Xeo—Psychoticness is fun and stuff like that. I'm demented. *nods rapidly* anyone else here demented? *looks around*

Ranshin—like penguins wielding cream pies stampeding over my prone body? *bashes head on wall* oops. *shrugs* oh well. I got it wrong. Not the first time, not the last.

C^rrot--… the reason? I must have a reason? Yiss… he's insane. I thought that was fairly obvious… mmm… maybe he and Asuka get into fight… *laughs at mental image*

Xenogears—this is detrimental to your sanity. *nods sagely* otherwise it is nothing. Now I've already lost mine, so no worries for me.

seawolf—okiies. Asketh and thou shalt receive. Descriptive is bad? *wanders away humming "Bring Me to Life"*

Optimus Magnus—You'd like Blackened Sunrise by the Itch then. Go read it. It's among my favorites. *waits for reward*

evaunit-01—thank you. ^_^

Disclaimer: Nopes. Shinji belong to NERV. NERV belong to Gainax. Don't think I be either. Living Weapons belong to someone else. Else means not self. NOT ME! Still has permission, as far as knowledge goes and stuff like that. Dis=not Claimer=to declare ownership. Disclaimer=Not Declaring Ownership. I own the dear Ancient One though. ^_^

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Ocean Red

Chapter 2: Wakings and Pyro Moments

A Neo Genesis Evangelion Fanfiction

By CrimsonNoble

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Shinji woke unpleasantly. Yes, having several needles full of sedatives in his arm classified as unpleasant to him. And with white being the first color that he saw, he pouted.

White wasn't a fun color. Red, yiss, red was a good color. Red, black, and blue. Yellow was okay, but red, black, and blue were better. After all, they were the colors deep inside a flame. And fire was good. Very good. Tasty if you could get it in your mouth too.

For a moment he pondered if he should start the room on fire. That would change the color -- fast. Then he dismissed the idea. His bag might be in here after all and while he hadn't lied about blowing up the chemistry lab, he hadn't mentioned that the destruction had also included the faculty lounge and gym. By that time he had been running, and several miles away. Though why the faculty had been upset was beyond him, the lounge had been a dull grey, the chemistry lab off-white, and the gym had been almost pre-second impact.

He sat up, tugging out several of the needles accidentally, and looked around the room. Irritatingly, there was nothing distinctive to destroy. That would have been fun. And would have achieved being banned from ever entering the place again, but… that might be a good thing. He didn't like hospitals.

Shinji glared at the window. It was too clear. Darkness was good, yiss… And the window was open. He nearly gagged in the fresh air it let in. Well, not fresh, but similar. Recycled air. Which was marginally better.

He rolled out of the bed, landing lizard-like, tearing the remaining needles from his body. Shinji skittered around the room, it wasn't that it was cluttered; it was that it wasn't, so he had to be careful to stay out of the security camera's view. After all, no one needed to know how he escaped. The door opened for him, unavoidable, but irritating nonetheless.

It was quite amusing, he decided several hours later, how it had taken only a forty-five story being rampaging through the countryside to attract the attention of the city almost immediately, when it took the hospital staff almost three and a half hours to discover that he wasn't in his room. And he had defeated the rampaging thing. Sad it was. Extremely funny, but sad.

Especially depressing because he was sitting in plain sight in the waiting room. More or less. He watched another nurse run past.

Then again, humorous described the situation better.

--

He watched as a gurney wheeled past, transporting a girl with blue hair and crimson eyes. She was quite pretty; at least he supposed she was. Her alabaster-pale skin reminded him too much of the Ancient One for comfort though.

The Ancient One had taken care of him since just before he had blown up the school. It was him that had been the one to catch Shinji, and what he had done… Shinji shivered.

He glanced after the girl, and locked eyes with his father. A brief flash of rage coursed through him, but was subdued ruthlessly. He waved to the older man.

"Hope I never have to see your face without those sunglasses Old Man!"

Shinji turned, and skipped away, whistling loudly. The song, of course, being the 'bring it, burn it, smash it, crush it,' song. Almost as fun to sing in the middle of school as setting fire to the fire station had been. That had been truly funny. What had made it all the more amusing was that there had been no convenient ways to put the fire out.

Luckily, the Ancient One hadn't cared about that incident.

Shinji turned a corner. Or rather, tried to turn a corner, and smashed into someone coming the opposite direction. He fell backwards, being completely in the air skipping, and winced as he landed.

The other person was bowled over by Shinji's momentum, and landed on her ass.

Katsuragi-san mumbled a muffled sound. At least, that was what it sounded like. It could have been many things. Shinji squeaked as she loomed over him, and then grinned his stoner grin. She loomed more. His grin widened.

"What was that for!"

Shinji blinked. "What was it not for?"

She glared. "What are you on!"

Shinji pondered the question for a long moment. "Oxygen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen?"

Misato had no response. What can you say to someone who has just confessed that they are on substances that if they were pure should kill them?

So. She did the only thing that made sense. Turned and looked at a wall while she collected her thoughts.

Shinji cocked his head to one side. "Something wrong with the older-than-me-but-younger-than-Ikari-senior lady?"

She turned back. Ignoring his question, she asked, "Well, I can take you to your place if you're ready! But, are you really okay with being alone?"

Shinji's gaze turned vacant. "Yiss… I am okay with that… after all, the old guy doesn't want me around. But hell, I don't want him around either, so… whatever." His eyes focused again. "So! Anyone screw with my bag?"

Perhaps she missed the almost hopeful tone in his voice, because she responded too quickly. "No. Which bag was this?"

"Ahh… okiies… well now, I'm going to go somewhere and do something. Yiss… got to get my bag back… wonder what Blondie did with it…" He trailed off into random mumblings. His eyes seemed to flicker, and his right hand leapt to his left wrist for a moment, almost like he was checking for something. A vague smile creased his lips, and he turned toward the door. "Yiss… must retrieve my bag, I must…"

Distantly he heard Katsuragi-san following him, but his mind was filled with the compulsion to find the bag. Nothing like the bag… nothing like it in the world…

Besides. The bag had his towel in it. And to loose his towel… that would be very uncool.

--

His towel was safe. Shinji was happy. He poked it once, making sure it didn't move. It had gained sentience once, a highly advanced colony of bacteria on it merging to form a being superior to any the towel had been. He'd killed it.

It simply wouldn't do to have his towel running around telling people what sort of cruelties it had been put through by the Ancient One. Because the Ancient One believed almost as firmly as Shinji did in the saying, "If you can't live with it, burn it." And loosing his towel… no.

He poked it again, just to be safe. When it still didn't move, he picked it up. Into his bag it went.

He turned and glanced around. Katsuragi-san was staring at him incredulously. "What was that?"

Shinji grinned vacantly. "My towel. One of the most useful things in the universe, towels are. One might say ridiculously useful.

"Now, where is it I'm living?"

"In apartment block 3-A. It is also where the First Children lives."

"You mean there's more than just one family here? Or is this an older sibling?"

Misato slipped in orange goo.

"You know," Shinji observed brilliantly, "they really ought to clean more often. Someone could really get hurt." Mentally he added, 'Can't have that if it is not my fault.'

Shinji gripped Katsuragi-san by the hand, and lifted her off the ground. She gave him a look. This was one of the looks used to intimidate people. People did not like having a look directed at them.

Shinji grinned. "Thou shalt be more careful in the future, young grasshopper. Next time you might not have me here to pull you off your arse."

Cobalt eyes fixed on Katsuragi's earrings. Diamond studs. Just to keep in practice, he ran through the various methods of killing someone with stud earrings. The sheer number of possible tactics was staggering.

Katsuragi evidently noted his study, but ignored it. Little disgust was evident in her face, she was too used to men staring at her. Shinji finished his review and looked away. She was wearing a necklace too. Strangle wire, troga, or stopper. Had little actual stopping power, but delaying power was good too. Of course, you could set it on fire…

She poked him. "Helloooo! Earth to Shinji!"

Shinji jumped, reflexively swatting aside her hand, and mentally cursing himself for letting anyone get so close without him noticing. It would have been unfortunate if she had made a sudden movement. Unfortunate for her, at least. He didn't want to be put on trial for killing a superior officer either. After all, his bag had good stuff in it. Like a lighter for one. Lots more stuff too. Fun stuff. Like… a pair of combat knives and another brace, this one of Walther P-99 handguns. Chosen mainly because it didn't have a safety, after all, who liked safeties anyway? Double taps were just as fun as a normal sidearm, and didn't accidentally go off… but they didn't have a safety either. And made it so much more fun to point the gun in someone's face and pull the trigger. Only for them to discover that the gun didn't go off. Walther P-99, expensive. Magazine for said Walther P-99, also expensive. The look on someone's face when the gun did not go off, discharging a round into his cranium, priceless. That was when Shinji pulled the trigger the second time.

Shinji's eyes sort of unfocused and he walked off in the direction of the car humming Vash's Genocide song.

Misato attempted to come to terms with this, failed, and followed him arguing with herself whether she should or should not drive Shinji to a mental facility instead of his new residence.

--

As Misato pulled up to the apartment where Shinji was staying, she hadn't yet decided between the two. Rather, she had put off deciding until an indeterminate date, by which she would either be dead and gone or so senile she would have long forgotten that she had decided to decide on that day. Yes, procrastination was a wonderful thing.

"Room…" Misato looked at the card. "Either its 99 or 66. Be glad it isn't 69." Shinji stared at her blankly. "Yeah. Right. Here's the key." She threw said key at him, perhaps harder than necessary.

"Now," she continued, "are you absolutely sure that you are fine living by yourself?"

Shinji rolled his eyes in exasperation, having heard the question at least fifteen times on the way to his apartment. "Yes, MOTHER."

He turned without further words, and started humming a different song. 'Let it burn, let it fall, start the fire on the wall. Make him turn, make him drown, and it all went tumbling down…'

Yes, through experience he had learned to not sing these songs out loud. Perhaps too much experience, but he was remarkably thick about people's sensitivity to killing, destruction, and other violent things.

Misato stared at him, pondering whether to run out, drag him back, and smack him around the ears before motoring off to an asylum. Or NERV headquarters. One of the two, both places would amount to the same in the end. Before she had a chance to implement either idea, Shinji had disappeared into the building. Misato sighed, and started to drive away, haphazardly as was her trademark. The boy would have to work out his problems on his own.

Had she asked Shinji if he had issues, his response would have been, 'Issues? What are these 'issues' you speak of?' And would have started him into a self-psycho evaluation. He would have diagnosed himself as being perfectly normal, but that was only because he couldn't remember another way of being.

Shinji stopped in front of his new apartment. 'Twas noisy, but that would help hide the… sounds of his… practice. And he could try to get a side-job with the construction crew. Despite all appearances, he was not naive. His Old Man wasn't doing this out of the benevolence of his heart… just the worry that Big, Green, and Purple wouldn't respond to anyone else. Despite the numerous redundancy systems the man had no doubt built in, Shinji had felt it struggle to free itself from his control, so he'd finished the battle quickly.

And the thing had been so strong! A veritable well-storm of the Power! It was… intoxicating. More than anything else now he wanted to ride the beast again, to feel the Power thrumming through him as he fought. Oh, yes, the Old Man was definitely good…

Shinji smiled as the thought of driving his knife into the man's stomach and twisting. Ahh, the screams the man would make… The other thought he smiled at was the image of Shuriken in an Evangelion. Or her face when she saw and felt what he got to ride in.

He slid the key through the reader, and pushed the door open. He ditched his shoes, not so much because it was custom as because it was an easier way to retrieve them in case of a hasty exit. His bag he tossed into the room, where it landed with enough force to shake the floor, and stepped after it.

It was certainly dark. The windows were boarded, another plus as far as he was concerned, and the lights appeared to be broken. The room would be useful. The sound of his bag's zipper being undone was strangely loud in the apartment.

From the bag, which was rather large for something meant to be carried in one hand, or even carried at all, he began to draw an impressive assortment of weapons. A nodachi, a pair of sidearms, four knives -- two switchblades, two combat knives, a pair of scimitars, fourteen shuriken -- six stars, eight dart (all were a gift), three throwing knives, a foot-long straight sword, and last but not least, a pair of leather nearly-fingerless gloves. These gloves he tugged on, before digging into his duffle and drawing forth several dozen vials of a suspicious liquid. Improved nitro-glycerin. Very entertaining.

The vials he carefully placed in a drawer in his new dresser, then covered them with a couple of shirts. Not school shirts, both were burgundy, and not entirely for casual wear. In the next drawer went two pairs of pants that looked like they had come from a Gi, black, and for the same use as the shirts. In the other drawers, he shoved his school clothes.

Then he dug into his bag again, coming out with… his towel. It was not a towel used to wash oneself, indeed no self-respecting housekeeper would have thought twice about throwing it out. Neither would anyone want to touch it to dry himself. It looked like it had never been washed. And it hadn't. Washing it would have been the ultimate insult. It was very dirty-looking.

Shinji huggled it, and then carefully placed it on his bed. He lifted the nodachi, and slowly began to execute the forms. Slowly his speed increased, and his skill shone through, displaying years of diligent practice. Somehow, during his almost blurred momentum, he snatched the straight sword up, and a new element was added to his dance. The blades whirled, dancing through the air, passing so close they almost touched. The air sang as it parted on the edge of the blades, and the dance moved faster still, until it seemed that Shinji was almost surrounded by a cage of whirling blades.

His movements reached a crescendo, moving inhumanly fast, and he began to slow. The scream of the air parting on the sharper-than-razor edges on his blades quieted, until the room was silent. In his final position he held both blades crossed, the width of a hair all that separated them.

He lowered both weapons, and wiped his forehead clean. He nodded in the affirmative. "Shower."

And so he set out to conquer the door to the bathroom.

End Chapter Two

Seemed like a good place to end it. Good enough at any rate. Praise, Flame, don't, as you wish. I happen to agree with Shinji on his last verbal line.