Disclaimer: I do not own the copyrights to Gundam Wing, Endless Waltz, Sailor Moon, Trigun, Evangelion, Lupin the Third, Outlaw Star, Rurouni Kenshin, G-Gundam, any other Gundam Series, Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, any movies, books, or any songs that are used in this story. All copyrights belong to their respective owners.
Notice to Readers: To understand certain parts of this story, you'll have to read the other stories before this one. It is recommended by not required.
The DarkTower:
Anime's Unite
Chapter 8: The Northern Group
Cave and Ring
It had been several hours after the Sailor Senshi had arrived in a world that was strange and unusual. It was Seiya who first came around and looked around finding himself in a place that was picturesque. Vast mountains, grasslands, and springs, but his mind wasn't in the mood for sightseeing. He wanted to find Usagi.
He stood upon his feet feeling dizzy much like that feeling someone would get before fainting or from spinning round and round. He concentrated hard to bring himself to find Usagi. His eyes stung from the bright sun, he instinctively brought his hand over his eyes like a visor. He looked all around, but his vision was just one bright blur until his eyes finally adjusted and he found everyone lying around him. The other Starlights, Sailor Senshi and even the cats Luna and Artemis. And there was the very person that Seiya was looking for; Usagi. He dashed to her side and picked her up.
"Usagi." He called to her, "Usagi."
Slowly Usagi came around and looked up, "Seiya." She whispered
"Good." He said, "You're alive."
"What about everyone else?" Usagi asked as she sat upright
"We're all alright." Rei answered Usagi's question
"Ok." Seiya assessed, "We need to find out what this place is."
"I'm on it." Ami said as she pulled out her palm computer and assessed what the land was like.
The other Senshi began to come around and adjust themselves to the new environment. Though there was one person who felt something very odd about the land around them. Rei, being the spiritualist of the group had a deep sense of spirituality in other words a sense of things in the next realm that normal people don't.
"I don't like this place." She openly declared
"What's wrong, Rei?" Usagi asked in concern for her friend
Rei started to shake her head, "This land around us, it feels cursed."
Rei was always the sensitive one for these types of things. As if she were some kind of barometer for the spirit world.
"Cursed?" Minako asked
"I feel souls everywhere in this place, souls of the dead. They're in pain as if they're trapped, alone, and angry. We have to get away from this place."
"Got it." Ami said, "The best direction is that way." She pointed eastward.
"Let's get going then." Seiya suggested
Rei kept looking out onto the land of the springs feeling those souls that she was talking about, "Stay away from the springs." She warned the others as they walked eastward.
"I agree." Haruka voiced, "There's something very wrong about this place." Much like Rei, Haruka Tenou could feel that same ominous presence in that place. Almost like being in a room with dozens of other people and knowing that you were in the middle of it all.
"What do you mean, Haruka?" Michiru asked
"I can't explain it." Haruka tried to grasp a way to explain it in a different way than Rei.
"In any case," Seiya interrupted, "We should try to get out of here."
"Hey, who made you boss?" Haruka snapped
"Stop it, all of you!" Usagi stepped in, "We're not going to get anywhere by fighting one another."
"That's just like you." Haruka smiled
"Yes, it is." Seiya agreed
"In either case," Rei interjected, "We have to get out of here as soon as possible."
"This way then." Ami pointed out the direction like a human compass. Even though she had given them directions, she was still trying to localize something in that direction. Her scans had shown people in that direction, though the part that made her scratch her head was the fact that she found only three people. Who they were and what they were doing in that place was something that she wanted to find out for herself.
The other Senshi had looked in the direction behind them, which was to the west and they saw clouds gathering together. All of them instinctively knew that a storm was coming and so they tried to move a little faster hoping that they would find shelter somewhere along the way.
At the foot of the mountains that Shinji Ikari had awakened at, he had found the woman he had come to love in a motherly sort of way…or perhaps like a sister, Misato Katsuragi. When Shinji had first laid eyes upon her he felt like screaming for joy to see her once again. The last time that he saw her was right before his last fight, the one where he made the choice to live. Misato had told Shinji in a very frank way that we all make mistakes in our life. Its not about how we should have dealt with them, it's about how we move on from the mistakes in our pasts.
"Oh, Misato." Shinji cried as he ran to her and threw his arms around her waist and wept into her dress underneath her red coat.
"Still crying, Shinji?" Misato asked softly as she stroked the back of the boys head.
"Thank God." Shinji wept, "It's a miracle!"
"What's a miracle Third Child?" A brash voice asked
Shinji spun around and looked and found standing among the grass was the awakened Asuka Langely Sohryuu. Shinji felt like singing along with his tears that he shed for the sheer joy of seeing both Misato and Asuka alive. Instead in his tears, Shinji went to Asuka and threw his arms around her much like he did with Misato.
"You're both alive." He cried, "Thank God, you're both alive."
"Get a hold of yourself Third Child." Asuka said as she tried to pry herself away from Shinji, "And by the way does anyone know where we are?"
Misato was in the exact same state of mind as she looked around seeing the mountains, the springs, and the grasslands. She felt as confused as the rest. The last thing that she remembered was being in that entry way after convincing Shinji to fight again. She remembered lying down in a pool of her own blood and calling out to Kaji. After that all was darkness as if she had fallen fast asleep and awoke in that place with Shinji and Asuka.
"I don't know." Misato answered and then looked to the west where she found a spreading of clouds, dark and gray. "I think we should find shelter." She instructed to the two Eva pilots
"Why?" Asuka wanted to know
"Because there's a storm coming." She pointed to the west where the clouds were gathering and the sparks of lightning were forking their way down to the ground.
Shinji and Asuka looked and felt the same way about it. Shinji's fight thought was to shelter themselves under the Eva's but then he thought it wouldn't do that much good since they'd still be out in the cold. His eyes drifted as he tried to think of a way to help out. Then like a man finding a pattern in an ink blot test, Shinji had found something in the mountain to the north.
"Hey look." He pointed up the slops of the mountain.
Asuka and Misato looked and they found a small hole in the mountain. They couldn't tell how far away it was but it seemed very clear what it was. It seemed so obvious that it felt a little too convenient that they would find it so close to where they were.
"A cave" Misato stated
Asuka was the first to head up the slopes, "Let's go then before the storm hits!"
Misato allowed Asuka with her bountiful strength to wear herself out on the slopes of the mountains. She then turned to Shinji and spoke her thoughts about the direness of this situation.
"I think we should try to find some firewood." Misato stated
"Yes." Shinji agreed. Though he didn't agree blindly like he did so many times before by saying "yes" over and over again to whatever Misato said. He knew that he, Misato and Asuka were in the middle of nowhere, with no other person in sight, and have no idea of what's going on. So, setting a simple goal like finding firewood seemed such a simpler task. Looking a little closer to the mountain Misato did notice a small growth of trees. It was just to the right of the cave's entrance where Asuka was bounding her way and to the left of where the Eva's were.
"There." She pointed and Shinji followed her to the small growth where they found some small pieces of bend out of shape wood that they took in arm loads up to the cave where Asuka sat. It seemed that whatever force had guided them to this place had given them some good fortune in making the climb to the cave more like a brisk walk uphill rather than climbing vertically over sharp rocks.
Shinji and Misato kept piling the wood in a small stack inside the cave. After making the pile big enough they looked all around the cave and found it to be pretty large. The cave was more like a bottleneck. A small entrance that led into a larger vast place, it felt as large as their apartment in Tokyo-3 if all the walls were knocked down.
"Alright, let's get this fire started." Misato said
"Does anyone have a lighter?" Asuka asked
When Shinji heard that question, something drove him to bring his hand into his pocket. He couldn't figure out why, but he did. Almost like a man searching for his keys all over the house but never checked his own pocket. As his hands reached down into the depths of his pocket, his fingers came across something cold and hard. He pulled it out and in the light that came into the cave Asuka and Misato saw something square and silver in Shinji's hand.
"A lighter?" Asuka asked, "I didn't think you smoked."
"I don't." Shinji said, "But it was just there and I know that it wasn't there before."
Misato raised and eyebrow, "This day just keeps getting stranger and stranger, but let's use it."
Misato constructed the fire using some of the dried grass that she found outside and set some small stones in a ring around the crudely constructed wood stack. The pieces of wood stacked against one another like a cone with the dried grass stuffed underneath it. She took the lighter and set the flame. Within a matter of moments the fire began to blaze sending out its hues of orange, yellow, and red like the sun that was setting outside. They all felt the bright warmth of the fire knowing well that the storm was coming.
The Senshi had been walking for hours on end and already some of them were beginning to feel the effects on their feet. Mostly Usagi and Minako. Then again, the two of them weren't exactly up for long walks, especially ones that made their feet blister pretty badly. The only thing that kept their minds off of it was the fact that they were stranded in the middle of nowhere with the Starlights. Though the distressing fact to them was that the Starlights were actually women in disguise, but Minako knew that a woman could still dream. Then she had to ask the ever classic question like a five-year-old on a family trip.
"Are we there yet?" She asked Ami
"Unfortunately no." Ami answered honestly
Though there was something else on Ami's mind that she found on her palm computer. It was something that was in the direction that they were going. Her computer detected something that her computer registered as both organic and inorganic at the same time.
Several times the Senshi looked in back of them to see the progress of the storm that was coming from the west. Each time that they looked back it was still coming closer and closer. It was like they were trying to run from a monster in their dreams. The one that keeps coming no matter how far or how fast the person runs. Until at last, it caught up with them and the rain came down.
At first, it was only a small drizzle.
"This isn't so bad." Minako stated. After all her muscles and body burned with all the work she put into walking, but she spoke too soon. Because then it came down in one huge downpour and all of the Senshi were soaked to the bone, cold and shivering.
In the cold damp rain, Ami looked up and she saw a light coming from the side of the mountain.
"Over there!" She called out to them.
She didn't notice the things that were next to that cave entrance, but in the darkness of the nightfall no one seemed to care. All that mattered was getting up to that cave. Along the way, there were some acts of chivalry on part of the couples in the group. Such as Michiru took off her sport coat and held it over Michiru's head in a make-shift umbrella. So too did Seiya for Usagi as they made their way up the muddy slopes of the mountain.
The Evangelions were talking amongst themselves about what they were going to do. They did have the fire, at least that priority was already met, but there were other issues that needed to be addressed. Misato, assuming her roles of authority as she did back in the days of Nerv did so.
"Alright" she said, "Here's how it is, we may have some shelter, but we have no food and no water."
"And for a while I thought we were being rescued from our own world." Shinji moped, "But it seems we've been brought into a fate even worse."
"Quit being so morose Third Child." Asuka tried in her very stuck up way to cheer Shinji up.
Shinji himself couldn't help but smile at Asuka, because this is what he really wanted. He desperately wanted Asuka to respond to him while she was lying back there in that hospital bed in her comatose state. He wanted her to make fun of him, to insult him, anything just to hear her voice shouting at him, anything would have been just fine for him.
Thinking about that, Shinji's stomach began to clench as if he was about to vomit. He thought back to how he tried to awaken Asuka and he rolled her over exposing her breasts to him. In that state, knowing that Asuka wouldn't respond to anything, Shinji had masturbated while staring at the half-naked comatose Asuka.
He tried not to think about that, but trying to repress terrible memories like that always find their way into the conscious mind like earthworms through soft soil. In that time Shinji prayed to God that Asuka didn't know anything about it. It was bad enough when Asuka had found out that Shinji had tried to kiss her while she was asleep.
As they began to weigh the situation they heard voices:
"Up there." A voice said and the Evangelions were fearful of what those voices belonged to; friend or foe, man or monster. So many possibilities like the balls in a tumbler on Bingo night at some church gathering, the outcomes would be different every single time. All of them like scarred movie goers clutching together at the scary moments of the movie they waited for whatever it was out there to come to the caves entrance.
The first person to come through that bottleneck cave entrance was a young girl with blonde hair that was done up into buns on each side of her head. From those buns it tapered down do her sides, but with the dampness those tapered pieces of hair clung to her body much like her wet cloths. Soon others followed her, approximately a dozen of them, mostly women came through that entrance.
"Hello." The girl with the buns said to the Evangelions
"Hi." Shinji said timidly, of course in the old days he would have never done this. To say hello to a stranger on the spot, but after being in a dead world to be around so many people felt like a great blessing to him.
"Who are you?" Misato asked very inquisitive about who these people were that came into their company.
"My name is Usagi," Usagi introduced her friends who were all in the same state, cold and wet. "And these are my friends, Ami, Rei, Minako, Makoto, Hotaru, Haruka, Michiru, Setsuna, Seiya, Taiki, Yaten, and our cats Luna and Artemis."
"I'll extend the same introduction." Misato stood up from her stone seat, "My name is Misato Katsuragi, and these are Shinji Ikari and Asuka Langley Sohryuu."
During the introductions, Shinji noticed something about the girl named Haruka. Both her name and her face were very familiar. He knew that he had seen it before. It was like trying to remember the name of a movie when you know who was in it and what the movie was about. It was that same frustration that he got when he couldn't think of it.
After the introductions of both the Evangelions and the Sailor Senshi, they all sat around the fire and began to talk amongst themselves. They spoke about their pasts. The Senshi's pasts were a little lighter hearted then those of the Evangelions. Most of the Senshi felt a deep need to help them with their own internal pains; Shinji with the conflict with his father, Asuka with her need to feel important, as well as Misato who seemed to try very hard to make things better. All of them felt shocked when they heard about all the things that they had done in their lives, fighting inside giant robots and even worse was the very last enemy (called the Angels). It was a boy named Kaworu Nagisa who was the only person who had shown any true understanding toward Shinji. Then came the choice of whether he could allow Kaworu to live and destroy all humanity…or kill him in order to ensure the human races survival, but loose his greatest friend.
Usagi shook her head, "There had to have been another way for you."
"No." Misato refuted, "The one who lives is the one who has the will to survive. Kaworu didn't have that will, instead he chose a false hope."
"I wish I could see it that way." Shinji said as he curled up into a ball
As the night went onward and the fire continued to burn Misato had to ask a very important question.
"How did all of you get here?" She asked, "Do you live in this place."
"Of course not." Rei said very snootily
"We came here through a Trans-Dimensional Vortex." Ami stated
"A what?" Misato asked, "Geez, this girl sounds like Ritsuko."
"A tear" Ami explained.
Shinji sat straight up when he heard that, "It's just like last time." He said to Misato. That was when the pieces had clicked together in Shinji's mind about that girl's face. The one named Haruka Tenou. He knew her from when he visited that place where the Gundams and the Preventers lived. She was the wife of a man named Johan Rodriguez, but what was she doing there? She seemed so much different that the one that he met there. Shinji noticed that this Haruka had a woman named Michiru who was hugging her arm a lot as if they were married. He made the connection that they must have been lesbians, but he was much too courteous to come out and ask it himself. Still, the look in Haruka's eyes was colder, as if the only thing that mattered in her life was her mission. He had seen that look in one other woman, Rei Ayanami, Haruka had that same icy stare. It wasn't as warm as the Haruka that was the wife of that Gundam pilot.
"What do you mean, like last time?" Haruka asked
Shinji explained, "A while back, we had found this 'tear' and so Misato, Asuka and I went through it and we found ourselves in this place that was like our own world but at the same time it wasn't."
"Wait." Minako interrupted, "Were there young boys there, who called themselves the Preventers?"
"Exactly." Shinji nodded with a smile, "There were Preventers there and there was a woman there who looked just like Haruka there." He pointed to Haruka Tenou, "But she was married to someone named…"
"Johan." Haruka stated
"Then you've been there." Misato stated
"It's very odd." Ami scratched her head, "All of us have been to the same universe, but this is the first time we've met each other."
"However this turns out," Misato shook her head, "I only hope that we'll find an answer soon."
The night progressed onward and the fire began to die down as the Senshi and Evangelions fell asleep on the cold stone floor of the cave as the storm outside still raged onward. All were asleep, that was for the exception of Minako (Sailor Venus). Her mind was a torrent of different thoughts about this whole day and why they were brought here. She desperately tried to find a comfortable position amongst the cold and damp rocks. It was at that time that she was cursing the fact that she was wearing a skirt, everything felt so cold.
She laid her hand down on the rocks figuring out what position would be the most comfortable and her fingers felt something. It was round, hollow, cold, and hard. The closest thing that her mind could relate it to was metal. She wrapped the tips of her fingers around it and picked it up. She brought it close to her face and in the dying light of the fire, the light of the moon that was trying to break through the clouds, and the sparks of lightning, Minako saw what she had. It was a ring. She couldn't make very much out of it, all she could see was that it looked a little like a man's ring. She knew this because there were no jewels crowning it. It was just a simple band, but in what light she had she saw tinges of gold. So, it had to be a man's ring, she thought. Though Minako loved gold, so she brushed off what dirt was on it and put the ring on. With the cold ring on her finger, Minako fell asleep with the other Senshi and Evangelions.
To be continued…