The Underworld of Evangelion
A Neon Genesis Evangelion Fanfic incorporating elements of the movie Underworld.
Neon Genesis Evangelion is Copyright of Gainax Studios, and is used here without permission.
Underworld is Copyright of Subterranean Productions LLC, and is used here without their permission.
Written By: StormofDragons
As with all of my Evangelion works, this story Appeared FIRST at EVAMADE which is my preferred archive. Updates to this, and other stories, occur there at least a week in advance of updates to ffn. If you wish to read this or any other stories I have authored, I encourage you to go there, and check out the fanfiction section. You'll find my works under the same author name- StormofDragons.
Shinji was enjoying a cup of afternoon tea when there was a knock at the apartment door.
"Yes?" he said, opening the door.
"Shinji Ikari?" the man in black asked.
"Um, yes, can I help you?" asked Shinji.
"These are for you," the man said, shoving a large folder into Shinji's hands.
Shinji looked down at the manila folder in his hands, before looking back up.
The man in black was gone.
Shinji stuck his head back out into the hall, and took a good look around. There was no sign of him.
"Shinji, who was it?" Rei called.
"Um… good question," he replied, shrugging his shoulders, shutting the door, and heading back into the apartment.
"What is that in your hand Shinji?" asked Rei, as he came back into the kitchen.
"Someone just delivered these to me," he said, setting them down, and untying the string from around them. He opened the large envelope, and looked inside. There were two file folders within. He dumped them out on the table, so he could examine them more closely.
The thinnest one contained a police report on the shooting the previous night. Most of the facts in here were familiar to Shinji, having witnessed the incident first hand. But much of it was just meaningless to his untrained mind. Investigations of this type would never be his specialty. The final piece of paper within the file was Asuka's picture.
Shinji pulled it out, and examined it. The eyes were off a little, and the hair was cut differently, she no longer had her bangs, but it was obviously Asuka. At least to him.
He turned to the larger folder, and opened it. There was a note inside, on the first piece of paper.
Shinji,
This is a copy of all the data we gathered on the disappearance of Asuka.
Good Luck
Misato.
Shinji flipped the note over and began to read the file carefully.
Asuka trembled lightly in her sleep, resting fitfully. A part of her mind recognized the start of the dream, and she tried to tell herself that it was only a dream, to retain some control, but it was no use.
Perhaps because it wasn't a dream, but a memory she relived over and over again, she was helplessly dragged along as her subconscious played through this drama once again. Every week for ten long years she'd had this same dream, or nightmare, memory, or whatever it was.
She tried to relax, hoping that in her exhausted stated she could slip into a dreamless sleep, but such was not to be. As darkness claimed her consciousness, the dream began again, and suddenly her senses were filled with the scent of the falling leaves that night in Berlin.
It was late autumn, and Asuka had been in Berlin for five months. The Berlin Branch of NERV was the last of the outlying facilities to be de-activated, and she'd been chosen by Misato to come here to oversee the base closure. She was quite busy these days, making sure that the final inventories matched what was in the records. She almost envied Shinji and his Med-school classes.
Sure, she'd graduated from college at age 14, but that was just with a minor degree. Shinji had decided he wanted to follow in his mothers' footsteps, and become a doctor. He'd talked with Asuka extensively about it, before applying for, and being accepted to, medical school.
She smiled to herself as she walked through the park in the early evening. Who would have ever thought she'd become friends with that Baka. Certainly not her. It seemed to her that they'd argued for most of the first year they'd known each other. Well… she'd mostly yelled at him, and he'd just shied away and apologized.
But the last couple years had been different. She'd discovered that they really weren't all that different. After all that time, fighting for their lives against the Angels, the end had been rather anti-climactic. At least for her.
She'd been locked up in the NERV medical facility after trying to take her own life. Shinji, had once again saved everyone by killing the last Angel. She still had a hard time believing that that Kaoru kid had been an Angel, but the evidence was clear. Still, Shinji had admitted that he'd loved Kaoru, even at the end.
She would have liked to have met him.
After all, anyone who could love Shinji, couldn't be all that bad.
Her reminiscing had taken her from her usual path from the base to her small apartment, and she realized that she was walking along the river now. The park here was old, and the trees were large and thick here, blocking out her view of the sky. Not that it much mattered, with the overcast, but still, she would have liked to have seen it. The city lights, reflected off the clouds lit up the city almost as much as a full moon, but here, under the trees, it was as dark as the deepest corners of the underground NERV base.
She wondered at that. In the distance, she could see lights along the path, but for some reason this stretch of walkway was completely unlit.
That was odd.
If any stretch of sidewalk needed lighting, it was this stretch. The way the distant lights played tricks on the eyes, she could almost believe in the monsters that had frightened her in her childhood. It was silly, really, to be afraid of the dark. Asuka squared her shoulders, and deliberately slowed her pace. She was not afraid, and her minor case of nerves was not going to get the better of her.
In the dim light she could just make out a park bench, and decided that sitting down here, and forcing herself to remain there would cure her of this ridiculous feeling.
She seated herself, and looked out from under the large spreading branches of the oak tree she was sitting on. She could see some light coming off the river before her, and it reminded her of the last time she'd talked to Shinji. He'd been taking swimming lessons lately, and had gone swimming in the lake. Silly that, a grown man, afraid of the water like he was. Still, he was confronting it, just as she was doing now.
Thinking about Shinji now, brought a smile to her face. They'd been talking a lot lately, ever since she left Japan, in fact. They spent hours and hours on the phone these days, sharing with each other what was going on in their lives. She hadn't talked to him for a couple days now, so she reached into her pocket for her cell phone. She flipped it open, and dialed the second number on the list.
It rang several times, and was finally picked up by the machine.
"Hello, you've reached the Ikari residence. I'm out at the moment, or can't reach the phone, so please leave a message after the tone, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. And if this is Asuka, I really meant what I said," came Shinji's voice, followed by a tone.
She closed the phone, and sat there.
She should have left a message, but she was just a little stunned.
The time before last, they'd talked for several hours, as usual, and when they stopped talking for the night, morning Tokyo-3 time, he'd said something he'd never said before. She remembered it clearly.
"I love you," were the last words out of his mouth before he'd hurriedly hung up.
She hadn't thought much about it, until she called him the next afternoon. He'd been extremely uncomfortable talking to her, and was being evasive all of a sudden. Much more like the sniveling Baka he'd been as a teenager than the man he was now growing into.
Finally he'd come out and asked her if she had heard what he'd said the last time. She almost dismissed it, but something in his tone of voice caught her attention. It took her a few moments to remember precisely what he'd said, and when she did, she just laughed.
"Yeah, I heard you," she'd said.
"And?" he'd asked, somewhat timidly.
"And what?" she'd asked, vexed at him for some reason.
"I meant it," he'd said.
"I'm sure you did," she'd replied.
Shinji had been very quiet on his end of the phone then, and Asuka, seizing the opportunity, began to regale him with the details of her day. Then, in the middle of her tirade about a technician, he'd just hung up.
Without even the courtesy of a lame excuse.
He'd hung up on HER.
That Baka.
She'd spent a long time analyzing that phone call, and what they'd both said, before she realized that his feelings had hurt by something she'd said.
But what?
And now, his message said that he "really meant what he said." What was THAT supposed to mean?
He…
He couldn't be serious.
Could he?
She felt her own heart flutter in nervous tension, and was taken aback by that. Why would Shinji saying THAT to her, make her feel like THIS?
A small quiet voice, sounding much like Asuka herself said something in a childlike voice then.
'Because you love him too,' it whispered.
A goofy grin split her lips then, and Asuka couldn't help but blush. She was glad that she was sitting here in the dark, so that no one could see her.
'Oh.. my.. god,' she thought quietly. 'I'm in love with Shinji Ikari.'
She had to stifle a very un-Asuka like giggle then, as she smiled to herself.
She had to be nuts. She had to be absolutely, stark raving mad.
She had to call Shinji.
Still smiling, she looked at the phone in her lap, and flipped it open. She was pressing the buttons to dial him when something moving swiftly smashed into her. She crashed from the park bench to the ground, and her phone clattered away from her, coming to rest some distance away.
By the light of the screen, she could see someone couching on the path, only a few feet away.
"Stay back," she shouted, sitting up, and reaching for her phone.
The man, she could tell the figure was roughly man shaped, kicked her phone away, and it skittered off the bank and into the river.
This wasn't a good sign.
The man turned his attention fully towards her then, and began to slowly move back across the path towards her. Asuka found herself backing away from him, but he continued to advance.
"Stay back. I mean it," she shouted at him.
Even in the dim light, she could see his smirk.
She reached into her pocket, and drew her automatic. She'd teach this S.O.B. what it meant to attack an innocent woman, alone in the park. She couldn't see much, but enough of the man's outline was visible to show her where the center of his body was. She unloaded four shots, dead center of his body, and he lurched back, falling down as the powerful bullets tore into him.
She gathered herself up then, and walked over to him.
Holding the pistol out, she looked down at the man, who's face was dimly visible.
"That's what you get Asshole," she said.
"That," he gasped out, "was not nice."
Suddenly there was a blur of movement, and he was standing behind her. The automatic went flying from her hand as something hard as wrought iron smashed into her wrist, and then he was holding her. One of his arms was grasping both of hers in a powerful, almost crushing grip, and the other was snaked around her, holding onto her jaw.
"You're the fastest human I've seen in a long time," he'd said, much to her confusion, "You'll make an excellent addition to the Coven. If you survive."
Before she could ask him what he was talking about, he'd wrenched her head to the side, and she felt a piercing pain in her left jugular. Then everything had gone black.
"So is that it?" Rei asked, trying to give Shinji a bowl of Ramen from their favorite cart. Seeing him immersed in the files, she'd decided to get dinner for them.
"Evidently. On that last night, Asuka evaded her Section 2 Security detail, and was never heard from again," Shinji said with a shrug.
"How could she do that?" Rei asked.
"Pretty easily actually. Asuka and I long ago learned how to get a few hours of free time, away from prying eyes. We even managed to find all the bugs and transmitters they had hidden in our cloths, and take them out. When we wanted to be left alone, we'd just drop all the bugs into someone's pockets, and let Section 2 chase them around for a while," Shinji answered, smiling as he remembered being scolded by Misato for ditching Section 2 on several occasions.
"That does not sound wise Shinji. What if something were to happen to you?" Rei asked.
"Something did happen, Rei, but it was Asuka who vanished," he said.
"They never discovered any other evidence?"
"Her gun, her phone, and empty shell casings. No other clues. The few suspects they had came out clean."
They sat there at the table, looking at the pile of reports, that spelled out the final few hours of Asuka's life. Somewhere in the night, away from the prying eyes of Section 2 something had happened. And Asuka had never been seen again.
Shinji reached for the small file that contained the police report on the investigation currently underway into the subway shooting, and flipped it open again. A paperclip held the picture of a young woman to the inside cover of the folder.
Shinji stared at it intently for several minutes in silence.
"After all these years. Where have you been?"
Kraven was holding court in the main hall of the Mansion when he heard it. The unmistakable sound of Asuka's BMW screaming out the front gates. He glared over at his Lieutenant, who immediately put his hand to his ear, trying to listen to a report that was coming in from the guard at the gate.
"Well?"
"Asuka's gone sir. She gathered up her weapons and body armor, and left alone. She didn't tell any of her team where she was going. The guard at the gate said she didn't even slow down for him."
"Asuka," Kraven hissed through his fangs, "just what are you up to? Where do you think you're going?"
Kraven turned back to his Lieutenant.
"Activate the tracking system for Asuka's car, I want to know where she is at all times. I also want all strike teams standing by. I don't like my soldiers going solo. Especially Asuka."
"Yes sir."
"What's this?" asked a slightly unkempt looking man sitting alone in the back of a bar.
Another man had just thrown down several pictures of a young woman with light blue hair.
"Our files appear to be incomplete," the second man said.
"How so?"
"Notice anything familiar about her?"
The first man picked up one of the pictures, taken of the young woman, standing at a Ramen Cart, and smiling at the owner as he handed over a couple of containers.
"I thought the targets mother was dead?"
"She is. This is the primary targets roommate, possibly his sibling."
"Her name?"
"Rei Ikari."
"We have no records of a sibling."
"Never the less. This woman exists. And her resemblance to the targets mother is uncanny. She must be related."
"See if you can discover anything about her."
"We're trying, but so far we're coming up against nothing but dead ends and sealed government files. We can't even find a Birth Certificate."
"Alright. Do what you can. Just don't blow the operation this time, alright?"
"Yes sir."
"Is the retrieval team ready?"
"They're on their way now sir."
"Excellent."
"Should I tell them to add the woman to their plans?"
"Unless the opportunity presents itself, no. We just need the male for now. But tell them not to hurt her, if she becomes involved. If he turns out to be negative for the virus, maybe she'll be of more use."
"Very well, sir."