you want a god-like relic so bad, find your own or make your own. Otherwise, lay there and accept your fate. Your intentions were for naught, regardless of your desires. Try as you might to change your fate, you can never grasp what is beyond your reach."
Gendo tried to move, to leap towards the boy, to strangle his neck and rip the very life out of him, but fell onto his front, left to grunt in the darkness.
"I deserve it more than you, boy," he groaned. "I deserve the hagoromo more than you!"
FLASH! The next thing he knew, Gendo was back in the room he was left in on the large ship; the whole experience he had with Shinji leaving him to suffer as he died had been nothing more than a dream brought on by stress.
"Damn brat," he sighed.
-x-
Tweet-tweet-tweet! The chirping of the birds outside as the sunlight shone through the window were a pleasant feeling to Shinji as he awoke to the new day.
Wow, he thought, still a bit weak from his injuries, but feeling like he was waking up to a good feeling. I never thought I'd feel this way to waking up. It's like…waking from a dream…and into another dream. It feels good.
Carefully getting up and turning to his right side, he carefully set his feet down on the floor from Asuka's feet as she awoke.
"Good morning, Shinji," she greeted him.
"Good morning, Asuka," he greeted back. "How do you feel?"
"Like today's going to be a good day."
"That's a good feeling."
-x-
"…So, Ikari found a way to this alternate universe?" SEELE 01 questioned Fuyutsuki during the next meeting with the council members.
"Yes," Fuyutsuki answered. "It's believed that he found a way using the First Angel as a bridge between here and there. However, his reasons for going to the other universe were less than beneficial to NERV and more personal to himself."
"Ikari has been adrift in our patience," said SEELE 06. "What, exactly, were his personal reasons for using an irreplaceable resource to venture to another universe where the Third Child is stranded in…if not to try and reacquire the displaced pilot?"
Fuyutsuki thought for a moment of not divulging the current state of things. Why should he bother with informing these men that were more interested in what they wanted to happen to the world to benefit them when they were just going to be more unsettled by the mere loss of Adam? Why not just lie to them since they lie all the time to the world? But then, just one thought, one name, one person came to mind as he wondered about the worst possible outcome: Shinji. His hallucination of the boy from a possible universe where the world ended and he lost everything still fresh on his conscious.
"Through continued use of a mirror to observe the Third Child in the other world, we discovered that the boy had the opportunity to try and inherit a god-like heirloom from an ancestral member of the Ikari family of that world that would make him a demigod of sorts. Ikari wanted the relic for himself and tried to claim it before his son could. However, the ancestral matriarch of the family, along with a few others, stated that it was impossible for him to obtain the heirloom due to his lack of familial ties; one had to be an Ikari by blood in order to try and inherit the relic." Fuyutsuki revealed; he wasn't going to keep quiet about any of this. "He persisted, however, and tried to kill his son, proclaiming that if he couldn't have the relic, then nobody else could. The Third Child tried to appease Ikari by informing him of another relic that had been obtained artificially by the people he was in the custody of, but his father only wanted the one owned by the Ikari family."
"Treacherous fool," went SEELE 10. "If there was a god-like relic already present and up for grabs, he should've taken that one that was being offered to him! Instead, he wastes time by persistently going after one that won't be his, no matter what he does. Was he even successful?"
"No, and in his attempt to try and kill his son, he may have, inadvertently, lost the Adam embryo."
The council was silent, leaving Fuyutsuki to ponder what they were all thinking.
"What of the state of NERV HQ and the Evas?" SEELE 01 demanded.
"The base and Evas are damaged," he told them. "For the time being, the base is being repaired and then the Evas will be repaired."
"In other words, you've assumed command of NERV in Ikari's absence."
"I have."
"Do keep us informed, Fuyutsuki. This meeting no longer requires your presence."
The holographic monoliths disappeared, leaving the elder alone in the room.
Shinji, I hope you're faring better than we are here, he thought.
-x-
The grounds around the Ikari house were pleasant, even though they were of a Japanese garden near the beach. It was probably due to the distance from the beach that the garden didn't have such a weird feeling to its beauty. Or, as Shinji suspected as he sat on a bench inside a pavilion, the garden was the primary focus of the architectural construction when the house was being built decades ago.
"Come to think of it," he told himself, holding a cherry blossom in his right hand, "I haven't been in a garden since we left Suzumi's place."
From the house's eastern side porch, Aya, Asuka, Yui and Anzu watched Shinji as he was adjusting to his surroundings on the grounds.
"He's never seen a garden before in his past," Aya stated.
"Only Suzumi's when he arrived here," Anzu clarified.
Asuka sighed and expressed, "Gardens symbolize tranquility. A small patch of land devoid of disorder, violence and cruelty. It wouldn't be weird for him to be in such a peaceful setting where he didn't have to fight anyone for any reason."
"He shouldn't have to fight anyone, period," said Yui, sitting against a support beam with a cup of lemonade in her left hand. "I mean… I hope he doesn't have to while he's recovering. He can just…take it easy and get back in touch with his gentle nature."
As she poured herself another cup, Anzu, once more, made it a point of pride to know her daughter and grandson's lover a little better than they knew themselves when they expressed their concerns or opinions about Shinji. Or, in this case, Shinji's doppelgänger. She remembered the first time Shinji wandered into the garden with Asuka when they were little…and how the girl actually fell into the koi fish pond and Shinji had to pull her out before she caught a chill.
"Anzu?" Aya spoke, breaking the elder from her train of thought.
"I'm sorry, what?" She responded.
"I asked if this garden has been here for a long time."
"Oh, yes. One-hundred-twenty years, but everything gets renovated every twenty-thirty years to keep it up to date."
"That explains the new paint smell I picked up when I came over for the first time," Asuka stated. "It was renovated recently from before I met Shinji?"
"Yeah. About three months before you met him, I believe."
They then saw Shinji get up and walk over to a branch covered in cherry blossoms.
Asuka recalled a time when Shinji would seldom times feel enticed by the scent of the flowers. They were one of the few things that made him calm, even if it was only for a short while.
"Asuka," she recalled him saying to her when she was seven, holding a necklace made of cherry blossoms, "for you."
Ring! The doorbell rang, and the ladies were curious as to who was at the door; with the sole exception being Asuka's frequent visiting, and Aya and her friends appearing unannounced from a few days earlier, Anzu and Yui never really had any guests or other visitors.
"I'll get it," Anzu told them as she got up, followed by Aya, who wanted to see if Yuuhi or Toya needed help in the kitchen.
Shinji smelled the flowers on the lowest tree branch and felt calmer. In fact, he didn't feel the presence of the Rage-filled Anchor trying to influence his actions, physical or verbal, at all. If anything, he just felt the pain in his back and the peace surrounding him.
I want to believe that it's not going to act up again, but I don't want to jinx this tranquility for agony, he thought, afraid that the Rage-filled Anchor would act up if he so much as got near someone he cared about and left himself vulnerable to a mishap.
-x-
Anzu opened the door and looked outside, but saw nobody.
"Probably a bunch of pranksters," she suspected.
"Down here," she heard a female voice in front of her, and looked down. "Hello."
It was a girl, probably the age of an eight-year-old, with dark brown eyes and dark, pinkish hair tied in a pair of ponytails, dressed in a schoolgirl uniform that didn't belong to any school in Magatama Town.
"I'm sorry, but are you lost?" Anzu asked her.
"No, ma'am," the girl responded. "I'm looking for someone named Yuuhi. My name is…"
"Chidori?!" Yuuhi, who was coming out of the kitchen, gasped as he saw her. "What are you doing here? I mean, what are you doing here?"
Aya and Toya came out from behind Yuuhi and saw the girl.
"Yuuhi! Aya! Toya!" The girl, Chidori, addressed the three. "I was actually hoping you would be here!"
"Um, excuse me, but what is all the commotion about?" Shinji, coming back into the house, asked, and saw the girl he had seen only from a distance by touching Yuuhi and seeing a future that had been erased from existence with his deviation. "Oh, my… You're her. You're Chidori Kuruma."
Chidori looked at him and felt a degree of confusion. It was like she had met this boy before, but this was the first time. Or was it?
"I'm sorry, but…have we met before?" She asked him.
Before he could say anything, Asuka came in with Yui and Misato…and the red-eyed redhead looked at Chidori like she was seeing another ghost.
"Chidori Kuruma?" She asked.
Chidori looked at her…and recognized those red eyes from three years ago.
"Asuka Soryu-Ayanami?" She responded.
Shinji was officially confused. Did Asuka know Chidori? Was he supposed to know her? Did they have history together? Something he wasn't understanding?
-x-
"Asuka?" Misato gasps, seeing the Second Child in the halls of NERV HQ. "You're back. You… What are you doing back?"
Asuka sighed and explained, "A while ago, I heard a scream at the apartment. It sounded like one Shinji would make, only it was the loudest I've ever heard. Have you seen or heard anything out of the ordinary since the last time we looked at that mirror?"
"Just a small daydream of Shinji," she answered the girl.
"Not a very pleasant one, I assume?"
"It felt like a memory, but it never happened before. Or…it hasn't happened yet in this universe, at least. I think I get why that world we saw Shinji in when he was dreaming in that mirror as a dead one. Everything during the time leading up to its end was just going bad…and instead of trying to make things better, I made things worse with Shinji. I kept telling him to pilot the Eva, but he didn't want to do it, anymore. I didn't give him a choice. And…he didn't have a choice. He never had a choice."
"There was no choice to begin with," Asuka stated. "It was fight or die."
"But what about now? Shinji's in a situation where he doesn't have to fight Angels, but has to deal with people after other people, like a younger version of myself, whatever it is he's getting into with your red-eyed counterpart, his dead self, his father who wanted Frenzia's hagoromo, and his mother's counterpart. But he's currently on the mend due to his injuries."
"And there's also…what he asked her in the hospital. Do you think he'll do it, though? If he even finds a way to fulfill such a goal?"
"Well, she told him that she would like it. All we really know from what we saw in the mirror…was that your doppelganger was involved with his before he killed himself to keep from killing her…and she's attracted to him because she cares about him exactly as he is. She doesn't view our Shinji as the one she knew and loved, but cares about him all the same."
"Do you think it'd be wrong if he did, though?"
"I can't answer that question."
-x-
It was quite a shocker to hear this from the two girls, but it explained the confusion for Shinji. The history clarification and questions of relationship issues. It turned out that three years ago, Chidori Kuruma…and Asuka Soryu-Ayanami…had a falling out because the former couldn't look past the latter's red eyes…and Shinji (before he killed himself) had told the girl that she had to look past his girlfriend's eyes and accept her for who she was…and to never look for her again until she could.
"…I can't believe that Chidori and Asuka once knew each other," said Yuuhi to Aya and Aki as they sat in the garden pavilion, watching Chidori engage in conversation with Asuka and Shinji. "Is it really that hard for people to look past those that have red eyes?"
"I guess for some, anyone with red eyes is viewed as being either a demon or with a demonic heritage," suggested Aki. "But Ms. Soryu-Ayanami isn't a bad person."
"She just suffered bad, personal losses in her past," added Aya, able to look past the girl's eyes and see the kindness within her heart.
Away from the three, on the porch of the house, Shinji, silent in this matter that was taking place between Asuka and the girl whose very future was changed because of him informing the others and helping to prevent the spread of pain and loss, wondered if he was doing the right thing by just being present for the verbal spat.
"I owe you something, Ms. Soryu-Ayanami," said Chidori to Asuka.
"Is that so?" Asuka questioned, her disgust towards the girl still lingering.
"Yeah (Chidori then extended out her right hand in front of the redhead). I am sorry for not having looked past your eyes and seeing you for you. It is not easy for most people to overlook something that has no true relevance to any history or culture, even when there's no explanation for why anyone inherits the eye color they do. I'm seeing you now, looking past your eyes…and asking for your forgiveness for what I said to you three years ago. Can you forgive me?"
Asuka looked at Shinji, as if needing his approval before making her choice.
He decided to just nod in the positive for her to forgive the girl; whatever happened in the past should stay in the past and only be dredged up to try and get to a positive or more enlightened future in the present, not to refrain from doing such.
"I think three years is long enough to let go of an old sense of turmoil and anger," Asuka stated, and shook Chidori's hand. "I'll forgive you, Ms. Kuruma."
"Thank you."
-x-
"…I guess Rei decided to stick around in case something happened with Shinji," Misato sighed, seeing the First Child asleep at the table in front of the mirror.
Asuka walked over and picked up the mirror, seeing nothing but her reflection.
He's probably off somewhere getting the royal treatment for his injuries, she thought, just wanting to think that Shinji would do something, anything, to escape from responsibility and dealing with people or threats like his father.
Setting the mirror back on the table, the redhead sat down at the table.
"Well, a few more hours won't change anything," said Misato as she sat down and picked up the mirror. "Everybody's orders are to start repairing the base. The base first and then Eva Units-00 and 02. Unit-01 is suspended from active duty."
"Why are the Evas being treated as a secondary concern?"
"Commander Fuyutsuki's orders."
"Commander Fuyutsuki's?"
"Well, yeah. Commander Ikari is absent from the base, is currently somewhere in the same, alternate universe as Shinji, possibly with no means to return, and Fuyutsuki was next in the chain of command here. So, he has the last say of any order given."
"I hope he knows what he's doing."
"You took the words right out of my mouth."
Looking at the mirror, Misato didn't see anything beyond herself…until her reflection rippled. Then, it was replaced with the image of her younger doppelgänger in the living room of the Ikari house with everyone else.
-x-
"…So, what brings you here to Magatama Town?" Aya asked Chidori as they all gathered in the living room.
"When I heard there was some sort of disaster at Mikage International, I called Suzumi, and she mentioned that you guys were here," the girl explained. "I asked her to keep an eye on my brother and I came down to find you. Although, I had no idea the situation you were in had changed a lot."
"Yeah, a lot has changed since the last time I called you," Yuuhi explained. "We had a lot of help in dealing with Ceres and the search for her hagoromo."
"You mean, you found it and everything?"
"Yeah," said Aki to her. "Or rather, Shinji and his celestial ancestress, Frenzia, were the ones responsible for finding it. Our information from Ceres wasn't as solid as Frenzia's had been."
"Who's Frenzia?"
"She's the celestial matriarch of the Ikari family," Aya explained. "Shinji here is her current male descendant that she communicates through."
"A male celestial? I thought all the descendants were female."
"Apparently, Shinji is the sole exception to that belief. He even did what we couldn't when it came to Mikage International," said Yuuhi.
"Oh? And what did you do, Shinji? Please, do tell."
"Well, uh…it wasn't really just me. That would be saying I did everything, which would be wrong. I tried to bargain with Kagami of Mikage International. If they agreed to release the women they already had and leave them alone, I would cooperate with them. Of course, I still intend to make sure that they stop for good, but I don't know when that'll be." Shinji explained his involvement, not wanting to give himself so much of the credit. "I really want to say that my involvement started when Aya and Toya found me…and it's complicated. Sort of."
"Complicated" was just one way of saying this Shinji's involvement because Chidori didn't know the whole story. Not even the fact that this Shinji was not the one she had met three years ago.
"What could be more complicated than you being a male celestial descendant that helped Aya find Ceres' hagoromo, free her brother from her spouse, free the other descendants of celestial maidens from Mikage International and everything else you've done since Aya and Toya met?" Chidori asked him.
Shinji looked at the women that knew him best, wanting their permission to divulge the truth before he said anything more.
"Unless you believe in other worlds, alternate universes, not just life after death or ancient spirits returning from centuries past," expressed Yui to Chidori, "it's hard to explain without actually saying things that don't make sense."
"After meeting Aya and discovering that her family's more shadier members were after me and other girls with celestial powers, I think I can take whatever you say to me that may not make sense at all. Try me, please."
Yui looked at the others and sighed.
"Have you ever heard of films like The One or Perfect Blue?" Shinji questioned Chidori; he was hoping that either film would serve as a form of reference or example to his predicament.
"I've seen The One," she answered.
"Multiple universes exist beyond this one. Alternates of people exist beyond the ones we know…or don't know. Every possibility exists for every eventuality that exists."
"Alternates of people? Different types of lives lived by different variations of us?"
"That's what he's saying," Asuka stated. "It's what we're all saying."
"And…how does it complicate things with you guys?"
"Because Shinji here…isn't the one we knew. He…died a year ago. This Shinji…is from an alternate universe that is…less than pleasant."
Chidori looked at Shinji and then pointed at his face.
"But he looks so much like him," she calmly stated. "I mean, he sounds like him, too. How…is he not the one we knew?"
Shinji looked at his left hand, opening and closing it a few times before holding it out to Chidori.
"We've seen his past," Anzu explained. "Maybe you can see it, too."
Chidori was willing to believe them, and accepted Shinji's hand. For a moment, nothing happened. At first, she thought it was because she was simply being deceived, but still… There was nothing to see from holding his hand.
"I'm not seeing anything," she revealed.
"Well," Shinji sighed, "it was just a possibility that you could see. There was no guarantee that anyone else could see anything about my past."
"But even so, that doesn't mean I don't…"
FLASH! As she attempted to let go of his hand, Chidori's eyes flared pink!
Like a movie on fast-forward, the young girl saw the life of this boy running before her eyes. How he lost his mother at an early age, how his father left him and didn't have much of any contact with him, the day he was called to this city just to face a monster with no hope of surviving, being boiled alive inside the cybernetic behemoth at one point, even having to risk his life to stop a creature that was literally a big bomb from blowing up a large patch of the Japanese nation. Oh, she saw everything, even things that were, more or less, private and embarrassing, disturbing and brutal, cold and sorrowful, and full of heartache in places. The girl even saw how the boy ended up here and was found by Aya and Toya, how he somehow saw a future in which she had been killed by touching Yuuhi, even saving the life of Aki with the aid of Asuka, Anzu, Yui and Aya.
"Oh!" She gasped, letting go of his hand, shuddering from the aftereffects of seeing this Shinji's entire past up to the present. "Ahh…ahh…ahh. It's all true. It's… You… They…"
"Hey," Yuuhi quickly silenced her. "Breathe."
Chidori did as instructed, calming down. It helped a lot to her conscious.
"Now," Yuuhi spoke again, "what exactly did you see, Chidori?"
"Everything," she answered. "I saw everything. How he got here, what he saw that could've happened to me when you touched him, that time at the hospital, your time at the Mikage building, everything. It was…like a movie on fast-forward, but I… I was able to understand everything that happened."
"Crazy, right?" Shinji asked her, just wanting to know her opinion.
"Celestial descendants and people wanting to capture them is crazy. You being from another world stranded in this one and you changing everything with your mere presence is…quite sane to me."
"Oh, he's sane?" Aya questioned.
"How else would you explain everything he was able to do to change things? It's nothing short of an unusual sanity."
"In an insane world, who is the sanest of people alive?" Anzu expressed, catching everyone's attention. "I mean, really, when you think the world is unhinged, how do you know who in it isn't unhinged?"
"That," said Toya, "is the question that may have no answer."
"An unanswerable question," Yui agreed with him.
-x-
"…An unanswerable question, indeed," went Misato, setting the mirror down to rest her hand.
"That girl, Chidori, believes he's sane, yet everything around them all is clearly insane," Asuka stated. "I don't understand how anyone would see it that way."
The redhead picked up the mirror again and saw the glass ripple, revealing Shinji and her red-eyed counterpart sitting in the pavilion in the garden at night; some time had passed.
"…I'll be honest, Shinji, I am glad your actions ended up saving Chidori's life," the red-eyed Asuka told him, laying down on the bench beside him. "You did something really selfless, changing people's fates every time to make it so that they live."
"Thank you, Asuka," Shinji responded, leaning his head back against a pillar to rest. "Ah."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm just…so tired now."
Misato looked at the red-eyed Asuka as she got up and checked Shinji's right arm to confirm his pulse.
"Please, Asuka," they heard him say to her, "I have no intention on dying any time this evening…or the next evening…or the evening after. It's just more exhaustion."
"Yeah. People that get hurt as bad as you did, they get tired faster as they recoup."
Then, maybe because the girl was still concerned for the boy, she checked Shinji's back and saw that his bandages were a little bloody, indicating that they needed to be changed soon.
"He'd better not die over there," said Asuka to Misato. "I mean, he just better not succumb to those injuries his old man gave him for fighting back against him."
"I don't think any of the people there, including our doppelgangers, will let him die," she told her, seeing her red-eyed counterpart help him back into the house.
-x-
Kagami was not in high spirits tonight. Not even the sight of the artificially-created hagoromo that was only possible through the Katsuragi girl helped to ease his concerns. It was only this afternoon that he received word from his superiors regarding the C-Genome project that they should cease with it and focus more on the hagoromo itself, seeing that he no longer had the C-Genome women and the only male C-Genome that held much promise was also gone, either recuperating from his injuries…or dead as a result of his injuries. But he couldn't let go of his hopes for the world through this project just yet; so long as the Ikari boy was still alive, there was still a chance to change the world that was now into a world that was perfect. A world where everyone was perfect, devoid of outcasts, devoid of crime, of indifference, where all were equal.
"If any of you make an attempt to go after them again," Shinji's voice echoed through his mind as he recalled the threat the boy made in defense of the women of celestial descent, "and I will not be held responsible for filling these halls with your blood."
But if he dies, the deal is negated, he thought, but deciding not to go down that route just yet. I can't risk provoking him, though.
It was the fact that Shinji seemed more of a physical individual than the other C-Genomes physically weren't. The boy fought more with his bare hands than with any unusual power possessed by the other celestial descendants, such as pyrokinesis or telekinesis, but ended up getting similar, unexpected results that matched up to his survival odds. His father would be lucky if his lifespan hadn't been reduced by a few years with the intense beating he got.
Still, his superiors and their interests were now just on the hagoromo, not the C-Genomes…while his interests still revolved around them. If Kagami and his Cardinals were to change the world into one of perfection, they needed either Shinji or the Tennyo descendants, whichever were either convenient…or just in one piece among the living.
According to his file, Shinji and his family live near the beach by the coast of this Magatama Town, he thought, deciding to plan his next move.
-x-
As she carefully removed the last of the bloody bandages from Shinji's back, Yui sighed at the mending wounds present.
"I'm about to apply to the iodine, Shinji," she informed him.
"It's okay," he responded. "Just do what you need to do."
She opened the bottle of iodine and poured said substance onto his back, watching as exposed, damaged flesh turn from red and pink to white as the sterilization chemicals cleared potential infection.
"Aaurgh," the boy grunted, balding his fists as he laid his head on the kitchen table. "Ahh…"
"It seems you have something akin to a high-pain threshold, Shinji," she told him.
"Probably from piloting the Eva," he suggested, not particularly proud of that possibility.
"Or it's your celestial heritage," she countered, "or something else altogether different from what you've done recently."
"Maybe. Yeah, maybe."
Yui then picked up a roll of bandages…and gave it to Asuka to apply onto his back.
"You sure you know what you're doing back there?" He asked the redhead.
"Yeah," she answered him. "We took a field trip to the hospital at one point this year and learned how to perform medical aid with limited resources. The use of bandages was one of the methods learned."
"Cautionary disciplines, I take it?"
"That's right."
Four minutes later, Shinji walked out of the kitchen with his back re-bandaged and replacing his shirt.
"It felt weird, didn't it?" Asuka asked Yui.
"Yeah, it did," she answered, "but it felt right. That can't be wrong."
"No, it didn't feel wrong at all. It just felt…odd."
"In what way?"
"In that way."
Yui didn't need to press her to understand the crazy reason that was the answer; it felt weird to both women…because it felt like Shinji, the one they knew, lingered because of this Shinji that they cared for and changed their present. It might've been crazy, but for both of them, it just felt…soothing.
-x-
"…I was surprised that Yuuhi volunteered to escort Chidori back to the hotel when we were all going back there," said Aya as she, Toya, Aki and Q-Chan walked down the street to the hotel.
In front of them, Yuuhi was walking with Chidori at a steady pace. It was shocking to see her at the Ikari house, and surprising just to see her in town.
"So…you really knew Shinji and Asuka back then?" He asked her.
"Yeah," she answered. "I can't believe that you guys were here, though."
"I liked seeing you today."
"Likewise."
Unbeknownst to the two, they were holding hands. It wasn't unnoticed by the others…and it didn't seem odd or creepy at all.
To be continued…
A/N: Since it's a crossover and Shinji's deceased, alternate doppelgänger lived a different life, it's reasonable to assume that he knew Chidori in the past and it could've been possible for her and C-Asuka to have a falling out due to the redhead's red eyes. I'm not sure how much longer it'll be before this story reaches its conclusion, but I'm hoping for more involvement between the characters and more Gendo and Kagami bashing, but only one of them lives to see a future while the other loses everything except his life. Peace.