Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any of the characters depicted in this story, Gainax does.
This is my fist attempt at a fic, so sue me if it sucks. If you haven't seen the last evangelion movie (which I don't own either) then this fic may or may not make a whole lot of sense. READ THIS FIC AT YOUR OWN RISK, I WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR DISGUST. If it turns out that this fic sucks, please tell me the problem in a review so that future chapters will turn out better. (BE SPECIFIC PLEASE)
'…' thoughts
"…" talking
Italics usually mean thoughts or dreams.
THE DAY THE WORLD TURNED RED
Chapter 2: There and Gone Again
"Die with me Asuka…" says a sinister voice.
"NO STAY BACK!" a scared Asuka desperately screams.
"Die with me Asuka…" says the voice.
Asuka mumbles "No leave me alone, I don't wanna go, I don't wanna die, I don't want to die…"
"…Asuka…." An unknown voice calls out to her, but this time, in a way, it's soothing.
'Where is that coming from?' Asuka wonders "I think I know that voice."
"…Asuka…" There it was again. "Asuka…"
"Wake up Asuka…"
Coming to, Asuka Sohryu simply said…
"Huh…?" in a tired voice.
Opening her eyes, she discovers Shinji Ikari sitting over her, with a worried look on his face.
"Good, you're awake… I was starting to think you weren't ever going to wake up."
"Third Child…? Why did you wake me up?" said Asuka, rubbing her eyes.
"You looked like you were having a really bad dream, so I decided to wake you up. I'm sorry, should I have done that?"
The 'I'm sorry' from Shinji always pissed Asuka off no matter if Shinji deserved to say it or not, at any time of the day, and today was no exception. The 'I'm sorry' crap and the fact that this baka made the great Asuka Langley Sohryu cry prompted her to shout…
"No you shouldn't have. I don't care if I'm screaming bloody murder in my sleep, you are to NEVER wake me up Dummkopf. You got that?" she says before whacking him on the head.
Since awakening, Asuka was unable to get a very good view of her location due to her nausea and her unstable state of mind, so she took a long look at her surroundings for the first time.
"What the…" she says while she gazes in wonder at the ocean of LCL. To her horror, her eyes come to the gut wrenching sight of a white Evangelion protruding out of the ocean. Asuka shudders then says…
"Where the hell are we?" She looks towards the horizon to an unsettling scene and says "AND WHAT IN GODS NAME IS THAT?" she says while franticly pointing at the enormous white head of Rei Ayanami. "Mein gott, Is that who I think it is?"
Shinji answers…
"I'm not sure; I think were still in the geofront, or what's left of it." Looking over to the direction of the head with two large crimson eyes starring back at him, he then looks down and says "And I think that's Ayanami…"
"What happened here? Where is everybody?" Asuka says shakily, afraid to hear what the answer might be.
Looking down, with tears starting to form in his eyes, Shinji whispers "There gone, all of them are gone. Ayanami, Ritsuko, Touji, Misato, all of them…" tears start to fall down his face and onto the sandy beach.
"Shinji, tell me, I need to know, what happened here?" Asuka says in an almost desperate voice.
Clenching his fist tightly, the third child barely manages to say "I… I don't know, I really don't know… I got in Unit 1, I saw your Eva being torn apart, then I was in the air, I saw Ayanami… I saw everyone dying… and… and… everything's hazy after that…" he says in between sobs.
"Try to remember." Asuka tells him softly.
"I can't… I can only remember bits and pieces…"
"Try…" Asuka whispered.
Visibly straining himself as he tries to remember "… An explosion… lights… people screaming…" He pounds the ground with his clenched fist.
"DAMN IT, I can't remember… why can't I remember… why…" he says while tears continue to stream down his face.
Asuka looks at him, trying to take this all in 'This is too much, I don't know what to think.' Then shinji says…
"But I do remember one thing… it was my fault." Asuka looks at him in slight confusion.
"If this is how things turned out, I must have failed. I'm completely useless… I couldn't protect Toji, I couldn't protect Misato, and I couldn't protect you Asuka."
Asuka starts to speak "Shinji I…"
"How can you possibly forgive me?" shinji says "How can you even look at me? I'm worthless, I'm a coward, I can't help anyone, I'm a perverted piece of shi…"
"STOP IT!" Asuka demanded, causing shinji to look up at her face which held a look of anger.
"Shut up right now baka. Your fucking whining is pissing me off… Do you honestly think YOU are the only god damn person who lost something dear to them, DO YOU?"
"I'm sorry..." Shinji says as he looks back at the ground.
sigh…
Asuka continues after calming down a little "Besides, I'm not sure what happened or if all this really is your fault, and apparently neither do you, but I do know that crying about it like a baby isn't going to make the situation any better, so you better deal with the fact that whatever happened, happened. And there's nothing we can do about it now."
"Asuka… I'm sorry I…" shinji try's to say but is cut off.
"WHAT DID I JUST FINISH SAYING BAKA? I said to stop whining, and that includes always saying 'I'm sorry,' you got that?" Asuka practically screams at him.
Shinji panics "I'm sorr…" but stops when Asuka stared daggers at him. "Um… ok."
Asuka satisfied with herself, says "That's better." She then looks back to the direction of the sea of LCL.
'Damn this sucks; I'm stuck here with HIM… I wonder if it's like this hellhole anywhere else.' She wonders as she continues to stare at the ocean of the blood-like substance. Seeing this, Shinji does the same, not wanting to upset her further.
They both sit quietly and watch the world in which they now live.
"Thanks, Asuka."
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Without even noticing it, several hours pass like seconds. Neither Asuka nor Shinji had said a word to each other since earlier that day. They barely even looked at each other, with the exception of the occasional glance.
Asuka steals a quick look at the boy sitting next to her. She sees what looks like a bruise on his left cheek. 'Hmm… must be from that punch I gave him earlier. Serves him right for… for… um… I guess he didn't really deserve that… I suppose… but he's still a baka hentai.'
She looks at him again 'Damn, and to think that house-broken male made me, the great Asuka Sohryu, cry? What a weakling' thought Asuka as she runs her hand over a tender spot on her cheek, 'Ouch, that stings. Stupid Shinji, I swear I'll…'
But her train of thought is interrupted by the growl of her stomach. Blushing, Asuka wonders 'Crap, did he hear that? …… Humph… like it would matter if he heard or not. But still, I'm getting really hungry, and these wounds aren't going to treat themselves. But where the hell are we going to find food around here?"
Then shinji speaks as if to answer her question "I think the tide is receding, the LCL might be draining into the ocean or maybe the grounds sucking it up, but in any case, NERV should be uncovered soon at this rate. Maybe we could find shelter there for a while and take a look at your injuries in the medical center, what do you think Asuka?"
Asuka was clearly not expecting this and simply replied with…
"Uh…sure."
Shinji gets up and reaches out with his hand toward Asuka "Come on, I'll lead the way."
Asuka slaps his hand away "And what makes you think your leading the way? Asuka Langley Sohryu doesn't follow anyone." But as Asuka tries to get up, she accidentally uses the wrong arm and falls back to the ground.
"Shiesse! DAMN IT that really fucking hurts." She looks up at shinji with a smile threatening to form on his face. "If you so much as think about laughing, I'll make sure you never have children." She says while showing her fist to Shinji.
After showing Shinji whose boss again that day, Asuka looks away from Shinji and says "Well… aren't you going to help me up third child?" followed by a deep blush.
Shinji hesitantly does so after holding back another smile, since her good fist could still lash out at him. "Don't you ever mention this again, got it?" Shinji nodes.
"OK… let's go, I'm starving."
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Much to Asuka's dismay, Shinji was right, in part anyway. The LCL did indeed recede about three fourths to what it was earlier that day.
With most of the red ocean out of the way, Asuka and Shinji were able to cross the red, soggy ground to NERV without much incident, except for Asuka's complaining about Shinji getting ahead of her, with a punch to the back of his head usually following.
When they finally did get to NERV, Asuka 'asked' Shinji to open a way into the facility by moving some debris out of the way to an entrance. Shinji didn't get too far, so after some coxing, Shinji was able to convince Asuka to help him find a new way into NERV.
It was quite some time before they were able to get into the building through a whole in the side probably caused from the military; much of the ground was unstable so they had to be careful.
They wondered the halls looking for the medical center, but found something else that made them quiver with disgust and fear…
Asuka mumbled something in German as she and Shinji now looked at the remains of the people they once new. Asuka and Shinji tried to avert their eyes from the LCL soaked cloths riddling the floor and the blood painting the walls a sickening shade of red, but failed and were forced to even walk on the remains of their coworkers with a grotesque squish.
"Come on… we shouldn't be here, lets go find the medical ward." Shinji says, having seen enough death for one day, but he knew they would be seeing more soon.
As they neared the medical ward, Asuka's nausea came back as she saw something that shook her to the core and stopped dead in her tracks. Shinji wondered what Asuka was looking at with such pain in her eyes, and he turned to see a familiar red coat lying on the floor, burnt and covered in blood and LCL.
Asuka brought her hand up to her mouth and looked away as she bit back a sob saying "oh god… Misato…"
Shinji fell to his knees, picked up the jacket and hugged it with all his strength, as if he would loose Misato again if he let it go.
"Misato, I'm sorry…I'm so, so sorry…" Shinji said as he hid his tear stained face with the jacket.
Shinji sits there until a hand is offered to him…
"Lets go third, we have to keep moving." Asuka says in a soft tone of voice.
Shinji nodes his head slowly, and gets up, taking the jacket with him, "ok" is the only thing he says as he takes her hand.
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When Shinji and Asuka made it to the infirmary, they discovered that it was full of bullet holes and blood accumulated in large pools around the floor.
"They shot the doctors who were trying to save lives." Shinji said through his grinding teeth, fiercely tightening his fist.
"How could anybody do this?" Asuka said in disbelief. After she said this, Asuka turned to face Shinji only to see him down the hall starring at a door with its lock shot open. Asuka catches up to him "Shinji, what's wrong?" Asuka asked sympathetically, she then saw the name adorning the door.
"Suzuhara" that's what it said. "Toji's little sister." Said Shinji.
Asuka and Shinji looked at the door, trying to decide if they should open it or not.
Shinji's hand reached for the handle. He took hold of it, and turned the handle. But a hand grasped his hand before he could open it. Shinji looked up to see Asuka slowly shaking her head from side to side.
Shinji silently agreed and left the door as it was, some things were better off not seeing.
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After searching for a while longer, they came across a clean room and some sterile supplies. Shinji led Asuka to a bed and started to take off her bandages.
Asuka was a little worried about Shinji doing first aid on her, especially since he barely had any training.
"Bak… um… Shinji… you know I never meant anything by my insults right." Asuka said clearly lying, and Shinji knew it too.
"Relax Asuka, I'm not going to hurt you, I promise." Shinji said trying to reassure her.
As he finished unwrapping Asuka's arm and her eye soon after, he noticed that she wasn't hurt, except for the large dark blue mark running down her arm. "Um…Asuka, I think your arm is just bruised. But at since were talking about an Eva inflicted wound, I'd say at the worst, maybe just some slight nerve damage, but that should heal soon… I think."
For the second time that day, Asuka had little to say about his observation skills…
"Um… how did you know that?"
"A while back, I asked someone what the risks are for piloting an Eva, they told me this might happen." Shinji said.
"Who told you, your daddy?" Asuka teased him.
Shinji looked away "no… Misato did." Asuka gasped and looked in the opposite direction of the third child, ashamed she had said something that callus.
Neither said anything until Asuka's stomach growled, load enough for both children to hear it, and a smile spread across Shinji Ikari's face and a deep blush across Asuka's.
"Guess we should find something to eat, I'm sure there'll be something in storage." Shinji said as he got up. Asuka got up and ran up ahead of him saying "ALRIGHT… FOOD!" Soon after, Shinji began to run after her.
Asuka continued to run ahead of Shinji, too focused on her hunger to notice Shinji lagging behind or the cloths and blood she stepped on. Asuka ran and ran and ran, all the while Shinji losing more and more ground.
"Asuka…huff wait… huff up…" Shinji wheezed out, trying to avoid the messes on the floor. That's when he heard a deep rumbling, not from his stomach, but from the floor.
"ASUKA WAIT! DON"T MOVE!" Shinji yelled.
"No way third child, you're not getting my food!" Asuka too preoccupied with her need to eat, to notice the source of Shinji's concern.
Just then Asuka fell through the floor with a CRASH, and broken glass, steel pipes, and concrete soon followed.
"OH MY GOD, ASUKA…!" Shinji said as he caught up.
"ASUKA…!"
"OH GOD, ASUKA!"
To be continued…
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A/N – well that's it for now, hope you liked this chapter at least a little bit more than my last one. Remember, I need reviews to make future chapters better. So review already!